TAYLOR + TRAVIS 4-EVER

 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (10-12-23)

 

     Taylor Swift is dating Travis Kelce! Best. Relationship. Ever. OMG it's a LTR with tons of PDA! I had to look up what PDA means because last time I checked it meant "personal digital assistant." And LTR? I know it's only been two weeks. But if you type "Taylor Swift and..." into your web browser, the following names come up, plus Travis Kelce's: Joe Alwyn, Harry Styles, Jake Gyllenhaal, Joe Jonas, Taylor Lautner, Tom Hiddleston, Lucas Till, John Mayer, Calvin Harris, Matty Healy and Rick Melén. I had to type in Rick Melén myself- we aren't technically seeing each other because I don't have my glasses on. So if you want to date Taylor Swift you only have so much time with her, and you had better make the most of it.

     She doesn't wait long enough for familiarity to breed contempt before she breaks up with you. Familiarity isn't even pregnant yet and you're out the door. How's the weather, have you read any good books lately, where do you want to go for dinner? We'll need to skip all of that. Arguments over that aren't going to break up a relationship, and that's where we need to get to faster. Not on the first date, maybe the second, let's discuss having children, getting a house together, who won the battle round on "The Voice."

     These two are still getting past the small talk. "Travis, what's the craziest thing you've ever done?" "Well, once I refused to autograph a baby." "Travis! How could you turn down a little baby? Where did they want you to autograph it?" "Right in the parking lot. What about you?" "Well, once I tried to walk onto the red carpet unnoticed, but I wasn't wearing concealer. Travis, may I call you Kelce? This is such a beautiful moment. Let's take a picture together to capture it." "Hold on, Taylor, are you going to let all those girls that are with you into our special picture?" "Travis, don't be so selfish- after all this is a SELFIE we're talking about here. Now what's your best side?" "Definitely potato skins with bacon in them."

     Kelce probably knows that if history repeats itself, there will eventually be irreconcilable differences, possibly ones that rhyme. And when that day comes, there will be a song written about you, and millions of teenage girls will be singing all your bad qualities for years to come. If I were him I'd change my name to "Orange," since there's hardly anything that rhymes with it. He's a receiver, and a lot of things rhyme with "pass." Some of them are not good news, but I won't go into any more detail here.

     My skeptical side can't help thinking that this relationship is simply a cross-branding coup for the pop culture-spewing icon machine that is Taylor Swift. Taylor was seen up in a skybox watching the Chiefs game, with all of her "Swiftie" friends and Kelce's Mom. There could soon be NFL tie-in merch, or maybe even a sit-com. It also means Travis will have to go to one of her concerts with his football buddies and Taylor's Dad. The whole thing just seems strangely unnatural to me. If they ever tie the knot it will be more like a corporate merger than a wedding.

     The same thing happened to Pete Davidson when he got engaged to Ariana Grande- his bankability quotient quadrupled, and all of a sudden the most beautiful and eligible bachelorettes in the land started looking at him thinking, "Really? Well, I guess so." They'll need a hybrid name. There was Brangelina, there was Bennifer, there was J-rod, there was Kimye. Will this new super-couple be called Travlor? Tayvis? Taylce?  By the way, if Stefani Germanotta married John Rzeznik, she'd be Lady Gaga Goo Goo.

     But that's what a relationship is all about. You absorb from each other. Taylor is going to learn things she never knew she needed to know, like how to achieve success in a triangle formation offense, with an inside slot receiver and a running back released to the weak side. And Travis is going to find out how to stand so that your legs look longer. And don't make a half-hearted effort or only one of your legs is going to look longer. 

     I could be wrong, maybe this is the real deal, but I felt I had better get these things off my chest within a week to be on the safe side. Maybe Kelce will announce his wishes to her Dad at the big concert. "Mr. Swift, I'm going to ask you for your daughter's hand in marriage," Travis says. "WHAT? I can't hear a damn thing with 18,000 teenagers yelling in my ear." "I'm asking you for your daughter's hand in marriage, sir." "Fine, just leave the rest of her out of it."

TRANSCUTANEOUSLY YOURS

 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (10-05-23)

 

     I bet if you asked any of my doctors what my real problem is, they would say that as a patient I don't have any patience. To illustrate, I might be watching the news magazine "Sunday Morning," where in order to create a relaxing experience for the viewer, they might air a shot of an icicle slowly melting, dripping away for about five minutes. Because I'm so impatient I would try to reach through the screen with a blow dryer and speed things up. Or, if I won tickets to a Bruce Springsteen concert and I am SO EXCITED throughout the first four hours of the show, the next two hours I start to get restless as darkness on the edge of town starts to turn to light.

     Anyway, I just want my doctors to cure me faster. I want a doctor whose motto is, "If I can't deliver your baby in 30 minutes it's FREE!" I would take a magic elixir to restore my health, as long as it doesn't contain gluten or lactose. But it's time that heals all wounds, and who has time for that? The doctors aren't in any hurry to find a substitute for time; as my health insurance continues to put their children through college, they continue to tell what to do to cure my latest afflictions, which is: nothing.

