The Elegance of Humanity in America

Good Morning Beautiful...

2011-06-15T19:33:00.004-04:00

Maria and I received a frankly gut-busting message on the phone this morning. It was delivered in a sleepy, throaty voice, obviously intended to be sexy - or something. If I were some sort of technological whiz-kid, I would post a recording of the message complete with a local news style 911 emergency call background. Alas, I am not that whiz-kid, so here's the message. Remember: throaty, sleepy, sexy and - ahem - from Brooklyn.

"Good morning beautiful. How you doin’? This is ST. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you, but – uh – you’re a hard woman to catch up with. Anyway, you should give me a call back. I’ll be in the house until about 1:30 if you wanna call back. If not, I understand. Have a great day. Bye."

Naturally my first instinct was to trace the call and savagely torture the person on the otherend of the line for trying to pick up my betrothed in so shameful a way. But in the end, I just laughed and cracked open an ice cold Schaefer Beer before shamelessly posting this sorry attempt at a pickup.

Fig. 1: It's the one beer to have when you're having more than one.

The Robin Danger Action School of Culinary Excellence!

2011-06-01T18:13:00.005-04:00

Many centuries ago (read: 11 months ago), I was approached by a shady stranger with a thick St. Petersburg accent as I sat on a bench by South Street Seaport. The stranger wore a rich brown fedora, dark sunglasses, gray tweed trousers and heavy trench coat. He slid up to me and muttered,
"I hear dare is g-r-r-reat veather in Moscow," after which he placed a nondescript leather attaché case at my feet.
"Um... I think you have the wrong --"
"You are not Screaming Eagle?"
"Well, yes I am, but this is not the appointed time or place for this to ha--"
"YOU VILL COME VIK ME."
And that is how Greg Mourino suckered me into working on his master's thesis project.
It is a fact already well known to my stalkers and readers that I used this SECRET PROJECT as a means of hiding a sneaky trip to Long Island wherein I asked my future wife's family what they thought about the two of us getting married. What does that mean? That this project happens to be the MOST IMPORTANT COMPUTER ANIMATED FILM IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND.
Instead of going into mountainous waves of detail, I will instead share it without further ado. Enjoy - The Robin Danger Action School of Culinary Excellence.

I will always maintain fond memories of repeatedly shouting "SHUT UP!" and "WRONG!" into a very expensive microphone in a converted bedroom with mattresses against the walls to contain the sound. I can only hope my violent shouting struck fear into the hearts of the obnoxious children upstairs in Greg's apartment.

In This, Our Last Day on Earth...

2011-05-20T17:08:00.007-04:00

It has come to my attention from certain reputable sources (i.e. people wearing t-shirts distributing pamphlets on the subway) that the world will end tomorrow, May 21st, 2011. Or the Rapture will happen and the world will be destroyed by fire in October or something to that effect. Whatever the case, I am here to dispel fears and reassure the frightened masses that the world WILL NOT END at the said date and time. And no, don't expect me to go into a scientific breakdown of the diarrhea that issues from senile West Coast ministers who haven't enough brains to blow on hot soup. I'm going to give you REAL reasons why the world can't possibly end and that it will endure far longer than any millenarian cultist will tell you. I present:

REASONS THE WORLD WILL NOT END ON MAY 21, 2011

1. Maria and I have not yet married. They say you're supposed to present your strongest argument last, but to hell with that. Let us just say that if God decides to Rapture all his chosen people into heaven tomorrow after all the time and effort that Maria and I (but especially Maria) have put into this glorious event, he's got something worse than Satan's wrath to deal with - the wrath of Ms. Olsen. I am relatively sure that my mother would punch him in his perfect, omnipotent face if he did ANYTHING the mar the plans of our Blessed Event. I can already see him whining, droplets of precious blood staining his millennia-whitened beard, apologizing to the 5'1" behemoth that just bitch-slapped him. One minute with Ms. Olsen, and I'm certain that God would return the world to its former splendor and pretend that none of that nonsense ever happened.
Which reminds me, the vote! I had every intention of blowing off the dozens of voters who opted for the blue whale tie and choosing another tie. J. Press was having a sale this week, and so I popped into their store on Madison Avenue, where I was greeted by their best salesman, Mark Clark. I was about to buy a 25% off burgundy tie with white colored polka dots, but none was available. Whilst perusing the other ties, my eyes fell upon the whale tie. In the sales pitch of the century, Mark pressed the tie into my hands and said, "It was practically made for that suit." Long story short, you win voters. This time.

2. They Might Be Giants have not yet released their latest adult-oriented album, Join Us. Scientists have proven that God is a huge TMBG geek. No way would he call it all quits before Brooklyn's Ambassadors of Love, who have been installing and servicing melodies since 1982, got their chance to release another album. It's just - not - happening.

3. I am not finished reading The Autobiography of Mark Twain. And even if this will be the last day of Earth, let it be known that I'm GLAD the last book I shall have read was Mark Twain's autobiography. Have you ever wondered what it's like to be an old, bitter man, sitting in bed reading newspaper clippings and ranting to a stenographer about how biographies SHOULD be written and completely dodge the subject of your own personal life and matters entirely? Then this is your book. Of the over 700 cereal box-sized pages, only about 250 contain the autobiography proper - if you can call this a proper autobiography. The balance consists entirely of scholarly bullshit more suited to the kindling pile than to literature bearing the name Mark Twain. I can just picture how Twain would have felt about 500 pieces of paper wasted by doctors and post graduates trying to guess and surmise what he wanted the people of 2010 to read. It's insufferable.
And as I said, Twain does everything in his power not to talk about himself. His topics range from the distasteful decorations of his living quarters, to the iniquity of Jay Gould, to explanatory notes on a biography written about him by his deceased daughter (which is brilliant), to overbearing landlords. And perhaps one of the funniest things is his insistence on bringing up the subject of a woman being escorted out of President Roosevelt's White House because the President hadn't time to meet with her.
Of course this anecdote only serves to prove his thesis that all news fades away and becomes unimportant; that big stories of the day just aren't as big as you get further from them. Still, those juicy little headlines are oddly entertaining to read 100 years after the events that caused them to be printed transpired. He apparently wanted to make a literary magazine consisting solely of seemingly inane newspaper clippings from decades ago. Notwithstanding, he keeps bringing up the subject of a woman being forcibly removed from the White House. Now naturally I was astonished by this whole anecdote, as the idea of a normal citizen waltzing into the national mansion is impossible to comprehend. No doubt they'd be shot by a sniper before they had a chance to wipe their feet nowadays. But Mr. Twain is BESIDE himself with anger at President Roosevelt for not dealing with this issue more delicately. Any modern reader would find this whole event asinine; the concept of someone entering the White House without a birth certificate and passport and a writ of consent signed in triplicate by Jesus Christ himself is baffling to the modern reader. But Mark Twain included it in his biography.
There is one matter of the autobiography that does pertain to tomorrow's (fictitious) events. Twain recalls the night in Hannibal, Missouri when the real person upon whom Injun Joe was based died. A massive thunderstorm struck the Mississippi River town that turned the streets into muddy rivers. Twain was certain that the thunderstorm was the Devil coming for Injun Joe's soul. It is perhaps coincidental that the weather here in Brooklyn has been rainy, and that thunderstorms haunt the forecast for the next 6 days as well.
SPOOKY.

4. If the following clip did not produce a black hole that consumed the world and all of time and space with it, THEN ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WILL DESTROY THE WORLD*.

Fig. 1: Daniel Patrick Moynihan v. William F. Buckley, Jr.

Wow. Just. Wow.
The late Senator Moynihan frequents this blog often - because he was the greatest senator of all time - but I think this marks Mr. Buckley's first appearance in this corner of the interpipes. What can be said of this video? Here are two persons who have mastered the English language on entirely different levels. Moynihan's command of English sees him picking esoteric, professorly words, intentionally fumbling whilst searching for words, over-elaborating vowels for the purpose of drawing attention to his word choice, and syncopating the syllables of important words. It's wonderful to watch. And I have always been jealous of his style of public speaking. There is something very commanding and patrician about his speaking style.
But then there's William F. Buckley, Jr., whose voice is like butter melting over warm blueberry muffins. Perhaps no one else on Earth has ever had such an accent; a mid-Atlantic verging on BBC received pronunciation, peppered with Southern twangs and toothy whistles on chosen S's. Listen to him say, "'Your immortal soul,' the monseigneur replied," on repeat, and tell me if you aren't immediately transported to the Twilight Zone. And how I ENVY someone who can get away with unapologetically pronouncing the highest office of the United States as "prez-dint," only to follow it with a pure New Orleans "Caw-tuh." Buckley's pronunciation of Jimmy Carter's name and title make the erstwhile Commander-in-Chief sound less like a cardigan-clad peanut farmer and more like THE MOST POWERFUL MAN ON PLANET EARTH.

Fig. 2: This style is acceptable only for soft-spoken Pennsylvanians on public television - not men who can hit buttons that annihilate entire nations.

So what does this have to do with Doomsday or the Rapture? Simple. The fact that two of the most fantastic public speakers in American history were able to sit next to one another in a television studio and exchange such exquisitely embellished English words without a space-time rift opening up and the voice of Stephen Hawking announcing the impending doom of Earth bears testament that this world will CAN WITHSTAND ANYTHING.
Ozone holes?
HA!
Global warming?
More like a tiny fever!
Bill Buckley and Pat Moynihan SPEAKING AT ONE ANOTHER.
NOT - A - PROBLEM.

* - The death of the sun will likely destroy this world, but humanity will likely have colonized space at that point - hopefully.

So ladies and gentlemen, we are quite safe. So long as Ms. Olsen, John Linnell, John Flansburg, Mark Twain's Autobiography, and video recordings of a well-spoken Senator and a butter-voiced conservative pundit exist, GOD WILL NOT DESTROY HIS MOST FAVORED CREATION.

...but have a drink on my account just in case.

Wherein You, THE READER, Decides What Tie I Will Wear at my Wedding...

2011-04-18T19:43:00.005-04:00

Saturday was what you could call an "eventful" day for me. Jon and I went searching for something for my groomsmen to wear. It was raining and we were walking down 5th Avenue looking in the windows of all the expensive shops, wondering where Brooks Brothers had hidden its store. We ambled past a store whose window displayed a panama hat similar to the one worn by Harry S Truman - which just so happens to be the hat I wanted to complete my wedding ensemble.

Fig. 1: Harry Truman's ACTUAL panama hat. If someone could kindly steal this from his President Library, that would just be fantastic. Thanks.

That store happened to be J. Press. I'd never heard of the store, but Jon being the Resident Expert that he is informed me that J. Press was the official outfitter of Yale University.
To put a somewhat long story short, I walked into J. Press for a panama hat and left with a very expensive tailored-to-fit seersucker suit.

Fig. 2: Eat your heart out, Atticus Finch!

I told you it was hot. Now, only one thing remains. I plan on wearing a white French-cuffed shirt with my suit, and have decided that a red-colored tie would be most appropriate to make me look like a walking, living, breathing American Flag - that happens to be getting married at the time. Here's the problem, a plain red tie is just - well - too plain for me. It needs a little something extra, and that's where I found myself in this little dilemma. You see, J. Press also sells these amazingly fun emblematic ties, and I have fallen in love with two in particular.

Fig. 3: A multicolored elephant tie - something you'd see someone from a Wes Anderson movie wear.

Fig. 4: A blue whale tie. Also... something you'd most likely see Royal Tenenbaum or "The Businessman" from The Darjeeling Limited wearing

That's where you come in. I need your help, dear readers, in deciding which tie should complement this god among suits. You'll notice that I've added a poll on the right side of my blog where you may feel free to vote to your heart's content.
Also, feel free to send donations to offset the cost of all this Ivy League haberdashery that I've mired myself in. And also - please everyone - remind to tell Maria that she looks so much better than I do on July 2*.

* - I will likely be slapped for this sentence.

In Which We Share Electronic Missives from the Episcopal Church...

2011-04-14T18:43:00.009-04:00

It has been way too long since I've posted. I believe I was supposed to tell you something about my top three worst fears. Does anyone really care to know? Fine... here they are:
3.) That Maria & I Are Becoming Hipsters.
2.) CHINA TAKING OVER THE WORLD.
1.) Megafauna.
All right... all right. Pretty much everyone who knows me knows that I harbor something of a grudge against China (not really a grudge so much as it is a spirit of healthy competition). This is perhaps due entirely to the fact that China silently because the world's largest manufacturer economy, thereby surpassing the United States in what right-minded pundits assure us is the first sign of the End of the Pax Americana. What's the real deal? China is heavily vested in the economic prosperity of the United States. If we fat, bloated, Capitalist pigs don't buy all of their little trinkets and Billy the Big-Mouth Basses and cheap paper cocktail parasols, THEN CHINA WILL CRUMBLE.*
* - Note: It will not literally crumble.
I believe our good friend Gale put my feeling about China best when she drew this webcomi c.
Honestly though... my only concern is putting on a better spectacle than China. AND HOW DO YOU COMPETE WITH THIS?!

Fig. 1: MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF STARS.

This is quite honestly one of the most amazing displays I have ever seen in my life. If my fear is based in anything, it is jealousy. Pure, prideful jealousy. So, that sums up my "fear" of China. The hipster thing? I was going to talk about food co-ops, living in Brooklyn, and wearing tighter fitting clothing (due to my weight loss), but... I'm not nearly dirty enough, nor do I live in Williamsburg. So I think I'm safe.
...FOR NOW.
As for my very real and very paralyzing fear of megafauna. I will show you two pictures: Fig. 2 & Fig. 3.

Fig. 2: HOLY SHIT!

Fig. 3: SWEET LUCIFER'S POCKET CHANGE!

If these two images don't strike bloody fear into your veins, then you are scarcely human. I rest my case.
...ugh, that moose photograph gives me nightmares.

But more important than my silly (and not so silly fears), I think it highly appropriate to share the following email exchange between myself and Rev. Farrell, being the man who will preside over the blessed union between Maria and myself. Bear in mind, the good Reverend shot down our idea to play the beautiful exit music from the original Star Wars film, and so I perhaps took his control issues too far in asking about what may be thrown at Maria and me as we exit the church. I began:

Hey Fr. Farrell,

Granny launched a small investigation into the possibility of having a small punch & cookies reception in the upper Parish Hall immediately following the ceremony. From what she said, we need to seek your approval on the matter. I know that preparations need to be made for the 5:00 service, but we hope it won't be too large an inconvenience.
Also, we're wondering what the policy is regarding items that can be thrown at us as we exit the church. We've found a type of confetti made from earth-friendly materials and 100% biodegradable. It disappears after the first rain or with a once-over with a hose.
http://www.save-on-crafts.com/confetti.html
And one more thing - as I suspected, my grandmother would really love to bring up the sacraments with Maria's grandmother. Maria needs to consult with her grandmother on the matter, but I have a feeling that we may change our minds on the matter.
I believe that's all - or at least enough - for now. Let us know. Thanks!

-Will

Barring that horrible double usage of "the matter" in the final paragraph, I thought it was a reasonable letter. He responded:

Will,

People in the upper parish hall munching on cookies will not get in the way of the blessed sacrament at 5:00. You must also clear it with *******, who does scheduling. I believe that AA comes in at 6:15 or so, and everything would have to be cleaned and moved out of the way by that time, if I am correct. ***** will know.

Items that can be thrown at you as you exit the church? Cows are permissible as long as they are dairy cows and are thrown from the top of the tower. Knives are also acceptable if thrown by someone who is licensed by Circus Acts Licensing Agency. Whatever happened to birdseed? Is that what is dismissed as "slippery"? If you want that snow fluttering effect, let me suggest a January wedding. All right, all right. I quashed the Star Wars music, but desire less control of what goes on outside the church. Eco-friendly snowyflakey stuff is fine. I still might bring a cow, though.

The matter of who brings up the offerings is entirely in your court. (They are not yet sacraments, you know, or would you completely obviate the necessity of a priest? Are you some kind of anti-clerical Evangelical? Do you deny the meaning of the sacrifice at the altar? I don't think the Evangelical Pentecostal Gospel Church of Jesus in Bohemia is booked for a wedding on July 2. You might try there. God is watching you, Will Olsen-Hoek!)

Farrell+

Needless to say I loved this email. I replied:

Sir,

Rest assured that your previous electronic missive will be transcribed by a highly paid calligrapher, writ in gold upon blue whale leather parchment, set in a frame fashioned of reclaimed teak from the Titanic, and hung in the portrait gallery that Maria and I have secreted away in the dark, cavernous recesses of our tiny Brooklyn apartment.
I must now insist that you bring a cow, if only to re-enact the likely apocryphal story wherein soon-to-be-President William McKinley forced a cow to the roof of Bentley Hall at Allegheny College because he'd heard that cows were unable to walk downstairs, and wished to see what shades of scarlet the Dean's face would turn upon discovery of the bovine nuisance.
As for birdseed, I carefully read the instructions on granny's wheelie walker and discovered that the mechanism is distinctly sensitive and prone to explosion in the presence of birdseed. The insurance burden St. Ann's may incur in such case frankly terrifies me.
Upon calling the Evangelical Pentecostal Gospel Church of Jesus, I discovered that they don't take kindly to apostates such as myself who worship under the sinful diocese that makes bishops of - GASP - homosexuals and - EVEN WORSE - women. I'm not entirely sure about the nature of the rest of our conversation as the Pastor had for several minutes delivered me a long, apparently angry diatribe entirely in tongues. He hung up on me after he ran out of breath. Long story short, it's a no-go with them.
So I suppose we'll settle with St. Ann's - and throw our sinful organic confetti, shove cows up the bell tower, convince our friends to group juggle flaming chainsaws outside, and gluttonously gorge ourselves on punch and cookies in the Parish Hall! After all, wasn't it Mother Teresa who once said, "If this church is a-rocking, don't come a-knocking"?

-Sir William, 571st Baron of Sealand

Post Scriptum: Thank you for ******'s email. I'll let her know about our intentions in the Parish Hall and that it's cool with you.

It's emails like this that make me proud to be an Episcopalian.

Fig. 4: If anything may be said of the world, Monty Python has said it better.

We Have Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself.. and These Several Other Things.

2011-02-15T19:36:00.008-05:00

For a large part of my life, I was deathly afraid of roller coasters... in fact, I was deathly afraid of most amusement park rides. Indeed, one of my favorite things is the tears that well in my grandmother's eyes as she nearly dies laughing while recalling that one day at Disney World that I fell on the floor crying, begging her not to bring me into the Haunted Mansion. In fact, it wasn't until college that I actually developed a taste for roller coasters - though generally the more tame of the bunch. I in fact love the Coney Island Cyclone in all its bone rattling, arthritis-inducing glory that is so indicative of the wild ride the Nation was experiencing during its 1927 construction. Still, when I ventured to New Jersey for Fright Fest at Six Flags, I looked up in disgust and horror at an abominable steel cathedral of death: Kingda Ka.

Fig. 1: THIS IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT

I still consider this fear conquered to a certain degree, as I have ridden Nitro in near total darkness and El Toro, a wooden coaster that rides like its steel cousins.
So what do I still fear? Watching Jeopardy! tonight, I was reminded of a cold, terrible, dormant fear that grips the depths of my mind. What else could I do but compile them into a list that my enemies may exploit to my detriment.

THE FIVE THINGS I FEAR BESIDES FEAR ITSELF

No. 5.) Scientology.
It burns, I know. If you have a lazy Sunday that needs whittling away, might I suggest reading this eye-opening piece about Scientology. It pays more respect to the details of the religion than I do in this short, hilarious, self-serving blog of mine - and makes many of my observations seem childlike and ignorant. Needless to say, that article is an example of journalism, and this is an attempt at comedy.
Yes, I love the Constitution of the United States - and yes I realize that the very first amendment to it guarantees religious freedom to anyone within the borders of this great nation... in so many words. I don't begrudge people their religion, except to those apostates who defect from the Episcopal Church because of our tendency to elect female and openly homosexual bishops. I do, however, find the "Church" of Scientology to be a horse of a different color, something that needs be scrutinized in league with the likes of snake oil salesman and Vince the Sham-Wow guy. Okay, I get it, Xenu is an evil overlord who imprisoned the souls in paleolithic humans or something... and the only way we can clear ourselves is to give L. Ron Hubbard our fortunes to become Level 8 Thetans.

Trapped in the Closet
Tags: SOUTH
PARK more...

Fig. 2: An Inconvenient Truth

See, doesn't that sound like something from a video game? I have always been wary about this religion because of its origins in the mind of a really bad science fiction pulp writer. Then someone I knew personally - someone I liked and respected, became a Scientologist.
One bizarre evening, he came back from California after several months auditing with the Church, or whatever it is they do. By this time, I had experimented with Red Bull for the first time with disastrous results - namely that I went on an all-night bike ride the previous night and had suffered more than 48 hours of jittery wakefulness. Our Scientologist friend had invited us to Starbucks. Accompanying him was his fiancée - a cold, enigmatic Asian woman who spoke almost no English. What I remember of the event was that my friend showed us a series of cards about depression, confusion and "clearing" yourself. It shook me. Here was a friend of mine behaving like one of those people who offered "stress tests" in the Times Square subway station.
Scientology shares way too many things in common with the medieval concept of buying indulgences, which goes something like this:

It is the Middle Ages. Lord Chestermoreton wishes to do ungodly things and get away with it. He brings with him an enormous chest full of precious gold, diamonds and rubies stolen from the Holy Land. He approaches Pope Charlie XII who is seated upon the Throne of St. Peter.

Lord Chestermoreton: Your Holiness, I wish to divorce my wife. Her cooking is an atrocity against humanity. There is little difference between her stew and the contents of my chamberpot after choking down the said stew.

Pope Charlie XII: I see, my son. Well, you know full well the church's view on divorce. Marriage is, after all, a holy sacrament.

Lord Chestermoreton: What if I were to offer you this ring? It was stolen from the finger that blasted Mohamadan, Suleiman the Impeccably Dressed, after my forces ransacked Jerusalem.

Lord Chestermoreton offers the Holy Father an immense golden ring with an emerald the size of a peach pit. Pope Charlie XII leans over, examines the magnificent jewel. He strokes his chin, and says...

Pope Charlie XII: For this my son, you can put that lousy cook to death with my blessings.

Lord Chestermoreton: Splendid! Now that we've settled that, I'd like to marry my prize horse, Broomhilda.

Pope Charlie XII: Now just a moment my son! The Bible clearly states in Leviticus that --

Lord Chestermoreton's kicks open his chest of precious things. It sparkles and radiates with the priceless contents within. Pope Charlie XII leans over, examines the contents of the chest and whistles.

Pope Charlie XII: So... when's the wedding?

Fin.

The only way you can advance to higher levels in the Church of Scientology is to pay - OUT THE NOSE. Mr. Hubbard recognized that he could profit from his new religion, and thus actively sought out wealthy celebrities and offered them higher status in the church the more money they gave. Our friend gave an awful lot of money to the Church in his own time there.
It scares me that intelligent people can fall for something like this. And what did our friend get out of Scientology? Well, to give you an idea, the last time I saw him was at a bar. He took out his keys out of his pocket to retrieve his wallet. I noticed a plain golden ring holding all his keys together. "Is that what I think it is," I asked him. Sure enough, it was his wedding band. "Yeah... at least it's good for something at this point," he responded.
Sham marriages. Practical slavery. Buying indulgences. Xenu capturing human souls. A failed sci-fi writer. This is some scary shit, people.

