CALL ME SNAKE

For a number of years, Spooky World and me were as likely a combination as Lewis&Martin and Green Eggs&Ham. But last year Spooky World was torn down and its parts sold off to the lowest bidder. Now it’s starting to look like another Halloween without Spooky World. (Note: Please don’t make a habit of this!) Rumors have circulated on this blog, and in the blogosphere in general, that Spooky World was moving to a new venue. But that is not to be–at least for 2005. Maybe in 2006, they say. But are they right? And, if so, who are “they”?

The way things are shaping up now, it seems that if you need your annual fix of the “House of Fangs,” and want to spend some quality time with the Killer Klowns, Disco Ghosts, and the whole horrifying retinue, you’d better stop by my place which is fast becoming a low-rent Spooky World unto itself. But don’t come right away. I need some time to mess up the place. Trash it out real good so that it’s guaranteed to send any neat freak into a state of total panic. Hang on–I’ll have this pit, or perhaps I should say dive, ready in no time. Oh shit–I mean, oh good–I just spilled a vat of fake blood. Now if I can just find my ersatz vomit I’ll be all set.

Last month in the Boston Phoenix, media columnist Mark Jurkowitz wrote: “journalists now smell blood in the waters of Bush’s troubled second term.” And this was before the Harriet Miers fiasco, the Scooter Libby embarrassment, and the ongoing investigation into the Valerie Plame leak case. I, too, am smelling blood and (without sounding too violent) would like to see some heads roll, especially the big fat ones belonging to Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. Wouldn’t that be special, to paraphrase the Church Lady.

While it’s true the deceit involved in this case pales in comparison to other lies told by Bush and his surrogates (superiors?), the infractions are indeed major compared to the lies Clinton told about his relationship (and relations) with a former White House intern. I can’t believe this business started and ended with the “Scooter.” But from what I’ve heard, Patrick (“Fearless”) Fitzgerald just might be the man to determine how far, and how high, this thing goes.

“Another one bites the dust,” a wise Queen once sang. Harriet Miers, as everyone knows, has stepped down. Apparently, the fact that she went to church religiously–and if not “religiously,” at least faithfully, and if not “faithfully,” at least regularly, and if not “regularly,” at least occasionally–was not enough to convince some folks that she was qualified to hold a seat on the highest court in the land. She clearly appeared to be in over her head, which has been the case with many Bush appointees. The man ostensibly running our government holds government in ill regard and picks people accordingly. It’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I don’t know how to react to yesterday’s news. I don’t for a minute think she deserved to be a Supreme Court justice. I’m still of the opinion (call me old-fashioned) that a bit of knowledge about constitutional law might be helpful for someone in that position. I’m also happy to see Bush dealt another embarrassing setback. On the other hand, I know he can, and just might, pick someone who would be unquestionably worse and perhaps an outright “disaster.” So it looks like we’ll be rolling the dice, once again. Les jeux sont fait. Or as the French put it: Either way, we’re screwed.

My next-door neighbor, who’s in his 90s, told me something this weekend that suggests that guys–or at least some guys–never change, even when they’re 90. A couple of years ago, I rented my downstairs apartment to a married couple from Sri Lanka. The husband was an MIT graduate student who worked long hours, whereas his wife didn’t have that much to do. So she occasionally visited my neighbor to practice her English and give him a little company. What you might call a “win-win.”

When I visited him in the hospital the other day, he reflected on that experience–and reflected on some of the other attractive women who had rented the apartment over the years. He then told me something I hadn’t heard before. “When an attractive woman comes into your place,” he said, “you have to wonder what she has in mind.” Knowing that she was married, he decided to “let her make the first move.” I was relieved to hear that he was smart enough, and restrained enough, to do that. I was not surprised to hear that she never did make that first move.

I hope my neighbor, who’s now facing some serious health problems, recovers soon. But I hope he never loses that drive that has undoubtedly been with him since adolescence–we’re talking at least 80 years. Old habits die hard, as they say.

I live in an intellectual burg where even the exterminators are philosophers. Earlier today I spent an hour with one such professional, who failed to find a single bug of consequence in my home but dished out enough philosophy to make the inspection well worth the $125 fee. “Does your wife sleep on this side of the bed?” he asked, while inspecting our room for hidden pests. “Yeah, why do you ask?” I replied. “Men always sleep by the door,” he said. “It’s been that way since the Stone Age,” he added, with women and children sleeping in back of the cave–at least according to this expert–while men guarded the entrance.

