Do I Look Like I Work Here?

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 -by Alan Allen

When someone comes up to you in Walmart and asks you where the light bulbs are, the first thing you have to ask yourself is, ”What am I wearing?” 

I initially took issue with the lady who asked me this question, but in the long run I suppose it’s better to be mistaken for an employee than an actual customer. I’ve seen the “People of Walmart” web site, and I know what goes on in there. Most of those folks are one chromosome away from running a Ferris wheel. I have no intention of winding up on the "Employee of the Month" bulletin board, so whenever I leave the house, even if it’s just for a quick errand into town, I make sure that I’m not wearing anything that has a sequined teddy bear waving a holographic American flag emblazoned on the front, or worse- sweat pants and a dashiki.

Unless I’m visiting a friend in San Diego, and need to make a quick stop to buy a kite or shark repellant, I also avoid wearing sandals, baseball caps, sleeveless shirts or shpants. That’s my word for those odd “short-pants” concoctions that are neither. I take the same precautions when I fly. I wasn’t around during the golden age of air travel, when passengers actually dressed and acted like human beings for the occasion, but when they stumble across my body next to the black box, they’re not going to find my corpse wearing a T-shirt that says, “F.B.I. -Female Body Inspector”. I actually saw that shirt on a frat douche in Vegas once. The only thing worse than being stuck in an elevator with that guy, would be being stuck in an elevator with the girl who thought that that shirt was cute. While I’m not making the cover of Esquire, all in all I strive to look as good as I can without putting on a tie. 

So there I was, dressed in my standard, “gotta get some stuff” garb. I wasn’t shelving anything or greeting anyone, just doing my best to weave through the throngs of humanity on my way to electronics, when I was approached by a lady who somehow felt that I was the best candidate to answer her query.

What got me is that whenever I need help finding anything, whether it’s a Starbucks in another city, or when I’m just looking for say…light bulbs, I do a bit of preemptive evaluation of my prospective counsel. I size up my mark and look for a clue as to whether or not this is the best person to help me out. Am I going to come away with the answer I was looking for? Or should I just go ask a lamp?

The way she asked wasn’t even phrased in a manner which might have suggested there was a possibility that I didn’t work there. She didn’t say, “Excuse me, you wouldn’t happen to know where I could find light bulbs would you?”, insinuating that maybe I had shopped there once before and at some point found the need to buy light bulbs myself. There was none of that. It was a direct question posed to a person who she was convinced worked at Walmart, as in, “Where are the light bulbs, sonny?”

This happened sometime last summer. During the following months I didn’t give it much thought aside from the occasional, brief mental replay as I tried to figure out my wardrobe problem. I pretty much forgot about the whole episode until a few weeks ago when I found myself reliving the incident once again. But this time the tables were turned.

I refuse to drink the shwag that hotels try to pass off as coffee. There’s a reason it’s free, so I’ve gotten into the habit of bringing my own French Press on the road with me whenever the band has a gig. For those of you unfamiliar with this device, it’s a coffee making method by which you steep the grounds in a glass pot, and then press them down with a screened plunger device. It lets the coffee have some quality play-time with the water, enabling it to achieve the properties of a mild hallucinogen.

           

One morning after my daily plunge, I realized that the generic coffee fixin’s tray in my hotel room had only two of those tiny creamer containers. I don’t get it. I have forty-seven pillows on my bed but barely enough half & half to fill a shot glass.

It’s 10 AM. I figure housekeeping has already started making their rounds, so I leave my room on a cream crusade, and immediately spot the gray, industrial monstrosity parked haphazardly in front of 227 down the hall. As I approached, I noticed the housekeeping lady person woman girl going into the room, so I called out to her. “Excuse me, do you have some extra cream by any chance?” She tilted her head and looked at me with the perplexed gaze of a puppy trying to comprehend “Drop the chalupa”, at which point I realized that her English may not have been up to snuff. ‘Remember your Spanish’ I said to myself. “Mas leche por favor?” My Spanish is bad, but at 10 in the morning I’m barely making sentences in any language. It was then that she turned to me and said, “I heard you the first time, but I’m not the housekeeper.” at which point she smiled, entered her room and closed the door.

!&#$*! I immediately remembered my Walmart experience, felt uncomfortably uncomfortable for a second, and then realized that mine was an innocent mistake. There was a reason that I didn’t say, “Excuse me, are you with housekeeping?”  I just assumed she was the housekeeper because it was early, she was entering the room wearing a dark, uniform-like shirt, and the cart was right in front of her door. What am I supposed to think? All the signs were there. Unlike the lady in Walmart, I examined the details and circumstances of the scene. When I see a little girl wearing a tiara, I don’t say, “What monarchy are you a representative of your Majesty?” I look around. Do I see cake? A clown? Are there other sugar-jacked kids running around? I take all circumstances into account, evaluate the scenario and make an assumption accordingly. I scored a solid 10 on this part of the test. The woman at Walmart did not follow these rules and therefore got a big fat “D”.

 

So here’s my advice. Be careful when venturing out into the world. People are too quick to jump to conclusions without doing the required math. In the future, if the lady in room 227 doesn’t want to be mistaken for a maid, she shouldn’t wear a brown nylon blouse or be milling around the housekeeping cart in a hotel hallway at 10 AM. And when I’m out and about, just getting a few things from Walmart, I’ll return the favor and think twice about walking around with the mop I intend to purchase.