No. 4.) The Zombie Apocalypse.
Good grief. I hear about this stuff all the time. Apparently everyone in the sci-fi community is convinced that we will all perish when some mutated virus from space or from some secret defunct Soviet-era laboratory or from monkeys. And not only will we perish, we will then walk the earth with glazed over eyes and puckered, rotting flesh with an insatiable hunger for brains. Even Robert Frost hypothesized the world would end with the Walking Dead when he wrote his famous short poem, Fire and Zombies.

Fire and Zombies
by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in zombies.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of Hate
To say that for destruction, zombies
Are also great and would consume we.

Mr. Frost gave up at the end with so trite and contrived a rhyme. But really, what useful word rhymes with zombies. NONE.

In short: THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE WILL NOT HAPPEN.
But I am relatively sure that The Zombie Apocalypse is the new euphemism for MASS GLOBAL PANDEMICS THAT WILL DETROY US ALL.
Now that's really something to be frightened of. Oh, there's the occasional scare that we get. First we were all going to die from SARS. Then anthrax. Then swine flu. Seriously though, most of these frightful, terrifying diseases are either a.) easily treated or b.) easily preventable. Indeed, these Angels of Death could be fended off with hand sanitizer. THAT IS NOT SCARY. Not even the flu epidemic of the early 1900s is truly, bone-chillingly terrifying, considering that some attribute the mass deaths from the said outbreak to overdoses of the new miracle drug, aspirin.
No, the real rider upon a Pale Horse are culprits like the Ebola virus, which some scientists speculate actually has EXTRATERRESTRIAL ORIGINS.

Fig. 3: I knew he was in with a bad crowd, but it was worse than I imagined. ALIENS!

The very thought of a virus that attacks and kills in a single day and hops onto the next nearest available host, leaving in its path a wake of death and destruction gives me the willies! Those unfortunate victims need not rise from their deaths to begin feasting upon the living. NO WAY. It's scary enough as it is.
Plus, everybody knows that if the zombie apocalypse were to really happen, you need only find a baseball bat and several humorous friends. BOOM - suddenly you're a survivor!

Recap: So, we've covered that I fear Scientology and The Zombie Apocalypse. I will save my top 3 fears for next time.

An Epistle Wrought by a Victim of the Snowpocalypse... FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE

2011-01-28T15:06:00.008-05:00

Greetings internet colleagues. For those of you not living in the Northeastern United States (being the only part of the said country that really matters), you may or may not be aware of the fact that every soul in the said geographical area has been wiped clean. Alas, it's true. In New York impatient people perished waiting an extra 10 minutes for a bus to arrive. In Boston thousands met their end from the minor inconvenience of having to hop over a slushy puddle. In Philadelphia literally thousands met their doom when they had to send their hideous UGG boots to the dry cleaner to remove rock salt stains. In short, I'm sorry to say, but we are all dead. I met my tragic end when I received an annoying telephone call at 6:15 AM telling me that New York City public schools would be closed that day. The tragedy of having lost $154.97 in daily wages was too much for my heart to bear, and thus, in the darkened, overheated* gloom of my Brooklyn apartment, I withered to dust. Using the latest high-speed necrofiberoptic technology, I was able to download my consciousness into the nearest electronic device with a programmable memory (nothing fancy, mind you - by an unlucky coincidence a coffee maker was the closest object at my time of death) and am thus able to deliver this missive to you, Dear Readers. Let's talk about the economy.

Item 1: Return to the Gold Standard
Now, in my life, I was a titled Baron of the micronation of Sealand - a decrepit World War II remnant currently decaying in the English Channel. Sealand's economy as well as the rusting support beam keeping it from the watery abyss below are, not to put too fine a point on it, rather fragile. In these dark time the middle and lower classes find themselves quickly slipping back into standards of living roughly equal to that of medieval Scottish peasantry. Sealand took a cue from L. Frank Baum's economic treatise The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
I'll explain. In this timeless classic, an uppity little girl, Dorothy Gale, from gloomy Kansas senselessly murders an innocent sorceress by dropping a house on her. After looting the body of a priceless pair of silver slippers, the deceased's sister, a fellow sorceress hailing from the West relentlessly pursues the murderous thief, who quickly allies herself with such questionable company as a straw man, a tin woodsman and a lion. Dorothy evades the sorceress's machinations by following a road built entirely of yellow bricks until she meets the Wizard, who is nothing but a failed politician (and a worse hot air balloonist). Eventually Dorothy and her rag tag crew murder the western sorceress, steal her broomstick, and are given gifts and a way home by the Wizard and a rival sorceress. All this is actually a cleverly conceived allegory for sticking to the gold standard. See, Dorothy was able to complete her barbarous, blood-drenched quest by using "silver" slippers and following a yellow - or GOLD - brick road and by surrounding herself with brainless, cowardly, heartless brutes. That's what we have governments for!
Why did I tell you all this? You see, Sealand, as I said, took a cue from L. Frank Baum's beloved "children's" classic, and made its currency nothing but solid gold and silver. I, a titled Baron, suddenly realized that I had no gold and little silver to back my aristocratic ways. However am I to afford my rusting, cold, salty, wet estate in Sealand? Naturally I needed to buy some gold. I went right to a source that Baum would have applauded: The United States Mint.
A few weeks ago I purchased a 1/10 ounce Gold Eagle coin.

Fig. 1: Only 4 bald eagles and 1 depiction of Lady Liberty? What kind of majesty is that?!

Alas, I should have known that the Mint, with its infamous TIME AGENTS, have thwarted me by creating a TIME PARADOX DIFFERENTIATOR DEVICE. This abominably conceived machine causes quite the temporal anomaly - in that all important dates are made 2 weeks away from the current date. Thus, at the time of purchase, the site said my purchase was back ordered until January 31 of 2011, yet each day, the ship day was a DAY LATER, to the point where I am now told that it will not ship until February 12th of the same year. Oh, the very thought of those TIME AGENTS gives me a headache. How dare they get between me and a keepsake to mark the year of Maria's & my wedding!
Now, if only the United States would follow in the footsteps of the famed economic philosopher L. Frank Baum and the entirely farcical Principality of Sealand, maybe we could dig ourselves out of this mess.

Item 2: How to Feed Yourself in a Harsh Economic Climate
My last meal before perishing in the Snowpocalypse of 2011 happened to be at the famed Delmonico's steakhouse on Beaver Street in New York's Financial District. I have previously written about the curious history of Delmonico's. It was a fine meal of Lobster Newberg, slow braised beef, seared sea scallops, filet mignon and reasonably priced Chilean wine.
I wasn't always able to enjoy such fine feasts. In my youth, my family had very little money to throw around. My mother, ever the spendthrift, invented one of the finest cheap meals ever conceived; a dish that my sister and I retroactively entitled Ghetto Meal. I here share the recipe:

Ghetto Meal

Ingredients:

1 package Velveeta Shells & Cheese
1 package frozen peas (the cheap kind, mind you - nothing a self-loving locavore would even consider edible)
1 package Hillshire Farms Polska Kielbasa

Directions:

Slice the kielbasa on a diagonal and brown in a large skillet.
Prepare shells & cheese as directed on the box. Make sure you squeeze every last drop of that luscious "cheese" product out of the space-age wrapper. Add to the browned kielbasa
When that mixture is nice and warm, add frozen peas and heat through to the desired texture.
Get yourself a paper plate and enjoy!

If I am feeling particularly adventurous, I may just chronicle the making of an haute-cuisine version of this recipe for my next entry.
Now, many of my readers would be put off by so low a recipe, but as you can imagine, for my sister and myself, this is the paragon of comfort food. When we bring up this recipe to our mother, she thinks we're making fun of her, but in all honesty, we applaud her for concocting a meal that could feed four hungry people and contain an ingredient from nearly every food group. I also reckon that with 1988 dollars, this meal would come to little over $1 per person, though this is purely conjecture.
The point is, you have to make do with what you have. In the Great Depression and World War II, people learned to grow their own vegetables and settled with eating much cheaper offal instead of Perdue "All-Natural" corn-fed, factory separated skinless boneless chicken breasts. Just ask my grandmother who relishes a nice plate of liver and bacon. To be fair, there is a bit of a pricing problem when a McDonald's Big Mac is $3.75 and a single red bell pepper is around $4 (yes, I paid that much for a bell pepper, and consider it one of the direst errata of my entire life -- along with the time a Japanese store clerk charged me $1.98 for an onion, forcing me to pay with my much-loved $2 bill). Still, there are cheap ways of feeding your entire family out there. That said, I got sort of disgusted when I was at the grocery store last week. A woman in front of me placed on the cashier's conveyor belt a six pack of juice boxes (an expensive variety depicting Sesame Street characters) and a deli counter sandwich with a self-adhesive price tag declaring that it cost $6.25. To my horror, the woman opted to pay with her WIC card. I am perhaps no expert in the area of food stamps and the like, but I am relatively certain that you cannot purchase any prepared foods with federal tax dollars. Every bodega and grocery store has a sign declaring that. Still, the cashier said, "It's okay, my manager says it's all right," and rang up the overpriced juice box and $6.25 sandwich. This is by no means the first time this has happened, as I've seen plenty of people pay for egg sandwiches with EBT and WIC cards. SIX DOLLARS AND TWENTY FIVE CENTS. Let's make better economic sense, shall we? I call this section:

How Not to Pay $6.25 in Taxpayer Dollars on a Sandwich

Buy a loaf of bread for $1.99. I've seen it available at that price. The average loaf contains 20 slices of bread. For a single sandwich, you need 2 slices, bringing the total price of the bread used to 20¢.
Buy a tomato for less than $1. I sliced a tomato and got around 8 slices. Let's say you want 2 slices of tomato on that sandwich. I liberally estimate this to cost between 15¢ and 20¢ - for the sake of this experiment, let's make it 25¢.
Let's say you splurge on the lettuce. I can't find the price of a head of lettuce (it's $1 in the summer time) in the KeyFood circular, but they do offer expensive, pre-packaged salad blends (containing lettuce) on sale for $2.50. I once again liberally estimate that it will require 10% of this package for the sandwich, meaning the useless, tasteless green stuff on your sandwich will cost 25¢.
What luck! Fancy Boar's Head Honey Maple Turkey and American Cheese (white or yellow) are on sale this week. $7.99 for half a pound of each. The recommended serving sizes of turkey and cheese are 2 oz. and 1 oz., respectively. That amounts to 50¢ of turkey and 25¢ of cheese -- and this is the premium brand, too!
Hellmann's Mayonnaise is $3.99 for a 30 oz. jar. A serving size is 1 tablespoon, or roughly 1/60th of that jar. All that delicious pure fat that really brings the sandwich together will put you back $0.0665. For the sake of argument, we'll say it costs 7¢.

Conclusion: Make yourself a sandwich. TA-DA! Lunch cost you (and by YOU, I mean the hardworking TAXPAYERS) $1.52.

$6.25
- $1.52

$4.73

By a miracle of spendthriftery, I have saved us all tons of money that we can use to reform health care or visit Mars! You're welcome, America!
I plan on seizing control of the Rent is 2 Damn High Party (yes, that number two became official) and using the Sandwiches Are Too Damn Expensive For Taxpayer Dollars platform to launch my political career. First stop, Daniel Patrick Moynihan's old seat followed by the Oval Office.

In summary, dear friends, we don't need a State of the Union address to tell us the economic shape of things. The United States Empire is in no danger of collapse - even though its entire Northeast and all its occupants, myself included, were destroyed by snow. I'll borrow from our British cousins and leave you with the following:

Fig. 2: Can we replace that crown with an eagle clutching an American flag or something?

Most Honorable Company, Ltd.

2011-01-05T10:34:00.012-05:00

Did you know that is it currently January of 2011 and that I haven't written a single thing in this weblog since October of last year? Alex-sensei, blood-drenched samurai Lord of Hitoyoshi Castle knows and he was none too happy with me upon our glad reunion on this New Year's Eve. I know that it's practically a federal crime at this point to deprive the populous with my charming wit and masterful command of the English language; and so before a government SWAT team breaks down my door, I will relate to you, my dearly deprived readers, several developments in my life. Please note, that I am being paid for writing this blog entry. God bless the prep period!

Item 1.) BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON.

If you have not seen 2010's greatest Broadway musical, then you really ought to be ashamed of yourself. It closed on January 2nd because of lazy people like you who don't realize that a musical about the life and times of our 7th President is just a goddamned brilliant idea. Hell, it's an entertaining thought just sitting here in a quiet classroom. On a whim, I decided to check the reduced price Broadway tickets folder in the main office of the school where I had been filling in for a maternity leave. Sure enough, there stamped in red on a thin strip of paper was Andrew Jackson's Levis-clad butt, a stars & stripes hanky stuffed in a rear pocket, and a holstered Colt revolver hanging beside. Tagline: History just got all sexypants.

The theater was completely redecorated; taxidermied bear, a hog-tied horse hanging from the ceiling, broken portraits of long-dead Federalists & Antifederalists, abused chandeliers... essentially some bastard child of a log cabin and the Oval Office - a fitting arena for a musical about Andrew Jackson. On our way to the theater, I specifically told Maria that I would be beside myself if there wasn't a number in the production called "Populism: F**K YEAH!" The lights dimmed, Jackson showered us with an innuendo-laden introduction, and the company went on to sing "Populism Yea Yea." I was pleased.

I appreciated their treatment of Andrew "The American Hitler / Hero" Jackson. As a historian myself, I am torn between the legendary story of the first log cabin president, an unpretentious man of the people going on to govern the people, and the brutal and seemingly uncaring executor of the Indian Removal Act that constituted nothing short of genocide of an entire native population. That's America, folks - for better or for worse.

Item 2: MOST HONORABLE COMPANY, LTD.

Every year around the holiday season, Union Square goes from its normal obnoxious, hippie-strewn, hobo-hangout (populated with such choice characters who refer to themselves as "Air" and describe their life philosophy in such wishy-washy, detestable ways as "undecided") to an even more obnoxious bastion of consumerism and overpriced hipster goods - The Christmas Bazaar. Helen, Varun, Maria and I visited the said Christmas Gay (our own rebranding) so that Varun could buy Helen the pillow she'd had her eye on. I found a handmade watch for $300 that was made of hand-hammered copper, but couldn't convince myself that the movement attached to the pretty hand-work was worth it. Naturally the four of us got to thinking about our absolute favorite topic: the differences between Japan and the United States.

We eventually came up with an amazingly brilliant idea to take Japan by storm. Taking a page from the boom in the 1980s of Japanese businessmen, we have decided to form MOST HONORABLE COMPANY, LTD..

At MOST HONORABLE COMPANY, LTD., our motto is "PUT FOOD ON TABLE." We take this to mean, SUCCEED AT ANY COST, EVEN IF THAT COST IS THE ENTIRE NATION OF BELGIUM. Now, all Japanese companies must adopt an adorably inappropriate mascot that has nothing to do with what the company does at all. I remind readers that baseball teams in Japan are not named after the cities where the clubs play, but rather after enormoous companies. Hence the team name Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. Our mascot is none other than everybody's favorite GOOD EVENING CAT.

Fig. 1: Good Evening Cat (designed by M.N. French)

Having a mascot is all well and good... but even a tophat and a monocle do not a business make. What is a company without its products, and I am here to introduce some of the products and services that MOST HONORABLE COMPANY, LTD. will offer.
1.) The Purchase and Re-Branding of Giga-Pudding. I have seen this commercial twice, and that is two times too many.

Giga-Pudding will become a pharmaceuticals company - the kind that has important ties to various shady government lobbies throughout Washington. The purpose? We want nothing more than to make commercials showing people enjoying themselves on the beach, living life to its fullest, and playing soft, inoffensive music in the background - WHILE WE WARN YOU THAT THIS PRODUCT WILL CAUSE: fever, rash, upset stomach, shock, forgetfulness, irregular heartbeat, nightsweats, swelling of the tongue, inability to produce tears, severe cardiac events, Demonic Possession, violent erotic nightmares, instantaneous death, hallucinations, and an unexplained fear of the color blue.

2.) Pop Chan. Soft drinks are where the real money is made. It took a long and arduous conference meeting (that is, 2-3 minutes on a crowded subway) for our panelists to dream up the name of and invent flavoring for POP CHAN: EXCITING NEW NUMBER ONE GOOD SWEET DRINK! Pop Chan comes in the following flavors:

cola
strawberry
Giga-Pudding
seaweed shrimp kelp microplankton
melon

Yummy! But the most exciting part about Pop Chan is its viral commercials.

Pop Chan Commercial : Japanese Businessman

A shady, empty side-street at night. Flickering neon advertisements are reflected on the fresh rain upon the cold cobbled road. A man in thick glasses and a cheap double-breasted suit approaches a vending machine. Only a dog barking and the electric hum of the machine break the silence of the evening. He peruses the choices, and opts to purchase a pair of girls' panties, becaue urban legend has it that you can purchase things like than in vending machines in Japan. He puts the money into the machine and pushes the buttons for his selection. A can of POP CHAN falls from the machine instead.

Businessman:

POP CHAN?!?!

The businessman is beside himself with anger. He composes himself and notices a tab on the can that reads "Pull Here" (however that is written in Japanese). He pulls the label to reveal a pair of girls' panties hidden beneath.

Businessman:

POP CHAN!!!!!!

Stars, rainbows, and flowers explode from the bottom lefthand side of the screen. One of MOST HONORABLE COMPANY, LTD's Presidents (William) pops in. He winks, displays a Churchillian V for Victory.

William:

It's-a numbaa one goooooood!

The POP CHAN logo appears on screen, wreathed in a halo of golden light. For a brief nano-second, the image of GOOD EVENING CAT blinks on screen to the sound of television static.

THE END.

If that doesn't outsell Coca-Cola in a matter of a single fiscal year, then the world is all but lost.

Item 3: Alcoholic Beverages. One of my dreams is to create my own brand of bourbon using only the finest ingredients from God's Chosen State (New York). Honestly, how great would a bourbon distilled from Long Island sweet corn and pure, clean Catskills water taste? Mighty fine, I'd bet. MOST HONORABLE COMPANY, LTD realizes the great value put upon so-called "premium" spirits nowadays. It seems that the larger and more streamlined a product becomes, the more expensive it grows. This is especially so when a hip-hop artist decides to mention a crappy brand of booze in one of his or her songs. And now such standbys as Hennessy and Courvoisier cognacs are nothing but artificially-colored ethanol. Here are some of our questionably named products:

Fun Drink Rum - you know, for those damned mojitos that 20-something females from Long Island and New Jersey think are delicious because it makes them seem exotic and tropical. Please notice that Fun Drink Rum shares its initials with one of Japan's favorite American presidents.
For Pete's Sake - GET IT?! Sake - like the fermented rice wine and sake as in, you know... for the sake of all humanity. It... it's a homograph! Ugh... never mind.
Little Boy Vodka - a flavor explosion in your... oh my god, I went too far. I apologize.

I'm pretty sure we had other ideas for MOST HONORABLE COMPANY, LTD. but they currently elude my memory. Of course we plan on forming our own shady holdings company, namely LEGITIMATE BUSINESS HOLDINGS, INC. which will compete with MOST HONORABLE COMPANY, LTD. in every respect until we artificially inflate our prices to the most insane levels imaginable before sinking LEGITIMATE BUSINESS HOLDINGS, INC. and reaping the profits until INTERPOL issues warrants for our arrest and we are left to liquidating our asset into pure gold bullion and retiring to our own sovereign island nation of Sealand (where I am currently a titled Baron). It's good to have dreams and goals, kids.

I have made a New Year's resolution to post more than once per month. We'll see how long that lasts.

Sincerely,

W. Charles Olsen-Hoek

Co-President and Co-Founder MOST HONORABLE COMPANY, LTD.

The Seersucker Plan - REDUX

2010-10-17T15:45:00.008-04:00

It's no secret that for nearly my whole life I have had a weight problem. Right out of my mom's womb, I was pretty much doomed what with having been born to perhaps the greatest home cook ever documented. Seriously, there is nothing like Ms. Olsen's Famously Reheatable All-Week Lasagna. Since a young age, I've been instilled with an almost religious adoration of food. Indeed, some of my fondest memories involve restaurants - K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen in New Orleans owned by this man, for example:

Fig. 1: Paul Prudhomme - who has since traded the depicted cane for a Rascal scooter.

For the record, Paul Prudhomme's recipe for shrimp étoufée calls for an entire pound of butter. It's culinary heroes like him that have doomed me to carrying the equivalent weight of an extra Justin Bieber about my person. Not that it doesn't have it's benefits; I'm notoriously difficult to sink with my surplus buoyancy.
Still... I've yo-yo'ed weight in recent years. When I took to bicycling nearly everywhere I needed to go, I lost over 50 pounds. When I quit drinking soda in college, I magically shed 20 pounds. When I injured my knee and was unable to exercise without excruciating pain, I gained somewhere around 20 pounds. And when the holidays roll around? Well, let's just say that I LOVE eggnog.
It's been a difficult struggle with my weight, but I recently decided to take action to once and for all claim Victory in the Battle of the Bulge - and (HISTORY JOKE WARNING) without the aid of Gen. George S. Patton.

Fig. 2: Not actually George S. Patton - BUT WAY BETTER BECAUSE IT'S GEORGE C. SCOTT!

A couple years back, my dear friend Jon offered me something exceptionally precious - his father's Brook's Brothers seersucker suit.

Fig. 3: Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan sporting a Brooks Brothers seersucker suit, being a testament to the overwhelming awesomeness of the said garment.

His father George veered towards the portly side, and so Jon believed the suit should fit me. As it turned out, it was just a bit too snug on me. And so I swore myself that I would eventually fit into this suit in an elaborate plan called THE SEERSUCKER PLAN. This was essentially a modified version of the plan I concocted in college called THE DON'T EAT SO MANY DAMNED COOKIES DIET, which later became THE DON'T EAT SO MANY DAMNED COOKIES - AND GROW SOME SIDEBURNS WHILE YOU'RE AT IT DIET. I here list the tenets of these diets, which I should probably condense into a novelty sized book for people to impulse purchase while in line at Border's.

Don't eat so many damned cookies!
Ride your bicycle once in a while, will ya?
Maybe coming home and microwaving a slice of lasagna at 1 am after a night of drinking isn't such a good idea, tough guy.
Sideburns, being an exceptionally fashionable and masculine facial embellishment will surely increase your general wind resistance thus causing you to burn more calories when any form of calisthenics is taken.
After a long day of vigorous activity and a fine meal of mutton washed down with Guinness, strip in a room free of drafts and have your servant rub your skin with soft Turkish towels to stimulate the bloodflow and toughen the skin.

