If the Ball Drop…Stopped

timessquareballdropI’m not one for looking back at the outgoing year and not naïve enough to think I can predict what will happen in the incoming trip around the sun. What I do spend a lot of time thinking about is that 60 second period between the Times Square ball starting its descent and the moment it hits bottom marking the new year. It’s the purgatory of time. I call it New Years Eve-entually. Yeah, sure, the old year is in its final seconds but let’s face it, you said sayonara to that after seeing the first promo for Kathy and Anderson’s Obnoxin’ Eve. The new year isn’t quite there but that’s where your head is.  So what thoughts do you cram into those 60 seconds as the old year dies and the new one’s head is popping through?

Here’s my list:

1-I know New Year’s Rockin’ Eve is pre-recorded which makes it more horrifying that someone at the network could view it first and still air the program.

2-If Donald Trump is elected President I’m glad he’s still not married to Marla Maples because that’s an OK name for a Sesame Street character or someone from Vermont, but not for a First Lady

3-Is the guy standing next to me smoking a joint or do his clothes naturally smell like a decomposing stoat?

4-Why don’t they ever make the Times Square ball look like a butt so when it reaches bottom it looks like it’s sitting down?

5-I would like to begin all staff meetings with 3 minutes of thumb wrestling

6-What if the Earth became bored with orbiting the Sun and spent 2016 making the circuit of Bed, Bath and Beyonds? I’d like that because I have about 50 of those 20 percent off coupons.

6a-Will a certain singer take over store chain listed above and change the name to Bed, Bath and Beyonce?

7-If you hug Eminem too tightly, would he melt in your hands?

8-Scientists reveal the syndrome known as “affluenza” is really a strain of “assholyness.”

9-It would be more fun if hurricanes were named after farm animals. Wouldn’t you love to see the headline, “Hurricane Hog Slops Across East Coast.”? “Hurricane Chicken Gooses Bahamas.” ?

10-Time’s almost up. How fun would it be if the ball got stuck an inch from the bottom leaving us temporarily parked between the past and the future meaning we’d live in the “now”, enjoying the “moment,” savoring it, without regrets about what we’ve already done or frets about what’s to come?  That’s the way to start a happy new year!

Happy New Year to all of you!

Buy a Date With Putin..and Other Dated News

Now we’re in that week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve and Day. It’s a week that has no purpose except maybe for the start of purging your house or office of calendars that will soon be worthless. The toughest calendars to dump when I was a kid were the ones we got from the kosher butcher. They were a little weird. Each month’s grid was adorned by some sort of artwork apparently created by a blind guy who worked in a matzo factory. The subjects were generally joyous rabbis looking like they solved the Fiddler on the Roof-themed Word Search puzzle, or an assortment of farm animals such as chickens, turkeys and cows that could be slaughtered and eaten and still be kosher.

The butcher’s calendar was also very fair, showing both the Hebrew and Gregorian months. The Hebrew year is based on the moon so each month is about 29 days and during leap years an entire month is added. Plus the Hebrews, hoping to get a table at Wo Hop’s after Yom Kippur fasting ended, started long before the Gregorians so we’re up to year 5776. I always thought it was a nice touch that the butcher’s calendar had little line drawings of fishes every Friday to remind our goyim friends to eat fish on that day and leave the lean cuts of beef for the more worthy Jews who enjoy a nice brisket at the end of a long work week. Plus, the butcher’s brother owned a seafood shop down the street.

toplessputinAs I was writing this I stumbled on the craziest calendar yet, and one which I must have. For 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin is going topless for a calendar produced by “Stars and Advice” magazine. A pub evidently popular with the “devoted to depraved despot” set. It’s called “All Year With the Russian President” and cost 78 roubles, or, as the article says, 70 pence. Being the end of the year I’m a little short and have neither roubles nor pence. It’s a shame, because our kosher butcher died many years ago and I’ve had to live with freebie calendars from real estate and insurance agents which mainly just give you the date and sincere, smiling photo of the agent… and never include topless photos of heartless heads of state or delusional rabbis, or drawings of little fishies…which is what  I’ve come to expect in a calendar.

Autonomous Everything

autonomousThe development of autonomous vehicles…cars and trucks that make a driver a passenger…is all the rage. I’m all for it, especially if it has the effect of moving some horrible drivers from behind the wheel to a warm place in the trunk.

This has me thinking, though, of other things I wish would accomplish everyday tasks without my personal involvement.

The first that comes to mind is the autonomous shirt. I would like nothing better than to walk into my closet, give my shirt of choice a slight nod, then have it jump off the hanger and onto my chest then buttoning itself. If my tie did the same thing, I would be happy forever, except for the fact that I would be wearing a tie.

