Archive for the ‘The Stories’ Category

Phil Silvers: A star of the species Hamus Actorum.

Among the constellation of worthy subjects demanding to be illuminated, Phil Silvers is not one of them. Not that he’s unworthy. But Phil Silvers. Really? He’s a fossilized relic leftover from the Vaudevillian Era – a prehistoric time when tummlers, crooners and acrobats performed on poorly lit, unmicrophoned stages. As you may recall from your high school Celebrity Geology classes, the Vaudevillian Era was sandwiched between the Shakespearian Period – a period marked by proto-thespians in unmolted drag crawling out from under the curtain and soliloquizing anyone at the Globe who would listen, and the Television Epoch when shadowy 2-dimensional images ruled the airwaves and were at the apex of the entertainment food chain.

Phil Silvers barely registers with me and probably doesn’t move the needle with most of you either. Although justly beloved by many, he was the kind of entertainer I despised as a child (me being the child here, not Phil) for one reason – utterly predictable humor. Mr. Silvers strutted around ‘neath the proscenium arch like the well-trained pro that he was: hitting his marks and delivering his punchlines. He larded his performances with super-sized gestures and lusty dollops of feigned disbelief. His predictable repertoire of hammy attributes only served to harden my bias against the so-called other white meat. He was like a very uncool uncle who you hoped would just leave the pink box of goodies from Lyncourt Bakery on the kitchen table, then get back in his 9 mpg, 1973 Plymouth Gran Fury and drive his insincere persona back to Weedsport where his “scenery eating” talents weren’t much appreciated either. And to think that Phil Silvers is responsible for today’s microwave oven technology, just boggles the mind. He isn’t responsible for it. But to think he is – oy vey. Read the rest of this entry »

While all men might be created equally, it ain’t necessarily so with animals. And if you’ve ever seen a squirrel try to cross a street or a horse eating his own road apples, you know what I’m talking about. From all outward appearances most animals look quite normal, but sadly, many are one taco short of a combination platter. This article, offensive on so many levels, is an attempt to give voice to the untreated problem of mental retardation in animals. In some skewed way though, perhaps this essay is really a cry for help. Not for animals, but for me. For perhaps it is I who suffers some form of mental retardation. After all, I am writing this. But how could it be me? I took the long bus to school. Read the rest of this entry »

Greek Mythological class reunion. Still crazy after all these years. Can’t even cooperate for a class picture.

Understanding Greek mythology has always been my Achilles’ heel. Whether it’s mighty Hercules slaying the 9-headed Hydra or Thetis dipping her son Achilles into the protective waters of the River Styx, I’m continuously flummoxed by the never-ending array of fantastic characters populating this Grecian game board. It’s like Game of Thrones, but with thunderbolts, tridents and togas. As we delve more deeply into this proto-religion, I’m sure you’ll agree with me when I say: Greek Mythology is just a bunch of crazy made up stuff. And not your regular crazy either. It’s bat-shit crazy. Oh sure it elevates the challenges of life to epic sagas. But it does so with 3-headed dogs, 9-headed Hydras and snake-headed Medusas. Greek mythology is a head case of hallucinogenic seizures somebody took the time to write down. The fact that it has stuck around this long astounds me. But perhaps I’m being too harsh. I’m probably doing a disservice to bat-shit when I compare it to Greek mythology.  Read the rest of this entry »

Ponder, if you will, the sublimity of the Moon and the Sun having the same diameter relative to their distance from Earth. Another cosmic prank?

Preamble:     There are things in the realm of experience that are astonishing yet understandable. For example the diameter of the moon is the exact diameter of the sun relative to its distance from the earth so that during a solar eclipse the moon perfectly covers the sun leaving only its fiery corona blazing at the circumference. As the kids say; “How cool is that?” Then there are things that are astonishing and not understandable. Like dreams. I suppose there are different kinds of dreams just like there are different kinds of Campbell Soups. I mean they’re all called soups, but the difference between Bean with Bacon and Cream of Celery is fairly significant. Similarly, they’re all called dreams, but the difference between a dream where you’re an Otter Pop being slurped on by Anne Hathaway and a dream where you’re an alligator floating in a glade with other alligators, is fairly significant. It’s like my daddy once told me, he said, “Son, the difference between 12 a.m. and 12 p.m. is like night and day.” Read the rest of this entry »

Everything you don’t need to know all in one incomprehensible edition.

As a dilettante of the second order, I occasionally glance at The New York Review of Books just to see how the other half lives. Alright, just to see how the other .00000000025% live. Except for Presidents giving a State of the Union Address, no one reads any more. Instead they troll for satisfying videos of some do-gooder giving a homeless guy $100 or an abandoned kitten being breast fed by a honey badger. I know I do. And I get it. Reading takes time and application. It’s proactive, but it is ultimately more rewarding and nourishing than idly surfing some video screen seeking temporary fulfillment. Well that’s as preachy as I’ll get because Wimp.com just posted a video of a Dolphin making oatmeal. That Dolphin happened to be former Miami Dolphin fullback Larry Csonka.