Needless to say, the plan failed as I didn't have a servant, and soft Turkish towels come at a high premium nowadays. When I morphed the plan into the first SEERSUCKER PLAN, I only lost about 10 pounds and then lost interest completely.
Now, I recently realized that I am to be married on July 2, 2011. I have already purchased a beautiful platinum ring that Alex-sensei (the blood-drenched samurai lord alluded to in previous entries) claims looks as if it was from outer space. [Please see comments section for an exact quote.] We have settled upon place to hold our reception. The church is squared away. And I have decided that I need to lose EIGHTY (80) POUNDS so that I can rock a three-piece seersucker suit. Why do I need to lose so much weight for a simple suit? The reasons are threefold:

Our wedding photos will have two BEAUTIFUL people in them, instead of 1.5 beautiful people!
I'll be a whole lot healthier - beneficial to spending the rest of our lives together!
I WANT TO LOOK LIKE ATTICUS FINCH

Fig. 4: Atticus Finch - The single sexiest execution of the seersucker suit in recorded history. Soon to be overshadowed circa July 2011...

So, how do I plan on going from the festively plump William that everyone has grown to love to the svelt hero of To Kill a Mockingbird in just about 8.5 months? Well, the work has already begun.
Tier 1: Use Wii Fit. I've neglected the obnoxious balance board for a few months now. While the exercises are simple and frankly don't seem to be very effective, the game is a good method to keep records of weight loss and activity levels. I try to use Wii Fit about 3 times a week.
Tier 2: The Couch to 5k running program. Oh, how I dreaded running in gym class. You know, the normal stigma in gym class is being like the fat kid in dodgeball. Let me tell you kids, I was pretty good at dodgeball. But when it came to running? Oh boy - I think I'd prefer walking on coals to jogging a few laps. So Maria clued me into this program which gradually ratchets you up to running 3.1 miles - even after a sedentary life of channel surfing. I am currently working on the Week 5 workout which entails two sessions of running for 8 minutes punctuated by 5 minutes of walking.
Is it working? Well, I'm glad to report, yes. I began THE NEW SEERSUCKER PLAN in early September and have already lost around 15 pounds - ahead of schedule for 8 pounds of weight loss per month. So... barring any unforeseen circumstances, looks like I'll be sporting a three piece better than Gregory Peck. Wish me luck, kids!

From the Glorious Plains of the Fried Chicken Battle...

2010-09-29T19:54:00.006-04:00

This is perhaps amazingly coincidental, but Vana White was just praising the health benefits of cast iron skillets at the end of today's episode of Wheel of Fortune. Longtime readers are of course aware of the fact that I count among my choicest possessions an immense cast iron skillet. It's true, these marvels of the cooking world are nearly as old as metallurgy and as useful today as they ever were. When it comes to high-heat cooking, searing, pan-frying, or baking, nothing beats its natural non-stick surface or curious ability to transfer healthy doses of iron into whatever you're cooking.
Now, what is my absolute favorite thing to cook in my prize skillet? Easy - fried chicken. You see, legends have been passed by word of mouth of the secret recipe that was whispered into Abraham Lincoln's ear by the Archangel Gabriel and passed down through bizarre Masonic ceremonies until it made its home in our humble Brooklyn abode. What is so special about this secret recipe once known only to heaven and later bequeathed to heroic presidents? Is it that the floured chicken is left out for 45 minutes before cooking? Is it the Old Bay seasoning? No one knows but I.
But there are Dark Forces at work in the world of fried chicken. And in the cruel depths of Harlem exists a recipe circulated in small circles. Legend has it that Huitzilopotchli, the highest of all the Aztec pantheon swore only to give the secret of his fried chicken recipe to the Last Emperor. And when Cuauhtémoc fell, sure enough, the codex containing the sacred fried chicken recipe fell into the hands of Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro.

Fig. 1: Huitzilopotchli fryin' up some chicken!

The recipe was lost for centuries until rediscovered - GOD knows how - by none other than my archnemesis, ROBIN.
Last year, Robin had the honor - nay - the privilege to taste my magical fried chicken recipe. To give you an idea of how I felt about what she said about the chicken, I here post some things that have been said or written about my chicken from various reputable sources.
"William's chicken caused me to weep for its resplendent beauty. I lost sleep thinking about his marvelous creation. I fear only that I shall never again know happiness like the first time I bit into that savory delight." -Greg M., Queens
"It puts KFC to shame - also, he is very attractive." -Maria F., Brooklyn
"I am too drunk to taste this chicken, but if I weren't drunk, I am sure that I would gladly sell my firstborn to the man behind this recipe." -Colonel S., Louisville, KY

That said, nothing took me by surprise so much as when Ms. Robin said, "Eh, it's all right. You should try my recipe."
ALL RIGHT?!
At that point I was not yet aware that Ms. Robin's recipe came from an Aztec god. For shame. Clearly we had to engage in an ULTIMATE BATTLE FOR CHICKEN SUPREMACY!
The date: September 18.
The time: When we got around to it.
The place: Ms. Robin's apartment.
The Iron Chefs: Ms. Robin vs. William
And the battle ensued. An eclipse blocked out the sun. The Hudson River ran red with blood. My skillet sizzled with divine majesty. Robin's chicken lay in the oven, waiting , resting, biding its time. Just what is her secret? Bisquick. Yes Bisquick. Those Aztecs were way ahead of their time, having invented Bisquick before they invented government. The cooking subsided. The moon rose in the sky. The waters subsided. And there was peace. The battle was over. The chicken need only be tasted to see who reigned supreme.

Fig. 2: My chicken. Secret ingredient pictured at back.

Robin dressed her chicken in lemon juice and fresh parsley. I dabbed my chicken dry and prepared for the best. And we sat down to the feast.
There was silent contemplation. Both sides seemed puzzled. Indeed, both Gabriel's and Huitzilopotchli's recipes seemed - equally delicious. How could this be? On the glorious fields of battle there must be a victor. But what was this -- ?
You see, earlier in the evening, one Maria, who many may knows as my fiancée, made a mashed potatoes and sour cream recipe. It was to be served as a complement to the fried chicken to be made. The only problem is - THE POTATOES WERE MORE POPULAR THAN ANY OF THE CHICKEN!
From Brooklyn came a Dark Horse riding up.
It was Maria, Napoleon of the Kitchen.
All glory went to Maria's delicious concoction. Robin and I stared at each other for a solid minute and broke down in tears. The heavens had failed us, and a new Queen of the Universe ascended to the throne of Victory.
What had been learned of this battle? Certainly Robin and I learned that both of our fried chickens are wonders of the modern world. But, to paraphrase the great Jedi Warrior Luke Skywalker - our overconfidence was our weakness. And to paraphrase the great Sith Lord Emperor Palpatine - your negligence of side-dishes as well.
Sigh.
Still, I think everybody wins when fried chicken and potatoes are involved.
Stay tuned next week when I reveal the secrets of weight loss and how I plan on losing 70 pounds before July 2, 2011. (Hint: avoid eating too much fried chicken.)

The Fateful Lot of a Mets Fan

2010-08-24T20:57:00.015-04:00

I first need to thank Gale one JILLION times for her contribution to this blog entry. Her amazing work may be seen below, and I implore you all to suffer this long blog entry to see her brilliance in action. If you don't want to hear about baseball, skip to the end. It pretty much sums up what this is all about!
Well, Maria and I just returned from a very successful trip to Massachusetts. There we visited Northampton, home of Maria's alma mater Smith College with its ivy-covered brick hallways haunted by the screeching ghost of Julia Child. We climbed a few mountains, ate some hippie-baked bread, you know, the typical thing you do in a town founded by and perpetuated by drugged out hippie locavores. Afterwards, we were taken in by our gracious hosts Alex and Dorothy in their quaint little seaside town of Salem. Of course you are familiar with Salem's seedy past; it being the site of Joseph McCarthy's famous trial and execution of several Soviet sorceresses accused of casting mysterious spells upon an unknowing Republican party.
Long story short, Maria and I both needed a vacation. Why? No, not because Maria worked her butt off this whole summer trying to instruct a bunch of ungrateful, immature cretins how to be special needs teachers. No, we needed a vacation from the New York Mets.
In 1958, the Evil Communist Sorceresses used their dark magick to steal New York's only beloved National League teams - the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers. These two teams had religiously dedicated fans who fueled a rivalry that some, including myself, deem legendary. In fact, their rivalry led to one of the most memorable moments in the history of sports: Bobby Thomson's Shot Heard 'Round the World. In 1951, the two teams ended the season in a dead heat, forcing a 3-game playoff. Down by 2 runs in the bottom of the 9th inning with two men on, the Giants sent Bobby Thomson to the plate. Ralph Branca looked in for his signs, and this happened:

In Memory of Bobby Thomson 1923-2010

When I have a functioning time machine, you can be SURE this will be one of my first stops. With all the drama of the beautiful rivalry between two beloved teams, it's difficult to imagine how crestfallen the fans must have been when the two teams were uprooted seemingly overnight and placed on the pathetic West Coast. The same West Coast that whined that is had no professional baseball teams. So... it got what it wanted. Two teams were torn from their native home and transplanted to a wretched state whose shallow, unthinking populous would eventually make The Terminator its governor. Just 3 years later, the Los Angeles Angels were born, and before 1970, California would be the home to FIVE baseball teams (the other two being the Athletics [also stolen from the East Coast's Philadelphia via Kansas City] and the ridiculously named Padres of San Diego).
Now, those familiar with baseball, and even those unfamiliar know of another team lurking in the lurid corners of the of the Bronx. Yeah, those pesky New York Yankees. The Yankees (a team originally from Baltimore and calling themselves the Orioles) have a long history that consists mainly of being hated by literally everyone but Yankees fans and spending ludicrous amounts of money on purchasing World Series trophies. Those die-hard Dodger and Giant fans would rather not follow baseball than root for that impostor New York team. What was a scorned National League baseball faction to do?
Easy: CALL ROBERT MOSES!
Basically whatever Robert Moses wants to happen, happens. You want to clear out an orphanage to build another parkway? Call Robert Moses. So a team of Robert Moses and William Shea worked tirelessly to bring National League baseball back. Shea threatened to form a Continental League to rival the American and National Leagues, and Major League Baseball caved to the pressure. New York would be granted a National League team upon the 1962 expansion of the league. Owners brainstormed names (the Burros, the Meadowlarks, the Jets) before finally settling on the snappy and eloquent Mets, a shortened form of Metropolitans.
The team would wear orange and blue, colors formerly worn by the Dodgers and Giants, and sported an interlocked NY logo previously associated with the erstwhile tenants of the Polo Grounds. The team would be populated with former New York baseball stars, all of that age when knees turn to glass and cleats feel like lead. Long story short, the 1962 Mets set the stage for what would be a long history of misery only occasionally broken by a small star of success. They wheezed into the season's finish line with a paltry record of 40 wins and 120 losses, the worst record since the 1899 Cleveland Spiders' 20-134. No team has gotten close to a record that bad in the modern era.
It's true, the Mets have enjoyed their share of success. Their acquisition of perhaps the greatest pitcher of his era, Tom Seaver, led to their miraculous World Series win in 1969. In 1986 with the leadership of the Magically Mustachioed greatest first baseman in New York History, KEITH HERNANDEZ, the Mets did it again after another miraculous play.
I was two years old when the Mets won the world series. And since then, I have witnessed them whimper away to the Yankees in the 2000 series, and watched Carlos Beltran let a curveball in for a strike to end their 2006 bid for greatness. All subsequent years, the New York Mets have lived up to their New York Post-ish nickname, the New York Mess. Perhaps nothing broke my heart so much as the look on my dad's face as we sat in Shea Stadium watching the Mets lose THE LAST GAME EVER PLAYED THERE to the Florida Marlins. I here replicate this miserable scene for you, my dear audience.
I grew that paper moustache for this occasion. My poor father has been a Mets fan since that bastard team arrived in their adorably dumpy stadium in Queens. FORTY EIGHT YEARS. For the record, that's 2 WONDERFUL years of happiness and sunshine - FORTY SIX YEARS of ANGUISH, TORMENT and PAIN!
Then came this story: Mets reliever Francisco Rodriguez was arrested for beating up his father-in-law following another pitiful Mets loss at the hands of relief pitchers. The Mets barely even slapped him on the wrist, and even expect to have him back next year, even though he injured himself after punching his father-in-law.
It's heart-breaking. There is something very... odd about this team. Every September they break your heart and every April, we fans return to them. We return to them because they are the Amazin's! The Miracle Mets! They're the team whose credo was made famous by Tug McGraw: YA GOTTA BELIEVE! What can I liken it to? I posed this question to Gale, who helped me illustrate my thoughts - LITERALLY AND BRILLIANTLY!
That about sums it up - an abusive relationship. We hate to love our Amazin's. It appears that all we die-hard Mets fans, who ask for Tom Seaver autographed baseballs in lieu of class rings and have tickets to the pathetic last game at Shea proudly displayed in their living rooms, are doomed to follow the cycle forever. Every time I see a little child wearing a Mets hat, I think of the years of pain and anguish every autumn will bring them. I implore you, Mr. Wilpon and Mr. Minaya, if you care at all for the children, do something to deliver our overpaid baseball team from the depths of laughingstock-hood. In the meantime, we'll do our best to anesthetize ourselves to the aura of hopelessness that surrounds Taxpayer - ahem - Citi Field.
Please give us at least one more happy recap that we can put in the books.

Note: There is nothing funny about spousal abuse. It's a metaphor people. A metaphor. At least I didn't compare someone or something to the Nazi party like everyone does nowadays.

Wherein The Author Elaborates on the Gentlemanly Sports of Baseball, Croquet and Baseball

2010-08-16T18:00:00.007-04:00

I must thank you all for being exceptionally patient readers. When Mr. Hodgman acknowledged my unbridled brilliance via Twitter, I sort of pledged to update more frequently. Alas, I have not made good on my side of the bargain. Still, it's difficult to choose from the literal thousands of interesting things that happen to me on a daily basis, and more difficult still to describe them in the exquisite prose that issues from my perfect mind. Here's a small smattering of the interesting things I wanted to show you!
ITEM 1: CIVIL WAR BASEBALL
A band of time traveling base-ballers from A.D. 1864 arrived in Sayville during the Wife-to-Be's and my brief time on Long Island. I here provide video evidence from my Android which, much to my dismay, is a smart-phone and in no way a subservient humanoid robot designed to do my bidding and never to develop its own consciousness and decide to kill me...

Fig. 1: An error is charged to the right fielder.

The said base-ball match pitted the Brooklyn Atlantics against the New York Mutuals. This of course brought to mind my absolute favorite Conan O'Brien sketch wherein the red-headed Irish giant came upon his own horde of time traveling base-ballers in Old Bethpage. I assure you it's much funnier than the previous video:

Conan Old Time Baseball

Fig. 2: What is that demonry?!

Oh how I wish I could have donned by best base-ball knickerbockers and show those so-and-so's what for. I'd pepper their porridge, see!

ITEM 2: AN INVITATION TO THE DUCHESS FROM THE QUEEN TO PLAY CROQUET
I attended a Great Gatsby themed party. Now by this point you are all aware that F. Scott Fitzgerald is on written warning from me, and thus Jay Gatsby is also on notice - even though he spends most of his time floating around in the pool these days. There, the gentlemen among us took part in the great American pastime of LAWN CROQUET!

Fig. 3: A typical croquet game. Fancy dress required.

Ah... nothing like a refreshing round of knocking wooden balls through wickets. Is there any game quite as kingly as croquet - a game whose very rulebook provides that players be penalized 2 strokes if they are not in possession of an alcoholic beverage? I (pictured at left in the dark suit) came in a very respectable second after a couple of brilliant shots on my part. I still believe that Mr. Perry is a rotten cheater who isn't worthy of the monocle he wears which he so flagrantly boasts about at any given opportunity.

Fig. 4: This is what second place looks like.

Also worth note is the glorious picture of Maria that came of this party.

Fig. 5: Your jealousy is palpable - both at my good fortune and her good looks.

Item 3: MEDIEVAL TIMES BASEBALL!
A while back I received a Facebook message from the Brooklyn Cyclones baseball club with an offer that could not be refused. The package included:

A box seat behind home plate at a Brooklyn Cyclones game
A voucher for a hot dog, fries and a drink at the original Nathan's on Stillwell Ave.
Complementary Cyclones baseball cap

Little did we know, that the particular night we chose to attend included the following BONUS entertainments!

A player on the opposing team named Burt Reynolds
Ike Davis inverted bobblehead night (sold out)
Wonderfully drunk and overzealous Cyclones fans nearly falling over at the prospect of a late-inning rally!
MEDIEVAL TIMES NIGHT

After every 2 innings, several knights hailing from the distant kingdom of Lyndhurst, New Jersey would engage in mortal combat. And not only that, we were repeatedly told by our master of ceremonies that we should stay after the 9th inning! "My lords and ladies! Stay after the 9th inning, for the knights will mount their horses and joust!"
Laugh not, readers, for in attendance that night happened to be my dear sister Jessica. Many years ago on a rainy December evening right before my sister's birthday, our family was slated to make the long, perilous journey to Lyndhurst, New Jersey to visit the nights in their home castle. Alas! Father had forgotten to purchase Lotto tickets, and so bolted out the door into the rain. Seconds later, he returned through the front door and fell on the floor, muddy, wet and writhing in pain. Sure enough, Father had broken his wrist sliding in the mud. Sadly, we had to cancel our journey to the rotten Kingdom of New Jersey, and Jessica never got to experience Medieval Times - THAT IS UNTIL THIS SUMMER!

Fig. 6: Happy belated 9th Birthday, Jessie!

Well... I think we're about caught up. I have something very special for all of you in the forthcoming blog entry to make up for this inexcusable absence on my part. Until then, take care of yourselves, and each other!

Somebody's Getting Married or: How I Became Maria's Husband-Elect

2010-07-18T18:44:00.016-04:00

Well, Maria and I are happily engaged. I chose a fine Independence Day afternoon spent on Governors Island as the time and place that I would ask her to marry me. Thankfully she said yes, no doubt due to the blingged-out beauty of my great grandmother's 80-year old diamond and platinum ring. She has in fact just confirmed: "Yes - it was only because of the ring that I said yes." The lovely and talented Gale designed this unbelievably brilliant card to celebrate our forthcoming nuptials.

Fig. 1: Too many titles? DO YOU KNOW WHO WE ARE?!

Alex, the current blood-soaked feudal Shogun of Hitoyoshi Castle, pointed out that upon Maria's and my marriage, she will ALWAYS one-up me in the race for the most titles attached to a name - for she will be (at least now) MRS. Baron(ness) the Reverend Doctor(ess) Mayor(ess) [Lady] Maria N. Olsen-Hoek, Esq., T.T..

That aside, I'm surprised at just how sneaky I can be! In fact, after visiting Robert Moses' Seaside Paradise at Jones Beach, I staged an unbelievably manly conspiratorial dinner-and-drink talk with Jon and Greg at that ultimate bastion of machismo, McSorley's Ale House. So manly is this den of manliness that women weren't even allowed in the joint until the 1970s. Now friends, you may be aware that I venture into the realms of "re-imagined" history in this weblog, but the fact stated in the previous sentence is entirely true! What may or may not be true is the fact that Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) invented the frat boy game of Flip Cup at McSorley's. His version of Flip Cup involved inverting a full glass of beer onto a sloppily drunk patron's head as a form of payback for his theft of the Senator's sixth cheese and onion sandwich of the afternoon.

Fig. 2: Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (left) inventing Flip Cup
(Photo courtesy of Greg's Supreme Archive Photo Emporium, Ltd.)

Also, it's where Theodore Roosevelt wrestled and murdered his first grizzly bear at age seven. Alas, we are unable to provide photographic evidence as TR's natural X-ray emissions rendered him completely unphotographable.
Where was I? Oh yes! We met there to plot the engagement. The next day, Greg and I dreamed up a cover story that would permit me to return to Long Island to ask her parents what they thought of the two of us getting hitched. We would be "recording" some "dialog" for "Greg"'s "thesis" "project." Mr. French put it best: "That's great! A marriage founded in lies and deceit!" He also asked that I henceforth refer to him as "Your Lordship." Clearly any offspring Maria and I produce will be genetically predisposed to megalomania.
JULY IV, MMX - Greg, Sonja, Helen, Maria, and I (in custody of my great grandmother Lillian's ring) depart for Governors Island by ferry for Independence Day festivities. The island was fortified during the American Revolutionary War in anticipation of the Battle of Long Island / Brooklyn. Later those battlements became Fort Jay. Centuries later the island fell into the jurisdiction of the Coast Guard, which eventually abandoned the island for cost-saving reasons, leaving a ghostly shell of its militaristic past. We lunched in one of the fort's ravelins but quickly ran out of drinking water. Greg and I set out to look for water only to learn that Emperor Bloomberg saw fit to open the island to the public without installing public potable water outlets. TWELVE MORE YEARS! Thinking quickly, Greg had a brilliant plan to cross the river back to Brooklyn to fill our water containers. He texted the girls with perhaps the most famous text message in our group's history:
"no water on island. making supplies run. brb"
When we arrived at Brooklyn's Pier 6, the sight left us stunned and agitated. A line stretching nearly two city blocks had formed. In our astonishment, we didn't even see the drinking fountain not 20 feet away from us. As we assessed the line, a motorcyclist asked us if we were going to Governors Island.
"Nah, we actually just came from Governors Island - for some water."
"Y'know, Rosanne Cash is giving a concert on Governors Island."
"Who the hell is that?"
"... ... Get outta here!"
Apparently Rosanne Cash belongs to that elite group of "People Who Are Only Famous Because Their Parents Were Famous." Nonetheless, I have seen fit to put her on warning for crimes committed against persons trying to propose to their long-time girlfriends. BEHOLD THE LIST!

Fig. 3: Persons On Warning For Crimes Committed Against William and His Associates

Rosanne Cash
F. Scott Fitzgerald
M. Night Shyamalan
ABBA
MTA New York City Transit

"Why F. Scott Fitzgerald?!" I can hear you ask. Well, because of that guy I have massive panic attacks when I see a green light. And that children is why I don't have a driver's license.

Anyway... broken-hearted, Greg and I took the bus to Atlantic Terminal. We planned to get water from the Battery Maritime Building and take the ferry from South Street Seaport. We reasoned that since the ferries there were larger, the line would move faster.
We were horribly, horribly wrong.
Our shock and awe at the scene near Pier 6 in Brooklyn couldn't compare to what we witnessed when we arrived at the Battery Maritime Building. A line stretching all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge. About 90 minutes into our quest for water, we were sweaty, thirsty and sun-baked. I was losing hope for a successful engagement atmosphere. Maria and I were separated by New York's Buttermilk Channel. Still, we had at least fulfilled one part of our quest, for we did find water in an inconspicuous location within the Staten Island Ferry terminal. BEHOLD!

Fig. 4: This had better not be rhinoceros water...

