WHINING AND DINING

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (05-02-19)

     My wife likes to throw a nice dinner party once in a while, invite some of our more well-behaved friends and have a lovely evening. If I promise not to do anything worse than what I did at the last dinner party, I am allowed to attend, too. It gives me a chance to show off my more sophisticated side and prove that I can act just like normal people. I really don't know much about being normal, but I know more about acting than you might think.

     I'm supposed to help prepare by making sure my bathroom is ready to receive company. I used to just drape yellow crime scene tape outside the door and set up some orange cones directing traffic over to my wife's bathroom. It does look like there might have been prosecutable offenses committed in my bathroom, but those are more like crimes against nature. Even my dog Gidget knows that company is coming because she sees us stuffing things into the closet that clearly don't belong there. Having people over is a great opportunity to show off how well-trained she is.

     Gidget is very pretty, which she gets from my wife's side of the family. She is also kind of quirky, and I don't know whose side of the family she gets that from. She doesn't seem to know how to play like most normal dogs. I tried to teach her to play catch using dog treats. I throw the ball and you catch it. We don't need to diagram any plays, or try to fake a short-yardage play-action pass in the slot or anything like that. You don't even have to throw it back. After about 20 times Gidget caught the ball in her mouth by mistake, so I gave her a treat. The very next try she caught it on purpose, so clearly she is not dumb. But the ball was in her mouth for only a short fraction of a second before she spit it out to make room for the dog biscuit. I had to check instant replay to find out if she actually had possession of the ball, or if it should be declared an incomplete pass. It turns out she is smarter than I am, and finally she taught me how to just throw the dog biscuit, and leave the ball on the floor.

     By the way I'm sick of people having a better-trained dog than mine, because those people think it reflects more on the trainer than on the dog. I taught my dog to sit, after such time as it gets tired of standing. I also taught it to shake, even if it's not that cold. I've taught it lots of things, my dog is home-schooled. We have a curriculum that includes physics (any action you take on a cat has an equal and opposite reaction), math (if I had two ham sandwiches and now I only have one, how much trouble are you probably in?) and all kinds of subjects. I'd like to see your dog do any better when I'm over at your house. "So, does your dog know any tricks?" I ask. "Absolutely. Do you have a deck of cards?"

     We think eight people is the perfect number for a dinner party. That way if I say something stupid, usually four people are too far down the table to hear it. My wife and I sit at opposite ends. I say I'd like to thank everybody for coming, and my wife says, "What?" I think that's what she said, I couldn't really hear. We like to invite people whose disparate personalities will mesh and invite an exchange of ideas. That's code for: somebody might have voted for Trump, so you need to seat them away from the ones that hate Trump, and make sure nobody has access to anything sharper than a folded napkin. And right before discussing Trump, it is imperative to reiterate that there will be NO discussing Trump. You think climate change is a hoax? Try throwing a teaspoon of Trump into the conversation and see how fast the jet stream blows a bunch of clouds over the appetizers.

     Can I offer you something from the bar? How about a Scotch-and-soda, and not that single-malt crap. I surely think that we can afford more than one malt for this auspicious occasion. Actually, the only soda I had for the Scotch-and-soda was Mountain Dew, but they had already opened some wine. I don't know anything about wine, but me trying to say the names of wine in a French accent is like a water buffalo trying to tap dance, and that may or may not be entertaining to some people.

     We've had some friends over that are pretty well-to-do, and I like to impress them with my refinement. What I'd really like to know is how they got so well-to-did. A long time ago I told my wife, in case she wanted to run before it was too late, that I wasn't much good at making money. And she said, you may not be good at making money, but you're good at not spending it on me, so someday you might be worth something.

     We love to travel, and so do our guests. Traveling the world is so worldly, and it's a great topic of conversation. Go ahead and ask me about it: "Will you be abroad this year?" "No, I like being a dude too much. But we are planning a trip. We were in Rome last year. I don't know if all roads lead to Rome, but I will tell you that I-81 certainly does. Take a right when you get to Lake Oneida." "Really? How interesting. We're thinking of attending the 'running of the bulls' this July."  "Is that so? How interesting. I may go in August for the 'sitting around of the worn-out bulls.' Then I'll probably go up to Saratoga, where my horse will naturally win. Then it's off to Nova Scotia, to see the total eclipse of the sun. I'll be traveling with the wife of a close friend. She's an underworld spy, you know." "Oh? How interesting."