I never really enjoyed operating a steak knife. Oh, it’s not a difficult task but I’d get a big kick out of watching it cut my sirloin sans my hands. That would leave both hands available to operate the fork, which performs the very important function of placing the meat in my mouth. You may point out there are electric knives which do the hard work of slicing and dicing but you have to hold the thing. My autonomous steak knife would, well, just know to get to work.

Autonomous coins could come in handy especially if you have to flip one. Personally, I’m a flipping failure, so it would be nice to have a coin flip itself and save me the embarrassment.

How about the autonomous politician? Ha. Never gonna happen.  I’d really like to see an autonomous horse. You hop in the saddle and instead of pulling the reins in the direction you’d like to ride, the equine just wanders the range until it finds something to graze on, a water source or a mare that wants to make a pony.

I’ll move on to my final autonomous fantasy. That would be a kid. I remember an episode many years ago when one of my friend’s kids was bored and asked him what he should next. Ever the loving dad he replied, “anything that takes you away from me.” Yeah..like that.

 

 

The Frittered-away Fortnight Dilemma

christmasvacationWhen I left my desk Friday, it was the last time I’d do so in 2015. I made sure the wastebasket was emptied, coffee pot unplugged, piles of junk on my desk thinned to a few spare Post-it notes and the last crumbs from all the holiday cookies, cakes, brownies and peanut brittle deftly swept to the nether reaches of my 12×12 cell/office/workspace.

Now comes the hard part. What the hell do I do until I return in two weeks? Normal people relax. I could go on an actual vacation in a warm location where you spend  your time broasting your epidermis under the sun and tip anyone who so much as looks at you. Who knows? Maybe they’ll bring you a Jack on the rocks. I understand you don’t have to tip a lifeguard who saves you from drowning, although I value that service more than the bellhop who expects a gratuity for grabbing you a cab that’s already just sitting around awaiting its next fare. Actually, that kind of vacation wouldn’t do me any good since I’d never sit still long enough to cook evenly.

I could spend the next two weeks binge watching old episodes of a TV show I missed, but then again why would I do that since I apparently didn’t think enough of the show to watch it when it originally aired. Oh, wait, I’m already doing that. Paste the big L on my forehead.

I’m not a member of Costco, otherwise I would graze there all day snarfing down free food samples and snarkily asking people who buy 150 rolls of toilet paper if they have control issues or are they aspiring to become town criers. I’m not sure an unfurled roll of Charmin would make an apt substitute for parchment..but if you have 150 rolls who the hell cares? They were a great deal.

One person suggested I volunteer for something. Well..that would defeat the purpose of the break if I exchanged doing paid work for un-compensated labor. Don’t get snippy. I support several charities from the comfort of my debit card.

My wife has a reasonable list of tasks for me to do which I will complete by turning this into a drinking game. Vacuum the house, drink a beer. Clean the bathrooms, sip a Jack. You see where I’m going with this.

I’m sure by the time I return to the office I’ll wish I had even more time to fritter away by doing things like contemplating which game shows offered the best parting gifts. I always liked the lifetime supply of Spam, which you could use as lunch, or to patch bicycle tires.

When someone asks what I did during the year-end holiday break I’ll puff my lips, shake my head, roll my eyes and complain that I was SO busy I wish I had two MORE weeks. I heard Costco was giving out free cocktail franks.

 

 

 

Season’s Insincerity

holidaypartyAre you suffering from a syndrome I call “Simulated Holiday Amiability Malady,” or SHAM?  It manifests itself in several ways, most notably in the workplace.

Here’s SHAM’s progression.For most of the year a person, let’s call him Schmeckel,  will avoid you as one would a victim of Swine Flu, or abuse of Old Spice. Schmeckel is pretty sure you’re after his job, his office and premium parking space. It’s not true, but Schmeckel is a schmuck and sits alone in the cafeteria with an extra tray and an empty soup bowl so people will think he actually has a lunch companion who just got up to go to the washroom.

Snap! It’s Thanksgiving and SHAM carriers infect everyone they see with an obnoxious and insidious strain of false sincerity and feigned friendliness. “How you doin’!” Schmeckel may suddenly ask you. “Have a great Thanksgiving? Plans for the holidays?” Your soul tells you to invite him to enjoy a solo honeymoon, but you see, SHAM is terribly contagious. You are now obligated, against your will, to reciprocate the bogus buddy-buddy and reply you had a wonderful turkey with family and have big plans for Chanukah, Christmas, New Years, Groundhog Day and every day on a calendar that Hallmark cashes in on.