Waving Goodbye To The Five

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-by Alan Allen

This Just In...

There was a baby born several months ago in a distant land located in some remote, pointy corner of the globe. I can’t remember the name of the country, but I do recall its shape resembling that of a half eaten croissant. At first glance this child appeared to be a normal, healthy, baby girl, born to healthy, normal looking parents. By normal I mean that there were no antennae, and each parent had a face. But three weeks after bringing the offspring home from the hospital, mom and dad noticed something a bit off.  The baby had 6 fingers and toes on each hand and foot respectively.

 In scientific terms this is known as “polydactylism” from the Ancient Greek. “Polus” meaning "many”,”daktulos” meaning "finger" and “ism” referring to anything that is deemed as being something as opposed to being nothing.

When I first heard this story I thought, ”That’s just gross”, but my repulsion soon turned to sympathy when I realized the severity of the awkward phase that child was going to go through. Several minutes after that, the fundamental problem with this issue hit me. How could the hospital staff miss something like this? We’ve all heard horror stories about doctors amputating the wrong leg or removing a lung instead of a tooth. These things happen all the time. But this?

Then I remembered the time I saw my first newborn. When the vomiting stopped, and I got past the horror of seeing a head that looked as though it had just been removed from a pot of boiling water, I noticed how tiny its hands were. Really tiny. Like grains of rice stuck into a ball of Silly Putty. Chances are someone like myself would have easily overlooked the six-digit anomaly, (I was outside once and actually missed a solar eclipse), but these folks are trained professionals. And although the nurses are probably on the lookout for third nipples and making sure there’s a head, count the fingers man.

 Polydactylism is not as rare as one might think. It actually occurs in 1 in 500 children.  It is a dormant gene on the father’s side, and the resulting abnormalities are usually just “lopped” off once the child has had its first birthday. This makes circumcision seem like a haircut.

In most cases, these extra appendages are misaligned, non-functional, and tend to be more of an annoyance than an asset once the child starts taking piano lessons; however, this particular case is rare in that this child’s’ extra digits were fully operational, each one working independently of the others. They were arranged in an unobtrusive, normal fan-like progression on the hands and feet and were not even noticed until the girl was almost three weeks old.

Down The Road

They say that over the course of the next million years or so, there exists the remote possibility that six fingers and toes will become genetically dominant. No doubt this will create a problem for the glove industry, but more importantly it gives rise to a more serious dilemma…what to name the extra finger and toe.

As for naming the extra toe, I’m not seeing an issue here. “Toe naming” has never really been one of our top priorities. “Big Toe”, “Little Toe”, “That toe next to the other one that takes a sharp left”. Not very creative. Even the nursery rhyme just calls them “Little Piggies”. I don’t see a problem with having six Piggies as opposed to five.

But our fingers are a different story. They have become intertwined with our everyday existence. Next to shedding gills, I think it’s safe to say that the advanced use of our digits is one of mankind’s more important evolutionary breakthroughs. Of course some would argue that language is what separates us from the herd, but language is more of a cultural, anthropological advancement, which progressed at varying rates according to the needs of individual societies. Give me a fist over speech any day. I’d rather be able to punch a man in the throat than have to form a sentence in order to communicate with him. Hands down (ha!), our fingers have become our primary source of non-verbal communication.

So what do we call the new addition? Since we’ve already classified each of our existing fingers, I’m assuming that we’ll probably use this as a basis for naming the new one.

The Contenders

Let’s start with the thumb. Sure other species have them, but ours have evolved in ways that allow us to use them for other activities other than just “holding on”. A thumb can express positivityness as in, “I thought that movie was quite enjoyable”, or negativityness as in, “What a piece of garbage”. If you’re lucky, it can get you a ride when you’ve run out of gas. It can pull out a plum and light a cigar. We can suck it; twiddle it, flip a coin and can take a man’s eye out with it. It can wrestle other thumbs and we can put an entire person under it. Just ask my ex. Even though I think an extra thumb would look freakishly interesting, our thumb shouldn’t have to share the spotlight with a second thumb. There can only be one Thumbkin.

Let’s move on to the “Index” finger or “Pointer” if you’re under six. Next to the thumb, this is the finger with the most versatility. It gave birth to the index card and a family of sisters. It lets a sports fan show the world that his team is #1. It also lets me point at that same guy and say, “You’re an idiot”. When it collaborates with my thumb, I’m letting you know that everything is OK, but when I use it to make a circular motion next to my ear, I’m letting you know you’re nuts. Perhaps a second index finger could be assigned the sole task of picking your nose. “Picker Finger” might work. But that would exclude all the people who don’t engage in this activity.  The new limb can’t possibly be assigned a function that is practiced by only a percentage of the population. So that’s out. “Pointer #2” or “Second Index finger”? Too wordy. Onward. 

 Next in line we have the Middle Finger. This is a problem. With the introduction of a sixth finger, the term “Middle Finger” will immediately become obsolete. There is no “middle” in the world of even numbers. The Brady’s never had a middle child, a football game can’t have a middle quarter, and none of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse could ever say, “I wanna ride in the middle.” Our middle finger will lose all that it has worked so hard to achieve, and with it shall mark the passage of one of the great fingers in history. It is “The” finger. “The Flip Off”, “The Bird”, “The Toss”. It is so special that all other fingers bow down before it when it is called into service. Never before has a finger given so much and asked for so little in return, and one day perhaps, evolution will callously return the favor by forcing us to strip it of its identity. Mathematical constraints will kill the Middle Finger. Rest in peace my special f*cking friend.