The NY Review of Books is bone dry and devoid of juicy gossip. If it were any drier it would spontaneously combust. It’s a narrow publication appealing to people who sometimes equate intellectual heft with spiritual awareness. The NY Review of Books is replete with bravura verbal muscularity and apposite aphorisms, soft as church music. However as comprehensive as it may be, the following words or ideas seem to creep into about half the articles or reviews. For example I’ve detected these recurring themes or phrases throughout the NY Review of Books:

• • Sylvia Plath’s suicide changed nothing. She was still unhappy.
  • So that was it. Jane immersed herself in English romantic poets as a means of coping with her intractable psoriasis.
  • Harold’s homosexuality was known only to his wife, Ralph.
  • All we had were parsnips. Fortunately all we wanted were parsnips.
  • the Zionist experience of Jewish Semites
  • the Jewish experience of Semitic Zionists
  • the Semitic experience of Zionist Jews
  • the influence of chivalric modalities in 12th century Hohoenzollern 
  • Marcel Proust would often mispronounce his name as “Proust.” Knowing that if anyone were to write about the event, no one would be able to know how Proust pronounced “Proust” in the first place. 

Read the rest of this entry »

~ In the decade of the 1840’s a series of catalytic technological leaps conspired (in a good way) to turbocharge the era and toggle society from primitivism to modernity. ~

21st Century man just can’t get it through his head that there was a time before FaceBook.

The pervasive wizardry of the Digital Age has palsied our ability to appreciate its origins. It seems the ubiquity of ever-advancing gadgetry has quietly rendered us both a slave to its expediency and a marveller at its everyday sorcery. Whether it’s asking Siri to; “Find me the nearest Weinershnitzel” or waving our sudsy hands beneath a motion-detecting faucet, we’re unthinkingly demanding of the technological feats which, until recently, were nothing more than crack pot ideas found in the back of decade’s old Popular Mechanics magazines.

A proper accounting of how we got here demands a deliberative look at where we came from. Being fortunate enough to have missed the Dark Ages (unless you count the Disco Era), I have a mighty appreciation for the technological marvels which have allowed us to avoid the drudgery of the past. For example, there was a time when Wheel of Fortune hostess Vanna White had to actually turn the letters by hand. Such drudgery! Now she just touches a screen and the letters magically appear. This kind of enabling touch-screen technology will add years to Vanna’s letter-revealing hostess duties. Read the rest of this entry »

Only suicide bomber you ever want to meet. Ladies and Gentlemen: A Kamikaze!

This supremely ironic New York Times headline from February 10^th reads like a ripe premise for a comedic bit. And in a sense it is a bit. It’s one of 3000 sad little bits that fell into my hands as a result of the explosion. They’re called smithereens, and like a dutiful sleuth I’ll attempt to piece this accident back together smithereen by smithereen to discover just how something so awful could go so right. In Iraq suicide bombers have become obscene background noise like rap music is in this country. What drives these suicide bombers? Where the Beach Boys once promised “♫Two girls for every boy♫,” the Taliban promise 77 virgins for every boy in the afterlife. With this sheer volume of women, one assumes there are also towelettes. 

What We Know so Far

We know the noble gas Xenon (Xe) is No. 54 on the Periodic Table of Elements. We also know Xenon is considered a “noble gas” due to its philanthropic work with underprivileged elements like Bismuth and Tin. Xenon is an odorless, colorless gas similar to Senator Harry Reid. But that bears little impact on today’s story and probably shouldn’t have even been included in this reconstruction. Read the rest of this entry »

The King of Late Night catalyzes a revelatory moment…or words to that effect.

In 1976, at the tender and impressionable age of 15, I experienced a life changing event that has informed my behavior ever since. What made this event all the more remarkable is that it took place entirely above the waist. As with most revelations it presented itself in a most epiphanic fashion. And if you’re looking for a heartfelt memoir that has the word “epiphanic” in it…this is it. Allow me to explain. I never thought there was a chance in hell I’d ever attend a live taping of The Tonight Show starring my comedic idol Johnny Carson. No roads led there. It wasn’t even on my bucket list because, back then, I didn’t know what a “bucket list” was. Seeing The Tonight Show in person seemed well beyond the realm of possibility – like a Pope saying he’s fallible. Actually I think Pope Francis recently said as much. Anyway, I don’t mean to undercut my own argument that The Tonight Show and I weren’t even in the same universe; because in 1976 we weren’t. However, as events would later confirm, not only were we in the same universe, we would soon be in the same studio. Read the rest of this entry »

The coolest, smartest and handsomest guy in the room: Col. Robert Hogan US Air Corps.

If I was dying and the Make-A-Wish Foundation could grant me one request, it would be to enter into the idealized world of TV’s Hogan’s Heroes featuring Colonel Robert Hogan and his intrepid band of brothers. Truth is however, I’m not dying (at least not ahead of schedule) and yet I still want to go there. Forget Tomorrowland and Pirates of the Caribbean, couldn’t Disney create a HoganWorld where adolescent adults like myself could revel in a fantasy realm of cunning espionage, brotherly camaraderie and busty blondes working for The Underground? “Goldilocks this is Papa Bear, come in Goldilocks.” A place where never is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day. C’mon Disney you can build it. Please Walt. Pretty please. Forget about Saving Mr. Banks, how about Saving Mr. Hardiman? Read the rest of this entry »

Twitter’s Proto-Tweet machine created in the Twitter Research Labs in September of 2002. Now housed in the Museum of Silicon Valley Relics.

Twitter Central

Nothing but tweets. This network features all 140 characters available in the Twittersphere. Twitter Central salutes the character Tweety Bird who’s been tweeting long before it was even invented. Other twitter characters range from sympathetic antiheroes like Don Vito Corleone to repugnant antagonists like Voldemort. All these characters are just like the ones in your real life. Some characters tweet you well, others tweet you like hell. And when I say real life I’m referring to the life you appear to be living. The one that makes you angry after you’re 3 miles away from the MacDonald’s drive thru only to discover your cheeseburger, fries and a Coke, is really a Filet-O-Fish, onion rings and a Mr. Pibb.      I’m not lovin’ it! Read the rest of this entry »