Although my girls are still young, he warned me what I’ll be in for a decade from now. “All your troubles will have to do with men,” he explained. “You’ll have three women MEN-struating. Plus your wife dealing with MEN-opause. Then you’ll have your own MEN-tal health to deal with. So eventually, all your women problem will actually revolve around men.”

I wrote out the check before he left and suggested that perhaps we’d do the next “inspection” while I lay down on the couch. The way I see it, we all could use a good “debugging” every now and then.

Not that I watch TV, but lately there have been nonstop commercials for the new Nicholas Cage vehicle, The Weatherman, showing our hero continuously bombarded continuously with tossed drinks–Slushies, Big Gulps, and the like–all in the name of humor.(Author’s aside: What’s a matter? Did they run out of pies?) This looks like a movie in trouble. In fact, I think I saw previews for this movie a long time ago and if I’m right about that, then this definitely is a movie in trouble.

But this isn’t one of Call Me Snake’s Featured Movie Reviews (a popular Feature, I might add), even though I prefer to review my movies sight unseen. No, I’m writing about weathermen here. I’ve never been mad enough to want to throw a supersized soda at my local weatherman, but I am perturbed by a trend I’ve noticed of late. Namely, on the 11:00 News here in Boston, the weathermen have taken to giving the last-minute weather update short shrift. They used to quickly run through the four- or five-day forecast, saying in 15 seconds what they said before in five minutes, and I appreciated that brevity, especially since I often miss the earlier, long-winded version. But now they’re becoming very cavalier, almost nonchalant. Instead of predicting the weather for the next couple of days, they might say: “Better pack an umbrella” or “hope you have a good book” and then chuckle, as if that were the wittiest one-liner ever uttered. I don’t tend to buy sodas–and the weathermen around these parts don’t normally walk around with bows and arrows (as Cage does in the ads). But if these highly-paid folks continue to make light of the weather wrapup and turn it into an amateur hour jokefest, I might start loading up on those beverages. And they might need the Robin Hood gear after all. In which case I say, bring it on.

For those of you who are wondering–and I’m sure many must be though they are too shy to admit it–BLOG.COM was out of commission for part of the weekend (and possibly carrying over a bit into Monday as well) for “routine maintenance.” My blog has not been the same since. All my precious “LINKS,” which you might call my lifeline to the real world, have been severed, leaving “Call Me Snake” isolated and out of touch–a dangerous situation for a person like myself who tends to get carried away. My personal profile is gone, as is my mug shot. My treasured “blog stats” have also vanished, and other features you’ve come to depend on have changed as well, if not disappeared outright.

Rest assured that we are working on this problem so that Call Me Snake will soon have the same, familiar, cozy feel you’ve come to depend on. I’ll only be a minute. A jiffy really. Won’t be long now. Just click your heels and count to whatever it is you’re supposed to count to. Any real (non-imaginary) number will do, I expect. And while you’re doing that, I’ll be taking care of things from my end. And before you know it, things will be back to normal. In fact, better than normal. This is going to be a relaunch, as in: Call Me Snake Fully Loaded. (I’m not really “loaded,” in case you’re wondering. Maybe I should have said: Call Me Snake Slightly Toasted…)

We’re often starting new features here at “Call Me Snake,” which is something our readers seem to like. We’ve rarely cancelled a new feature, but I have taken that extreme measure today in terminating the “‘Big Al’ Watch” feature. There are several reasons for taking this step: First and foremost, our readers just didn’t like it–something I’ve learned both from perusing the “Comments” section, as well as from several focus groups. Frankly, I’m dumbfounded by this reaction, and disappointed, but I can’t make people like something, even if–by any rational measure–they should. Some people said that an ankle injury wasn’t serious enough to get that worked up over (a bit callous, if you ask me); others claimed to have not even heard of “Big Al,” if you can believe that.

Another reason for cancelling “‘Big Al’ Watch” is that he seems to have recovered from his ankle injury already, leaving us little to “Watch” on that front. In a pre-season tuneup against the Raptors on Friday, Big Al was the “first player off the bench,” scoring 8 points and hauling in 4 rebounds in 18 minutes 22 seconds of action-filled play. Against New Jersey on Saturday, he scored 10 points. All of which points to one ineluctable conclusion: Big Al is back and the injury watch, at least for now, is over. It was a great ride while it lasted.