Let’s skip ahead to the Pinky. A second pinky would be like a second little toe. You’d be stubbing that thing every day. It would stick out like…well a sore thumb, getting caught on and in everything. You’d type faster, but would you be more efficient? I dont   thinnk so.. This leaves us with the final finger….the “Ring Finger”.

The ring finger can bite me. It is a haughty, presumptuous, pretentious, self absorbed, arrogant little digit whose sole purpose is to sport some overpriced scrap of metal that says, “We found someone who understands us, who gets us, someone who gives us nicknames, and “to do” lists. Let me tell you something. If the middle finger could give “The Finger” to the ring finger, I’m pretty sure it would do so on a regular basis. I have no love for this finger, as it is mostly a supporting cast member. If we are forced to accept a sixth finger, I vote that we should name it “Second Ring Finger”. Knock that high handed, egotistic, pompous little appendage down a bit. Of course we could go with ”Bling Finger”, but then we’d feel obligated to burden it with that garbage. Gold is not my color, so maybe we could ultimately go with something a bit more modest. Something understated yet grand. We could give our new family member a unique identity all its own, bestowing on it a special place amongst its elders. Something like… oh I don’t know….how about “Alan”? I like it. “Alan”. Say it slowly with me, letting it roll off your tongue and waft gently out on hot, unbridled breath, floating effortlessly away as it mixes and mingles in an orgiastic embrace with the cool evening breezes, finally alighting on the ears of a world that is yearning for closure and conciliation. A world which has not seen a hint of human transformation in many an epoch. A world that thirsts for change while desperately clinging to familiarity. A world that is longing for an end to the madness, an answer to the insanity and an acceptance of inevitable evolution. “Alan”…oh yes.

Now that has a nice ring to it.

Never Let A German Tell A Joke

Never Let A German Tell A Joke

For the record, I’m half German, so I have eine permission slip allowing me to title an essay in this manner..

One of the many hats I wear is that of a keyboard player in a fairly successful band. Along with our usual gigs at various bars and clubs throughout the Southwest, we also do a lot of high-end weddings, private parties and corporate events. Last year we were hired to do a gig honoring the top sales people of a small company headquartered in Munich or somewhere, and the CEO (let’s call him Hans), decided to make a stateside appearance in order to congratulate his American employees personally. He also decided to tell a joke.

Let me start off by saying that everyone thinks they’re funny. Everyone except my friend Cullen who admits that he is probably the most non-funny person alive. He’s right. Totally not funny. At least he admits it. On the other hand there are certain ethnic and religious groups that have some sort of divine ability to tell a good joke and let me tell you, the Germans aren’t one of them. Hands down the best joke tellers are the Jews. For the other record, I’m 1/64^th Jewish so I also have another permission slip to use the term “Jews” as opposed to “Jewish People”, or “Members of the Jewish Persuasion”, or “Chosen Ones” or “Those People”.

A brief rundown of the top 7 racial and ethnic groups, 

and their current standing on the humor scale

Jewish Humor

The Jews are God’s chosen comedians. No group had produced more funny people than the Jews, and thanks to Jerry Seinfeld, Jerry Stiller and Jerry Lewis, people who live outside of New York and Florida now know what a Jew is. They also think we are all named Jerry. The Jews love two things, complaining and Chinese food. Get them to start complaining about the Chinese food and all of a sudden it becomes a stand-up routine. Then they start charging admission.

Sub-categories of Judaism:

·      Reformed

·      Conservative

·      Orthodox

·      Ultra-Orthodox

·      Hassidic

·      Comedic

Italian Humor

Get all 600 members of an Italian family together and it’s like being on the set of “Moonstruck” minus Cher. Growing up in New York, one of my best friends was Italian. I’d go out to Brooklyn to visit, and come back with ten pounds of leftovers and an aneurysm from laughing so hard. When it comes to humor, the Italians are one Gino away from being Jewish. Italians love two things, being compared to the Jews and eating. Invite a dozen Italians and Jews over for dinner, and the only way you’d be able to tell them apart is by the food they bring. The Italians will show up with 12 courses “Just like Mama used to make”, while the Jews show up with kreplach “Just like Mema used to burn”. After humor, the most important part of any Italian get together is good wine, while the most important part of any Jewish meal is a fire extinguisher.

Irish Humor

Unfortunately for the Irish, they’re usually so hung over they can’t remember how funny they actually are. Their jokes always have an Irishman in the set up, so it’s a safe bet that the punch line will involve a priest. The Irish love two things, booze and family. As soon as you start spending time with an Irishman, hearing him go on and on about his overbearing mother, and a father that beat the bejesus out of him and his 10 brothers and sisters all day and night, you immediately feel like part of the clan. Shot?

British Humour

While not a major player in the world of stand-up, British comedy has a unique style all its own. I would probably laugh more if I could understand what they were saying. Whenever I hear John Cleese speak, it sounds as if he’s got a bag of crumpets shoved in his mouth. The British love two things, bodily functions and men in drag. Combine a farting transvestite with some brilliant colloquialisms and an incoherent accent, and you’ve pretty much summed up the British take on comedy.