Okay. Calm down fellas. We'll go back to Brooklyn. Maybe the line has died down. Maybe we can get Nick to save us a place in line. Everything will be all right.
Subway. Brooklyn. Borough Hall. Walk to Pier 6.
Nick had scouted a place in line for us. I'd never been happier to see a picnic straggler. Greg and I cut into line, when a little idea popped into my head to appease those behind us in line - show them the ring; people love that romantic stuff. Success! The ladies behind us didn't have a problem with two more people hopping on the ferry in front of them.
Okay. We're almost there. Just across the channel.
I had originally planned to propose in front of the fireworks display. But no. Not after this epic quest. The only way to redeem our honor as men was for me to do something bold - offer her this water, the product of a failed yet epic 3-hour 2-borough quest, say to hell with the water, and give her the ring.
By this time the ladies had tired of life at Fort Jay. They left the perfect serenity of our fortified picnic ground to climb tress, learn to walk on stilts and take photographs of flowers. Huff - women. I was distraught. I wanted to propose right there under that tree in that fort. Head down, I bolted back to the picnic area, quickly re-unpacked out picnic, offered her the water and then suggested we get renter's insurance.
"What for?" she asked.
I got on one knee.
"For this thing. Would you marry me?"
I popped open the ring case. We were both dressed for hot weather, sporting NY Mets and Brooklyn Dodgers baseball caps. We were both red-faced and thirsty. She shed a single little tear and said "Yes!"
And that ladies and gentlemen is the long and convoluted story of how I became Ms. Maria's Husband-Elect. There weren't any fireworks and I didn't pay a crop duster to write "Will you marry me?" in the sky. But really, I wouldn't have it any other way. ...don't think she would either. And just for good measure:

Fig 5

Being a Treatise Against Internet Conversion

2010-06-27T23:26:00.008-04:00

I fear that the internet may be broken. Being a degree-holding Time Traveler from the University of Stony Brook, I am obsessed with the conversion of measurements. Just think, the most infinitesimally small miscalculation could see a chrononaut wishing to knock back a few Singapore Slings with Napoleon could end up smack in the middle of a wooly mammoth hunt in the Pleistocene Era. Imagine my shock - nay, my HORROR - when I chanced upon these very different results when researching an EXTREMELY important conversion when dealing with Time Travel:

Light years per century to furlongs per fortnight

Why is this conversion so vital? It's a long story, but I am willing to share it with you. A number of steam punks (who were also LARPers, incidentally) from the year 2012 accidentally built a real time machine out of really cool looking rusty gears from nearby junk yards and a few antique camera lenses from a garage sale in Red Hook. By coincidence, their maiden journey landed them at the first International Convention of Time Travelers and Chrononauts held in 802,701 C.E.. Not wanting to break from character during the panel on Feasible Speed Limits in the Time Vortex, the group of 11 hipsters clad in their finest alternative-history Victorian Era finery filibustered for the standardization of the Furlongs per Fortnight measurement. Grumblings from actual time travelers from the Victorian Era (who thought the measurement impractical) and from Zandquazer the Magnificent, Space-Sultan of Planet Glaucqqaatl-Omega 8 (who had never heard of the furlong) were drowned in a sea of the many who hopped on the steam punk bandwagon after promises of laudanum-infused absinthe martinis from the 11 gate crashers. Since then, it has been the very chic thing to set one's space-time speedometer to furlongs per fortnight. But we serious time travelers know better and use the far more practical light years per century. Still, when dealing with Time Cops (you'll remember that Franklin Roosevelt was himself a Time Cop) it is necessary to quickly convert one's practical measure of speed with its fashionable counterpart.

That said, let me show you what my research wielded. First, I input the conversion into the popular Google search engine. Here are the results:

GOOGLE

For those too lazy to follow the link, Google claims 1 Light year/century is equal to 1.8026175 × 10^10 furlongs/fortnight.

Compare this to the results given to me by Bill Gates' Bing:

BING

Lazy people: 1 Light year/century = 1.8038522 × 10^10 furlongs/fortnight

That is a discrepancy of .0012346 × 10^10 furlongs/fortnight! So outrageous a difference could very well cause a time traveller to skip off of a wormhole and into a supermassive black hole to GOD KNOWS WHERE in the UNIVERSE! The implications of that are too mind-boggling to even begin to comprehend. My present theory as to this potentially lethal difference of opinion may have something to do with one of the search engines not properly accounting for leap years - either neglecting them entirely or forgetting that we skip Leap Year Day each century on years that end in 00. Who knows, perhaps this problem comes down to a difference of Leap Seconds!

Now, I am no mathematician, so I fear that I must outsource my problem. I implore all competent and able-minded readers to convert light years per century to furlongs per fortnight, neatly showing me the conversions and work they have done. He or she who first submits the correct calculations will receive a GRAND PRIZE of an expertly crafted sonnet about him or her written by ME, an Honest-to-Goodness Baron of the Principality of Sealand. Wow, I realized I haven't told people about my baronhood. That will have to wait. For now - BEGIN CALCULATING!

Wherein - Good Lord, I Do Believe John Hodgman Just "Tweeted" My Web Log!

2010-06-23T14:06:00.005-04:00

It has come to my attention via an email from a complete stranger that John Hodgman, a person that I hold in no small esteem has used the social networking site Twitter to share my post about Oscar the Grouch being a TIME LORD. Imagine my current embarrassment. Here my favorite humorist has seen fit to acknowledge my understated brilliance, and I have not posted since April, failing even to complete the epic DISNEY SONG VOTE.
But then I reflect - some of the finest works of art remain incomplete. There's Stuart's portrait of George Washington:

There's Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
[picture not found]
And now there's Willie & Maria's Epic Disney Song Bracket.
It is now for the annals of history to decide upon its brilliance, though I may comment that anything containing a portrait of Jerry Orbach deserves any self-respecting museum's admiration.
I suppose I should offer a more recent glimpse into my life. I have recently applied to be a full-time teacher of History at the Bronx Urban Assembly Studio School for Writers and Artists at Casita Maria. Up to now, after a long and arduous battle with the New York City Department of Education, I have been a substitute teacher at various schools throughout the Mythical Kingdom of Brooklyn and the Bronx, a borough famous only for a steroid-imbued baseball team that has won to this date 937 World's Series championships and six Stanley Cups, though their claims to these hockey accolades are contentious at best.*
God-willing I will succeed in landing this position, as it has been a long-term goal of mine to teach children about the gross omissions in history textbooks, like these:

General Douglas MacArthur, the celebrated American general that conquered the Pacific Theater, was in fact a cyborg whose main fuel source consisted of corn cob pipes
Bob Dylan was the Second President of the Confederate States of America and penned All Along the Watchtower as a tribute to Abraham Lincoln
Christopher Columbus did not think the world round, but rather shaped like a neatly trimmed mustache

I have such a wealth of historical knowledge that I literally fear over-filling my students' brains with hard facts.
I assure you that given the current circumstances, I will have to update more frequently. And even if I don't, people may still witness Maria's and my culinary BRILLIANCE as we find out how many ways to serve the dozens of heads of lettuce we receive each week from our local Community Supported Agricultural share in Crown Heights.

*The New York [Name Withheld]s, formerly the New York Highlanders, formerly the Baltimore Orioles claimed the Stanley Cup Titles in 1620, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, and 2011 seasons. A little known clause in the team's charter declares them the victor in every Stanley Cup Championship in the immediate following year. And in 1620, well that was just a fluke and the Canadiens' goaltender at the time was a known alcoholic.

Wherein We Vote: Part the Second, Round the Second... AND I BOYCOTT!

2010-04-17T16:12:00.006-04:00

One of my favorite episodes of Iron Chef took place on May 21, 1999. In a nine-episode stretch, Chairman Kaga's Iron Chefs went 3 and 6. Outraged, the eccentric trillionaire with a penchant for Liberace's hand-me-downs boycotted the next match, leaving "Dr." Yukio Hattori to host the program. Confused and embarrassed, Hattori-san revealed the appalling secret ingredient - SUCKLING PIG. And so, television history was made. Chairman Kaga was found lurking in the shadows, daintily sipping champagne from a crystal flute. Iron Chef Chen Kenichi fried a whole pig head in a wok. And yes, I share this historical event with you dear readers:

Why would I take all this time to recount to you this awesomely powerful story? Frankly, I am outraged. Let me tell you why:
Argument 1: Is no one even cognizant of the fact that JERRY ORBACH (a.k.a. Det. Lenny Briscoe) sang "Be Our Guest" in Beauty and the Beast? Just look at his reaction to your huge mistake, voters!

Argument 2: BE PREPARED IS THE FINEST SONG PENNED BY ANYONE IN THE EMPLOY OF THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY IN THE LAST 20 YEARS! Music by SIR Elton John. Lyrics by SIR Timothy Miles Bindon Rice. British nobility, dear voters! Not only that, the song has so much intensity that Jeremy Irons was rendered unable to finish singing the song and thus Jim Cummings (a.k.a. Darkwing Duck) had to replicate his voice in order to complete it.
In short, I am very upset with all of you and will thus dress like my hero, the enigmatic Chairman Kaga, and lurk in the shadows drinking champagne as you vote on the next round. Here is Maria with the decidedly UN-Happy Recap. Dearest?

Wow, honey. That was...special. Not all of the results in this vote were unhappy, at least not for me, but they were most certainly tense, and will elicit more commentary!

-"Be a Man" barely edged out "Be Our Guest," inciting boos from the rafters, but I sympathize. It was a tough choice, and I'm not sad. I'm just glad that Jerry Orbach isn't around to see the results. (Too soon?) Anyway, "Be a Man" will face "Gaston" in the Sweet 16, which as we know, eliminated Willie's favorite song from the competition. WILL THE DRAMA EVER END?
-"Friend Like Me" won a decisive victory over "Hakuna Matata" and will be matched up with...wait. Another tie? Nobody could determine a winner between "A Whole New World" and "Under the Sea"?! This is the one that made me outraged, but luckily the internet agreed that "A Whole New World" was the better choice, and so it will live to see another round.
-"Heigh Ho" and "When You Wish Upon a Star" were both strong competitors, but it's "Heigh Ho" that will advance to the Sweet 16, against "Once Upon a Dream," which defeated another tough competitor in "When I See an Elephant Fly." It's tough, my friends, but imagine how hard it will be when it's the final 2!
-Finally, "Bear Necessities" proved to be the favorite Jungle Book song over "I Wanna Be Like You," and will meet "Cruella De Vil" in the Sweet 16, which beat out "Bella Notte."

To find the other eight participants in the Sweet 16, we must now continue Round 2 with our remaining brackets, the "Mary Poppins Bracket" and the miscellaneous "Walt Disney Bracket." With our famed announcer Willie lurking in the shadows, unable to provide you with the pomp and circumstance of his bombastic prose, I guess all I can say is "allez cuisine." Or something. So yeah, you'll have until Monday at 11:59 PM to vote on these songs. And here they are now!

From the Mary Poppins Bracket:

And from the Walt Disney Bracket:

Have fun, everybody! Hopefully Willie will stop sulking after this one.

The Disney Bracket Abideth - ENTER ROUND II

2010-04-13T19:21:00.003-04:00

Exceptional turnout last time - let's see if we can't get even more people to vote this time. Well everyone has voted on all 64 Songs in this Tournament of Disney. I was somewhat surprised with just how heated and close some of these polls were. In fact, we had a BIT of a problem in the contest that pitted The Nightmare Before Christmas' "This is Halloween" and the beloved "Scrooge" from The Muppet Christmas Carol in what can only be called a Christmas Grudge Match.

Since the poll has closed, I don't mind voicing my own opinion, which is that any song containing the line, "No crust of bread for those in need / No cheeses for us meeses" is vastly superior to any other conceivable song. That said, Maria in her unfathomable wisdom came up with what I consider a FAIR & BALANCED™ method for choosing the winner of this deadlocked vote. She entered the name of the movie from which the movie hailed in parentheses followed by the song's title in parentheses (i.e. "Muppet Christmas Carol" "Scrooge") in the Google search engine. The song that produced the most results won - so congratulations to Tim Burton. Cough. Hack. Anyway, this is the method that will be used in the event of another tie in the future. Maria will now provide us with the rest of the recap.

-"It's a Small World" was found superior to the "Mouseketeers" theme, and will meet "Carrying the Banner" in Round 2, which ousted "Now is the Time."
-Pretty much only Willie voted for the Carousel of Progress, so unsurprisingly, "King of New York" will face "Feels Like Christmas" in Round 2, which edged out "Grim Grinning Ghosts."
-"This is Halloween" moves on to Round 2, as we learned above, along with "You Got a Friend in Me," which beat "Seize the Day."
-Finally, "Yo Ho" barely squeezed out "After Today," and will square off against "What's This" in Round 2, which won against "The Sorcerer's Apprentice."

So now we move on to the long-awaited Round 2! Things will move faster from here on out! In Round 2, you will vote on two brackets' worth of match-ups at a time, which will still end up being 8 polls. These will be tougher decisions, friends, but you will still have only 3 days to vote. These next polls will close Friday night (4/16) at 11:59 PM.

As a side note, I realized that due to my (still Maria btw) lack of knowledge about brackets and college basketball, I messed up on the seed numbers, (i.e. the winner of Seed 1 vs. Seed 16 should be paired against the winner of 8 vs. 9 in Round 2. I put it against the winner of 2 vs. 15. Oops.) BUT, since the seeds were randomly assigned anyway, IT DOESN'T MATTER. I APOLOGIZE FOR NOTHING! So yeah, it might look a little weird.

Here are your ROUND TWO match-ups from "The Lion King Bracket":

And here are your match-ups from "The Snow White Bracket":

Some of these are nail-biters! Enjoy!

Disney Song Vote: Part the First. Round the Fourth.

2010-04-08T20:24:00.003-04:00

I am somewhat disappointed with voter turnout in this last round. It appeared that people were unfamiliar with the songs and therefore didn't bother to vote, even after Maria's brilliant suggestion that voters actually listen to the songs. THIS WILL NOT ABIDE! Let's take a look at the results with Maria, shall we?

If my happy recap is less than stellar this week, well, it's because I had to go back to work. :(

-"Zip-a-dee doo dah" beat "Feed the Birds and will be pitted against "Supercalifrag..." in round 2, which beat "Happy Little Working Song."
-"How You Know" won over "Let's Get Together" and will face "Substitutiary Locomotion" in round 2, which beat "The Ugly Bug Ball."
-People just didn't appreciate Burl Ives enough to vote for "Summer Magic," so "Portobello Road" will face off against "Spoonful of Sugar" in round 2, which beat "Let's go fly a Kite," in which many agreed was one of the most heart-wrenching match-ups we've had so far.
-Finally, "Step in Time" beat "Laughing Place" and will meet "Chim Chim Cher-ee" in round 2, which beat "The Life I Lead." So much Mary Poppins, so little time.

This week, we present a wholly enigmatic bracket. Due entirely to our inability to place these songs into a single coherent genre, we are calling this the Walter Elias Disney Bracket. These songs include themes from rides at Disney World (including both theme songs from the various incarnations of the Carousel of Progress!), a Jim Henson production, and several selections from films released by Disney's various affiliates and et cetera. We apologize for not having these polls for you yesterday, but life got in the way of our side project. How sad when such a thing happens. Anyhow, here are our new polls. You will have until Sunday at 11:59 PM, so make it count!

Yes, friends! Disney owned the Muppets at this point!

Several people commented on the lack of Fantasia songs to which we responded, "Really, people? That's classical music." However, we found it in our hearts to include "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," as it was our belief that Disney really popularized this piece of music and made it its own, so much so that it was even reprised in Fantasia 2000.

And that's it! Now you've seen all 64 songs! After we get the results of this vote we can move on to ROUND TWO, where we will whittle the results down to 16! For now, enjoy the voting!

Round One, Part Three

2010-04-04T15:35:00.003-04:00

First of all, I am very upset with all of you for not voting for Oo-de-lally, which is one of the finest songs ever written regardless of its status as a Disney song. Notwithstanding - and hush Maria who is currently underscoring the magnificence of Oo-de-lally, a song much better than Colors of the Wind - on this Easter Sunday, let us see the results of our latest poll. Here's Maria with the Happy Recap:

-"Heigh Ho" triumphed over "Phony King of England," and will face off against "When You Wish Upon a Star," in Round 2, which came out ahead of "Rescue Aid Society." An epic battle between two timeless Disney classics is sure to ensue!
-"Once Upon a Dream" IS CLEARLY BETTER THAN "Oo-de-lally," and will meet "When I See An Elephant Fly" in Round 2, which beat "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat."
-The Songs from the Jungle Book ousted the songs of Cinderella, which means that Round 2 will see a matchup of "Bear Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You." Drama abounds!
-Last but not least, "Cruella De Vil" won UNANIMOUSLY over "A Very Merry Unbirthday," and will be up against "Bella Notte" in Round 2, which won a decisive victory over "You Can Fly."

We come now to a rather mysterious bracket. We're calling it the Mary Poppins bracket as songs from this absolutely brilliant movie account for approximately half of contestants herein. What do you expect from a movie was ranked with the likes of My Fair Lady and Dr. Strangelove in the Best Picture category in 1964? These are generally movies that contain at least half live action. Some of the more obscure motion pictures mentioned in this bracket include Summer Magic, the ORIGINAL Parent Trap, and the ever-hated and censored Song of the South! On the subject of this movie, I have been on a near-constant crusade to see the entirety of this picture, as I have only seen clips from Zip-a-dee-doo-dah and Laughin' Place. It seems almost a crime that one of the most popular amusement park rides in Disney World, Splash Mountain, is based on a movie that almost no one has seen as it has been deemed too racially insensitive. Based on what I have seen of the movie, the storyteller, Uncle Remus, exhibits no more racial stereotypes than the portrayal of foreigners in the Indiana Jones series (KALI MA!, Rolls-Royce Phantom II, chilled monkey's brains, "Feel like fortune cookies, Doctah Jones!"). C'mon! Let us see the movie!

This digression has lasted far too long. Let us to the polls! Tally-ho!

I noticed that in the last batch of voting, some polls had more votes than others. We urge you to search for these songs on youtube or grooveshark if you are unfamiliar with any of the songs, since we want to have as many votes as possible. You will have until April 6 at 11:59 PM.

Now vote! Tell all your friends! (Seriously, tell your friends to vote.)

Also, happy Easter, if that's your thing. It's ours. We are currently full of lamb and traditional Greek treats, and are awaiting dessert. If Easter is not your thing, enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Rock the Vote Results and Next Bracket

2010-03-31T20:35:00.001-04:00

Since none of the polls were particularly close races, we decided to close the polls early. We can do things like that. Wanna fight about it? It's like how the news reports an election winner--we're calling this one. The funny thing about our results for The Lion King Bracket is that all of our top (and randomly chosen) seeds came out ahead. I wonder if that will happen for our other brackets?

So, without further ado, here are YOUR WINNERS OF ROUND 1:
-"Be a Man" ousted "Ratigan" and will face off against "Be Our Guest" in Round 2, which defeated "Why Should I Worry." That one is sure to be a nail-biter!
-"Gaston" won over "Out There" and will be pitted against "Be Prepared" which whooped the butt of "I Won't Say I'm in Love" in Round 2. A battle of the villain songs!
-"Hakuna Matata" bumped off "Go the Distance" and will meet "Friend Like Me" in Round 2, which was conclusively victorious over "Colors of the Wind" (much to Maria's dismay).
-Finally, "A Whole New World" earned the best love ballad spot over "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" (sorry, Sir Elton), and will face "Under the Sea" in Round 2, which was deemed to be the best Little Mermaid song over "Part of Your World."

It was a fun race, but WE CAN DO BETTER NEXT TIME! Tell all your friends to help us in our quest. SPEAKING OF WHICH...

"The time has come," the William said,
"To vote on other things;
Of woman after puppy coats,
Of a monkey who's a king
And of a drunken elephant
And seven dwarfs that sing."

Let us prepare ourselves for our next venture into judging the finest Disney song of all time. For the next three days we will explore The Snow White Bracket. These are all those timeless Disney classics that made Walter E. Disney the Emperor of the United States and (by extension) the World. Again, these are his animated films - so for those chomping at the bit for live action, you will have to wait! Shall we? You will have until April 3rd at 11:59 PM for these, so think about it! This is Maria's favorite bracket and since her favorite Disney song is on the line, she wants it to be a good one!

(We tried something new with the spacing, but still can't get it quite right. That's what happens when you don't feel like paying for an account on a poll website.)

Which Disney Song will reign supreme?

April Madness: The Quest to find the Best Disney Song EVAR

2010-03-27T22:07:00.004-04:00

Ah March. The cherry trees are blossoming in Washington, D.C., a district so angry and spiteful that they saw fit to stamp "Taxation Without Representation" onto their license plates. Maria and I skipped the final line to enter the Charters of Freedom Rotunda because I was able to correctly identify person #11 in Barry Faulkner's mural.
March also means it's impossible to turn on a television or switch on a radio without hearing Dick Vitale's shouting himself hoarse about college basketball. Well, since UConn hasn't made it to the Big Dance, the hell with it all. And baseball season is just around the corner. To HELL with it all!
While idly gathering the last few things for our trip to Our Nation's Capital, I wondered aloud what my favorite Disney song of all time was. Because of the nature of this entry, I will not share the information, but suddenly Maria was struck - WHAT IN THE WORLD IS HER FAVORITE DISNEY SONG?! How could she possibly judge which Timeless Classic was better than the others? In this bracket-fraught month, a decision was made: Maria and I would team up to create the ULTIMATE BRACKET SHOWDOWN OF ULTIMATE DESTINY and behold - we have compiled a list of SIXTY-FOUR Disney Songs that we will bracket off and have you, YES YOU DEAR READER, vote for to decide: THE BEST DISNEY SONG EVAR!
RVLES AND REGVLATIONS:
1.) Only one vote per person. Vote more than once, and DEATH SQUADS FROM A POST-APOCALYPTIC FUTURE will be sent to separate your reproductive organs from the rest of your body in an extremely unpleasant way.
2.) Polls will be open for THREE DAYS. Use your time wisely. There is no penalty for guessing. Erase mistakes cleanly and make no stray marks on the Scantron.
3.) You may try to sway others' votes in the comments sections, but keep it clean. (Not strictly enforced by hired nuns with knuckle-bruising rulers.) You can also feel free to tell as many others as you'd like to vote in this poll.
4.) We will be presenting match-ups from one bracket at a time. Example: You will vote in 8 match-ups in the first four rounds, 4 match-ups in the next four rounds, &c. until one song is crowned King/Queen.
5.) Seed numbers were chosen randomly in the following fashion: Maria and I got terribly drunk on butterscotch schnapps, stripped to our skivvies, and threw darts around our hotel room, then put all the songs in a computer which randomly selected the seeds.
6.) Don't yell at us if the song names aren't exactly correct. This is already taking a long time without us having to look up every single song.
7.) If you need a visual, we will post a COMPLETE and ACCURATE graphical representation of the brackets once all of the songs have been revealed, but for now, the rest are a surprise.
Is that clear ladies and gentlemen? Very well then... LET US BEGIN! ...man I wish I could have inserted the sound of a horse race gate opening right here. Maria wishes that it was the guy who says LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!

ROUND ONE:
Allow us to present you with "The Lion King Bracket." These songs are from the animated films indicative of OUR generation, from 1984 to the present. Sherman Brothers need not apply. Polls will close at 11:59PM on March 31. Choose wisely, my vikings! (We apologize for the space between polls, but we are amateur bloggers after all... keep going 'til you reach the end!)

(A Battle of the Love Ballads!)

We have some tough decisions ahead of us, but what awaits in the other three brackets? Vote well, and find out soon!

In Which I Suffer from Olympic Fever...