     My wife is a great cook, and she decided to make an Italian dish called Chazz Palminteri. At least I think that's what she said, I couldn't really hear her from my side of the table.

A SOAPBOX FOR EVERYONE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (04-25-19)

     If you're thinking about running for president, now is the time to do it, because everybody else is and you don't want to be left out. Running for office is a minefield, so let's go over a few rules and suggestions, and some examples of what not to do. Rule Number One: Don't do anything that goes against your core values. For instance, Bernie Sanders has spent his political career railing against the rich and powerful. He even wrote a book about it, and the people rose up and bought his book, and now he's a millionaire, and he's stumbling around trying to explain why he shouldn't share some of that money with us. There's nothing worse for Socialism than a rich and powerful proletariat.
     Rule Number Two: Don't do anything stupid 20 years ago. I went to a Halloween party as Shrek once, and now I'm finding out that it is insulting to ogres to parade around in green-face. So today's standards are being applied to things that happened quite a while ago, and now it is coming to light that many people were insulted and subjected to rude behavior before they were killed during the fall of the Roman Empire.

     Rule Number Three: Try to stretch the truth as much as possible, because the truth is BORING. Stretch it like a pair of yoga pants in the Walmart cookie aisle. Elizabeth Warren had been going around telling people that she is part American Indian, then she had her numbers done by one of those DNA genealogy sites, and it turns out she's like one millionth Cherokee Indian, the equivalent of one of her inner ear bones. Incidentally my neighbor has a Jeep Cherokee in the garage that's going through the same issue- most of it was made in Japan and Mexico, and it's only about one-eighth native American. If I was running for president I would say I am part black Latina woman, and probably I would be statistically correct.

     Rule Number Four: It's a good idea to be all things to all people. If you have any skeletons in the closet, now is the time to get them out. If you yourself have been in the closet, now is the time to get YOU out. The LGBT community is a large and vocal group, and they don't want to see their rights trampled upon. If you are a gay candidate, you have an instant base right there. If not, this is your opportunity to bring up an incident or two that you had in summer camp and get it off your chest. Okay maybe three, it was a long time ago. Four is my final offer, and I'll throw in a bachelor party weekend when I was in college, but there was alcohol involved.

     Rule Number Five: Don't say anything stupid on the campaign trail, like "Where is the actual trail? I think I might be lost." DON'T screw up, not because you could mislead the American people, or do damage to your chances of becoming president, but because you might get mocked on Saturday Night Live. The minute I see Colin Jost in front of a picture of me in the corner, before he even says anything all the hair falls out of my head. Even worse, is one of the ugly cast members going to portray me, or worser than worse, a female cast member? You're better off not saying anything substantive that can come back to bite you on the ass later. When Trump ends up in the hospital after all this is over it won't be because of stress or because a climate scientist punched him in the nose, it will be because one of those bites on his ass got infected.

     Rule Number Six: Don't touch any women, even if you have a good reason, and being creepy is not a good reason. A female politician came forward to complain that Biden acted inappropriately by kissing the top of her head and "inhaling" her hair. All I could think of was thank god she wasn't wearing a wig. "Honey, where did all your hair go?" "Oh that. Biden inhaled it. But the joke's on him because it had a boatload of bobby pins in it!" "Well, I was kissed by a politician 40 years ago, and I have photo evidence of it. I'm just now coming to terms with it." "Mom, you were 10 months old- everybody kissed babies back then!" "Yes but I've finally decided to come forward instead of waiting for everyone else to go backward."

     Rule Number Seven: If it looks like you might be getting close to being elected, make sure to have some cabinet appointees in mind. Trump decided to hire and fire a bunch of retired generals, thinking that they might tell him what to do and that he might enjoy that. He went through General Flynn, he went through General McMaster, he went through General Kelly, he went through General Mattis. The only one he didn't hire is that little general who sells car insurance from a Corvette convertible with a penguin. If he had gone to him first he would have saved some time, so I've heard.