Black Humor

Black comedians love two things, white women and cursing. Or “cuss” for people who think that “curse” is a curse word. Or “cuss” word. There are two types of black comics: white/black like Whoopi Goldberg, and black/black like Chris Rock. I prefer the latter. If I want white, I’ll put in a George Carlin tape. A few famous black comedians: Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock. A few famous black comedians busted for possession: Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock.

Asian Humor

Aside from Margaret Cho, there are no Asian comics, and using the word “comic” for this lady is a stretch. Hands down she is the most un-funny “comedian” I have ever not laughed at. Asians love two things, other Asian comics and a table full of Jews at their restaurant. If self-deprecation and poor timing is the sign of a good comedian, Margaret Cho has nailed it. Don’t get me wrong, the Asians do have a sense of humor, but like the Korean nuclear program, they have yet to figure out a delivery system.

Latin Humor

Latin comics love two things, sex and knowing that they are the most upwardly mobile ethnic group since the Jackson 5. Present day Latin humor is seeing the largest growth of comics in the world of stand-up. Comedians like George Lopez, Paul Rodriguez and Greg Giraldo are currently making more money being funny than their Jewish counterparts, and we definitely feel threatened. Didn’t we used to own the entertainment industry?

After these groups comes everybody else. No doubt there are some unfunny Jews out there, and many of you might know a funny Lithuanian or two, but I’m not talking specifics. I’m here to stereotype and generalize about certain groups of people and their ability to tell a joke, and coming in dead last at the end of the (punch) line…are the Germans.

Disclaimer

I’m not saying Germans don’t have a good sense of humor. There’s humor there. And there’s a sense of it somewhere. The problem is that they can’t relay humor. They get funny, they just can’t be funny. This comes from the fact that Germans are a very methodical and cerebral lot with very little time for irony. It cuts into their whole “World domination” schedule.

Stand up and fall

So there we were, about two minutes away from taking the stage at this corporate function. Everyone was in good spirits. They had eaten, were slightly liquored up, and were ready to let loose. This is when Hans decided to come up to the mic to say a few words. After a few heavily accented niceties he says, “Which reminds me of a joke.” You know that moment when you can actually smell disaster? This was one of them. I’ve seen it before. Someone who has no business being near a microphone gets so excited by the sight of one, that he decides it’s time to fulfill his “stand-up” fantasy right then and there, once and for all. There is a name for this. It’s called failure. But he’s already out of the gate and running. My band mate and I hunker down off stage. And wait. “This is a good one” he says, “I assure you.”

What followed was what should have been a 30 second quip. Tops. It comes in just under 3 minutes. In comedy years, that’s an eternity. Whole careers have been ruined in less time. Michael Richards. By the time the punch line comes around, no one remembers why they’re there in the first place.

The main problem is that Germans are unable to leave out any detail. They (we) are such sticklers (shticklers) for specifics, that the whole point of the joke is lost somewhere between the two and a half minute set up, describing every detail right down to the buttons on Fritz’s Lederhosen, and the punch line, ‘Don’t look at me, that idiot makes his own lunch, (which was delivered the next day). And as for timing, the post office has better delivery.

He was dying. And he was taking us down with him. No mercy. No survivors. This was not just a train wreck, but a slow motion train wreck. Three minutes of agonizing, ear splitting verbal carnage. When the smoke cleared, the souls of two hundred once exuberant and enthusiastic employees lay strewn about the ballroom in a heap of excruciating awkwardness. It was if everyone had just woken up in another dimension with a severe case of teleportation jet lag. But Hans was the CEO and applause was mandatory. The forced laughter and obligatory ovation was almost as painful as the joke itself, but we could finally get on with our lives and start the show.  

Bringing an audience back from the brink of death is one of the most difficult things to do in this business. Immediately following the comedic catastrophe, people started frantically searching for air. They scrambled out of the room grabbing their drinks, trying to find some place where they could shake it off. At that moment some of them actually took up heroin, and we found ourselves playing to a crowd of roughly 20 people. Thanks for warming up the crowd for us Hans.

It’s not what you say but how you say it.

This is the comedian’s first commandment. The bottom line is that the German accent is not funny. It is not funny because there are no vowels. It is physically impossible for a German to hang on a word for emphasis without choking on a consonant. I remember my mom and my uncle having a discussion during Thanksgiving dinner one year regarding this issue. Being born bred and raise in Germany, my uncle absolutely loves speaking German. When my grandmother was still alive, they would converse in das father tongue as much as possible. In his opinion, it is an eloquent, exquisite and beautiful language. My mother on the other hand thought otherwise, and expressed her disdain by telling Gunter that she felt it to be terribly harsh, painfully uncomfortable, and nearly impossible to speak without dislocating your jaw. I love my uncle but I’m siding with mom on this one.

In the end, Hans walked away unscathed. He did what he set out to do, regardless of the consequences. I give him credit for that. Some people are oblivious to what’s going on around them and could care less about what people think. It helps if you’re a CEO. But if you’re the type who prefers not being heckled along your journey through life, know your strengths and know your weaknesses. Stick to what you do best. There is no question that a BMW is a fine automobile, and apple strudel is a wonderful dessert. But “shmetterling” should not be a word for “butterfly”, and German CEO’s should never be given the opportunity to “wing it” on stage.