2010-02-23T15:56:00.019-05:00

I make no excuses. I absolutely and unabashedly adore the Olympic Games. Every two years the nations of the world - for the most part - set aside their petty differences (nuclear threats, bioterrorism, child slavery, &c.) and do silly thinks like throw spiky sticks, strap planks of wood to their feet and jump from terrifying heights, strategically slide rocks down ice, and, in China's case, compel 10-year old slave girls to steal medals from the UNITED STATES of AMERICA. How do I treat these games? Religiously. Rarely does my television change from any of NBC's networks of affiliates. In 1996, we procured tickets to several sporting events during the Games of the XXVI Olympiad in Atlanta, Georgia. Those events included Football (Men's Korea v. Ghana and Women's Norway v. Brazil), Judo, Indoor Volleyball, Women's Basketball (USA v. Either Japan or Australia), and Baseball (Italy v. United States). Now I look back on a horrible photograph of my sister and myself standing in front of the OLYMPIC FLAME, in our finest finery the Nineties could offer (PHOTO NOT AVAILABLE), and I shed a tear. Truly the Olympics have been a part of the OLSEN-HOEK way of life for at least two decades now.I struggled to share just how I feel about the Olympics with other people. Normal human beings crave to watch ACTUAL sporting events like Gymnastics, Hockey, Track & Field, Football, and (GOD FORBID) Dick Button's sport of Figure Skating. I enjoy these events (figure skating excluded), but the mania that is my Olympic obsession will see me actively watching and rooting for teams in Biathlon (affectionately called the Norwegian Drive-By), Badminton, Water Polo, Archery, &c.. No person in his or her right mind should enjoy watching these events. And I'm sure if there were a sport called Wheelchair-bound Octogenarian Lawn Croquet, I would stare agape at the television, eyes as wide as the Olympic Rings. It was not until this year that Stephen Colbert truly encapsulated how I feel about the Olympics:

I do not hide my affection and adoration of THE AMERICAN EMPIRE. Shaw said, "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." This is true, though it does not apply to any human being born outside of THE UNITED STATES of AMERICA. Scientists* have concluded** that THE UNITED STATES of AMERICA is indeed the GREATEST COUNTRY on PLANET EARTH. And as such, it is our civic duty to crush as many other countries' dreams and aspirations towards medal contention as is humanly possible. Indeed, an original draft of the DECLARATION of INDEPENDENCE states, in Jefferson's own meticulous hand, "...that we are endowed by our Poffibly Exiftant CREATOR with certain un- or in-alienable TRUTHS, that among thefe are the Rightf to LIFE, LIBERTY, and DECIDEDLY MORE OLYMPIC MEDALS THAN CHINA and THE SOVIET UNION." Hey, you can't make this stuff up. And we have held fast to Jefferson's lofty dream. BEHOLD:
Combined Olympic Medal Leaders (Accurate as of 5:17 Eastern Time 23 February 2010)

UNITED STATES of AMERICA - 2,511
Союз Советских Социалистических Республик - 1,204
中華人民共和國 - 419

Thanks to Mr. Jefferson (himself a member of the 1904 American Roque Team and the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" American Hockey Team) we have DOUBLE the medal count of our nearest rival! God Bless the USA!
What Red-White-and-Blue-Blooded American doesn't dream of one day standing atop the podium, a solid pound of gold and silk adorning his or her neck, forgetting the lyrics of the NATIONAL ANTHEM? Maria tells me she had such a dream... possibly of outperforming Dick Button and receiving THREE consecutive Gold Medals in Figure Skating. And I have no doubt that with her gumption and magic that she could achieve it. As for myself, I can only imagine myself as a Luger or a Curler. My father had a suggestion:
"Y'know, you and Derek should form your own Luge Pairs team."
Anyone who knows the both of us should laugh about now. BUT LAUGH NOT! With my girth and Derek's terrifying countenance that would strike fear in even the most frozen German or Norwegian heart, I confidently aver that we could be in medal contention were we to participate in the 2014 Sochi Olympics (which we would not, instead boycotting the event being that it is located in the former Soviet Union). Still, Derek's father came up with an even better idea via Facebook:
" U and Derek should enter the combined curling-luge or cluge. In it one contestant pushes the other downhill on a sled hoping to displace some rocks with him."
I was immediately struck with the elegant brilliance of this beautiful new sport of Cluge. What better way than to combine Luge's suicidal danger of going down a sloped sheet of ice at horrifying speeds with the obesity-friendly thinkin' sport of Curling. I picture myself enjoying good Brandy out of a snifter, then strategically kicking Derek down a Luge course as he lets out a piercing, terrifying scream, curdling even the sturdiest Swiss or Austrian's blood. I'd take the stairs to the bottom of the course in time to sweep the way clear so that he could move some Canadian's rock off the button for a double take out. I only wish my artistic skills could render what this event would looks like, but rest assured, our uniforms would not be mistaken. I picture blue shawl cardigans (something like Paul Gross wore in Men With Brooms) with enormous American flags on the back, Chuck Taylors converted to curling shoes, a luge designed by the reanimated corpse of Frank Lloyd Wright, our non-Human curling rocks fashioned of genuine Tiffany Pearl-studded Black Hills Gold with Stained Glass Embellishments. Hell, even if we somehow lost (WHICH, given Derek's and my own divine Cluge skill, I DOUBT ENTIRELY) we could melt-down our rocks and make even BETTER medals out of them. Indeed, Cluge had the capacity to oust Baseball as THE GREAT AMERICAN PASTIME...
I think I need to telephone Coca-Cola and McDonald's for some sponsorship... that is after I declare myself President of the IOCC. THAT'S RIGHT, FOLKS - another title for me!
Until Derek and I receive our Platinum Medals by gallantly defeating the Former Soviet Union in Cluge on their Home Turf in Sochi, Boycotting It All the While...
I am forever...
IOCC PRESIDENT-Commissioner the Reverend Doctor Mayor William C. Olsen-Hoek, Esq, BTT
Stay tuned next time when we examine SKY MALL.

* - i.e. ME
** - read: Strongly Believe

How Not to Write an Operetta: Being an Indictment Against Neil Gaiman's Cousin

2010-01-21T10:47:00.006-05:00

Preamble: I had planned my next entry to be about living in the FUTURE and my many GRIEVANCES owing to the fact that I do not yet have a flying car nor a silver space suit. Yet, friends, I found something even more magical and possibly hilarious to discuss with you today.
Rarely does one have to consider if spending no money to attend a concert is a sound investment. Provided that the musicians at least give it a good college try, one really cannot walk away from the situation saying they had been slighted in any real way. If the performance be miserable, what has the person lost but a few hours time and learned a valuable lesson: don't see that awful ensemble ever again. Needless to say, dear reader, myself and sundry compatriots learned a VALUABLE LESSON on January 17 of the FUTURISTIC YEAR OF 2010!
January 2010. Everyone has welcomed the New Year - I by screaming Auld Lang Syne from the rooftop of one of the less - ahem - friendly neighborhoods of Brooklyn. A few days later, Empress Maria (TITLE BESTOWED BY ME ON THE GOOD FAITH OF NATURE AND OF NATURE'S GOD) and I received an email from our dear friend Sonja telling us that the Knickerbocker Orchestra was hosting a night of free music, the highlight of which would be Neil Gaiman, the celebrated author of a few of my favorite books including Coraline, narrating Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. Maria harbors no pretensions about her love for this piece, and immediately booked us to attend. I was more excited to see Neil Gaiman in person, if only for the chance to bestow upon him the MAYORAL MEDAL of EXCELLENCE for his creation of Neverwhere and his patronage which allowed Susanna Clarke to write Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. With anticipation written in our hearts, we set out on the 17th to the production.
The World Financial Center, with its marble floors framing several live palm trees whose sole source of photosynthetic sunlight is an architecturally stunning glass roof, a decadent palace dedicated to the GLORIOUS credo of our Great Nation: "America: Fuck yeah!" This was the chosen scene. Upon looking at the handbill, we should have sensed that something rotten was in the State of New York - or should I say NEW AMSTERDAM? (This is an example of foreshadowing.)
The production began with the introduction of Gary S. Fagin, the fabled conductor of such masterworks as John Adams in Amsterdam: A Song for Abigail and The Space, whose haunting and eloquent melodies have no doubt washed upon the porches of only the Noblest ears of the Crowned Heads of Europe - or some such shit. I urge visiting his website and listening to the clip of John Adams.
The production began with something by Peter Tchaikovsky. At this point signal flares should have gone off, gongs should have sounded, and messenger ships released from their ports. I here avow that I ABHOR ALL WORKS OF TCHAIKOVSKY, owing to my attendance of his opera Mazeppa at the Metropolitan Opera. Approximately 4 hours into my attempt to pay attention to this affront to good taste, the 3rd act of 5 ended with a girl running around with a severed head in her hands - AND THE SWEDES DIDN'T EVEN HAVE THE COMMON COURTESY TO COME IN AN KILL THEM ALL YET! This was no way to begin a production. I should have gathered my belongings and slapped Gary Fagin on his talentless face on my way out. BUT I RESTRAINED MYSELF.
Next came Up and Down by Duke Ellington. Gary Fagin was so pretentious that he listed Ellington's full name on the handbill, with the more famous "Duke" in parentheses. Really Gary Fagin? And how was it? ...I was not amused. Jazz conducted by a pasty white man just doesn't work - except when the pasty white man is LEONARD BERNSTEIN, and I here provide evidence!
Finally! The moment we had all been waiting for! The reason that there were so many strollers and young couples and nerds hipsterly playing Tetris on their fossilized GameBoy Pockets. Gary Fagin introduced Neil Gaiman - HIS COUSIN!
AHA! ...A-HA!
So, Gary Fagin, you thought you were so clever. I pictured a caped Gary Fagin sitting in his subterranean reinforced concrete writers garret, a crown of wild, tousled hair, madly banging away at a pipe organ, screaming: "How can I lure people to my atrocious work. I know! I will bait them with my famous cousin. OH HO HO HO!"
And what can be said of what happened. It was clear that Neil Gaiman hadn't slept since 1998 and wasn't given sufficient time to practice - or simply didn't FEEL like practicing. I certainly have cousins I wouldn't go out of my way to send a Christmas card, much less offer my vastly superior talent to support their orchestra. Yeah. I said it. In a nutshell... it was pleasant.
NEXT!
The Unanswered Question by Cha - oh who give a shit! The highlight of this atrocity was Gary Fagin pretentiously summoning a less-than-stellar trumpet to play some hackneyed modernist something-or-other. At this point I was getting glares from a painfully sex-starved woman in front of me who thought she was in the presences of brilliance (barring my own brilliance, naturally). Verdict: I've heard sweeter songs from teething children on airplanes.
And finally - the CROWN JEWEL of this catastrophe of the musical world - the very reason Gary Fagin summoned his famous cousin to take and hour out of his busy schedule on his way to the Golden Globes in support of Coraline. It was a special night. This marked the WORLD PREMIERE of Gary S. Fagin's:
AND BOLD TO FALL WITHAL - HENRY HUDSON IN THE NEW WORLD
I here recommend taking painkillers or getting yourself a good stiff spiritous drink.
Ready?
PART I: DEPARTURE
Gary Fagin introduced his tenor soloist for the WORLD PREMIERE of this opera based on the travels of Henry Hudson in North America. A baton raised. A pair of lungs filled with air. And then...
SHAILSH! SHAILSH! SHAILSH!
This skinny ginger tenor decided to emulate Colm Wilkinson (you know, the original Jean Valjean), right down to the badly trimmed beard. For those unfamiliar with Colmish, I will translate:
SAILS! SAILS! SAILS!
It may be easier for you to imagine Sean Connery singing it.
Apparently it's Gary Fagin's modus operandi to begin every song he writes by repeating a word three times. As proof, here is the opening of John Adams' libretto:
ABIGAIL! ABIGAIL! ABIGAIL!
The song continued, listing all the precious things European sailors sought getting faster via a mythical Northwest Passage.
SAFFRON! CINNAMON! SILK! RUBIES! JADE! AND GOLD!
Gary Fagin! Cellos in the background and shouting the names of things does not an operetta make! He went on to sing to us the exploits of Magellan:

"Sail west to reach the East.
Columbus tried.
Magellan's men proved it so.
West, then south, and further south,
Round the treacherous Cape,
Through the Pacific's calm seas."

Hold on a second. Magellan began his voyage from Portugal. If you were granted a caravel from the Royal Family and proceeded to sail west only to turn south and then... go south again, I'm relatively sure that you would run right into Antarctica. Let's ask the Panel of Experts. Panel of Experts?
THEY AGREE!
The cliché parade didn't stop! Each movement was separated by a small introduction... YEAH, like little title cards in a Stanley Kubrick film!
"Year 1609; the thirtieth of May. Henry Hudson, commanding the Half Moon, sails once more into the unknown."
Gary Fagin! You could've said May 30th, 1609!
PART II: TERRA CONTINENS (He added a footnote saying that this means "continent." Do you think Neil Gaiman would put such a footnote in his books? Hm...)
In which he describes the American continent!

"A deep, wide River [unnecessary capitalization - this isn't Germany Gary Fagin!]
Teeming with life:
Foot-wide oysters,
Ten-pound lobsters,
Salmon beyond number,
Magnificent abundance!"

A foot-wide oyster? I will dismiss this and assume you meant foot-long oysters, only to counter that with a reading from Mark Kurlansky's The Big Oyster: "On the bottom [of the riverbed] the very largest ones, described as 'giant oysters,' measure eight to ten inches. This suggests that the Dutch reports of foot-long oysters were ... slightly exaggerated." Also, the optimal size of a lobster for eating is between 1 and 2 pounds. Anything larger is too tough and requires too much dipping butter. Also - LOBSTERS DON'T LIVE IN FRESHWATER! OUTRAGEOUS!
PART III: ARRIVAL
Here Gary Fagin steals lyrics directly from the diary of First Mate Robert Jouet talking about trade with the local Indians. While I'm not sure where they got "Greene [sic] Tabaccco [sic]," it's still slightly cheap to use someone else's words for an entire half of a movement of your operetta.
Setting the tone for the Age of Colonial Expoloration (which, coincidentally, I hate teaching) he mentions a Native stealing a pillow and two shirts from the Half Moon only to be killed, offering this final thought: "O, harbinger of what's to come: / Temptation, Mistrust, Death." Let's move on. And get ready to be angry.
EPILOGUE
He chooses fascinating words to begin a conclusion:

"Three times Henry Hudson fails
To find the Northwest Passage.
The fourth attempt,
Abandoned in the Bay that bears his name,
He dies."

Gary Fagin... you just wrote an entire hour-long operetta about a failed explorer. Let's see what Henry Hudson actually did to warrant a river, a bay, a parkway and an operetta:
1.) Did not find the Northwest Passage
2.) Left adrift in a large Canadian bay by his crew
3.) That's... about... it.
And that's what history is - senselessly naming things after people who don't deserve it. Triborough Bridge? Why don't we call it The Robert F. Kennedy Bridge after senator who was 11-years old when the bridge opened. YEAH, that's the ticket! At least we can legitimize charging the taxpayers millions of dollars to change all the signage.
Then Gary Fagin lost me forever. I'm going to put dates next to the approximate times when these things happen. Ready?

"Forty years more,
As a spoil of war, [RHYME?! NOW?!]
New Amsterdam becomes New York [1674].
Towers rise, scrape the skies. [ca. 1902 - 1913]
One day two fall. [ca. September 11, 2001]"

Are you kidding me? Did Rudy Giuliani have a hand in writing this?! At this point a Good Taste Referee should have thrown a flag and called an Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalty. You wrote a painfully long piece of shit about Henry Hudson and then have the audacity to connect it to September 11?! Were you trying to draw a parallel between Hudson's downfall and that unforgettable September collapse of the World Trade Center, because I FAIL to see and refuse to acknowledge so shameful a connection. Not only that you skipped nearly 330 years of New York history to mention it! Nowhere is there mention of the Battle of New York, the Stock Market Crash, the invention of the Martini... NO! New York's history boils down to Henry Hudson and 9/11. Pitiful! Tasteless!
Now, you can't imagine how angry I was at this point. So angry that I had to laugh and bite my handbill, much to the dismay of the aforementioned sex-starved cobra who shot me icy looks - apparently oblivious to the fact that she had been subjected to one of the cheapest shots in history - a hack relying on the fame of his brilliant cousin to spoon feed bullshit to the brain-dead masses!
And that is why I need to be a teacher - if only to undo the watery history presented by uncultured no-talent idiots with no musical or lyrical inclinations whatsoever.
We then went to the Patriot Saloon to drown our sorrows - or rather explosions of gut-bursting laughter - in cheap beer, country-western music, and ladies dancing on a bar. Because even a dingy gin-joint like The Patriot is a more authentic American experience than being force-fed falsities and cheap, meaningless references to one of our greatest tragedies.

Wherein I Recall Some More Memorable Dreams...

2010-01-08T10:17:00.003-05:00

While on a recent ski (or in my case après-ski) trip to an area of New York designated on most modern maps as HERE BE DRAGONS, a conversation arose discussing dreams. The reader is no doubt familiar with my horrific, nightmarish, violent and hilarious dreams as he or she or it has already read my wonderfully written prophesy of what the New York Mets will wear in the FUTURE. How strange do these dreams get?
First of all, one of my recurring dreams is of an enormous theme park as large as Disney World and as twisted as Pierre Trudeau's wife (I will here give you time to check Wikipedia). In one dream, myself and a few companions were riding a roller coaster cum haunted mansion house in an enormous tree-filled atrium that reminded me of the common area of Hershey's Chocolate World in Pennsylvania. The ride sped violently and ultimately fell apart. When I revisited the theme park in a future dream, the atrium was closed down - cut off with yellow caution tape. Who preserves dreams in dreams, I ask you!
One of the more terrifying dreams I've ever had saw me inheriting a very large, modern looking house. It was of beautiful American architecture that I attribute to Wright in style, but this is only to someone who is uneducated in the various schools of architecture. Every room in the house had the shades have drawn down giving an air of almost constant twilight - neither night nor day. I was sitting down in the living room of this house that had been bequeathed to me by some fictitious relative until I became aware of someone breathing heavily in the dining room which was a small flight of stairs away. I looked up and saw a shadowy figure with unkempt hair - definitely a women. I was horrified. I suddenly became aware that the house was haunted. Imagine the deepened horror when I realized that I was in love with this phantasm that was haunting me. Terror and love staring at me - and suddenly rushing towards me, pinning me to the couch. I struggled away and began shouting for my grandmother, suddenly realizing this was a nightmare and that I needed to be woken up. I kept screaming - or trying to scream for her. When I finally forced myself awake and away from this terror, it took several minutes to calm my heartbeat and fall back asleep. The next morning:
Grandma: Were you screamin' for me last night mistuh? (She has a Brooklyn accent tempered by several decades of cigarette smoking.)
I: YES! Why didn't you come in and wake me up?!
Grandma: I dunno. I thawt you wuh dreamin'.
I: THANK YOU!
Let that be a lesson to you all - if you hear people screaming your name in agony in the night, you should immediately assume they are dreaming AND TAKE NO FURTHER ACTION!
Still, this dream takes a backseat to one of my favorite dreams that I woke up to and wrote down forthwith. I here recall it for the sake of those that wished to hear it told!
It somehow began with me in a Louisiana bayou. I had just emerged from a boat onto a gigantic plantation with torches lighting either side of the landfall. I could already recall in the dream that I had spoken with someone who warned me about the house and the voodoo magic that seethed from its ancient walls. It was supposedly owned by one of the most powerful voodoo mamas in all of the United States. The property was absolutely filled with cats, all of whom were supposedly spies who acted as her all seeing eyes. You could recognize which ones were under her spell because of the purplish glow of their eyes.
As I was approaching the decaying Spanish-moss covered house, I noticed a black cat sitting on the front porch with the most beautiful green eyes you could imagine. I realized that this cat had not yet fallen under an evil spell, so I resolved to rescue it before the Mama could curse it.
For some reason, as I was walking through some knee-length reeds figuring out what to do, I'd decided that [NAME WITHHELD]'s mother was the best person to speak to on the issue of this cat. As I was walking, the landscape changed to one of those fire lanes. You know, one of those perfect lines of grass cut into forests that have electrical lines running across them. You can see them carved on the sides of mountains for miles. I steadily marched up the hill, until I came to [NAME WITHHELD]'s mom's house.
When I got to the door, she recognized the cat as one who had been in the presence of the voodoo Mama, but told me I shouldn't have taken the cat away - that she would know of my theft and start seeking me. The best thing to do, she said, was to return the cat and actually challenge the Mama to free everyone of the curse she'd laid on them.
I'd decided to take the subway back to the bayou. It was an elevated train that went through a tremendous city that I almost cannot describe. The buildings had a golden glow, like how light shines off the Brooklyn Bridge in the morning. The city was certainly something of a ultramodern Brooklyn, filled with a mix of gothic and art deco architecture, stained glass adoring the more stately windows of the most beautiful buildings.
I noticed that the four people with me on the train seemed somewhat uncomfortable and strangely dressed - as if they were trying to dress like that. I asked them what was up.
They informed me that they were all superheroes. One was a tremendously strong partially mechanical black dude. Another was your typical Superman ripoff. Another was a woman who could fly and throw fireballs. The other one just wore a black coat, black hat, and black sunglasses - don't really know what his power was. They told me there had recently been a schism in the city, and that at least half the superheroes in the city had decided to become archvillains. Just as soon as he had told me this, the subway was under attack from a whole host of super-baddies! The subway crashed into the side of a building, and the superheroes told me to run for it and return the cat to the bayou. Amids lasers and fireballs and green energy bolts, I ran for the water until it calmed down and twilight began to fall and I reached the bayou once more. I placed the cat down, and he scurried off.
I went up the beautifully carved, crackly whitewashed door and pushed it open. What was inside obeyed no laws of physics. I could hear the Mama's voice telling me she was on the roof. The entire house was a chaotic labyrinth that would even make M.C. Escher drop his jaw and begin weeping. It was breezy and the world was falling apart, but I bolted for the attic, knowing that was the source of her misguided religious powers. I climbed up a stack of boxes and reached for the attic ladder --
And then I woke up laughing.
And that is ALL that can be said of that.
In other news, I am considering brewing my own sake under the brand name: Uncle Willie's Good Times Sake - the perfect compliment to Uncle Willie's Good Times Fried Chicken.
Until I am bored again...