The most dangerous venue for contracting SHAM is the office holiday party. You have to attend because the boss will take 25 points off your annual evaluation if you don’t show up reducing your bonus to a Twix bar. For three or four hours you’re stuck in a small space with a large number of people who wish you dead but are all forced to put on happy, insincere faces, toasting, boasting, hugging, mugging, mentally barfing, for the benefit of convincing the boss he/she is lording over a homogeneous workplace, which enhances their chances of scoring a promotion to a position for which they are not qualified.

SHAM’s gestation period  expires when the ball drops in Times Square marking the new year and, finally, the end of the holiday season. When you return to work on January 2nd, all of SHAM’s effects are instantly forgotten, its scars completely healed, and until that fourth Thursday the following November, you can return to a relaxing normalcy of honest loathing.

Hanukah Story: Genesis and Confessions

doggiehanukkahFirst, on behalf of all Jewish kids I want to thank Christianity for being born around the same time as Hanukah is celebrated. See, Hanukah is pretty much a back-bencher in the pecking order of Jewish holidays, down there with Gefilte Fish Grinding Day and Aggravation Oy Vey Days. There were no presents or decorations. BC Jews celebrated by lighting the candles, mainly because there was no electricity and they needed some sort of illumination in order to balance their books.

But since Christmas came around things became immediately much better for little Jewish yingele. Astute marketers figured if the goyim kids could score major gifts for their holiday, Hanukah was close enough that it should become a big tsimis, including not just one present, but eight presents…one for each night of the holiday. The kids would be happy, the merchants would make some shekels and parents could maintain their comfortable level of aggravation trying to come up with the goods.

This brings me to how it went down in my house. Rather than the eight gift gambit, we could choose one, big, ridiculously idiotic gift. I can think of three in particular. Two, I received, one, I didn’t because I asked the wrong person, which I’ll explain later.

My first was a three-foot long monstrosity called Bop Baseball. bopbaseballAs you can see in the photo, Bop Baseball was equivalent to the old game of Nok Hockey in that it entailed whacking a wooden puck. The game proceeded depending on which circle the wooden puck landed. There were circles for singles, doubles, triples, home runs and outs. The problems were two-fold. One, the damn thing was so large my poor mother struggled to schlep it from the car to the house. Forget wrapping it. The second problem was the wooden puck was really like a doughnut with a hole in the middle. A couple of good whacks and the puck split in three. Bye, bye Bop Baseball.

My second regrettable choice was something called Shop King. shopkingThis overpriced mistake was made to look like a combination table saw, drill and lathe. But instead of wood, the plastic parts could cut only styrofoam. The problems lay with the fact that Shop King required about a case of batteries which lasted maybe 7 minutes and that the power they provided was so weak the tools barely made pock marks in the styrofoam. Throughly frustrated, I summarily deposed Shop King and banished it to the dungeon below my bed until one day it mysterious disappeared into the kingdom of Dumpster.

Finally, the gift I never received–the Remco Pom Pom Gun. pompomgunIt looked very cool in the TV commercials and made enough noise to sufficiently annoy everyone in our 400 square foot apartment in Queens, New York. The glitch here was that was the year my mother decided I should visit Santa Claus at Macy’s in the Roosevelt Field Shopping Center in Westbury, Long Island. Now, I was only 6 at the time and didn’t realize there was no cross-promotional deal between Santa and Hanukah so I took my shot. “What would you like for Christmas?” Santa asked. “Oh,” I replied as honestly as I could. “I don’t want anything for Christmas. I celebrate Hanukah and I’d like a Remco Pom Pom Gun!”

Santa was not amused by this little tow-headed Jewish kid crashing his holiday, and grunted, “yeah, whatever. Next!” and sent me off his knee as fast as whatever projectile the Remco Pom Pom Gun shot.

Despite these traumas I always enjoy Hanukah. My Episcopalian wife makes the best latkes and matzo ball soup, my (grown) kids receive gifts that fit in their pockets (money), and I still remember all three blessings for the lighting of the candles.  No matter how close to Christmas Hanukah falls we give it its full due, and always make sure the Christmas tree isn’t too close to the menorah..and burns for eight days.

 

 

 

First Year at edLines

IMG_0147I launched this blog about a year ago as a way to stretch a muscle that’s been too long constricted by my corporate duties, and as way to have a little fun, entertain and sometimes be thought provoking.

It was also the start of a long-range project that I hope will grow over time with more content that might include videos, podcasts and other material.