I have great respect for my heritage. I just wish we spoke French.

FIN

The Banana Wall

A Tale From The Manly Side Of The Muffin Pan

-Alan Allen

After noticing a banana melting into my kitchen counter, a friend of mine once said, “You know you can freeze those things and use them for banana bread right?” That was six years ago. You know what I’ve done ever since? Saved every banana that has begun to show the slightest sign of decay. You know what I haven’t done since? Shown any inclination towards making banana bread. 

One of my problems is that I have issues with splitting up the banana bunches, so I’m obliged to buy no less than eight bananas at a time. I justify my purchase by reassuring myself that my potassium level is probably too low. Single digit low. But honestly, who can eat eight bananas a week? That’s why they invented pills. Bananas are like the lasagna of the fruit world. Eat a bowl of cereal…unbutton the pants.  Right now I’m looking at a freezer filled with no less then twenty pounds of those things.

The other problem is that I don’t bake. The whole affair is way too messy for me.

I have better things to do than spend an afternoon wiping up fallout from rogue clouds of flour and herding runaway sugar granules with a sponge. Cleaning should never take longer than cooking, and cooking should never take an entire day. If I want my kitchen looking like construction zone, I’ll cook in the dark.

Then there’s the measuring. Main courses… no problem. Add some of this, toss in some of that, chop, sprinkle, rub, cook. But baking requires precision with cups, spoons, lines and fractions, and since I live in a “High Altitude” recipe zone, I’m looking at an afternoon involving some form of trigonometry. No muffin is worth that, and if this is what Professor Funny Pants meant when he told me back in college that I’d find a use for it one day, I want my fifty-six thousand dollars back.

At friend’s houses, I’ll usually take the liberty of checking out their medicine cabinet. I don’t want to take anything; I just want to know what they’re taking. And if the opportunity affords, I’ll take a peek at the contents of their freezer as well. Again, don’t want to take anything, I’m just nosey. The lineup usually includes a tub of Ice cream, a few mysterious ethnic entrees, several pizzas, and the occasional oddly shaped zippered, gallon bag filled with some sort of liquid. If they were to offer me the same courtesy, they would see nothing more than a wall of brown, rotten fruit.

My banana backlog wouldn’t have been a problem if a hunter pal of mine hadn’t offered to give me half a carcass of elk meat a few weeks ago, but the “Playskool” sized refrigerator in my studio limits any type of Armageddon day hoarding so naturally, a sacrifice was in order.

Luckily for me, every three years or so, the “Girlfriend Wheel” lands on “Baker!” It’s a risk you take whenever you spin that thing, as you never know what you’re going to get.  It once landed midway between “Camping enthusiast” and “Soap opera junkie”. Nothing ruins the solitude of a forest quite like the theme from “Days of our lives” blasting out of the back end of a travel trailer.

The last time I won the “Baker!” category, she insisted that we clear my freezer of the accumulated fodder. I would finally learn the art of making a mess. I would also come to learn that a spatula is actually two very different items with the same name. How can anyone be expected to follow a discipline that has discrepancies like that? But as usual, I accommodated for love. Six hours later we were staring at no less than twenty loaves of sweet smelling, golden brown goodness and after the flour settled, we were ready to sample the rotten fruits of our labor.

We set the table, plated the affair and sat down to give our creation a test run. The color was perfect, the smell sublime, but after the first bite, I realized that something was definitely askew. Apparently I missed the part of the recipe that said, “Remove all moisture”.  Apparently she didn’t. I admit that I don’t have the most widely exposed palette, but I have eaten boots that were more succulent. All that was missing was a shoelace to floss the taste out of my mouth.

Although the episode was a complete failure, there was an upside. The fantastic thing about baking two dozen of anything, is that you can give them away to your former friends. “Morning Steve. Thought I’d give you something that I would never eat.” Since my crew knows that I don’t bake, the blame thankfully fell on the girl, and she went down in history as “That cute, hot little number who should have been a cobbler.”

Needless to say my banana saving days are over. If I ever find myself in another relationship in which my partner enjoys squandering a perfectly good afternoon, she will no doubt be disappointed at my lack of on-hand baking components. I have freed myself from the chains of obligatory fruit hording. My freezer is a much more masculine appliance now. But as I gaze at the neatly wrapped towers of manly, man manna, I am saddened by the fact that not even the mighty elk can endure an indefinite, cryogenic lifestyle. Freezer burn is a horrible end. So as summer approaches, I know that I must fill the propane tank, choose a spatula, and start grilling as soon as possible. I wouldn’t even know where to begin to look for a recipe for elk bread.

Gray is a Color, but Grey is a Colour.

“Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, not have way.”

 -Steve Martin

“Boy, those French! They have a different word for everything.”