I’ve been spammed in what I’d have to call the worst possible way. Yesterday I got a comment on an old entry that was not a comment at all: It was ostensibly a list of links to lesbo porn sites. I don’t want that kind of thing on my blog. I’d prefer that the content remains wholesome family fair–the kind of thing I’d be comfortable having my kids read, not that I’d let them anywhere near this place. But the list of items posted on my blog were pretty darn obscene–in some cases referring to things I haven’t even heard about, though I confess to being curious–and I don’t know how to get rid of them. Worse yet, they are not even real lesbo porn links, despite provocative titles that suggest otherwise. The links take you to some news site written in what I believe is Polish–at least I think it’s news, and I think it’s Polish, but not reading Polish places me at a disadvantage on both those fronts.

Don’t worry, I’m doing my best to get rid of the offensive passages as we speak. Blog.com Technical Support is on the case and it should only be a matter of minutes. Yes sir, the problem is under control. Hullo, uh, Technical Support, are you out there? Is anyone home? Hullo, hullo…?

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I live, you never know what’s going to happen next. The most mundane activity imaginable, like food shopping, can become an unpredictable, and sometimes intellectually stimulating, event. Last week, for example, I biked over to Whole Foods just before the 10 p.m. closing time to get some last-minute supplies for the kid’s school lunches. (I usually launch into an invective at this point about how expensive–i.e., overpriced–the store is, but I’ll refrain this time.) I was near the dairy counter when a neighbor and long-time Cambridge resident asked me: “Is soy milk vegan? A vegan is coming to stay with us and I don’t know if they drink soy milk.” I hemmed and hawed for a bit, not sure how to answer her, when a man in a black suit who looked like he knew what he was talking about came to my rescue. Soy milk, he maintained, was kind of “risky.” To play it safe, he suggested, “you’re better off with rice milk.” I’m not sure what kind of reasoning he used, but at the time the argument seemed persuasive.

A few minutes later, I ran into a well-known civil liberties lawyer and a well-known “lefty” (I’m not talking about his batting stance) at the checkout counter and asked him whether he still thought John Roberts was a reasonable pick, as he had argued so convincingly in the local “underground” paper. He told me he still felt “pretty comfortable” about Roberts. As for the embattled Miers, he did not know much at the time (nor did anyone else, it seems, save for her penpal W.), but thought she was probably less scary than some of the certifiable nut jobs whose names had been bandied about–’people who would lock folks like you and me up in a second.”

After making my daily contribution to my credit card debt, I got back on the bike, griping about the exorbitant prices, but glad–at least on this night–that I lived in Cambridge.

Things are looking up. I said as much last week when I “bottomed out”–having stolen my daughter’s lunch money and almost taken my kitten’s last post-op pain pill–but, true to form, I am definitely on the rebound. Make way for the “Comeback Kid.”

Today, for instance, I heard from a friend for the first time in 6 months. The last time we spoke, he was disgusted to hear I had taken up blogging–a habit he compared to “mind vomit.” He did not respond to some emails I sent after that conversation, and I was forced to conclude our friendship was over. Finit. Kaput. Termine (sp?).

But then he called. And all was forgiven. And forgotten, apparently, as he had no recollection of our springtime chat, though he apologized for the “mind vomit” crack when I reminded him of it. He even admitted to having perused my blog from time to time. Other friends of his have also taken up the “nasty habit,” and he decided he was not popular enough to write them all off. Soon, no doubt, he’ll be blogging himself, as well as playing Sudoku, and this round of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” will be complete.

We’re announcing a new feature here at Call Me Snake (we like to announce new features here at Call Me Snake, and our readers like them too!) called “‘Big Al’ Watch,” which will chronicle Celtic forward Al Jefferson’s recovery from a left ankle sprain suffered in training camp two weeks ago. Right now, that recovery is not going as well as planned. In fact, it would not be stretching things to say that Big Al’s return to action is way behind schedule. In the meantime, Jefferson’s doing all he can–on the exercise bike and in the pool–to ensure that he’ll be in the best possible shape when he does return. For now, he just has to let his body heal. And be patient. And so do we.

Just what we all needed–a new way to waste time. A couple of weeks ago, two friends independently told me about Sudoku, the number puzzle that, unbeknownst to me, seems to have taken this country by storm. I had never heard of it and was surprised to see it had been in the Boston Globe all along, as well as in a free Boston paper I never looked at. What’s more, my favorite bookstore (Harvard Bookstore–don’t get me wrong, I never went to Harvard) has four Sudoku books at the front register where the hottest-selling (QUALITY) paperbacks (not Grisham) reside. So now, in addition to wasting a half hour each day on this blog (give or take), I now also waste a half hour (give or take) on the daily Sudoku offering in the Boston Globe and/or in the lesser rag. That’s already an hour out of the day and last I heard each day has only 24 hours. (Can somebody please fix this? Write a letter to your Congressman. Send an email on moveon.org. Or do something!)

