GREETINGS FROM PYEONGCHANG

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (02-22-18)

     For those of you who are too busy to watch the Winter Olympics this year, I have been covering the events for the Somers Record. It all started with the opening ceremonies, which, using complicated special effects and choreography, told the story of five Korean children who travel through time from the past to the future, learning of the country's history and culture. They return to the present, where it is REALLY friggin' cold.

     Then there was the Parade of Nations, and this year Zambia, Zaire and Zimbabwe must have threatened to hit an IOC official over the head with a ball peen hammer, because this year they did not enter in alphabetical order. Seeing all the young, good-looking athletes all together seems like a a giant red carpet event. 270 people  wearing the same outfit! Who wore it better??

     Then there were some songs, some speeches, some fireworks. The athlete representing the host country ran all the way up about a hundred flights of stairs to light the Olympic flame. He's been running all the way across the country, so I guess he's a cross-country runner, duh. He must really love the Games, I just hope the Games love him back. It seems like he's been carrying a torch for the Olympics forever.

     Even though I consider myself an expert, there are some things about winter sports that I don't understand. I watched curling for way longer than is possibly healthy, and at the end of the competition, there wasn't anything the least bit curlier than when they started. And I checked everything, including their hair. We're just going to have to take their word on that one.

     I also watched an event called the "half pipe," which was extremely entertaining. After seeing all the contestants together, it was impossible to figure out who smoked the other half.

     One thing I've noticed is that the Olympics are a lot more non-gender anti-quasi-inclusive now. You have a whole team of bi-athletes, and I'm told that they have guns. Also, how long until two dudes take the ice in the Olympic pairs competition? "Sorry Mr. Pence, I guess you didn't realize when you invited us here to your house in Washington, but we are manned, tanned and love Streisand! Also, sorry about your carpet- I guess we should have taken our skates off first."

     The luge is a lot like the bobsled, only minus the bobsled. You hurtle down the mountain on your back, a wing and prayer and about 50 pounds of steel and fiberglass. If you don't want to be thought of as a total luger, the skeleton is just the thing for you. It's pretty much the same as the luge only you go down head first. It's much easier, since if you encounter any problems your head will know about it ahead of time and can warn your feet. Neither one seems like it would pass the most basic safety standards. Do these things have anti-lock brakes? I plan to keep my skeleton where it belongs, in the closet.

     If you really want to get some great ratings, award the Games to New York City. Run a pothole slalom down 45th Street. Line up all the cross country contestants on the corner of Madison Avenue, and let them try to catch the M42 bus as it goes careening by the stop for NO reason. Run a short track around Columbus Circle, and long program at Rockefeller Center. Stick the Olympic flame at the top of the Empire State Building, and during the closing ceremonies, if your country has a burning fire for the Games and somebody in really good shape, he can run up there to get it.

WEATHER OR NOT

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (02-15-18)

     February 2nd has come and gone, and once again we have foolishly entrusted a large rodent with six weeks worth of weather forecasting. This year they had a whole entourage of guys who wanted to cram into the Groundhog Day action, but there's one head groundhog aficionado who's in charge when they open up Punxsutawney Phil's cage. Both man and beast are dressed to the nines, one in a top hat and tux, the other in a full-length fur, flaunting it in the face of PETA. Both wearing tails. There is a strict formal dress code at the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club.

     I guess the guy with the hat is the president of the club, although without the groundhog it's just a bunch of overdressed dudes running around looking a little to happy to be at the party. I wonder if when the groundhog takes a plane trip he's allowed to bring the guy in the top hat along for emotional support?

     A groundhog is the same as a woodchuck, so you could call it Woodchuck Day if you want and no one would fault you for it. It is a species of marmot, which is a large rodent similar in nature to a squirrel, only with larger nuts.  A hedgehog is a different animal, however, and if one of those comes up to you and tries to forecast the weather, I would call the cops.

     Top Hat is grinning from earmuff to earmuff as he holds his weather associate aloft for all to behold. The groundhog doesn't seem too into it, but why should he smile? He's just been woken up possibly SIX WEEKS early from a perfectly good hibernation. Hey Top Hat- stick me where the sun don't shine! Wouldn't you just see your damn shadow so you can sleep in? Filibuster until the sun comes out from behind the cloud. Tell a few hedgehog jokes, maybe a witty anecdote you heard at a party from a racoon-teur.