Baccalaureate of Time Travel

2009-12-22T19:03:00.003-05:00

As I have finally graduated after far too long a time period, I needed to have a little fun at my graduation ceremony, didn't I?
I can already hear your murmurings.
"Did he bring a flask of bourbon and keep a laudanum-soaked cotton ball in his cheek?"
"Did he bring a beach ball inflated with lithium to pep up the mood?"
"Did he steal the University President's speech and translate it entirely into Esperanto?"
I DID NONE OF THESE THINGS.
Upon first arriving wearing my finest Spanish Inquisition robes, as Stony Brook indeed thought scarlet a most appropriate color for graduation, I was given a card with my name and pertinent information on it. The card asked for a phonetic spelling of my name in case it was difficult to pronounce. At the bottom was a special area for "Other commendations."
I looked around the gymnasium where the candidates were convening. Some had a "Cum Laude" sticker attached in this area. Fewer had a "Magna Cum Laude" sticker there. And for those who favored fervent study over the occasional sip of alcohol on the weekends, "Summa Cum Laude." Now, dear readers, I am a man of no small character. Some have called me a FORMIDABLE HUMAN BEING! Am I not worthy of some sort of special commendation merely for my sheer wonderment? I DO!
On a whim I scribbled the words "Time traveler" in this area, and thought not another thing about it.
After a painfully long ceremony wherein a singer hit notes she only IMAGINED she could actually hit in the National Anthem and megahours slugged by during the Doctoral Hooding, the long awaited moment arrived. I handed my card to the lady at the microphone. And she firmly, clearly, energetically announced:
"WILLIAM OLSEN-HOECK..."
I here turned around to correct her, only to hear almost immediately:
"TIME TRAVELER!"
My complexion changed to the color of my stylish gown as I walked over to the President to received my much-deserved Baccalaureate of Time Travel Diploma. I had done it. I had successfully pulled a prank at graduation!
I met a person in the parking lot who was laughing about whoever added "Time Traveler" to his card. I confessed, receiving congratulations from the family, and the suggestion, "You should have put Time Lord."
Alas, ladies and gentlemen - apart from my snappy mode of dress, I share nothing in common with the famous Time Lord who flies about the universe in an outdated British Police Box. Still, I consider this one of the greatest successes of my life. And guess what - I HAVE ANOTHER TITLE TO ADD TO MY TITLERIFFIC NAME!
Until I receive my Doctorate of Theoretical Time Travel.
-Commissioner The Rev. Dr. Mayor William C. Olsen-Hoek, Esq., B. of Time Travel

In Which I Have a Nightmarish Prophesy...

2009-12-16T21:35:00.003-05:00

I had a most blood-curdling nightmare last night.
I dreamt that Maria, Kyla and myself scored tickets to opening day at Shea Stadium. The very fact that the Mets were still playing at the erstwhile Home of Amazin' set the tone for this surreal, terrifying phantasm. Somehow we were invited to sit on seats on the first baseline dirt in foul territory. You could not imagine my excitement, waiting for the Mets to unveil their new 1960s style uniforms. For too long my team has suffered from uniform disasters, though none so offensive as the 1980s racing stripes or the "snow white" cap of the late 1990s... or, and I shudder at the very though of this, the "Turn Forward the Clock" Mercury Mets uniform - WHICH WILL NEVER AGAIN BE MENTIONED IN THIS WEBLOG. Imagine the sheer horror coursing through my slumbering veins when the New York Mets took to a no-longer-existent field wearing - BLUE SHORTS and a BLUE HOODIE featuring MR. MET on the front and numbers in COMIC SANS on the back! Heart racing, I shot up in a cold sweat - shuddering, weeping, praying to the Almighty to erase this indelible mark from my somniferous mind.
The horror.
In other news, I have finally received all the sufficient credits and jumped through sufficient hoops that the State University of New York at Stony Brook has seen fit to confer upon me the mark of academic achievement entitled Baccalaureate. Oh frabjous day! And more good news - I have been hired as a substitute at my current place of professional development, MS 104 Simon Baruch School. My only hope is that this position lead to a full time commitment with the said school, as I have quickly become enamored of it.
Until such time that I have found something else so elegant of modern humanity in America...
Auf wiedersehen.

Godot? God No.

2009-11-27T02:37:00.002-05:00

Some years ago, my grandfather and step-grandmother (whom I never address as step-grandmother - preferring to call her Denise which is not her given name) came to visit Long Island and brought us to a painfully expensive restaurant courtesy of Taylor Publishing. Grandpa was a big shot in the said publishing company, and was fond of showing how much he cared for us by buying us expensive meals about twice every decade. Denise (not her real name) upon hearing my analysis of the restaurant's faux pas in overcooking the flounder I had eaten stated how she imagined me one day becoming a critic. What type of critic she never said. It is true that I carry strong opinions about nearly everything. I find it difficult to harbor wishy-washy flip-floppery feelings about things. So being the case, I found no small amount of pleasure when I took a "Modern Drama in New York" class as part of the bullshit required curriculum of Stony Brook University. What this essentially entailed was going to see shows and writing critiques of them. Because I found this process so entertaining and was extremely pleased with the results, I here share them - one by one. I here present the one I most recently re-read - that of Nathan Lane, John Goodman, Bill Irwin, and John Glover in Waiting for Godot. This was my final submission for the class which ultimately resulted in yet another A.

The Roundabout Theater Company’s latest production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, staged in the perverse yet hallowed halls of Manhattan’s erstwhile disco orgy palace, Studio 54, seems more like an overpriced sleep aid than a play. Or, for up to $116, treat yourself to one of the best-orchestrated naps that money can buy. In what can only be described as the Roundabout’s plan to cash in on celebrity names, they have staged their Godot with a look and feel so fresh, you’d swear it was 1953.
It is quite impossible to imagine any self-respecting director sitting back in his chair and believing he has created his magnum opus in this particular production. Instead, it plays out like something of a Godot fanboy’s wet dream with this platitudinous dime-store formula: Well Established Comic Genius + The Set You’ve Seen Countless Times + A Dreary Bridge-and-Tunnel Audience = Success!
Steve Rubell with his usual nightly ration of cocaine would have had difficulty staying awake for the duration of this performance. Even Nathan Lane’s signature grating, Jersey-accented shouting and overly expressive gesticulations weren’t enough to sufficiently energize Beckett’s existentialist lullaby to keep much of the audience around for Act II. Witnesses to this tragedy of a comedy may find it easy to sympathize with John Goodman’s increasingly corpulent rotundity rolling around the stage blindly asking for help, but as the bobbing heads and drooping eyes from the theater’s mezzanine indicate, they won’t necessarily be entertained by it. The audience seemed so unsure of the humor in this clunker that they basically laughed when instructed to by Mr. Lane; that is, when he screeched or grotesquely contorted his face.
Bill Irwin’s Vladimir makes a gallant effort to outshow Lane’s porcine Estragon, but he and his thin frame vanish into the drab background between the two scenery-chewing behemoths, the twin moons of Lane and Goodman. Perhaps Goodman’s most sincere moment of acting was when he “feigned” heart palpitations, an event that left this reviewer wondering if he shouldn’t call the paramedics… just in case.
Godot as read may not be the most exciting play, but just as throwing a couple of hams into a pot does not a Sunday dinner make, tossing two fat funny men on a New York stage and hoping for the best is less a recipe for success and more for disaster. But perhaps disaster is too strong a word - the audience in this production was so mind-numbingly disengaged that had Lane and Goodman spontaneously burst into flame at the end of the play it is doubtful anyone would have been paying enough attention to think to shout “Fire!”

Oscar the Grouch: TIME LORD

2009-11-17T19:57:00.009-05:00

Having recently watched the new Doctor Who special The Waters of Mars, I have drifted to sleep these past 2 nights trying to come up with theories as to how the Doctor will regenerate. My nerdiest idea? The Master imbued the Doctor with part of his essence right before he died in the Doctor's arms - leading to the Doctor's dark turn in the most recent episode. Thus, the Master STEALS ONE OF THE DOCTOR'S REGENERATIONS... causing the Doctor grievous bodily harm and forcing him to regenerate. Another theory - he senses that his current regeneration has fallen from grace and willfully goes about the process.
As I've been thinking about Doctor Who and the 40th Anniversary of Sesame Street, it suddenly dawned on me.
OSCAR THE GROUCH IS A TIME LORD!
Ladies and gentlemen, this seems a stretch, but I do assure you by the end of this transmission, you will be as devout a believer as I was when I saw this stark evidence. LET THE PROOF BEGIN!
ITEM ONE: TARDIS
The Doctor is well known for traveling around in an obsolete time and spacecraft called a TARDIS, a less-than-clever acronym for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. Due to a broken Chameleon Circuit (a device which normally disguises the machine to match its surroundings), the TARDIS is stuck in the form of a wooden blue 1950's style British Police Box. Oddly enough, never were police boxes constructed of wood. Apart from being able to travel back and forth through time and through all points of space (not unlike the Infinite Improbability Drive of Douglas Adams' limitless imagination) the craft is well known also for being much larger on the inside than on the outside. See for yourself:
Exhibit A: Exterior with 6'1" 10th Doctor for scale.
Exhibit B: Interior w/ Camera Crew in background for scale

Where have I seen something similar? OH YES! Oscar the Grouch's garbage can in front of 123 Sesame St.! Observe!
Exhibit C: Oscar the Grouch in Garbage Can with 5'9" Tony Danza for Scale

Exhibit D: Interior of Oscar's Garbage Can

Oscar's trash can is obviously much larger on the inside. It is said to contain, apart from the items pictured, an elephant, a swimming pool, a china cabinet, and a portal to Oscar's home planet of Grouchland. I can hear your nerdly grumblings already: "But BillChas, surely you know that Time Lords are from the Planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous at "galactic coordinates ten-zero-eleven-zero-zero by zero-two from galactic zero centre." I say it was a ruse - that Oscar was merely hiding his true home planet to live a low-profile life on a happy block full of happy neighbors singing about the alphabet in Queens, New York.
What may we infer? Oscar's trash can is a TARDIS!

ITEM TWO: REGENERATION
The Doctor's famous ability to cheat death by a process of regeneration, essentially changing of physical appearance and a general trend toward aging backward, has ensured that even 47 years into its broadcast the Time Lord abideth. Behold!
Exhibit F: The Doctor's 11 Regenerations

The Doctor changes appearance and mode of dress over his 903 years (debatable) of life. It is one of the most powerful and recognizable trademarks of any superhero. Indeed, the image of the Doctor suffering and dying only to cheat death is... wonderful to ponder. It is one of my favorite of his traits. WATCH THE DOCTOR REGENERATE AFTER CONTRACTING SPECTROX TOXAEMIA... my favorite regeneration.

And as for Oscar? Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to have your minds blown!
Exhibit G: The FIRST Oscar the Grouch (1969-1970)

Exhibit H: The SECOND Oscar the Grouch (1971-Present)
Ladies and gentlemen: YOUR MINDS ARE BLOWN! Oscar appears to have regenerated some time between 1970 and 1971. What the circumstances leading up to his apparent death are left to the imagination, but just let this shocking, STARK evidence of Oscar's Time Lordship settle in.
Still, a few questions remain. Why is he not sought out by the Doctor or the Master? Why did he leave Gallifrey? How could he have survived the Time War? Does the fact that he lives in a trash can suggest he is part Dalek? Is he still liable to fall in love with hideously bucktoothed British women with badly dyed hair and mannish eyebrows? I suppose that is the mystique of a Time Lord... and a question worth pondering.
I have no idea what I will talk about next.
This blog entry was brought to you today by the letter Q and the number 8.
Cue Doctor Who theme tune.

MTA: Misguided Transportation Annoyance

2009-11-12T18:07:00.004-05:00

You will pardon the interruption. Today's entry will not be about Oscar the Grouch: Time Lord, but instead is inspired by true events. The next entry will be MUCH more entertaining (read: silly). (This was posted to quell any comments Derek may make.)
Times are tough. Even life for we self-proclaimed mayors is not without its inevitable snares. Today, I had to write a pointed letter to the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing regarding a very serious issue that occurred this morning. At around 8:00 am, I arrived at the Franklin Ave. 4, 5 and Shuttle stop. Finding that my 30-Day Unlimited Ride Metrocard had expired, I approached a ticket vending machine, only to find that every single machine was not accepting credit or debit cards. I asked the station agent at the token booth who said there was nothing she could do for me and that I'd have to use cash, an extraordinarily inconvenient bit of news. As such, I had to leave the station and walk to a nearby bank to withdraw $100 in twenty-dollar bills, as I had no cash on my person at the time. When again I approached the machine to purchase an $89 30-Day Unlimited Metrocard, I was informed that it would only dispense a maximum of $6 in change. I again approached the station agent who very kindly made the change for me. Nonetheless, the entire ordeal caused me to be 20 minutes late for work. Given the current times, this is unacceptable. I expect and deserve a sincere written apology (not an automated reply) and a solemn promise that such a fiasco will never be allowed to happen again.

Sincerely,
William Olsen-Hoek

I neglected to throw in my multitudinous titles for fear that they would be overwhelmed by my perceived importance. Let us hope that His Excellency Emperor Bloomberg, Defender of the Boroughs sees fit to improve this obviously flawed system. Now... if only we had a mayor with real ideas - say... A MONORAIL.
But for real, next time! OSCAR THE GROUCH: TIME LORD!

How Postseason Baseball Destroyed Baseball: A Nocturne of Too Many Commercials, Too Many Pitching Changes, and the Inane Ramblings of Incompetent Men

2009-11-02T19:12:00.014-05:00

...Named Tim McCarver.
(Edit: Since this is a Nocturne, I suggest that all readers listen to Chopin Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 whilst reading along...)
I'm sorry, but the entirety of my thesis did not fit in the title box on Blogger. BLAST YOU GOOGLE INC.!
Baseball is the most important sport in history. As I allow that hyperbole to settle in, let me prove it. Baseball currently ranks second in the most popular team sports worldwide, topped only by football (the European flavor, that is). Baseball, however, is a much better and more important game, due entirely to the superior uniforms and the fact that it was invented in the United States rather than Great Britain. That its roots trace to bat and ball games played during the American Revolutionary War (wherein the United States annihilated the most powerful Empire on Planet Earth by hiding in trees and wearing subdued colors while their opponents marched in single file as gentlemen wearing lobster-red coats and powdered wigs) bears testament to its superiority to anything produced by a tea-obsessed monarchy.
Baseball traces its roots to the similar, but decidedly more English, sport of cricket - except that cricket is played on an oval rather than a diamond, participants have "tea" rather than a seventh inning stretch, players are given the ridiculously named field positions of "silly mid-off," bowlers (not pitchers) are allowed to bean the batsman to try and injure him, and it is not uncommon for a test cricket match to last three days... although it does seem that the current trend will see baseball games lasting three whole days in just a few years.
Why, you may ask? The answer: MERCHANDISING!
In the 1990s, baseball suffered from one of its worst decades of popularity. I attribute this to three main factors:
1.) Players became exceptionally greedy and demanded more money.
2.) Owners became exceptionally greedy.
3.) Canadian teams dominated the 1992, 1993 and the shortened 1994 season.
This third observation seems an exercise in xenophobia (which I here deny, being that I am a firm supporter of the Sovereign Dominion of Canada), but when you examine the facts (the Toronto Blue Jays winning the World Series in '92 and '93 and the 1994 Montréal Expos proclaiming that they were "Meilleure Équipe du Baseball" due entirely to their having the best record before the cursed strike) maybe we need to (dare I say) BLAME CANADA! Speaking of the Strike: World War II did not stop the World Series from being played, but money sure did in 1994. It would not be until the steroid-soaked home run hitting monsters of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa squared off in a battle royale to challenge Roger Maris's single season home run record that baseball would lick its '90s wounds. The resurgence in popularity also coincided with the steroid-fueled Yankees winning a million World Series and the completely forgotten Atlanta Braves (aptly named the Team of the '90s, though they only won the 1995 World Series) owning the National League (pennants in '91, '92, '95, '96 and '99; division titles in every year of the decade but '90 and '94). But at what price did this popularity come?
Specialization has ruined the pace of baseball. Game 5 of the 1969 World Series ended when Davey Johnson (ironically future skipper of the champion '86 Mets) popped up to Cleon Jones, just 2 hours and 14 minutes after the first pitch. Anyone who's attended a ballgame with me knows how much I LOVE short games. They usually indicate pitching duels and just enough scoring to keep the game flowing. In stark contrast, the most recent (miserable) World Series saw Yankees crowned again after a THREE HOUR AND FIFTY TWO MINUTE struggle. I've walked out of shorter operas (Tchaikovsky's Mazeppa)! Why? Take a good look at the pitching statistics for these games:
Game 5 of the 1969 World Series
Game 6 of the 2009 World Series
The Orioles and Mets combined sent three pitchers to the mound 40 years ago.
The Phillies and Yankees offered TEN.
It has gotten to a point where managers put a single pitcher in to face a single batter based on what hand he throws with. Pitching changes are an opportunity for networks to show MORE COMMERCIALS! Is it any wonder that the baseball postseason now ends in November? The '69 season ended some 2 weeks sooner than did the 2009. A whole extra month of slow-paced games featuring only 8 teams? That's a recipe for disgruntlement. Postseason games are also strategically spaced to air the games at prime time (often meaning games will not end until past 11:00 pm), whereas World Series games were often played in the daytime just a few decades ago. You had the entire rest of the afternoon and evening to celebrate your team's victory - a moment well described in Thomas Oliphant's Praying for Gil Hodges, when an entire borough celebrated together. There's something Amazin' about watching the last out of the '69 Series in the daytime. The sun adds to the joy of the moment.
And finally, one man has single-handedly destroyed postseason baseball.
October 16, 1941. One of the most mediocre baseball personalities was born. James Timothy McCarver was selected as an All-Star twice and twice won the World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals. His boring curriculum vitae and overall baseball ineptitude meant that he could never manage a team... perhaps also due to his disgusting Southern drawl. Listening to Tim McCarver call a baseball game is almost as bad as sitting in a family style restaurant in Lancaster, Pennsylvania having an old man take 8 minutes to spit out the question, "Son, is Long Island part of Fire Island?" His obnoxious burbling only worsens his atrociously nonsensical observations on the game of baseball. A colleague said he is someone who, "when you ask him the time, will tell you how a watch works." His subpar baseball calling and confusion of rules leaves one wondering - why the FUCK do networks insist on having him call postseason baseball games? Perhaps as a Mets fan I am spoiled. My booth is filled with two Ivy League graduates and two former Mets whose combined curricula amount to 6 All-Star selections, 12 Gold Glove Awards, and 2 Silver Slugger Awards. Keith Hernandez, Ron Darling and Gary Cohen amount to the most talented and entertaining team of baseball analysts in baseball today. It makes one wonder how a hack like Tim McCarver gets such a job. Enjoy a wikipedia entry on the various criticisms of McCarver.
So how do we fix the postseason? I offer the following recipe:

Bring back day games. Some of us have to sleep at night and besides, we all have the means to record it and watch it again later.
Adhere to strict time limits in warmups and between innings.
Fewer days between postseason games. At least TRY to confine "October Baseball" to October.
Always provide a playoff berth for the New York Mets.
Fire Tim McCarver... or at least ship him off to call cricket games, as his knowledge of baseball's British counterpart probably isn't too far removed from his baseball knowledge.
Make me, The Rev. Dr. Mayor William C. Olsen-Hoek, Esq. into Commissioner The Rev. Dr. Mayor William C. Olsen-Hoek, Esq.. I imagine my name with full title regalia would look marvelous stamped on all official league baseballs! In fact, let's see what it would look like using sophisticated computer technology!

An enormous thank you to Greg for his outstanding work in imagining what baseballs will look like under my Commissionership.
Next Time! Oscar the Grouch: TIME LORD.

In Which Atticus Finch Gives 12 Racist Men a Faceful of Scowl...

2009-10-19T20:16:00.004-04:00

First, read this article. I'll wait.
Malcolm Gladwell is a media whore. I look at him and see a pimply faced weirdo who probably wore trench coats unironically in college and constantly pestered professors with non sequitur questions. He is the author of such abysmal affronts to good science and economics as Blink and The Tipping Point. One of his most dubious downfalls is his almost religious belief that correlation indicates causality. Using very small pools for his social experiments, Gladwell tends to make gross exaggerations verging on hyperbole, assuming that because his data challenges the status quo, that it immediately indicates that he has done something brilliant that deserves praise and adoration. The problem is that this modus operandi actually works for him, as his books tend to spend ridiculous periods of time on the New York Times bestseller list. Not only that, my good old alma mater, Stony Brook, required that I read Gladwell's The Tipping Point in my freshman year. Why? Well, people think that the only way to get uneducated people to talk to one another about something other than reality television requires that they read some trashy book and discuss it at length, praising only what is in the text, and not critically analyzing it. "At least they're talking!" supposes the New York State Board of Regents.
This particular article that I have forced my noble readers to suffer causes me no small measure of consternation. As an adamant admirer of Atticus Finch, the noble lawyer of Maycomb, Alabama in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, I found this particular article offensive, almost dangerous. I venture to use the word dangerous here because I fear that in the hands of unthinking cretins around this world, such information would downplay the importance of Atticus Finch and thus Mockingbird as an entire piece. He compares Atticus to Jim Folsom, a man well known for seeming to believe that hypocrisy scribbled by Thomas Jefferson saying something about "all men [being] created equal." The parallel is weak. It is true that Atticus worked in a small area of "friends and neighbors" in Maycomb, but Gladwell seems to conveniently ignore the time that Atticus spends at the state capitol. Mockingbird is, at heart, a narrative of the experiences of one young girl growing up in a small town in the Deep South during the most depraved depths of American racism. As such, we never know what Atticus is up to when he is not in Jean-Louise's (a.k.a. Scout's) immediate presence. For all we know, Atticus may have been drafting a Civil Rights Bill in his spare time. While this may sound a stretch, and borders on fan fiction, one cannot discount it. But even based on his language and convictions on equality, one can assume he was not a proponent of Jim Crow.
Gladwell accuses Atticus of being nothing but an inactive character in the civil rights movement, and thus commits the same crime the Maycomb County jury did when they proclaimed Tom Robinson guilty - he ignores facts in favor of his own prejudices. As Tom wouldn't have the money for his own lawyer, the judge appointed Atticus to take the case, knowing that Atticus' belief in universal equality and justice for all would guarantee at least a good fight against the jury's obvious racist slant. Atticus went well beyond his call of duty. Another lawyer in Alabama during Jim Crow wouldn't have bothered to visit Tom's family to make sure they were keeping afloat during these trying times. Atticus did just that. Another lawyer wouldn't DREAM of waiting outside a prison to protect his client from the cruel hands of a lynch mob. Atticus did just that. Another lawyer wouldn't bother going for the appeal process, but Atticus swore to do just that.
We never asked Atticus Finch to be a Civil Rights leader. Stripping him to his essentials, what is he but a loving father, an avid reader, a terrific checkers player, a dead eye with a rifle, and a staunch believer in equality for all people. Gladwell seems to hold the idea that people are inherently different because of the color of their skin; he would favor making laws that protected people whose pigmentation appeared darker than some set scientific standard. It is my belief that Atticus transcended this belief. Rather than championing the single cause of rights for Blacks, Atticus instead challenges humanity to look deeper, seeing that there is no inherent different between people, no matter what color, religion or sex they may identify as. Atticus would fail to see the need of affirmative action, noting that color shouldn't even be a consideration when applying for a job - that giving jobs specifically to minorities is itself racism, as it identifies these people as inherently different and declares them more deserving of something as a result.
I've wasted too much breath downplaying Gladwell's importance in society. Any person with even a scrap of intelligence can see through his wishy-washy pop-economics. If people still think reciting his bogus claims at parties counts as intelligent conversation, so be it, but he will not be allowed to bash well-established literary heroes - NOT ON MY WATCH!
Stay tuned NEXT TIME for my EPIC deconstruction of our NATIONAL PAST TIME!
My Thesis:
How Postseason Baseball Destroyed Baseball: A Nocturne of Too Many Commercials, Too Many Pitching Changes, and the Inane Ramblings of Incompetent Men Named Tim McCarver.

In Which We Dine in the Style of "Diamond" Jim Brady and Brave New England...