     If, god forbid, you DO get elected, don't stress about it, it's not the end of the world. You don't really have to do anything, as long as you tweet that you'd like to do something, perhaps this weekend if the weather is nice. It doesn't matter if you tweet like a 12 year-old girl. Blame anything bad on the "Dems." Get an Instagram account and try to break the internet before the Russians do. I've got to go now and find some ice for my knee. I was putting together my campaign platform, and I whacked myself with a hammer.

THROWN AWAY IN THE USA

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (04-18-19)

     It's not even Earth Day day yet, and we already have a problem. You may not believe this but China is refusing our refuse. They're not going to put up with our garbage anymore, and it's causing a lot of problems. They used to love our garbage. We would buy a crappy plastic thing that said "Made in China" on it, and we'd use it for a while, and eventually it would break, or we'd get sick of it. Should we give it to somebody else? Nah, giving a crappy plastic thing to somebody else just makes us look cheap. Even the needy didn't need it. So we'd just throw it into the recycling bin, and a few months later it would arrive in China in a bag that said "Made in USA" on it, and they would melt it down and make that same crappy plastic thing out of it again, in a different color, and stamp "Made in China" back on it. I call it a "vicious recycle."

     I'm not just trash talking. China's manufacturing boom of the last few decades was built upon the availability of cheap raw materials, otherwise known as America's biggest export: garbage. Because we run a trade deficit relative to China, shipping companies that imported millions of tons of their products to American shores had plenty of room on the way back. And they filled every empty space with plastic, much like the Kardashians did. And now China has too much plastic and they don't want ours, so recycling managers are down in the dumps these days. Crap is piling up everywhere, and it's beginning to look like my office. I read that Great Britain generates enough plastic waste each year to fill 10,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Which gives me a great idea to get rid of it, as long as they don't need to send any swimmers to the Olympics.

     I'm guessing that much of this plastic is only used to wrap something else, so it starts out as waste and doesn't really have any lofty ambitions to be anything else. And I'm further guessing that some of the material in that category is plastic that still contains something that I ordered from Amazon but couldn't open. I looked all over for a little tab on it somewhere that says, "OPEN HERE," or a perforation or even a picture of a little pair of scissors that says "YOU deal with it." Even with a pair of scissors I end up cutting myself three times, once with each scissor in the pair and once with the plastic itself, which turns out to be sharper than I thought when cut with a pair of scissors. There is nothing that would allow me to gain entry to this product. So who could blame me if I just lob the whole thing into the recycling bin in despair.

      We're now trying to find other countries to take our garbage, because one country's treasure is another country's trash. So far nobody wants our treasure. Should we put an ad on Craigslist? "Free to a good home: 400,000 tons of plastic containers, about 250,000 tons of which is uneaten Chinese food." Should we send it into space? If we wait around long enough we'll eventually be running a trade deficit with Uranus, and we can send it there for cheap. What we don't want it to do is end up in the ocean. Microplastics have been found in seagulls and whales, which means that it is finding its way back into our food supply, and that's why I don't eat whales and seagulls anymore.

     China will take some of our plastic, but it has to be exactly the kind they need, so we are inventing robots to sort our recycling. A robot can do it faster and more efficiently. Plus, a robot doesn't say, "Wow, I can't believe someone would throw THIS out!" And then stuff it in their pocket.

     Another thing we need to do is simply generate less plastic. My wife tells me that they're not using plastic bags at the supermarket anymore, so if I buy a dozen watermelons I have to take them each out to the car separately. But I'll do it to save the planet, you can thank me later.

     If YOU want to help do something for Earth Day, you can help by recycling your metal items, even your old recycling-sorting robots. On Saturday, April 20th, my friends Margaret and Judy, along with Mike from City Carting will be hosting their annual metal and electronic waste recycling drive at the Somers Intermediate School. I'll be there to help, along with Gidget, the World's Most Prettiest Dog. Bring us your scrap metal, your ancient electronics, your old appliances, yearning to be free, and a five-dollar bill that will also be recycled to help benefit important programs supported by the PTA Council.

     In the meantime, let's figure out what to do with all that waste, because the Earth is suffering. I was in a greenhouse recently and I feared for my life. There were plants everywhere, giving off those greenhouse gases. I had a teacher in Middle School once who told me point blank that he wasn't going to take any more of my garbage. I could certainly understand that, but that did not prevent me from producing more garbage.