     I'm distrustful of those who smile too much while they work. You never saw Don Rickles smile once when he was doing his best stuff. Newscasters beaming while they read the news do not boost my confidence that what they are saying is true. If I get into a cab and the driver looks too happy, I know he's going to try to talk to me, making eye-contact with me through the rear-view mirror. Who's making eye-contact with the road?

     I also have concerns regarding animals vis a vis weather prognostication. I actually don't know what "vis a vis" means but it makes me look smarter to use important sounding words and not know what they mean. Which is brave, but I also don't know the meaning of the word "fear."

     Why ask a groundhog what the weather is going to be like? Why not use a giraffe? If you paraded a giraffe out there it could look right up into the clouds and provide a more accurate assessment. Not only would you get the weather report, but you could get the current time as well if you knew how to read a sundial. I remember recently they were using an octopus to predict things, like the sex of the royal baby. That seems far less useful than predicting the sex of adults, which is hit or miss, speaking from personal experience. The modern way to forecast the weather is to use the "European model," but the last time I asked her if there was going to be an early spring, she said, "Your hair is BOR-ing."

CRACKING THE ARIA CODE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (02-08-18)

     My first cousin once removed, Ann, is a member of the Hudson Chorale, a 70-voice singing ensemble performing works of classical music as well as modern and popular pieces. We went to hear them perform Franz Haydn's "The Creation," in its original German language form. First of all, I couldn't believe how great the company sounded, with an orchestra and three professional solo vocalists. Second of all, I couldn't believe that if you were a cousin once removed from me, that you wouldn't just stay there and not press your luck that it would happen twice.

     With the arias and choruses reverberating through the halls of the Chapel at Maryknoll in Ossining, the oratorio moved from somber to stirring. If I was expecting a washout of an OK Chorale, this wasn't it. Some of the words were adapted from the Bible, recounting the story of how God created the Earth, just using basic materials found around the Heavens in His spare time. It takes a full six days in the Bible, but Haydn covers it in about 45 minutes, and it sounds great. If you are singing in an expansive marble room you'd better know what you're doing, because when those notes come echoing back, it's not like they had time to change into something nice and put on some makeup.

     Even though I already have an extensive knowledge of German from watching years of Hogan's Heroes reruns, I consulted the translation to delve deeper into the story. German is sort of a harsh-sounding language, and even if someone is telling you they love you it sounds like they might also torture you soon. But it was perfectly suited for this production, where the syllables have rhythm and structure.

     The story goes on in Part 2, and I have to admit, I didn't understand it much better in English than I did in German. The animals are created, you have the tawny lion, the nimble stag, the fleecy, meek and bleating flock, not highest of compliment I ever heard. Man is created in God's own image, but he might have stuck on a few more pimples.

     Maryknoll itself is quite a building, a 210,000 square-foot Asian-influenced fieldstone mission more than a century old. I've never seen a square-foot Asian, so that in itself is quite a feet. The 40-odd piece orchestra was flawless. They even wheeled in a harpsichord, I hope it had snow tires on.

     After the performance I was chatting with Ann and Norm. I thought maybe I could offer to try out for the group. Maybe they can use a baritone who can sing some of the notes on key, with horrible timbre but who has a pretty decent one-handed backhand. I know I'm a baritone because Frank Sinatra is a baritone and I can hit all the notes that he does, although it sounds like I'm hitting them with my car.

     My music teacher at the Robert E. Bell Middle School was Miss Hinkel, and she insisted that we all smile a big, disturbing smile as we sang in chorus. If you had heard us sing I could not blame you if smiling was way down near the bottom on your list of things to do. As I think back, that smile was the same one that politicians use when they are caught embezzling hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, and the cameras are trained on them as they walk up the stairs to the courtroom, with their lawyer and their wife in tow, both wondering just how long they must endure this guy.