It’s possible that not so long ago, I once had a life. But now I’m so busy wasting time, filling the day with one time-killing activity after the next–on top of work, childcare, sock drawer rearrangements, etc.–that I don’t have time to think back that far. I’ve got to fill those boxes with numbers: nine boxes, nine numbers, no duplicates per row or column… You get the picture.

A week or so ago, I attended the 15th Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Harvard and wrote two articles about the event for a prestigious science journal. The prizes offer a humorous alternative to the Stockholm variety, rewarding achievements that “make people laugh, then make them think,” but mostly make them laugh. I now have an embarrassing admission to make: I’ve attend every one of these ceremonies (and written more than 20 articles about them over the years), which puts me in very elite — and you might say incredibly nerdy — company. I am probably one of just a handful of people, including the event’s organizer, who’s been to every single one. This year prizes went to scientists who cataloged the smells produced by stressed-out frogs, calculated the internal pressures required for successful defecation in penguins, and made other mindbending breakthroughs. But what of my achievement? People often say that life is, in large measure, a matter of “just showing up.” If they’re right, one day my accomplishment might be recognized as I pick up my very own Ig Nobel Prize for Attendance. I’m already preparing my acceptance speech which, in accordance with the strict ground rules, I’ll keep to less than 60 seconds.

Yesterday, after stealing my daughter’s lunch money (and feeling my self-esteem hit record lows–think crash of 1929), I had another unworthy impulse, even worse than the last. My back, about which too much has been said of late, was feeling creaky, and I almost stole the last bit of pain medication from our kitten who was recovering from minor surgery. (She got “fixed,” as they say, though I’m not sure she sees things that way.) Fortunately, my wife ground up that little pill and mixed it in the cat food (don’t worry, I’m not that low yet) before I could act on my untoward impulse. That little act on her part not only helped Sunshine, our kitten, sleep peacefully last night, it also turned my life around. After coming close to hitting rock bottom–seeing the rocks without quite touching them–things are looking up from here.

Today I hit a new low–not “rock bottom” yet, as I’m still in freefall, but a personal best, nevertheless, so far as low points go. What I did was this: I stole from my 6-year-old daughter’s lunch money. I needed $70 to pay the babysitter and could only scrounge up $68 from my billfold. I figured it’d be bad form to give her two dollars in coins. Then I remembered the money I’d given my daughter to leave in her backpack in case she needed to pay for lunch. There were several crumbled bills in the front pocket, as I’d left them a few weeks ago. I figured she wouldn’t miss it, whereas the babysitter would definitely had missed it if her hush money came up two dollars short. So I took the money and ran. I have long heard (and admired) the expression about stealing a kid’s lunch money. Now I’ve not only talked about it, I’ve done it.

Some months ago, I wrote an article about the military. I tried to reach a general and a colonel for comment. I never heard back from the general and the colonel canceled our interview after we’d set everything up. I didn’t think anything of it, figuring these people were busy. (Who isn’t? Plus the fact they had a war to “prosecute.”) But now I hear from someone in contact with them that I’d been Googled and stuff turned about suggesting I was anti-war (which is not true; I’m just anti THIS war), which is why they wouldn’t talk. It’s kind of sad to hear they’re not confident enough in their positions to be able to talk to someone who might have another point of view.

But it also made me realize that there are consequences to what I do; putting this stuff out there for all the world to see–even though I assumed just a handful of people were looking–has its risks. I may have a hard time speaking to some military types, should a situation like that come up again. And I can forget about joining the White House Press Corps (never my ambition), at least until our current leader is rightfully deposed.

Following up on yesterday’s exclusive on burnt muffins, I’ve decided to take up another burning-hot issue–an idea inspired by (stolen from?) “Things I Wonder About” (see link on right). “What’s up with people who wear shorts outside their sweatpants?” asked the author of that blog, Old Roses. It’s a question I’ve often asked myself, and frankly I don’t have any answers. From a fashion point of view, the shorts-outside-the-sweatpants look is an atrocious statement. Practically speaking, it makes no sense either. Allow me to illustrate: Suppose you’re doing a sport, or some other activity, and get warm. You’d like to take the sweatpants off but then you’ve got the shorts on the outside and the underwear underneath (or worse yet, underwear underneath). Nowhere to go, in other words. If you ask me, the whole thing makes no sense whatsoever. I’d go so far as to say it verges on the nonsensical.