 -Steve Martin

     As a writer, I depend on language to help me write good. Make that more better. Finding the right word is imperative when attempting to convey one’s particular perspective.  Yet as diverse as our language is, we rarely utilize its full potential. There is a strange, vacuous region into which certain words and phrases fall. They lay there, mingling with their colorless counterparts, floundering in a linguistically languid, torpid amalgamation of mediocrity, providing nothing more than a lackluster quiver from which to draw our verbal intimations. That’s stupid. Our words should caress the nuances we wish to purvey. They should dance gingerly and ecstatically with their subject, weaving a threaded tapestry of brilliant, verbal luminosity through the prose into which they have been invited. We have held on to these wearisome morphemes far too long, and like an old shoe, they have been ground to tatters, barely holding on to the glory of their former selves to the point where they hardly look like a shoe at all. “You’re still wearing those?” as in, “You’re still using that?” It is lamentable that we, as creatures who are able to read, speak and occasionally write, have not aspired to coin new, stimulating terms of articulation for everyday locution.

The tech world and cyber community on the other hand, have both done an exemplary job of cooking up new words and phrases to accommodate their needs for exacting descriptions. “Sexting”, “Hotspot” and “Retweet” to name a few. But more often than not, non-geek culture still embraces the tried and true patterns of literary replay, repetition, reiteration and recapitulation. As adults, we tend to hold on to the expressions to which we have grown accustomed. They are reverse comfort food. We are at ease when we hear them flow from our lips, and become unsettled when venturing outside of our adopted style of communication.

Kids (now I sound old), as well, are constantly reinventing language. We are perpetually barraged by modern day, pop culture colloquialisms, which somehow just beg to be used by us older folks. Unfortunately when we hear the vernacular of a twenty-something come out of the mouth of a forty-something, it leaves us with a slightly uncomfortable taste in our ears. It is a verbal comb over. We’re not fooling anyone. Those words are not for us, and we’d best leave well enough alone. However there is a way to afford ourselves a makeover in the language department without aggravating the obvious disparity in age and coolness. And that is…go British. Not all the way mind you, just slightly. I like my teeth. As adults, using phrases like “homey” and “dope” will undoubtedly get us kicked out of the party. No ecstasy for us. But toss in a “chap” and a “brilliant” every once in awhile, and we just seem well traveled.

In keeping with this inability to pawn off current hipster language as my own, I made a pact with myself several months ago, to adopt more British vernacular into my everyday speech. The looks I get from my peers do not convey the “Why are you using that word old man?” sentiment, but rather, “You hardly have any accent at all.” “I lost it in the war” I tell them.

The British have panache with language that can only be envied by us Yankees. In all manners of social interaction, the Limey lingo seems to surpass ours at every turn. I’m not sure how the word “loo” refers to relieving oneself, but it beats the crap out of “bathroom”, or “restroom”. I’m not planning to bathe or rest.  Maybe a quick nap on the toilet, I mean “kip” on the “khazi”, but that’s about it.  And why are we wasting so much time taking the “e-le-va-tor”, when using “the lift” is so much more efficient? And should it still be called a “lift” if it is bringing you down to a lower level? I would prefer taking the “lift” up to my “flat” and taking the “drop” down to the lobby.

A brief example of my newly adopted cant.

After I settled in Saratoga, I went to the store to buy sundries. They arrived by semi-truck, and I paid the cashier with money. But when living in Liverpool, I had to find a “shonky” that sold “bits and bobs”. The “lorry” was late so I had to look “left, right and center” for a “bog roll”. Eventually I found one in a “Paki-shop” and gave the chap a few “quid”.

The relationships that I have with my cohorts have undergone a major overhaul as well. My friend in Phoenix is a fool, but my “mate” from Manchester is merely a “mong”. Sorry for “slagging-off”, but honestly, I can’t stand either of those “lads”. And my neighbor? Complete idiot. That guy never shuts up. But over in South Hampton, he was merely a “sop”, “nakker” and a “twit”. Always gushing from his “gob”.

And finally, Rich in Roswell uses a rubber to diminish his chances of having a baby, while in Raleigh, Reginald will be using it to fix his spelling mistakes.

It’s not that our culture is unable to author more colorful language, it’s just that we tend to opt for more obvious and overt idioms to eliminate the possibility of having our words be misconstrued. Saying “smashing” instead of “awesome” immediately brings to mind images of glass and hammers. We are also lazy. We use the word “great” far too frequently. When compared to how an Englishman might express his affections towards a subject, “great” is a middle of the road, wishy-washy, humdrum modifier. “That milkshake was great, and so is that new record by blahbitty-blah.” There is no dynamic here. No differentiation between sugar and art. How can you throw a dairy product into the same bin as an artistic composition? Yes we use words like “Fantastic, incredible and unbelievable” for varying degrees of greatness, but these words are also tiresome. The milkshake may have been great, but I believe the word you were looking for when describing the album was “Brilliant”. Americans use “brilliant” when describing certain people, but we would be better served if we were to give it greater powers of denotation. Objects should have the opportunity to be brilliant as well. Like this essay.

Another baffling aspect of the American utilization of the English language is our affinity towards corporate product name recognition and usage. From here on out, my days of endorsing capitalistic interests are over. No one is paying me to use brand names when referring to everyday household items, and unless the wigs at Johnson & Johnson start forking over some “dosh”, never again will I put on a Band-Aid, or wrap my leftovers in Saran Wrap. Next time I cut “meself”, or find that I am left with an inordinate supply of “Scrummy nosh”, I’ll apply a “plaster” and wrap that grub in “cling film”. I don’t owe Saran anything. And even though “cotton buds” are a bit more syllabically demanding than “Q-tips”, there is nothing “Q-ey” about them. “Buds” for me thanks.