     Right now I'm in physical therapy for a broken 5th metatarsal bone in my foot, and I could just kick myself for breaking it in the first place, but I'll need to do it with one of my other 4 metatarsals. The therapist has me lie down on the table and assumme a position with one of my feet under me, raising my body with the other foot outstretched. The sort of position you should make no assumptions about if you find somebody in.

     Then he spreads out a bunch of marbles on the floor and directs me to pick them up one at a time with my toes and place them in a teacup. I'm distracted by the idea that this is going to result in a weird cup of tea, and the marbles go skittering across the floor. In an ironic twist, I've lost somebody else's marbles.

     The physical therapy office is a good example of a place where I can injure a different part of my body while treating the part I'm trying to cure. I'm told to stand balanced on my bad foot for 30 seconds. The waving of my arms and leg like a drunken semaphore operator trying to land a plane was something I added myself, and I still almost fell into a mirror that they have perfectly positioned so that you can see the face you make when you're about to crash into a mirror. It feels like a DWI field test, and I may be spending the evening in jail.

     The guy next to me is groaning, but that could be from my jokes. The therapist disappears into the back and I whisper to the guy, "PSST!" He looks alarmed that I might have sprung an air leak. "We've got to get the hell out of here- I think we're about to get water-boarded." The physical therapist returns and starts massaging my foot in the exact area where an orthopedic surgeon has inserted a large screw. In between my screams he glibly says, "No pain, no gain" "That explains my weight," I say. He keeps working on my foot, unfazed. I yell, "ALL RIGHT, I'LL TALK!" But he says, "Talk? We were hoping you'd zip it for a few precious moments. Are you experiencing any pain right now? On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is it?" He's trying for a perfect 10 score like in the Olympics.

     "Be right back," he says, and I turn to the guy with the bad shoulder. I say, "This is how it's gonna go down: you create a diversion, and I'll make a run for it." "What about me?" "You're right. We'll need two diverse diversions, and the therapist can make a run for it." The guy says, "Listen, I saw an episode of MacGyver where he escapes on a cart he makes out of a battery, rubber bands, a blender, and half of a suit of armor." "Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Do you have a battery?" "No." Rubber bands?" "No." "A blender?" "No." "What about the suit of armor?" "I have that."

     The therapist comes back and says, "Time for a little transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation." And before I have a chance to look up "transcutaneous" he has me hooked up to something that looks like an EKG, only it's pulsing electrical charges into my body. I say, "Are you going to charge me extra for charging me extra?" He turns it up to "tase," and after a 15 minutes says, "Okay, you're done." I would have settled for medium rare 10 minutes ago.

DONOR-OPERATED

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (09-28-23)

 

     There are wealthy people, and then there are people that are in a different stratosphere of rich. They've already set aside money for their grandkids (in a trust fund, so named because they don't trust their kids). They have a secondary residence where they do their wintering in the summer and their summering in the fall. They also bought a fourth home because they don't remember where the third one is and are too embarrassed to ask. They've spent a substantial amount on plastic surgery, and an additional sum to make it look like they haven't had any plastic surgery, and now they look similar to how they did before the plastic surgery. 

     But then there are others who recognize a wider responsibility to society. Somebody once asked pitcher Tug McGraw what he intended to do with his World Series winnings, and he famously replied, "Ninety percent I'll spend on good times, women and Irish Whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste." While returning most of that money back into the economy is a noble gesture, many people here in Westchester have benefitted from the fruits of hard work or circumstance and are eager for a way to pass that good fortune on.

     Looking through the spam folder of my email account I discovered that I myself am the recipient of such charity. A certain "Lerynne West from an unassuming community of Redfield Iowa" was apparently the "victor of six hundred and eighty seven Million Powerball bonanza Lottery" dollars, and my email address was "haphazardly drawn from the email global lottery framework." Now, I know I'm not rich, since my name is Rick and I missed it by one letter. But I'm still trying to figure out how to spend the $8.3 million I was told that I won by a certain Mrs. Nicole Marois of Burkina Faso. 

     While we're waiting, there are others better suited to bring donors together with organizations who are doing work at a grassroots level, engaging the young, the less  fortunate and other deserving folks with programs designed to engage, enrich and further their development in all sorts of ways. My wife is a program officer for the Westchester Community Foundation, and one of her most rewarding duties is to visit these groups and find out in person what they are up to.

     One such partnership seeks to support women service veterans with PTSD by helping them forge a therapeutic, on-ground bond with horses in a private space as they learn about the animals, their care, handling and grooming.