What I’ve found out in the past year is that it’s very difficult to get folks to read full-length blog posts with a few exceptions. I was extremely gratified by the reaction to my post about the passing of Melissa Kitchens and how it is possible to have true relationship with someone you only knew through Facebook and to feel a real loss when you’ve lost them forever.

The post summing up the CNN 35th reunion did pretty well too.

There were a few others that managed to capture the attention of a few readers but most won a pretty paltry audience.  That’s pretty humbling and tells me I need to work a lot harder to convince folks they wouldn’t be wasting their time by reading a piece longer than a Facebook post or Tweet.

Suggestions are always welcome because everyone needs an editor and I consider every reader an editor.

I do have to say that just because I may toss a joke or a pun on Facebook I’m not a laugh-a-minute in my real life, so I’m sure I disappointed those who thought I would be “that guy.”

I also find that overtly political posts are a dangerous gambit since too many people have thin skins and can’t accept even mild jibing.

So I write what’s on my mind without trying to guess what’s on yours. I fully accept the fact that some posts will be more successful than others and some are duds. Hell..the best hitters in baseball are only successful about one-third of the time.

I’ll keep pecking away because that’s what writers do. Videos and podcasts may come but I promise you, if I ever start singing, I expect WordPress to void my account. I’d never do that to you.

Thanks a lot for reading and let me know if you find something you like. I find it great fun to shake my head in amazement.

 

 

The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper Cattle Call

The story of D.B. Cooper has always fascinated me and Saturday’s Detroit Free Press, had the best recap yet of the crazy story of a guy wearing a jacket and skinny tie who parachuted out the back of a 737 with a quarter-million stolen dollars strapped to himself and was never seen again. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe he’s living in luxury in Bora Bora. Maybe he’s keeping house in a cleaned-up shipping container in Tacoma.

But where the story  really hits home for me is the fact that I once auditioned for a part in the movie recounting the caper–“The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper.” It was quicker than a boy’s first nookie.

I was living in Tucson, Arizona at the time as a graduate student and reporter at the local ABC affiliate, KGUN. They make a lot of movies and TV shows in Tucson because it’s a beautiful place surrounded by mountains and cactus and the Old Tucson old west town and soundstage was just a short drive through Gates Pass, across the Tucson Mountains. Everything was shot there from John Wayne films to Little House on the Prairie episodes.

Word got around the newsroom they were auditioning for two “on the scene news reporters” with one line apiece to appear in the movie. Now I’m no actor and because I can’t remember lines I had to change my undergrad major from Speech and Theater to Radio/TV.

So what the hell. A female colleague and I decided to go for it and we showed up at the Tucson Holiday Inn, with about 300 other people to audition for various bit parts.

Such things bring out all sorts of characters.

Among the impossibly good looking Hollywood wannabees and freaky neverwillbees, a handsome dude with blonde hair, perfectly coiffed hair and a full set of teeth walks up to me, smiles, and says, “Ed! Remember me?” I hadn’t the foggiest notion who this guy was. My blank look gave it away, so he bailed me out.

“Ha! I knew you wouldn’t recognize me. I look a lot different from the last time we met. I’m Ron White, the mule skinner. You don’t make shit skinning mules, so I get a good haircut, some nice clothes and pop in my teeth to audition,” he explained while laughing his mule skinning butt off.

Indeed, I had shot a profile of him, which included one of the most regrettable standups I had ever done…on a mule. Hey..it was early in my career. Mistakes were made! Here it is…seen for the first time publicly since 1979.

 

After getting over that shock a big bald guy walked up to us while we were waiting and boomed, “know who I am?” Um. No.  “You will when you hear this!” he boomed even louder. “Hubba Bubba Bubble Gum. Big Bubbles. No Troubles!!!” Ah. So THAT was the guy. We acted duly impressed enough so he gave us a satisfied look then moved on to the next unsuspecting clump of hopeful souls awaiting their turn to be rejected.

Finally, after a couple of hours, we were ushered into a tiny motel room where the assistant to the assistant to the associate-assistant apologized the casting director was late because “he’s been auditioning nudes all day and he’s very tired.”

After resting his eyes from epidermal overdose I was finally granted an audience with an older guy with over-tanned reptilian skin, bad perm in his thinning grey hair, gold chains and open shirt sprouting a field of scraggly grey chest hair.

“Who’re you gonna be?” he yawned .

“Uh, Ron Gardner, reporter,” I stammered.

“OK…Give him to me,” he yawned again.

“OK! Here we go,” I stammer again as I hold a pen as a lame substitute for a microphone and say my line: “I’m Ron Gardner on the scene. Where D.B. Cooper is, no one yet knows. Will the mystery be solved?”