With this in mind, it’s obvious that not all British slang is exemplary -the term “French Kissing” for example. Although I can’t remember the last time I actually called it “Frenching”, I would much rather “French” someone than “snog” them. “Snogging” sounds like something you do in a parking lot, involving motor oil, a lot of contortion and possibly a seat belt or two. Admittedly the French were probably not the first to shove their tongues down their lover’s throats, but they have the patent on the term and my devotion to the word.

There is one word in particular that the Redcoats have embraced above all others. And that is the word “piss”. The Brits absolutely love the word “piss”. I love writing the word “piss”. Piss, piss, piss, piss, piss. But stateside, it merely refers to anger and urine. The British on the other hand can be “on the piss”, tell you to “piss off”, call you a “piss head”, and open a “brolly” when it’s “pissing down”. They can “take the piss”, call something a “piece of piss”, “piss all over”, be “piss poor”, “piss up” and just “piss about”. I’m sure there are more phrases that I could include in this piss, but I’m late for a piss rally.

The Isle folk also preponderate when it comes to insults. If a bloke wants to put you down, he will have much more verbal ammunition at his disposal than you. Be prepared. Their derisions are more finely tuned, encompassing greater variations in degrees of intensity. We might call someone an ass, idiot and a moron, but ultimately these words all seem to embody identical connotations; however, twat, prat, twit, git, pleg, spacker, spacky, spazmo, spanner, twonk, wally, wazzock, wanker, divvy, joey, mong, nonce, pilchard, pillock, prannet, pranny, prannock, plank, plonker pleb, (and arse), are all tailored to more accurately define someone who, while he or she may in fact be an ass, idiot or moron, possesses certain qualifying traits which put him or her into a more specific sub-category of idiocy.

The written word has the power to add luminosity. Tincture. Iridescence. Carefully chosen lexemes afford us hierarchical intensities, enabling an exalted embellishment of viewpoints and opinions. Whether native or foreign, we have at our disposal, a virtual arsenal of terminology and utterances, and as a man of words, I will utilize these weapons of confabulation to the best of my ability, both in written and spoken form, in order to propagate a more diverse if not totally confusing writing and speaking style.

A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.

 -Henry David Thoreau

*Note: No thesaurus was harmed in the formulation of this discourse.

One Two Twenty

So I’m at the Thai restaurant this afternoon ordering some “Curry with assorted animal”, and the waitress asks me “How spicy?”
I say “Spicy”.
The waitress says “10?”
I say “What?”
She says “10 hot?”
I say “On a scale of what?”
She says “20”.
I say, “Are you kidding me?”
She says “No I no kid.”
I say “Seriously? 1 to 20?”
She says “Yes 1 to 20”

     For the record, I’m German. The spiciest food in the Fatherland is mustard. And that only comes in two types. Spicy or mild. If you’re lucky you’ll get a third option- “sweet”. But that’s about it. End of discussion. Seriously, I can’t comprehend this. My mind starts contemplating the subtle differences between a 5 and a 7. Are there any? Is there a magic number after which all following levels of hotness are too hot? And after that, does it begin to venture into calculus where a “12” is somehow exponentially hotter than an “11’? Does “1” hot have any hotness at all, and is it pretty close to “2” hot? Or does “2” hot make a quantitative leap into the “kind of hot” arena, but noticeably less hot than say a “3” hot or a “4”?
At this point I start wishing for a menu guideline, which would probably read something like this:

1 hot – Not hot.
2 hot – Hotter than 1 hot but still not hot.
3 hot – A little hot but still not really hot.
4 hot – Somewhat hot, but not too much hot.
5 hot – Kind of sort of hot but not really that hot.
6 hot – Hotter than 5 hot.
7 hot – Hotter.
8 hot – Hotter still but still not really that hot hot.
9 hot – Almost really hot.
10 hot – Hot.
11 hot – Getting hotter.
12 hot – Caution. Hot.
13 hot – Be more cautious. Hotter still.
14 hot – Hot Hot.
15 hot – Hotter than 10-14 hot, but not as hot hot as 16-20 hot.
16 hot – Almost too hot.
17 hot – Almost almost too hot hot.
18 hot – Too hot
19 hot – Way too hot.
20 hot – Not available at this time.

I had a similar problem the first time I went to Italy. I almost lost my mind when I was asked to pay 300,000 Lira for a cup of coffee. “No coffee is that good” I said to myself. But after doing the math I had no problem with the two dollar price tag.
Unfortunately the largest denomination of currency was a 20 Lira note.
People were walking around Italy with wheelbarrows full of cash just to have lunch.
Before switching over to the Euro, the Italian department of financial absurdities decided to shave off a few dozen zeros, leaving the cost of a cappuccino at a palpable 3,000 Lira.

On another occasion, I found myself in the emergency room several years ago, after my leg impaled itself on a cactus in the foothills of New Mexico. After filling out the required medical questionnaire, (read- novella), the receptionist asks me “On a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being the worst), how bad would you say your pain is?” For the record, an hour earlier on the hiking trail, doubled over in the throes of agony, the pain was definitely off the charts. That was a 20 hot. But now that I’m in the waiting room, I can’t possibly go with a “5”. What if a guy waltzes in with a pair of scissors through his head? He gets to have the 5 right? I can’t possibly take the “5” while I’m still breathing on my own.