2009-10-12T13:15:00.003-04:00

Saturday marked Julie's birthday celebration. Being she happens to be a citizen of the rival principality to the Kingdom of Brooklyn's north - the Queendom of Queens - she adhered to the Treaty of Orchard Beach §485.99 which declared that any celebrations requiring the attendance of Subjects of BOTH rival territories shall be had on a neutral THIRD BOROUGH. She chose the famous Delmonico's restaurant in the Financial District of Manhattan.
Those unfamiliar with this establishment's fabled past need LOOK NO FURTHER, for I herein provide and COMPLETE and ACCURATE history of Delmonico's in the fashion of a timeline.

18 A.D. - Jesus and 312 of his closest friends celebrate his 18th birthday and inadvertently invent the Jägerbomb - a drink recipe still on the menu, still at the low, introductory rate of 30 pieces of silver (FORESHADOWING)!
1890s - Renowned psychic Edgar Cayce visits Delmonico's and slips into a deep, dreamlike state wherein he mumbled "Sewards icebox... Alaska... 49th state... vice president?" amongst fevered ramblings about the lost continent of Atlantis. Chef Bjørn Strangelove immediately invented a meringue encrusted ice cream dessert to prematurely celebrate our penultimate state - Baked Alaska.
1910 - "Diamond" Jim Brady becomes the first customer to ask for a snow shovel with which to heap food into his obese girlfriend's gaping maw. Geologists of the time believed that Jim used the massive heat and supergravitational force that was his lady friend in order to make MORE DIAMONDS! Customers may still request a snow shovel to enjoy their suppers.
October 1929 to ca. 1980's - After thoroughly enjoying a brunch of Eggs Benedict, President Herbert Hoover enlisted the Army Corps of Engineers to design a TIME SHIELD to protect the restaurant. Simultaneously, he had the secret service subtly influence the market, causing a massive panic resulting in the Great Depression to ensure that NO ONE BUT HE could afford such a luxurious dish! It was not until stage magician David Copperfield decided to cause the Statue of Liberty to disappear, accidentally focusing his TIME MAGIC on the financial district, that the restaurant was once again open to the public. When authorities searched the grounds, they found Hoover hunched over a plate by a fireplace shoving entire eggs and English muffins down his throat, quenching his thirst with an oriental vase full of Hollandaise sauce.
Yesterday - Dressed in a double breasted seersucker suit, a foolish young man asked for truffles atop his steak, garnishing a $40 surcharge - thus ensuring he would have a funny story to tell for the rest of his life.

Well, we seriously enjoyed it. It was an historical experience, and atrociously delicious as well. Thanks be to Julie!
Maria and I required respite from the State of New York, and so plotted an escape to that neighbor to the United States' north - Red Sox Nation. Formerly a geographic area known as "New England," so named because of the area's propensity to drink tea and worship a monarchy, the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut incorporated into one obnoxious political unit in 2004 in celebration of the third rate baseball team - the Boston Red Sox - winning a championship for the first time in 89 years. In a stunning blow to Red Sox Nation, their much beloved army (whose actions are mostly confined to football playing) the Patriots were crushed by the New York Football Giants (literally persons who suffer from gigantism) in the 2006 Battle of the Superbowl. But I have digressed.
Red Sox Nation is very beautiful this time of year. October, being my favorite month, is marked by the caramelizing tree leaves and brisk, bright weather. It was really breathtaking driving past gilded birches and scarlet sugar maples. For all of its obnoxious sports fans, Red Sox Nation is far and away the most beautiful part of America in the autumn.
We drove our adorable silver Volkswagen Jetta (courtesy of Zip Car) to the Northampton area of Massachusetts. There we went to Atkin's Farm, a produce market so popular that the parking lot suffers from traffic congestion. There we feasted on a mug of warm apple cider and cider donuts, a product that was pretty much the main reason we made the whole trip. Indeed, if it weren't for Maria salivating at the very thought of these confections, no way would we have driven up there. A little ways away, we went to an apple orchard, where I went apple picking for the first time. It felt a little like we were on a movie set - picking apples amongst autumnal trees, bright blue sky, green, gold, red spotted hills... and I practiced my cricket bowl with the fallen, spoiled apples.
I declare this the finest usage of a three day weekend. I am currently re-reading Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and scouring it for evidence of Truman Capote's handiwork. Do NOT be surprised if any of my forthcoming entries contain Atticus Finch worship - though that might be an interesting topic: challenging Malcolm Gladwell's essay denouncing Atticus.
Until I decide what to write again...
Adieu.

A Tally of My Murderously Delicious Wake...

2009-10-07T20:32:00.002-04:00

Some basic math will come up with the following rough tally of the animals that had to die for my meals today:

At least 2 pigs.
At least 1 cow.
At least 2 chickens (most likely 3)
6 oysters
2 clams
5 mussels
1 lobster

This amounts to AT LEAST 19 animals. I consider this a day well spent.
And now, I set off to write a lesson plan wherein I make my students write a letter to Sen. Schumer suggesting a law that ought to be passed. At ease.

In Which We Catch Up...

2009-10-05T14:05:00.003-04:00

I have just been informed that I won tickets to see They Might Be Giants perform on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Does that mean I have to sit through Jimmy Fallon for an hour or more? God help me.
Well, I certainly have been remiss of my updating duties, haven't I? I promised to mention the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) [D-for deceased] in this entry. Well, I've just done that. And when I write my long winded entry about my proposed Mosesesque P-Train, you will certainly hear more about him particularly pertaining to my views on the proposed Moynihan Station across the street from Pennsylvania Station.
Student teaching has been swell. I have an exceptionally smart and informative cooperative teacher, Ms T - a native of Germany whose educational excellence has garnered her a principal's license. I work at The High School of Health Professions and Human Services on 15th Street in Manhattan - the former site of Stuyvesant High School, a fact which original engravings still boast on the 16th Street side of the school. Autobiographer Frank McCourt actually taught English two floor below me just a few decades ago, and to celebrate this fact, I read Teacher Man, his account of working in the New York City educational system courtesy of the G.I. Bill.
I am in charge of two periods of Global History I (JOY!) and three periods of U.S. Government (RAPTURE!). Long story short, I couldn't have chosen better classes with which to whet my teaching skills. I have already incorporated Star Wars and the HBO miniseries John Adams into my lessons. So far: it appears that my professor is happy with my performance - going so far as to suggest that I work towards an administrative position once I've achieved a teaching position.
Problems? I have a few. Certainly learning all of my students' names has been a bit of a challenge, and I estimate that I still don't know about 35% of them. Even so, I believe I am not entirely at fault, as some of these names are entirely new to me: Dazia pronounced as "desire" with a New York accent, Ivyz as "EE-vee," Satabangkot as "Fern," &c.
It is already October, which was officially declared The Finest Month by Scientific Proof Magazine. Two days from now marks Maria's and my second anniversary. Given my current financial situation, it will prove a modest celebration, though certainly a very happy one. I certainly can't believe that the imperious, aristocratic, moody, sanctimonious behemoth with which she resides hasn't driven her away, but I genuinely thank her and owe all of my new-found success to her. Were it not for her selflessness and complete dedication to our relationship, I probably wouldn't be back in Stony Brook and headed towards the goals I should have achieved years ago.
It is worth note that yesterday was the Atlantic Antic Festival along Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. This is far and away the greatest of all street fairs. As proof, I offer the meal I had just while walking around!

Oysters and clams on the half-shell
Delicious Six-Point Amber Ale
Generous handfuls of kettle corn courtesy of Bob
RED VELVET CAKE

Now, last year I was served a tremendous slice of red velvet cake from a wonderfully charming old black woman from one of the churches on Atlantic Avenue. For $3, I was given approximately one QUARTER of the cake (red velvet being one of my favorites, for cream cheese is certainly the most appealing of all icings) and granted only one fork, because, as she said, "Honey, I know you ain't gonna need no help eatin' this cake." How endearing is it when a kindly old lady makes fun of your obesity issues?! Endearing enough to ask for another slice next year.
My October resolution is to write more observations in this journal - so I trust all six of my beloved readers will press me on the matter and keep me true to this resolution. Until then, as my cooperative teacher's people say:
Auf wiedersehen!

In Which I CREATE Such a Thing As a Free Lunch...

2009-09-02T21:12:00.003-04:00

Prologue:
Franklin D. Roosevelt, fondly known by contemporaries as Ol' Legs Don't Work, once boldly promised FOUR THINGS to a country ravaged by the despair of a broken economy. Oh, you all went to grade school and saw those atrocious Norman Rockwell affronts to good taste. Let's say them together!
1.) Freedom of speech and expression.
2.) Freedom of religion.
3.) Freedom from want.
4.) Freedom from fear.
Now, these are not such lofty or novel ideas. The first two are, in fact, guaranteed in our own Bill of Rights. The third goal essentially wrapped up his bizarre idea that people should have federally funded potted chickens and garaged cars. PSH! Number 4 requires an interesting historical analysis. New reports seem to suggest that FDR was, in fact, a Time Cop who posed as a crippled Depression-era president in order to learn more on the whereabouts of the infamous Evil Time Pirates called F.E.A.R. - Federation of Errant (time) Argonauts or piRates [it here should be noted that this will be considered a reasonable acronym in the year 802,701 A.D.. We weren't to fear a war in Europe or complete economic collapse. While commonly quoted as, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself," Roosevelt actually wrote, "We have nothing to fear but F.E.A.R. itself." But I digress.
These freedoms are largely the product of a great speech writer editing Roosevelts inane doodlings on a cocktail napkin from the night before - a night filled with booze, cigarettes in tortoiseshell holders, more booze, and a transgendered prostitute known to modern historians as Eleanor Roosevelt-Roosevelt. The original fears, only corrected during a massive, strange Roosevelt hangover (commonly called a Bank Holiday nowadays) were.
1.) Freedom from Japan.
2.) Freedom to give me five bucks so I can pay this painfully attractive transgenduhed hookuh. [Roosevelt wrote in his famous highbrow New York accent when drunk.]
3.) Freedom from F.E.A.R..
4.) Freedom from Lunchlessness.

Body:
Throughout our magnificent history, we human beings have sought the best of "free" things. We pen fancily scribed declarations to mad kings on small faraway islands asking for "freedom." We futilely quest towards harnessing "free" energy from the UNIVERSE. We will knock down fellow human beings when smiling costumed sports mascots fire "free" t-shirts from dangerous pneumatic firearms at us during the 7th inning stretch. FREEDOM is the ULTIMATE GOAL of MANKIND!
There is an old saying supposedly attributed to a science fiction writer back in the 1930s - and we all know that ALL THINGS WRITTEN BY SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS (especially L. Ron Hubbard) ARE TRUE! That saying is "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."
Free country. Free energy. Free... LUNCH?!
We have our Free Country! And Free Energy is nothing but an idle daydreams best left to Mormons and obese steampunk fans. But free lunch?
I THINK THIS IS A JOB FOR (future) MAYOR OLSEN-HOEK!
And ladies and gentlemen of the scientific world, I here present conclusive evidence that I, WILLIAM C. OLSEN-HOEK, have discovered FREE LUNCH!
It was not so hard as you might think. Whilst sitting in my rocking chair pondering the mysteries of the universe, I thought of the long-term benefits of harnessing FREE LUNCH. Free lunch would mean the end of midday hunger for all humanity forever. The economy would benefit from a workforce required only to produce TWO meals per day. Just think of all the peanut butter and jelly (resources vital to the development of cold fusion as per the December 1987 issue of Scientific Proof Magazine) we could save! And just then I came back to reality - I have to go to a student teaching orientation tomorrow and have no idea what I need to bring.
I wrote to Natalie, my instructor for this semester, asking what I would need to bring. It should here be noted that the meeting will take place at Theodore Roosevelt's Fortified Midtown Bastion-Castle of Learning and Technological Achievement - renamed the American Museum of Natural History by an asthmatic boring middle aged tweed-wearing knucklehead who obviously had no concept of who Theodore Roosevelt was. I received the following email:

"No, I have everything we need...just a pen and some paper for notes. We
will also give you a voucher for lunch in the cafeteria there.

N"

VOUCHER FOR LUNCH?! Just then I threw open the windows and shouted to Mr. Watson insisting I needed him! I decoded the Rosetta Stone and fell backward in my chair yelling EUREKA! I left my excommunication trial and shouted "E pur si muove!" Just a short pondering and I INVENTED FREE LUNCH! Humanity may bow down and praise me! the Nobel committee will be visiting Brooklyn this year! I have yet another accomplishment to add to my campaign! And so world! I have given you free lunch!

Conclusion:
Comrade Derek wrote me today informing me that basketball personality Karl Mallone has a car dealership in Salt Lake City. This brought up a conversation about how the Utah Jazz can retain the name after the team left New Orleans being that Utah had no part in the history of jazz. I said they ought to have changed the name to the Utah Absurd Cultists.

Notes:
This ends my consortium on FREE LUNCH.
STAY TUNED NEXT WEEK - for I will mention the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) in my next entry!

Wherein I Metamorphose into a Television Cooking Personality...

2009-08-20T21:59:00.004-04:00

The number four movie this past week was Nora Ephron's estrogen-soaked "it's never too late" comedy Julie & Julia. The premise revolves around a self-involved inhabitant of the Empire of Queens (a well-known rival of my own superior borough of BROOKLYN) who decides that life being a telephone operator who takes angry phone calls from post-9/11 suffering New Yorkers isn't noble enough a career. In attempt to make herself well-known, she begins a challenge wherein she tries to cook every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Needless to say, I only went for the aspects of the movie related to Julia Child and was disappointed by Meryl Streep's Aykroydesque (and here I point out that Ephron needed to include the entire SNL skit wherein he bleeds on a chicken and hammers home the importance of "keeping the liver" in order to reel out young male laughs) portrayal of one of my most cherished culinary heroines. Also, they ripped off Douglas Adams' famous line about deadlines and the whooshing sound they make as they go by. Honestly? Get your own goddamned material. The makeup of the movie audience was what everyone should expect; that is, most of the aisles were blocked by walkers, the most common conversation outside the theater was how the showing would be $6 instead of $5 due to a Sony Pictures rule, and it was nearly impossible to hear the film over the hum of respirators, pacemakers, and obnoxiously loud observations like "THIS IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE! ABSOLUTELY TRUE! SHE WAS A SPY!".
I need not mention now that I WAS SPIRITUALLY INSPIRED BY THIS FILM!
Now, it's no secret that I love television cooking. I currently own autographs from Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto, Anthony Bourdain, Alton Brown and - apropos to this entry - Paul Prudhomme, head chef of K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen and author of Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen. I don't pretend that Prudhomme is as famous as Child, but I do argue that with his patented white golf cap, propensity to GUAR-AHN-TEE that we'll like a dish, and his immense girth that ultimately caused him to cook entirely from a Rascal scooter, he has changed the way we look at cooking. Not to mention his book is considered an essential of New Orleans creole and cajun cooking.
Thus far, I have cooked 2 recipes directly from his book - Gumbo and Rice Pudding. To give unfamiliar readers a sense of Prudhomme's buttery influence, the rice pudding required folding in meringue and the seafood and the gumbo requires that you first DEEP FRY the chicken. Yeah baby - that's my kinda cooking.
So in the spirit of Julie Whateverhernameisbutirefusetolookitupbecausei'mmuchfunnierthanheranyway, I have decided to star the OLSEN-HOEK-PRUDHOMME PROJECT! I here outline what this will require:
1.) I will cook all 214 recipes in Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen in a time period defined as from this point until the Milky Way collides with Andromeda and Time for the Human Race Matters No Longer.
2.) I will gain no fewer than 300 pounds, though not as a result of cooking crawfish etouffée in butter sauce. This will be undertaken PRIOR to the event, first requiring the purchase of a Rascal scooter.
3.) I will purchase 19 white chef's coats, 22 stretchy white chef's pants, and 38 individually wrapped and numbered golf caps.
4.) I will do everything in my power to whore up my blog so that I get as many hits as is humanly possible. This will require the help of my readers. Also, you may as well just start forking over the cash. I mean, I'm unemployed and all this tasso, andouille and lobster isn't gonna pay for itself now, is it? How do I set up a Pay Pal thing?
5.) I will enlist the help of Ron Howard - NO! - Steven Spielberg - NOOO! - I will reanimate the fetid, rotting, fat corpse of Stanley Kubrick as punishment for proclaiming that Eyes Wide Shut was the best movie he ever made. He will direct, write, and STAR in the blockbuster movie adaptation, which will be titled Mastering the Art of Getting Fat; or How to Get Paid For Being Prentious. Because I found Julie & Julia so boring, I will add the following improvements and - ahem - elaborations about my story.

Boat chase sequence involving Nazis.
EXPLOSIONS! FIREWORKS!
Mike Piazza as my father.
Gratuitous depictions of SEX and VIOLENCE!
A magic wand duel at Weehawken.
Daleks.
M. Night Shyamalan TWIST ending. The twist? It was all just a DREAM! No... everyone but me is a ROBOT!

You know, I think this is a better money making scheme than making my future daughter a well-respected doctor and my son a Major League pitcher. So, everyone start sending me checks (made out to cash) to support this very important and much more entertaining project than the Julie & Julia project.
I will keep you all updated as things progress.

In Which God Smiles Favorably Upon a Motley Crew...

2009-08-19T15:38:00.003-04:00

The Automatic Blogging Device (ABD) has auto-generated the fact that my astrological sign is Pisces - the fish. Being that I put about as much stock in astrology as I did in Florida land speculation prior to the Stock Market Crash of 1929, this information seems senseless and superfluous. However, perhaps the gods of stellar divination sought my attentions... AND HERE'S HOW!
On Sunday afternoon last, the Brother Captains Michel & Michel invited me and a crew consisting of Jonathan, myself, and the beautiful and voluptuous Maria out for a promenade en bateau across the Great South Bay, a small saltwater lagoon between the kingdom of press-on nails, hairspray and broskis named Long Island, and the Eden-like homosexual romping grounds called Fire Island. Perhaps it was my having a water sign (bullshit) but I have felt a spiritual connection to this body of water my whole life. My great grandfather, a Dutchman by the name of Adrian Hoek, was a well-respected oysterman and clammer on this beautiful lagoon. His superior genetics in the area of ravaging bivalve populations seems to have gifted me with an extraordinary love and ability for collecting clams. Our crew made for the flats of the Great South Bay where clamming is its very best. Along the way, my eyes espied something black bobbing up and down in the water. Thinking it was a backpack that we may return for a reward, Captain Michel the Younger turned the craft around. As we approached, we recognized the item as a soft-sided cooler. Having been waterlogged for some time, it was immensely heavy and it took both Jonathan's and my own strength to salvage the floating treasure from its watery prison. The heavens opened and bathed us with an ethereal light - a seagull which is interpreted as the Holy Spirit descended upon us. We opened our treasure to discover A FRISBEE-DISC, a WATER-LOGGED ROAST BEEF SANDWICH, a BOTTLE OPENER, and (calm yourself ladies and gentlemen for the next revelation) BEER! Now, all of us being of a certain age where finding strange consumables on the open water doesn't prevent us from consuming them went ahead and enjoyed the fruits of our bounty, toasting whatever Divine Clockmaker deigned that we should quench our thirsts on cold, frosty, FREE BEER! And off to the flats we sailed, singing shanties and singing our own praises.
Folks, I must say that in past years, the clamming situation had waned precipitously, no doubt due to pollutants running off from the immaculately tailored front lawns so coveted by the adult male constituency on Long Island - also probably because god wished to punish that Sodom & Gomorrah that is Cherry Grove. However, in just one hour Captain Michel the Younger and I dredged 84 clams from the bay bottom! Again the Whore Goddess that is The Great South Lagoon found favor in our sight! After a refreshing and relaxing respite at Sailor's Haven beach, the Captains Michel and we made back for Long Island, where by our combined culinary talents and using a book authored by a pedophilic ex-Episcopal priest, created a sumptuous dish of linguine in white clam sauce, using the natural bounty of clams in their own liquor - torn from their protective carapaces with my own deft skills with a clam knife (thank you Popeye Hoek) - and victory garden chives & parsley. Surely nothing beats feasting by the sweat of one's own labors - especially when wine is involved!
In other news, I have seen the film Julie & Julia with Maria. It was a subpar film that I feel the necessity to make fun of. As such, I WILL USE THE SAME PREMISE IN MY OWN BLOG! As Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking has already been used, I instead choose Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen. I will discuss this idea...
NEXT TIME!
Until Then,
Bon Appétit... or should I say Good Cooking, Good Eating, Good Loving!
-BillChas

In Which I've Gone and Done It This Time...

2009-08-12T21:24:00.002-04:00

Dear Readers,
My former roommate and trusted adviser - Jonathan - and I took a brief but lovely sojourn to Robert Moses' paradise on Earth, namely Jones Beach State Park. There we enjoyed an entire six-pack of Red Stripe Beer and 4 liters of Kentucky Colonel George's Meier's Patented Southern Style Sangria. Combined with the August heat and saltwater, we certainly made merry ourselves on strong drink. But I digress.
Normally I don't bother my intent readers with the trivialities of my daily life. But today, however, I found out something regarding a personal physical issue.
Back on a cloudy, rain-threatened April day, my sister and I decided to play a game of catch. She, being of superior genetics and having far more capable facilities in the realm of baseball throwing, trounced me thoroughly and I went inside to have a small relaxing sit down. Upon getting up afterward, however, I found an intense pain in my right knee that I attributed to a lack of warming up prior to our early-spring catch. As the weeks passed, the pain waxed and waned directly proportionately to the amount I used the knee; generally weeks where I stood on it more, the pain increased, while more restful periods saw the pain nearly disappear. I noticed that trips to the beach where clamming, climbing, running and swimming were involved, the pain became intolerable, to the point that I visited my goodly physician, Dr. L.
She suggested that I get an X-ray, which was inconclusive. Next, a magnetic resonance image, a technology perfected by my own imperfect alma mater - Stony Brook University. I telephoned Dr. L today and discovered the nature of my injury - a torn lateral meniscus of the right knee. This setback may require that I have physical therapy or, in a worst-case scenario, arthroscopic surgery.
Alas, my previous employer known as DEATH STAR COFFEE in this blog, which is (in point of fact) a coffee company named after a lesser character in a painfully long Herman Melville novel, has severed its ties with me. As such, I shall lose my health insurance benefits (which are required things to all my non-American socio-communist readers of European principalities) and will not be able to maintain a salubrious course of action that alleviates the pain of my right knee. Thankfully, my future (BETTER) employers ought to be more understanding of the situation, being that said employers will allow such novel innovations as UNIONIZING and COLLECTIVE BARGAINING and other such employee protection, which Heywood Schwartz and his rag-tag bunch of soulless, unthinking degenerates so hatefully fear.
So until then, I promise to entertain you with my inane, megalomaniacal ramblings which you so love to hear.
I think I shall talk about school mascots.
Anyhow, godspeed and good luck to you all.
-BillChas

In Which We Give Shit Away and Still People Bellyache!