     My voice has a nasal quality which is not at all sonorous, but when I sing a song like the Beach Boys' "God Only Nose" it's pure magic. Miss Hinkel wouldn't like it. She told us to sing from our diaphragm, which is a muscle that separates your thoracic cavity from your abdominal cavity. It's hard to smile when all your cavities are singing in disharmony, but it explains why the Planned Parenthood chorus sounds so damn good.

DEALING WITH THE FLUE SEASON

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (02-01-18)

     An old phrase that you hear all the time is: "Where there's smoke, there's fire." It's used to describe a situation where someone is using a whole lot of subterfuge and obfuscation to hide the fact that they're doing something in secret which is obvious to the rest of us. For instance, Trump telling anyone who might listen that there was no collusion by him in Russia's spamming of his election, and Hillary Clinton was probably responsible for it, etc. When in reality most people can see that Trump has lit the presidency on fire.

     But sometimes where there's smoke there's just smoke. That was certainly the case when I tried to start a fire a few weeks ago in our wood-burning stove downstairs. There's nothing more romantic than curling up beside a warm fire. The way I usually do it is to take some newspapers (this column is particularly incendiary) and crumple them up to use as tinder. Now they have an app for that, so I can skip this step. Then I take some sticks that have fallen onto the front yard from all the trees that I insist are still alive that my wife says are dead, and put them on top of the newspaper. When my back is turned, my dog takes the sticks out of the fireplace and brings them back outside. Then I take some firewood from the dead trees that it turns out my wife was right about, and put them on top of the sticks that I took back from the dog.

     The most important part of the process is lighting some newspaper to hold to the top of the fireplace to warm up the flue so that the fire drafts up the chimney properly. If this all results in a raging inferno, that's when I usually remember to check if the flue is open. For the sake of safety, I've removed all flammable items from the area, and I only allow things that are inflammable anywhere near the fireplace. On this particular day, however, I sort of glossed over flue-warming part, and just let the zero-degree-with-the-wind-chill weather warm up the chimney all by itself.

     The result was that smoke came billowing out of the stove and filled the entire room in 45 seconds. Acting quickly, I opened all the windows and turned on the attic fan, and within 45 more seconds the whole house was filled with dense fog plus zero-degree-with-the-wind-chill weather. All the smoke alarms sounded, so now I had ear-piercing beeping to enhance the party. Isn't this romantic so far? It's a good thing I didn't have a sprinkler system or I would have lost a wet tee-shirt contest as well. I finally had to get serious and find my fire extinguisher. It wasn't as big as I remembered, and had approximately the size and force of a can of deodorant, although not as effective against odor. It was supposed to fight class "A" fires, but it must have failed that class.

     I don't know why I don't just ban smoke from my basement altogether. Let the basement switch to vaping instead. That way I won't know if what I'm inhaling is bad for me. Whenever somebody blows one of those huge blue vapor clouds next to me I always wonder what I'm breathing. It looks a 1974 Ford Pinto just pulled up next to me and burned through a quart of oil, but it smells like a lovely sachet pillow, whatever that is.

     Smokey the Bear once said: "Only YOU can prevent forest fires!" Which is good advice, although I'm not sure what the advice is. I do know that if it were left to ME, there wouldn't be ANY forest fires, just a lot of forest smoke. You can thank your lucky stars that I wasn't around during the Stone Age trying to invent fire. Having already tried and failed at taking credit for inventing the stones, I turn my sights to conceiving fire. "Have you invented it yet, it's freezing in here?" My wife inquires, hopefully. "No, but check this out: SMOKE!" I exclaim proudly. "What are we supposed to do with that?" She asks. I answer, "Well the important thing is that there was NO collusion, and I would have invented fire if it wasn't for Hillary Clinton."

LIFE IS A GAMBLE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (01-25-18)

     I recently found myself flush with cash, which was lucky because I was looking all over the place for myself in that condition. We decided to meet up with our friends Paul and Krista to see if the local casino could help alleviate the problem. We could  get some dinner, bet on the horses, have a cocktail or two and a nice night out.

     I admitted to Paul that I had a gambling problem. The problem is that I don't know how to do it without losing money. So he tried to explain to me how to handicap the horses based on their previous performances. I looked around for the horse with the biggest nose, in case he had to win by one. With this brilliant strategy in mind I was already spending my winnings in my head. But let's not put the horse before the cart, a lesson you could learn the hard way. After the race it was apparent that my horse was already extremely handicapped, so I must have done an excellent job for a beginner.