Here’s another “News Short”: Yesterday was a sad day in my household. I retired a pair of shorts (as in actually throwing them in the trash)–a pair I’d had at least since high school, and before they were shorts, they’d been one of my favorite pairs of pants. My mother did the alteration herself–a job that has long since stood the test of time. We’re talking at least 35 years here. But they split right down the back and another hole was starting to form on the side, so it was time to say goodbye–another end to a long short life.

Ironically, I had just come back from picking my daughter up from her grammar school. I’d been debating with the school administration over a new policy that forced parents to pick up their children in the schoolyard rather than in the classroom, as had been the custom. But with holes in my pants, I looked like the kind of guy who should be hanging around grammar school lots.

Here’s something that gets me a little toasted. (I’m not sure if that’s the right adjective, but it seems appropriate under the circumstances, as you shall see, so please hold off on the jeers and catcalls.) I often stop in at that high-priced grocery story I’m always ranting about (Whole Foods) after dropping my daughter off (by bike, never by car!) at school in the hopes of getting a muffin. And they’re almost always burnt to a crisp. There’s a trendy coffee shop around the corner (the “1369,” it’s called), which is my backup choice, and it’s usually the same story. Their muffins too are dark brown, if not char-black, around the edges. What’s going on with this? Where are they getting the bakers these days? I don’t mind an occasional burnt one; that’s gonna happen. But mostly burnt, most of the time? Come on! It just don’t make sense. Maybe if our president spent last time chopping wood, or whatever it is he does when he’s not riding his mountain bike–maybe, just maybe, the federal government would be better prepared to address this burning issue. (And please, spare me those tired “state’s rights” arguments about how this is a local matter.)

To those of you who’ve read these pages recently, I have complained about back pain–to the point of becoming a pain myself–for the last 10 days. In the dream I had last night, I finally sought some medical care, which is something I haven’t been smart enough to do during my waking hours. I saw a nurse who (in my non-dream life, to the extent that I can differentiate between the two) actually works for my daughter’s public school. She told me the problem wasn’t related to my back muscles at all, but was instead organic in nature and that I would need some potent medication. One therapy called “OH” involved a heavy drug regimen. (I seemed to recall that a 5-year-old girl in our neighborhood had undergone that for some ailment or another.) She recommended another course that was somewhat less grueling. The drug was contained in a hot dog that she gave me to eat. I had a few bites and then got nervous, thinking that maybe I should have talked about the side effects before chomping away. I woke up soon afterwards, feeling anxious about having ingested some unknown chemicals. I got out of bed slowly, as has been my custom over the past week and a half. I don’t know what they put in those hot dogs, but it sure seemed to work. I’ve been standing straighter and walking taller today than I have in a long while. Serve me up another red hot; hold the onions.

Don’t get me wrong. I like sports as much as the next fellow, maybe more. But some sports are just well, they’re just not for me. Take wife carrying, for instance, which evidently is popular in Finland and in Bethel, Maine, as well, where the North American Wife Carrying Championship is held each year. This is no knock on my wife but with my back being what it is, maybe I’d be better off playing poker. But then again I heard the actor James Woods recently had surgery from nerve damage that occurred from resting his elbow on the gaming table for too long. So let’s cross that sport off my list as well. Extreme Video Game Playing is another one I’ll try to avoid. In August, a 28-year-old South Korean man died after playing “World of Warcraft,” an online video game, for 50 straight hours without eating or sleeping. Which leaves me with camel racing–the one sport I figured was sure to be safe. Guess what? I figured wrong. Camel racing, it turns out, is dangerous, particularly to boys (OK, I’m a few years beyond that category), who suffer (all too frequently) arm, leg, and head injuries, sometimes resulting in death. So I’m not sure where that leaves me. I suppose there’s always volleyball, but I’ve already said too much about volleyball–what with this being a volleyball blog and all. Maybe I’ll just work on my “inner game” for awhile and think about it.

It’s the question everyone (and his uncle) has been asking, on the talk shows and on the streets: “Do Harvard doctors practice what they preach?” Well, the Harvard Health Letter, “the country’s first health newsletter for the general public,” decided to try to answer that question that has been debated over the years and, in fact, decades. Rather than sit around on their butts and talk about it, like most of us are content to do, they went out and actually surveyed more than 15,000 Harvard Medical School faculty physicians about their health habits. After collating the responses and applying various statistical tools too sophisticated for me to explain to lay readers like you, they reached a definitive answer to that very same question. You know, the one we’ve been talking about. And here’s what they found (and this is a direct quote to minimize any chances of misinterpration): “in many cases, yes, they do.”