“Thanks,” he yawned one more time, and that was it.  So much for my Hollywood career.

My female colleague got one step further. He snapped a Polaroid of her before she was dismissed.

We must have made quite an impression though, or the casting director was duly traumatized by our anemic performances.  Both roles were cut from the movie…maybe that’s why the movie tanked..and D.B. Cooper was never found.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Thanksgiving Dis-Grace

doglickingOh Lordy…we give thanks today for our good fortune…good fortune that has manifested itself in many different ways.

We give thanks that Bobby Jindal has dropped out of the presidential race causing a precipitous and fortuitous drop in the Looney Lousiana rhetoric index.

We give thanks that despite Hostess going bankrupt a guardian angel company swept in and saved the Twinkie.

We give thanks that we can get away, most of the time, with nudging annoying bicyclists who drift out of bike lanes into the paths of our giant SUVs. This just makes me SO happy…and thankful.

We give thanks for the never-ending array of free food samples offered at Costco, making it possible to ingest nutrition without ever divesting ourselves of hard-earned cash.

We give thanks to Caitlyn Jenner who instantly gave credibility to men wearing kilts

We give thanks to Hillary Clinton for showing us it’s OK to plead poverty even while pulling down 7-figure speaking fees.

We give thanks for Daylight Saving Time which provides us an extra hour one day a year to post self-centered esoteric dribblings on social media.morewhitemeat

We give thanks for gefilte fish which gives the lowly carp purpose

We give thanks to the makers of Bluetooth devices who make it possible for us to look like we’re insane singing along to devices to which we’re not physically attached.

We give thanks to Nicki Manaj for proving once and for all it is possible to create an inflatable person.

Finally…we give thanks to Kentucky Fried Chicken for using Colonel Sanders’ cadaver to advertise its product thus giving us all hope that even after the chicken kills us we have careers as pitchmen.

For all that we thank YOU from the bottom of our backpacks.

 

November 22, 1963

dailynewsSixth grade was boring as hell, and our teacher at P.S. 186 in Queens, NY had a terrible nervous nose twitch which earned her the nickname “Twitch.” She also had the personality of plywood.  Her idea of interpersonal communication was to announce which page in the math workbook we should complete, QUIETLY! That way she wouldn’t have to talk to us.

Another way of avoiding an actual conversation with the class  that masqueraded as learning experience was having the class listen to a radio program broadcast by WNYE, the New York City educational radio station.

We were listening/dozing through one such program when it was interrupted by static, then an announcer shouting seemingly incoherent things like “we don’t know what’s going on yet!”

Since one of my jobs in the class was “radio monitor,” or the guy who pulled a 15-minute shift pumping WNYE programs to the various classrooms, Twitch sent me down to the principal’s office to investigate.

As I walked into the office I saw our principal, Henry H.C. Poliakoff, at the radio panel adjusting switches and knobs with a sense of urgency. He turned to me and in his South Carolina accent directed me to return to my classroom immediately.

My classroom, 319, was on the third floor and as I emerged from the staircase I could hear the horror booming from every loudspeaker in every room, echoing off the walls with the announcer who previously seemed incoherent, now speaking quite clearly as he intoned, “The President is dead! I repeat, the President is dead!”

As I made my way to my room, doors flew open as teachers reflexively left their classes for a moment to catch their breath and some began sobbing, shaking their heads, a few murmuring “No, no, no, no, no….”

When I returned to 319 Twitch directed me to my seat. The class was raptly listening to the continuing news coverage being piped into each room’s loudspeaker.  For the first time Twitch spoke to us as if she was each of our moms. “Do you all understand what is happening?” she quietly asked us. We did. “Are any of you feeling ill? Can I help you?” There were two girls quietly crying and asked to be held for a moment. Our teacher complied. Otherwise we simply sat there. Numb from the news.

Presidents were only assassinated in history books. Lincoln murdered by John Wilkes Booth in Fords Theater. William McKinley shot in Buffalo by an anarchist. But JFK. My God. JFK! As kids we connected with his youth, his children, Caroline and John Jr. Little girls wanted to be grown women as glamorous as First Lady Jacqueline. President Kennedy espoused “vigor,” youth, hope, a peaceful future without the threat of Communism.  But now he was gone. We heard it on the radio.

What do you do next? We were simply told to go home. Along the one-mile walk from P.S. 186 to our apartment there was none of the usual school gossip, or stupid dirty jokes or bragging about a new bike or recent raise in allowance. We walked silently and uncertainly.  Presidential assassinations were no longer just pages in history books. There was now one that would become permanently inscribed in our own life stories and affected every future chapter.