2009-07-21T18:24:00.002-04:00

Allow me first to thank Heywood Schwarz, president of DEATH STAR COFFEE, Inc. for the brilliant Free Pastry Giveaway day today. Surely he hatched this brilliant plan with the finest of intentions! Give every overweight American yet another free pastry perfectly parch their insatiable eating holes so that they crave MORE black caffeine infusion. While it made my day busier than usual, I did take a small measure of joy in refusing pastries to patrons who arrived at 10:31am, one minute after the offer expired. So too did I relish telling people that they required giving me a tangible coupon or else show one to me on their handheld device - charging full price for anyone who failed to produce. This brings up yet another wonderful thing about working for DEATH STAR COFFEE, Inc. - taking people's money!
When I joined the corporation, I was told they were looking for "genuine" people who kept it real. People who genuinely smiled and thanked people for their patronage. I mean, my smile is so genuine that I'm TOLD to give you one! Did you know that I am spoken to in private if I don't smile enough?! So ENJOY my GENUINE smile in the morning!
Another illusion is that I joined DEATH STAR COFFEE, Inc. for the wonderful health benefits for which people think I should be so appreciative of. Well, considering an emergency room visit on July 4th for a nasty cast of conjunctivitis cost me handsomely, and the fact that I believe health insurance a birthright in this great nation, this reason for joining DEATH STAR COFFEE suddenly seems insignificant.
No. I really signed on for TAKING YOUR MONEY!
MONEY MONEY MONEY! I love taking your money and giving you less money in return. I love swiping your credit card in the magnetic reader and depleting your already annihilated debit account. I anxiously await the next time I can charge you 50¢ for soymilk (which is actually juice) - 35¢ for extra syrup - 40¢ when you ask for caramel on your beverage which isn't supposed to have it. I love when you pick up one of my overpriced sandwiches, add a Frap to that and rack up a bill of something like $11.79! I love the ridiculous faces you make when you incredulously ask me "Is that total right?" after buying you and your whole family my delicious, sweet coffee treats! I FUCKING LOVE TAKING YOUR GODDAMNED DELICIOUS MONEY!
Just imagine how it pained me to give you a free treat this morning. Well, enjoy it while it lasts because tomorrow, that donut is going to be $1.25 once again.
Until we meet again.
I'll see you in Coffee Hell.

In Which We Lament the Death of the English Language... Then Have a Viking Funeral For It

2009-07-16T17:51:00.007-04:00

My post was originally going to be about this article. Independence Day is when we communally celebrate the birth of this, the Greatest Nation on Planet Earth*, by crossing state borders to illegally purchases fireworks, drink excessive amounts of alcohol, and acquire third degree burns on our right index and middle fingers. That isn't actually a third-degree burn... it's the burn of liberty coursing through our veins. At no point during an awesome display of violent, colorful firepower intended to percussively remind us that our country was baptized in the fires of bloody conflict did I wonder - hey, is this good for the environment? I could go on, but I will merely leave this with an &c. and talk about English.
My beloved girlfriend, Maria, informed me that the morning news (you know, where everyone smiles and laughs at each others terrible punny jokes to the point whether you wonder if the first qualification for appearing on the morning news is the removal of ones central nervous system) reported that Merriam-Webster added a few "questionable" words into the hallowed, sanctified halls of the English Language. Among these additions include:

fan fiction
staycation
webisode
frenemy
açai
locavore

I here point out that my spell checker underlined all but one of these entries in red. Now ladies and gentlemen, I freely admit that I do enjoy what is often deemed old-school. I think umpires should always have a place in baseball. I think a good seersucker suit is a better alternative to anything I see certain "fierce" persons wearing into my coffee shop, THE DEATH STAR. I think cast-iron beats Teflon any day. And if I had a telegraph, I would fucking use it! But I am adaptable. Home run review is okay. I tried to steal a nonstick pan from my mom. I realize things must change lest we devolve, but these words are abhorrable and deviant and perverse! I here DESTROY each of these words and reveal them for the FRAUDULENT, UN-ENGLISH CONGREGATION OF ROMAN LETTERS that they are... in my own particular order.

5. Açai: a small dark purple fleshy berrylike fruit of a tall slender palm (Euterpe oleracea) of tropical Central and South America that is often used in beverages ; also : the palm
This is offered in many health drinks in expensive smoothie shops, including Jamba Juice, the SWORN ENEMY OF DEATH STAR COFFEE. I have recently taken a hatred to smoothies because of DEATH STAR COFFEE's introduction of V---o Smoothies. Any time someone orders a V---o Smoothie, an unholy orchestra of Demons begins evilly scraping their cursed instruments until I can bear it no longer and throw cups all over the place and curse in French, just to show how intelligent I am and how the occupation in which I currently find myself is well below what I ought to be doing. Also, this is not an English word.

4.) Frenemy: : one who pretends to be a friend but is actually an enemy
ENGLISH HAS THIS WORD MANY TIMES! I suggested the first synonym that came to mind - traitor - to a thesaurus, which yielded such long-standing gems as: backstabber, double-crosser, renegade, fifth columnist, turncoat, defector, deserter, collaborator, informer, mole, snitch, Judas, Benedict Arnold, and quisling. Even snake-in-the-grass, two-timer, rat, fink and scab were accepted as informal. But FRENEMY? It's too adorable to get its meaning across! Try this: next time someone two-times you, try the following sentences on them:

"You double-crossing, backstabbing Benedict Arnold!"
"You frenemy!"

See which one elicits the more appropriate response.

3. Webisode: an episode especially of a TV show that may or may not have been telecast but can be viewed at a Web site
What's so wrong with using the word "episode" in this case? Honestly? And I'm noticing a disturbing trend of "adorably punny blending of words" in recent years.

6. Locavore: one who eats foods grown locally whenever possible
I am relatively certain this word was invented in the trendiest parts of Brooklyn. I can just imagine a person unironically wearing a bandana on her head on the streets of Park Slope, slurping down a $9 Chai latte and proudly proclaiming what an honest "locavore" she is and how important that is for the environment and what a good person she is for being one and why we should be one too.

1. Fan Fiction: stories involving popular fictional characters that are written by fans and often posted on the Internet —called also fan fic \-ˈfik\

It is probably my distaste for the practice of fan fiction that I hate this entry so much. First, it is two words whose meaning is self-evident and does not require elaboration or a place in a dictionary. Secondly, FAN FICTION WRITERS ARE THE LOWEST FORM OF SENTIENT BEING ON PLANET EARTH - and that's using "sentient" very liberally. Fanfickers, especially SLASHERS (person who writes stories about science fiction and fantasy characters homosexually macking on one another) have no place in healthy society. They are not thinkers. They are not doers. They are simply there riding the coattails of (possible) genius as they sit in their darkened rooms brooding about The Tenth Doctor's obvious man-love for Harry Potter who then attempts to time travel to Hogwarts to fill him up with butterbeers and steal his anal virginity. Then they, the slashers not the characters, drink too much, cry about their feelings, and complain about all other slashers on their Live Journals, much to the delight of unknowing Midwestern girls who think the New York slash scene terribly glamorous and attempt to emulate these obese, bad-skinned losers. (I pause here to catch my breath)

2. Staycation: a vacation spent at home or nearby
I had a small stroke when I heard this word. Not only does its atrocious punness rake against my happiness and peaceful state, but seriously... staycation? Vacation comes from "vacate" meaning "to boogie out of town." Ergo and thus, not "vacating" or "going on vacation" means you stay at home. You cannot "staycate" and you cannot go on "staycation"! IT IS NOT POSSIBLE! And now that I have revealed the atrocity of this word to the world, I can only demand that it be CLEANSED and PURGED and if need be BLASTED from the lexicon to prevent future generations from thinking this is a terribly good word to use in their upcoming Doctoral thesis which is probably laden with abbreviated text language anyway! I WILL NOT STAND BY AND ALLOW WESTERN SOCIETY TO DECAY IN SUCH A MANNER! You have stayed at home and done nothing instead of travelling to Switzerland or Jamaica! YOU HAVE STAYED HOME! And I urge anyone who even THINKS of using this word to STAY HOME ANYWAY because you are probably SOCIALLY INEPT and CANNOT BREATHE WITHOUT CONCENTRATING AND WITH GREAT DIFFICULTY EVEN THEN!

Please, Merriam-Webster, reconsider your great mistakes. You are only doing our great language harm. Until next year when they release even more unspeakable crimes against the lanugage I bid you adieu.

*-Proven in the July 1776 "Scientific Proof Magazine" and ratified by the Convention of Versailles on February 11, 1936.

Wherein I Declare Myself Mayor...

2009-07-08T20:46:00.002-04:00

People carry many titles nowadays. Missus. Mister. Doctor. Professor. Captain. Viscount. Archduke. Lord. Her Highness. His Majesty. Darth. Titles let us know who people are immediately. For example, Doctors are all pretentious high-nosed sophisticates in argyle sweaters with stethoscopes about their necks. Lords are all fat and carry watch fob chains dangled with intricately jeweled lorgnettes. Darths tend to try and kill Jedi with glowing light swords. I myself have carried only two titles in my 25 years - Master and Mister. While the former certainly sounds important, when you realize it's merely a tag for a boy under a certain age, it loses no small measure of its grandeur. Mister... the requirements just aren't that difficult. I have sought what I consider the finest of all titles.
MAYOR.
I have been declared by various sources the MAYOR of at least two geographical locations: Montpellier, France and Sayville, New York. Alas, these have been in name only, as neither location has voted for me... at least not to my current knowledge. My Mayordom of Montpellier amounted to nothing more than a brief oration to my beloved onlookers from a balcony on Rue St. Guilhem served with a massive hangover (courtesy of the Shakespeare Pub) and a mouthful of pain au chocolat and café au lait. Sayville offered me a few of the benefits of mayordom including:
1.) Never paying overdue fines at the library.
2.) Free rides on the Fire Island Ferry.
3.) My name shouted out of moving vehicles while I go for an evening stroll.
4.) Complimentary ginger beer from the owner of The Sweet Gourmet.
5.) A "wink" and a "move along" for public consumption of alcohol.
But I want something more. I want to walk around in a three-piece suit wearing an important looking sash boasting my title - THE MAYOR. I want a pair of novelty oversized scissors in my back pocket for any impromptu openings and christening events I may need to attend. And best of all... I WANT TO IMPROVE NEW YORK CITY!
Those who have been in my company know that I have a few improvements already in mind. I HEREAFTER LIST THE IMPROVEMENTS.

The installation of a monorail. This will be provided FOR TOURIST USE ONLY. All monorails will run local and will dispense little tidbits of (made up) trivia about New York City narrated by the computer simulated voice of Jerry Orbach, thus keeping bumbling confused map-wielding Midwesterners off my more efficient, faster subway.
Related to the monorail, the Mayor's Mansion will be converted into a HAUNTED MAYOR's MANSION, wherein tourists may ride slowly around a dusty, cobwebbed house haunted by an overly talkative Fiorello LaGuardia.
The return of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants to their rightful homes. Since Brooklyn is already a crowded borough, I suggest we build an underwater arena off Coney Island only accessible by a shark-infested fun-tunnel like you see in those fancy aquariums across our great nation. Room for the newly returned Giants will only require selling the Yankees to New Jersey. Deal with it.
The banning of the following terms, words and phrases: power lunch, OMG, fierce, metrosexual, txt, "he/she 'friended' me on facebook," Google, pow-wow, IDK, "please make me [INSERT NUMBER] Frappuccino(s)," fart, and the infamous "What stop do I get off on," (esp. on the Grand Central Terminal / Times Square Shuttle.
Improving the oyster population to clean our rivers and fill our bellies.
The removal of tax on all beer, wine, spirits and poltergeists.
The Brooklyn Museum will be made into my central Mayoral Palace. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden will be my personal Entertaining Lawn / Croquet Green. Jacques Pépin will be my personal chef in my personal catering hall of Grand Central Terminal.
The Treaty of Bethesda Terrace - a declaration of peace and goodwill between motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians.
The building of canals where several choice avenues used to be. The canals will be frozen in all possible months so that New Yorkers may ice-skate to work.
All non-essential electricity will be shut off and cell phone towers disabled one day per week for Back to Basics Day, when everyone has to learn to love each other without the warm, friendly glow of a television / cell phone screen.
FREE ICE CREAM AND T-SHIRTS!

Now if all these great ideas don't make me mayor in this upcoming election, then I have no faith in humanity.
NEXT TIME: Of Patriotism, Pyrotechnics, and the Greater Conspiracy for Greenpeace Terrorist Hippies to Destroy Independence Day

On New York Transport and the Forgotten Faction...

2009-06-29T18:12:00.007-04:00

Perhaps the natural hierarchy dominating the means of transport around New York City has degraded slowly since the Industrial Revolution. A fierce battle has erupted between the two powerful factions of those using automobiles and those using bicycles. I here include profiles of your average automobilist and your archetypal bicyclist.
THE AUTOMOBILIST - or car-driver - is typically overweight to the point where his nose upturned and veins the color of heart attacks pop out on his face. He is wont to wear monocles, top hats or driving-caps, long flowing scarves of many colors or simply white, and generally takes any opportunity to smoke a cigar. His gargantuan girth is almost always held in by houndstoothed waistcoats of tanned panda skin with fasteners of blue whale ivory. Favorite foods include truffles, foie gras, fresh ortolan, and any provisions stolen from orphans.
THE BICYCLIST is generally from the mountains of [INSERT MOUNTAINOUS STATE HERE, though most likely in New England or the Pacific Northwest]. He subsists entirely on granola, sun-baked hemp, and manna bestowed by his various tree-gods. He wears only organic flannel or ironically sloganed, earth-friendly t-shirts that smell of aged, musty cabbage boiled in pig-sweat. He most likely hates the country he was born in, but cannot leave for fear of losing the trust-fund of a beloved great aunt.
The sheer number of cars and the way they have changed the general understanding of transportation may dictate that automobiles may be the more powerful faction. Indeed, the facts that cars are a great deal heavier (i.e., have a great deal more inertia) and are capable of approaching speeds that a bicycle could not even dream to achieve, that is provided bicycles do in fact dream, seem to suggest that cars have come to OWN THE ROAD.
Bicyclists seem to agree with this assessment. In a stunning development, they have taken to using a slogan designed to remind the pig-headed aristocratic fat-cat automobile drivers to share the road: "SHARE THE ROAD." One may even see this slogan on municipally funded street signs for which taxpayers - including TAX-PAYING CAR-DRIVERS - must pay.
Bicyclists accuse drivers of hogging the road. Drivers accuse bicyclists of not obeying traffic laws and being in the way. The fight has escalated to the point where a commercial was released on television about bicycle safety and automobilist awareness!
BUT WHAT ABOUT PEDESTRIANS!
Indeed, in all the hot air blowing between the two aforementioned factions, the lonely pedestrian seems to be forgotten. Cars take up entire city intersections and honk incessantly as if imploring physics to rethink its laws so that the cars in front of the source of the honking will vanish in thin air. Bicyclists ignore signal lights and crosswalks with little regard for the pedestrians who are attempting to take advantage of the little blue walking person on the yellow square attached to the pole ahead of them. In the battle between bikers' rights and automobilists' superiority complex, the pedestrian is left to fend for itself - a neutral just trying to go about its business, but inevitably caught up in the tide of war.
I mention this because of my intent to FOUND A NEW POLITICAL SOCIETY! No, it is not New York Pedestrians Againts Motorists (NYPAM). Nor is it The Society for the Re-Education of Hippie Dippy Bicyclists Who Think That Two Wheels is Better Than Both Four Wheels and Two Legs (SR-EHDBWTH2WBTB4WTL). Nay! It is the Friends of the Concept of Invincible Pedestrians (FCIP). FCIP will troll through various magical understandings of ancient societies and glean from the best of these metaphysical schools the choicest spells for the preservation of persons trying to walk across the street. I have already encountered a Spell Which Causes Automobiles to Innocently Pass Through Human Flesh Without Harm engraved in hieroglyphics upon the walls of the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Combined with a Mesopotamian Spell of Obliviousness in Pedestrians, and a Maori Charm of Invisibility, I am quite sure that New York pedestrians will be able to pass as ghosts through even the most war-torn intersections in New York City while nonchallantly chatting about the weather with their neighbor as if nothing were happening. Classes begin whenever the hell I feel like it at the cost of several hundred thousand dollars. I am, after all, brilliant to have come up with this.
Before I leave, I would like to point out that it seems that my (currently) 6 readers haven't spread the word about Line Etiquette, as a man told me to hold on while attending to his phone conversation and a woman mumbled through a mouthful of food that she wanted a coffee while searching her pocket-book for change that she didn't actually have. I'm terribly upset with you all... if you're still reading at this point.
Until my society prevails...
I am ever faithfully...
Your Humble Barista

In Which I Set to Improve the Society of Lines...

2009-06-24T18:57:00.003-04:00

Believe it or not, I've found that one of the things Americans find most difficult to do it properly wait in a line. The concept of a waiting in line serves as a paramount example of the success of civilized society. Every part of the line adheres to a social contract. Everyone agrees that the person ahead of them deserves to be served first because they arrived at an earlier time. In a healthily functioning society, free from runs on the bank caused by an ancient investor stealing tuppence from a little boy, lines maximize efficiency and cut down on confusion.
Perhaps society is not so healthy, for I see blatant abuses of the privilege of waiting in line nearly every day. Being a talented register cashier at THE DEATH STAR (the aforementioned coffee shop not far from one of the oldest skyscrapers in Manhattan), I represent the ultimate goal of the line - the person to whom you give your order and your cash in return for fattening goodies and caffeinated beverages that you pretend to be addicted to in order to elicit various responses from your painfully hip co-workers. I here outline some of the vilest offense against good taste, blatant violations of the social contract.
KNOW YOUR ORDER: When you stand in line, you are standing in line for a reason. When visiting THE DEATH STAR, you want expertly steamed milk and bacon-fat coated donuts. As such, take time while you are in line to KNOW YOUR ORDER. Promptly giving me your order ensures that the line moves which in turn ameliorates the healthy flow of society.
HAVE YOUR METHOD OF PAYMENT READY: Here I wish this were a video blog such that I could humorously demonstrate some of the more incredulous transactions I have experienced. Instead, I will list phrases that oughtn't be uttered when you arrive at my smiling, unshaven, sleepy face.

"Lemme see if I have 86¢... in PENNIES."
"Can you break a hundred for this, my $1.90 coffee?"
"I think there's enough money on my gift card."
"Do you accept traveler's checks?"
"Can I owe you [INSERT AMOUNT OF MONEY HERE]?"
"Do you accept checks?"
"I know one of this multitude of credit cards hasn't been maxed out yet."
"Hold on a sec." [FOLLOWED BY A PHONE CALL TO OTHER PEOPLE IN THE OFFICE]

DO NOT CUT THE LINE: This is in bad form and is considered rude in many circles, including all countries east and west of the Prime Meridian. I include this hint here because of one instance that I must relate to you. Not long ago, a transvestite and his boyfriend (who had just been released from prison) caused a major problem in my store by waiting in front of the register while an entire line of hungry, caffeine-starved customers patiently waited in THE LINE. The transvestite, who was very rude, demanded that I abandon my post dealing with THE LINE to refill his personal mug with hot coffee. I explained how a line worked, and how if he wanted service, that he would have to wait in line until it was his turn to be served. At this, his boyfriend (the one recently released from prison), started directly at me, pointed at me, and accused me of being "A BITCH... you can tell just by looking at him he's a little BITCH!" He was ejected from the store, only to burst in a few minutes later with this: "ANY TIME YOU WANNA GO, BITCH, JUST FIND ME! IT'S GONNA BE BLOODY BLOODY!" At the time, this infuriated me, but now I can only laugh.
"DO NOT USE CELLULAR COMMUNICATIONS DEVICES IN THE LINE": Line time is waiting time. You are there to wait. Here are some of the things you may wish to do in a line that are socially acceptable practices that are not addictive, and do not cause you to stare zombie-like at a tiny screen while cognizant persons still part of the healthily functioning waking world are attempting to take your order:

Read part of a book, magazine, newspaper, &c.
Talk to a neighbor in line - BUT NOT SO LOUDLY OR OBNOXIOUSLY AS TO RESORT TO A ZOMBIE LIKE STATE WHERE NO OTHER PERSONS EXIST.
NOTHING - it's a line after all, goshdarnit.

I reserve the right to entirely ignore you when you ignore me. Sure, my company tells me that I need to be welcoming and hospitable, but show some reciprocity! There is nothing that makes my blood boil so quickly (at sea level, see alternate instructions for high altitudes) as a person who approaches the register on a cell phone. You see them fidgeting with their Blackberries reading emails. They scroll through long text conversations on their iPhones. They APOLOGIZE to the PERSON ON THE OTHER END OF THE LINE, when I kindly ask them how I may help them, whereas I get a whispered order whilst the customer's hand covers the receiver so as not to interrupt their conversation. Just don't do it. DO NOT USE CELL PHONES IN LINE!
Using these guiding principles, I'm sure that we can all live in a happier and healthier society, free from obnoxious cell phone abusers and time wasters.
Until next time...
I am very truly...
Your Humble Barista

In Which A New Chapter Begins...

2009-06-23T18:15:00.000-04:00

Having reached the tender age of 25 some months ago with little in the way of fanfare, I have decided to graduate myself from the angst-clad shackles of Dead Journal and enter the entirely more sophisticated and acceptable realm that is BLOGGER. Considering that I simply typed BLOGGER.COM into my URL bar and it practically set up an account by itself, I consider this switch predestined.
So what of my life now? Certainly there have been many great changes. I have moved from the borough of Manhattan, so-named for the misogynistic cap-wearers that purchased it from Indians who didn't even own the land in return for tiny glass trinkets and small-pox, to the mythical Kingdom of Brooklyn, a small land at the westernmost terminus of Long Island where persons exchange oyster shells for currency and appreciation for baseball is mandatory. Here I live in a small but comfortable apartment in a neighborhood not far from the Brooklyn Museum, a grandiose palace filled with facsimiles of great paintings and originals of modern atrocities against good taste. Such is the nature of this neighborhood that signs intended to curb loitering must be written in English, Spanish, and broken French. Currently living with me is my talented and beautiful girlfriend, Maria, who spends winters teaching autistic children in the New York Department of Education and summers praying for beach days. Among our most prized possessions are a cast iron skillet that we have meticulously seasoned with our above-average culinary skills, a scarf knitted by Maria in the style of the fourth regeneration of Doctor Who, and a rocking chair that once belonged to my great-grandfather.
I myself still slave away behind a very expensive espresso machine in coffee shop belonging to one of the largest corporations on this, our Spaceship Earth. Shamefully donning my green apron in a shop not too distant from one of the oldest skyscrapers in New York City, I strive to finish my Baccalaureate Degree of History and Social Studies Education from Stony Brook University. As I will be student teaching in New York City's public school system this upcoming fall to finally complete said degree, I trust that this web log will become ever so much more interesting in the not-too-distant future. Until such time, I shall spend as much time as possible complaining about my coffee shop, which I will heretofore refer by the randomly selected name, THE DEATH STAR, and extolling the wonders and virtues of my friends and loved ones. Occasionally I hope to write about an interesting dream I have, since I tend to have extraordinary night-visions that people occasionally find entertaining.
God-willing, readers will find my writings and musings entertaining, educational, and yes, perhaps, even a trifle outrageous, though never maliciously so. Should they have any questions or concerns, they ought to exercise their curious desires and contact me using the usual internet channels. Until then...
I am truly...
Your Humble Barista

NEXT TIME: The Etiquette of Waiting in Line