     I've never been great with horses, but I can see where a day of grooming might help our relationship. "Whoa," I say, "what's with the long face? I'm going to fix you up real nice, all the studs'll be hot-to-trot. Listen, that hairstyle is basically a mullet- business in the front and party in the back. You already have a tail if you need a party further back. Now, let's talk about your hair color. Have you always been a natural roan? I recommend a few palomino highlights. "Piebald by choice?" Another option. Also, let's talk about your shoes: seven pairs of flats is a nightmare, pardon the expression."

     Last Saturday I was lucky enough to tag along to Mount Vernon for a rehearsal of a community drum line, featuring coed performers of all ages. They learn confidence, discipline, showmanship and how to relate to others out of their peer and age group, not to mention the music and choreography itself. When I was a kid I used to practice the drums down in our basement, and when my Mom needed to get my attention she used to flick the lights on and off from the upstairs switch. I just thought it was part of the light show. Exasperated, she said, "It's like you're blind, deaf and dumb down there." I said, "Well, I can speak, so I'm not dumb," and she gave me that look she gives me when something I say instantly proves her correct.

     You're probably thinking, Rick, how is it possible for you to make everything all about YOU? And I say, well, when you get your own newspaper column, then YOU can make it all about me. But this truly isn't about me, it's about the people who find the resources to give, those who direct the money where it can do the most good, those who work and volunteer at organizations built to uplift and those who eagerly accept the opportunity to grow from these programs. And on behalf of all of them, I say thank you.

A THOUGHT FOR SORE MINDS

 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (09-21-23)

 

     We're all getting older, even babies who were just born. But while they're getting smarter as they get older, I'm getting dumber. Maybe not dumber, because there is knowledge in my brain that is untapped, it's just getting harder and harder to get any of it out. My thoughts are not analogous to, say, untapped beer, which will benefit society once it starts to flow. Sometimes I will surprise people with the things that I know, because they can't believe anyone could remember that many lines from "F Troop," or advertising jingles from the 1970s. 

     My mother once lamented that she was losing her.... And the word that she couldn't remember, of course was "memory." She didn't suffer from dementia, or Alzheimer's or any brain deficiency, that's just the way she was. She was bright and clever, but sometimes couldn't make synapses perform the way she wanted to when she needed them. And that gene was passed down to me.

     I might be at a social function, and coming towards us is so-and-so, whose name we should remember but you only see them once a year, and I think it begins with a "D," but is it Deborah or Dominique? Or Deboranique? My wife and I have a system, where I preemptively strike and say with a laugh, "HEY, I know YOU! Ha, ha!" And before I have to prove it, my wife swoops in and says, "Hi," and sticks out her hand to shake so she can find out the name when the introductions are made. I'm dreading the day when Darlene (or whatever the hell her name is) turns to my wife and says, "AND, I know YOU!" Which means she doesn't remember our names either, possibly even her own.

     "What the hell is her name?" I'm struggling. "Go through the alphabet," my wife suggests. "Okay, I think it's a state, like Dakota, or Denver, or Dallas, or something." "None of those are states," she points out, but I'm still singing the alphabet and now I have to start over. "I know it's not Rhode Island. Wait, I think it's a flower, like Dahlia, or Daisy, or Delphinium." "She does grow on you," my wife offers. "Hold on, I think it's a feeling, like Desiree or Destiny or Divinity. Wait- I think it's a crustacean, like Daphnia." Once the woman finally tells me her name I say, "No, that's not it."

     So I signed up on a web site that sends a daily program of brain games, to tighten up my mental acuity and memorization skills. I couldn't remember my password, so it wasn't off to a flying start. In one of the games you pretend you're a waiter, and different people walk into the restaurant and you have to remember their names. Strangely enough, I rose to the top level of competition, and remembered everyone's name, but I found that it only worked with drawings of people, and not real people. It seems that I'm good at things that make you appear smart if you don't look too closely. I display a certain amount of perspicacity in knowing words like "perspicacity," but when I go to use them, people just assume I made them up and I look dumber than usual.

     I guess there's a lot we don't know about the brain. Years ago I signed up for the organ registry, which I'm glad I didn't have to do in person. "I'd like to donate my brain to Science." And the clerk would say, "WHICH science would that be, geology?" and I'd say, "Let's make it Popular Science?" "Okay, just have a seat and I'll send somebody over for it." "Well, I meant AFTER I'm dead." She says, "Don't worry, that's an electric chair. Just kidding." By the way, what happens if I donate a kidney, and then MY remaining kidney fails? Do I need to knock on somebody's door and try to get my old one back? I don't want a stranger's kidney because what if my body rejects it? I don't take rejection well.

     Thoughts are in there, I just know they are. Sometimes I can't get to sleep at night because my mind is racing. When I finally wake up it's clear that it has lost. I'm not a morning person, so I have to wait until at least 10:00 before making any decisions. Breakfast is at 10:01. At work I avoid clichés when I'm running a meeting. If I say, "And that's it in a nutshell," I run the risk of people thinking to themselves that it should have stayed in the nutshell.