By this time my leg is the size of a blimp and resembles an inverted porcupine but with the quills still on the outside. But I compare my pain to that of scissor head guy, and I say “3”. I’m definitely not going to go lower as I don’t want to be here all day at the end of the line. I figure that coming in at slightly above the 50% mark is a safe bet.
“Have a seat”, the nurse says, “The doctor will be with you shortly”
I know what “shortly” means in medical jargon, but I’m feeling optimistic.
Ten minutes later a mother enters the room with a screaming child, and I give a quick looksey to evaluate the competition. No foreign objects protruding out of the girl’s body…good. Turns out the urchin had only scraped her elbow.
And this is where it goes south. When presented with the paperwork, mom pushes it aside and states the obvious.
“This is an emergency”. She says.
 Really? That’s probably why you, I, and half a dozen other injured, maimed and malfunctioning people are all gathered in something called “The Emergency Room.”
“On a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being the worst), how bad would you say the pain is?” the nurse asks her.
“5” the little girl replies.
The nurse then instructs the mother to go through the door, down the corridor and into the first room on the left. “The doctor will be right in.”

Fantastic.
Unless she scraped her elbow on a meat slicer, this is totally unacceptable.
Why didn’t I just say 5?  I should have just said “Screw scissor guy”. If he’s still alive after driving all the way over here, he’ll be fine. Plus anyone who can’t handle scissors should be ejected from the gene pool anyway. It’s already way too murky in here.
Ten minutes later the little girl comes out with a Band-Aid on her elbow.
Thirty minutes after that, I see the doctor.

So take my advice. In the emergency room, on a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being the worst), always say 10. (Unless the scale is 1-20 then say 40.)

As far as the Thai restaurant story goes, I told the waitress that I couldn’t decide between “12 hot” and “13 hot”.
“Can you do a twelve and a half hot?” I asked.
“No problem.”, She said. “Red, Green or yellow curry?”
“How hot is the green?” I ask.
“On a scale of 1-50”.

I Am He

Spotted Fawn, Canary Beak and Lamb’s Belly.
Sassafras Glen, Quaking Aspen Shoot, Boysenberry Blossom.
Soggy Rain, Frostbite and Dripping Fog.

These are my words.
I am that man.
I am the paint namer.
To you, mine is a great job.
To me, it is “Destiny’s Desire”, “Inner Passion”,  “Love’s Pursuit.”

Where you see red, I see Crimson Beet.
Your blue is my Oceanic Flotsam.
Green? I don’t think so.
Emerald Fairy Wing? Most definitely.

You have only a general idea of what that color is.
But then I tell you what it really is.

And you say:
“Holy crap. That is perfect.  It could not be anything else.”

But the truth is...
It could be a hundred other things.

But it’s not.

It is what I tell you it is.

It is Burnt Toast, Elephant Ear and Golden Shower.
Prickled Passion Fruit, Half Ripened Banana, Gristle.
It is Puppy Nose and Kittens Paws.
Murder Of Crows and Cole Slaw.

One day, you will choose to paint your daughter’s bedroom.

And as you peruse the swatches, you will ask her,
“What color do you like?”

She will will turn to you and say...
“Unicorn Tears”

Little girls love unicorns.
And I know that.

But “Unicorn Tears” is not a color.

Until now.

I will show you that it is the only color which will work with the room.
With the light. And the drapes. And the dog.

I could have called it “Wandering Gypsy”,
But your daughter is afraid of gypsies.

And I know that too.

“Wandering Gypsy” would sit on the store shelf.

"Dusty Tin", "Forgotten Love", "Misplaced Youth".

A sad, lonely, depressing color.

You do not want a sad, lonely and depressed 9 year old living in your house.

But “Unicorn Tears”….oh yes.
She will come to realize, “This is who I am.”
It will complete her.
If it could, the unicorn would say to her,
“We were meant to be together”.
But you and I both know that unicorns cannot speak.
“Mute-icorn.”

-A color reflecting the quiet stillness of your lost inner child.

Available for a limited time.
Only at Lowe’s.

Unicorn Tears is only one of many lies which I have perpetuated.
Do not fight it.

For once upon a time he was the pet of your dreams.
Now your daughter’s walls are the color of its tears.

The living room once was white.
Now it is "Unspoken sympathy", "Unbridled Ecstasy", "Uncorked Chardonnay".

That does not rhyme. But that is fine.
Because that does.

And just when you thought I had reached my
“Midnight Climax”,

I am poised to shock and amaze with my new line of “Man” paint.

Because I know it is damn near impossible to sell a man on
“Mystic Mauve”,
When the pillows are already nestled in frilly cases.
And you have been poisoning him with potpourri
since the day you started shacking up.

He will need a color which is his own.
Something that says:

This is my color. Mine alone.

Sweat sock. Beer Foam. Pimple.

Women already adore me.
And before the paint dries,
Men will bow down to me.

For I am the God of the revised color wheel.

Shirt Stain, Five O’clock Shadow, Gas.

Who am I?
I am “Shining Star”, “Wondrous Conundrum” and “Riddle Me This”.

Of course It makes no sense.

But neither does $59.99 a gallon.

Now available in exterior.