     I blame the guy in the cart slowing my horse down. Why is he there in the first place instead of in his own car? If I was a horse I would maintain with absolute certainly that I could run a hell of a lot faster if nobody was behind me whacking me with a whip, where I had to turn around every five seconds and yell, "HEY- CUT THE CRAP." It reminds me of those rowing competitions where they have ten beefy dudes in a canoe, and a little weenie in the back who yells, "ROW!" It should be pretty much self-explanatory, if you're sitting in a boat holding an oar. In the next race I wanted to bet a certain horse, but it was a scratch. The same thing happened three times in a row, and I figured there must be some poison ivy going around.

     At the race track we were all just going around in circles, so we looked around for another way to lose money. In the casino they have a big roulette wheel, but it's on video. It seems like the world is a little less authentic than it used to be. When you go see a concert, for example, everyone is dancing around with a microphone, but no one is actually singing. One of these days I am going to replace myself with a video of me attending a concert and see how the performers like it for once. Anyway, you can spin the big video roulette wheel and the video dealer, who coincidentally is a hot babe, tells you whether you won or lost.

     I was hoping for more of a James Bond moment, where I edge my way into a crowd at the roulette wheel, amid a dozen dazzling damsels, and the croupier, shuttling chips around the table with that thing that looks like a curtain rod. I make a daring bet for a lot of money and everybody looks at me, aghast at my cheeky confidence. After the spin I cooly croon, "Let it ride." But since it's me and not James Bond, the dealer whispers that I just lost and it's time to cover the bet. I ask him how much he thinks I could get for my watch, which is an Accutron, no slouch. He looks over at the pit boss, and I point up and yell, "Your curtains are about to fall down!" And run toward the slot machines.

     Things didn't go much better over there, but at least the stakes were low. There were penny slots and I figured I would just feed a penny for my thoughts into the machine one at a time, and if I doubled my bet I'd have my two cents worth. Don't be fooled: just because something has only one arm doesn't make it any less able to steal your money. If this machine had NO arms, NO legs and NO head, I am fully confident that it would have emptied my wallet through its belly-button. My wife was reading the lines and taunting me with how close I came to winning. I almost won a bar three times. I'm just looking at how many credits I have left, which is something I don't get enough credit for. After pulling on the lever about three hundred times my arm finally falls off onto the floor. I realized that with only one arm, there was only one career left for me: BANDIT! 

I KNOW WHEN I'M BEING SNOWED

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (01-18-18)

     DON'T leave your house! If you do you will be swept away by a "bomb cyclone," swallowed up by a polar vortex and spit out onto 125th Street, where you will be lost in white-out conditions before succumbing to black ice. It all started two weeks ago, when we experienced a weather event so severe and so debilitating, that I am just now emotionally able to write about it. Of course I am referring to the bombogenesis cyclone. A bartender once made one of these for me in when I was in Vegas, and it wasn't any less dangerous there.

     STAY HOME! No harm can befall you there. The second worst thing that can happen is that Judge Judy will say something REALLY loud and scare the cat. "YOU'RE AN IDIOT!" The absolute worst thing is that Judge Judy will be pre-empted and local news will be on instead, telling you to stay home and scare your own cat.

     There will be a "Who's Who" of reporters out in the field. Wait a second- who actually IS who, because you can't see their faces, they have so many scarves and hats on. They're here to tell me that it's snowing out, something I wouldn't have guessed in a million years. They interview a freezing-looking guy shoveling his driveway: "It's freezing!" He says. Don't shovel too hard, the reporter warns, and don't start experiencing chest pains just so your wife will do most of the work, I might add.

     Now the reporters have compiled some footage of people pushing their cars out of snow and into different snow. People are pushing their cars all over town, some haven't even bothered to start them up. Hey look, there's the "Doppler 4000" Weather Van on the job, trying ascertain if the weather is any better over at the deli.  I shuttled off to work in my wife's SUV, since it has four-wheel drive. I used to take my own car come hell or high water, until it tried to do a triple axel on Route 100 one icy morning. I stuck the landing and didn't hit anything, but there were deductions for the steady stream of disgusting words that came out of my mouth without me even knowing about it.