'TIS THE SEASON

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (04-11-19)

     Baseball Season is unlike Deer Season or Duck Season in that you don't actually shoot the baseball players with a gun. Do you sometimes WANT to shoot the baseball players with a gun? Yes, maybe not a loaded gun, just enough to slightly alarm them once in a while. Maybe when I pull the trigger a little flag could come out that says, "Why, every time you get a two-strike count, must you then waste two pitches way out of the strike zone and then end up walking the guy?" Can I fit that onto a little flag?

     But I still love baseball. I was talking to a gal at a bar who was trying to watch a soccer game. "Don't you hate soccer," I asked, to see if she was watching it only to confirm the fact that she hated it.  "No, I love it. I think BASEBALL is boring." "You think WHAT is WHAT???" Baseball is like a nine-act play, a drama, an epic. It has one-on-one confrontations and team conflict, all of it choreographed to really bad organ music. A game of soccer plays for two hours to a zero-zero tie. They give you a red card, they give you a yellow card. Let's just play cards, at least I could win something. Let's use Tarot Cards so we can see what's really going on. If the ref hands you a Queen of Pentacles AND The Moon card, you'll probably turn into a newt within the hour anyway. I explained all of this to the back of her hand as she was walking away, and I hope she heard the end of my monologue through the ladies room door.

     It's only a week into the Yankees season and our star pitcher is on the Disabled List because he experienced some tingling in his shoulder. At my age tingling in anything should be cause for celebration, even tingling in somebody else's shoulder. OMG what if he has rotator cuff? What if the whole rotation gets rotator cuff and can't rotate anymore? What if he needs "Tommy John" surgery? What if he has Lou Gehrig's disease? If you play baseball long enough to drop dead right on the field you could have a disease named after you, and possibly go to the Baseball Disease Hall of Fame. By the way you should write your induction speech in advance.

     I am fighting a sports injury myself from playing tennis, and it could be pretty serious. There's a bump on my little toe, and my wife looked it up on the internet and said it was a bunionette. Doesn't that have something to do with your hair, I was going to ask her when she stopped laughing but she never stopped laughing. When I went to the podiatrist to try and get him to diagnose something more serious, he said I could call it a "tailor's bunion" if I wanted to, and I told him he wasn't getting his co-payment.

     If you're a Yankee fan you have to get used to the envious critics and the rich-get-richer nay-sayers. Admittedly, the Yankees had Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson working out in spring training, making it possible that the Yankees might secure the quarterback of the future before the New York Giants did.

     Baseball is the only sport where you can have a serious and heated discussion about a pitcher's "stuff," and still get people to believe that you have any idea what you're talking about.  "He has great stuff, he just can't get anyone out." "Yes he's always been great stuff-wise but he just doesn't trust his stuff."

     The Baseball Commission also has the responsibility of setting an example for the kids, so they would rather not portray ballplayers chewing a big load of tobacco and then spitting it out. Instead, many are chewing bird seeds and spitting the shells out. There is still spitting involved, so there's no need to worry. I don't think eating bird seeds sets a great example for children either, because how are we going to grow any new birds if people keep eating the seeds?

     Major League Baseball has found out that we now have shorter attention spans, and they want to make the game go faster. So they have been experimenting with a "pitch clock" to keep the game moving in a timely manner.  As it is now, the pitcher shakes his head at the catcher to say, "I'm not comfortable with that pitch right now, and I have a fly in my nose." The catcher puts down one carefully chosen finger as a signal, to say, "I don't really care." Then the batter steps out of the batter's box so he can tighten his glove and adjust his crotch. It's unclear what may have changed in the adjustment of his crotch since the last pitch was thrown, but you shouldn't underestimate the forces at work in a man's crotch. If you're still with me at this point in the paragraph, then your attention span is longer than normal and you probably don't need a pitch clock. All of this is why I still love baseball.

     OMG I just learned that another member of the team has been put on the Injured List. What if he has a concussion? If you get a concussion in sports today they take it very seriously, and if you don't think they should examine your head, you should get your head examined. To get back on the field you need to clear "concussion protocols," where they check for spine and head injuries, and ask some questions designed to test recall, concentration and orientation. If you can't remember where you left your wallet, don't know what the word "ubiquitous" means and lose concentration during a soccer game, you might have a concussion, or you might have Rick Melén's disease.