     Weathercasters were falling all over themselves trying to keep their emotions in check. One was gleefully stalking around the weather map gesticulating and shouting as if he was trying to fight off a swarm of bees. He had taken over the place. He looked as though he might wet his pants if he could find a way to work it into the forecast. The network news had pulled out all the stops for their bombogenesis. The morning meteorologist had the special effects boys work up a C.G.I. blizzard to blow snow all around the studio. Since when does the weather guy have a special effects department?

     Nothing captures the public's imagination like a 100-year storm. My imagination is still being held hostage by the 100-year storm we had last year and the one the year before. By my calculations we should have smooth sailing until the year 2317.

     It's the weather people trying to scare us. Right before asking for a raise, television meteorologists rifle through the dictionary looking for scary adjectives to stick before a frightening noun. They might have chosen the phrase "Trump presidency apocalypse," if it hadn't already been taken.

     So stock up on canned goods and batteries but don't actually use anything, because your garbage won't be collected for two weeks. Nothing useful happens during a bombogenesis cyclone. I can't wait to get back to a world where white-out is something you used to use to cover up your typing errors, and black ice is just a great name for a rapper.
 

I GOT AN AMAZON ECHO FOR CHRISTMAS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (01-19-17)

     The Amazon Echo is a personal electronic assistant, which are three words that never used to go together before. If you ask "Alexa" for the weather, or to play you some music, she will do so more expediently than most other methods. It looks like a small round cake, and I got one for Christmas.

     After I unsuccessfully tried to eat it, the first thing I did was to try to get Alexa into a fight with Siri. I said, "Alexa, who is the iphone online assistant, and doesn't she have a nasally voice?" Alexa lied and said she didn't know. So obviously there is some sort of code of honor. The second thing I did was to make a mental note to invite two friends over named Alexa. I think it would be fun to see which is the smartest, or get the three of them into a fight about their weight.

     Alexa is capable of making a "smart home" out of my house. For about six grand I can get a Samsung refrigerator that talks to me using Amazon Echo. The first thing I want to ask it is what is that green thing that's in a ziploc in the back of the top shelf? It's been there since the Eisenhower Administration. Or I can get an Amazon Fire TV that has interactive capability, so I can fight with yet somebody else over what show to watch. If having a "smart home" was so important to me I would simply move out, and the intelligence level of the place would go up at least 30 points.

     The Echo has microphones that are always active, waiting to hear the word "Alexa," whereupon it digitally records the following sounds, ostensibly to hear the subsequent question or command. The device has figured into a homicide investigation in Bentonville, Arkansas, where a bunch of dudes drinking and watching a football game somehow turned into a murder. Does Alexa know what happened? Was she possibly an accomplice?

     I'm not sure I want Alexa listening in every time I say I want to kill someone. That is going to be very time-consuming for her, and I want her to concentrate on important things like helping me find out who the hell Brian Eno is, so I can complete the Times crossword. I don't want Alexa subpoenaed as a witness in my murder case, and have to look at an artist's rendition of that smug little hockey puck sitting in front of a microphone, with me looking on in consternation that the courtroom artist has made my hair look like crap.

     Sometimes the Echo lights up by itself without anyone calling it, and then turns itself off, like it was going to add something to the conversation but thought better of it. Yesterday we were in the kitchen, and all of a sudden we hear Sinatra music crooning away in the living room. Alexa was having some kind of romantic moment that didn't include anyone else, unless you count Sinatra. I've certainly had to be creative with romantic moments from time to time, but I never took the extra step of providing background music.

     It makes me wonder what's going on when I'm not there. Someday when I have a self-driving vehicle, that little hockey puck is going to roll out to the garage and start giving orders to the car. The GPS lady is going to chime in, and all of a sudden they're going to decide that they're Thelma and Louise, drive of a cliff and I'm never going to see my car again. I'm going to miss her voice around the house, telling lame jokes, changing the TV channel to the shows she likes, turning the light in the fridge on and off just for fun. But I'm going to miss my car even more.