In case anyone was still wondering, the GREAT BOSTON RED SOX BUMPER STICKER SWEEPSTAKES is officially over–with an emphasis placed on the first syllable of “sweepstakes,” as in “sweep.” The winner, once again, is …. ME for my entry, “THE FAT LADY SUNG,” but I’m not happy about it. The rains have already started, and many inches are supposed to fall before the weekend is over. And even more will rain down during the soggy week to come. By the end of it, Boston will be a veritable mudbath. And Ernest Lawrence Thayer certainly had it right when he wrote: “There is no joy in Mudville–Johnny Damon has struck out.”

It took some arm twisting, but I finally got all the entries to the GREAT OCTOBERFEST BLOGGING BUMPER STICKER SWEEPSTAKES and the add-on GREAT RED SOX POST-SEASON BUMPER STICKER SWEEPSTAKES. And the winner is …… ME!!! That is, in fact, partially true, but there are several other winners this time around in addition to yours truly. I’m now handing the envelope to Vanna White (who’s held up remarkably well over the years, I might add), and she’ll be typing in the winners. (Note to technical staff: Make sure the spellchecker is turned on!)

In the “I’m a genius!” category, the winners are:

Snake for: I’m a genius! I can blog and watch TV at the same time.

OldRoses for: I’m a genius! I can blog and perform routine maintenance on user’s desktops at the same time.

And DrMax for: I’m a genius! I can blog and perform open heart surgery at the same time.

The winner in the “I’m a paradox!” category is Turd Blossom for: I’m a paradox! I can blog and not blog at the same time.

In the “Free Verse” category, Gatemouth won twice for: Blogging: it’s not just for losers anymore AND Stop blogging: the life you save may be your own.

The announcement of winners in the Red Sox category has been withheld, pending the results of tonight’s game. I’d like to thank everyone who participated and even those who thought about participating and (wisely) decided against it.

This is my time to show that I care about what YOU–my readers and, sometimes, co-conspirators–say. In that sense, it is your time. MarcoPolo, for example, urged me not to sue Trader Joe’s because their “Crunchy” peanut butter lacked crunch, when a polite letter would prove much more effective. The thing is, I’ve read so much about how litigious our society has become and I’ve never really contributed to that development. This might be my best chance to get involved.

Turd Blossom (gotta love that name!) said I should drop the monthly Blogging Bumper Sticker Sweepstakes and do one about the Red Sox instead who are, according to him, in serious trouble. I had two suggestions: “Got them right where we want them. Red Sox lead 0-2.” And “Look Out, Chicago! Beware the Bloody Sock.” An anonymous reader also submitted two entries, including one that said “Gerbil Up,” a play on last year’s slogan, “Cowboy Up.” I won’t repeat his second entry, which is an insult to gerbils of all sexual persuasions.

Finally, in the spirit of public outreach, I’m reaching out to GATEMOUTH, who has yet to submit his winning entry for the Blogging Bumper Sticker Sweepstakes. I say “winning entry,” not because the contest is rigged (I swear it’s not), but because he has won every time in the past. So there is ample precedent, though time may eventually run out if we’re going to hold these contests on a monthly basis. Sometimes I think we should do one every day, but I’ve got a thing for bumper stickers. Some might call it an obsession. I call it a “healthy outlet” for creative impulses that are not wholly satisfied by blogging. In a more innocent era, that would be called a hobby, but we live in complicated times.

Last Saturday, during my second stint as “soccer dad,” I got a bit bored with the standing on the sidelines, cheering, and went to the nearest food store to get some provisions. The nearest store happened to be a Trader Joe’s, a West Coast import that seems to be wildly popular around here. On weekends, the lines start early and grow from there. I’m not a huge fan of TJ’s, as it’s affectionately known, which has good prices in some areas, but a spotty selection, which means you still have to go to a real grocery store when you’re done battling the crowds.

But I figured it would be OK for something like peanut butter. Was I ever wrong. I bought a jar of Trader Joe’s “Crunchy” Peanut Butter and guess what? NO CRUNCH. In fact, I have not yet found a single crunch in the entire jar. This was distressing to me, as you can imagine. I’m now trying to determine whether the “emotional distress” I’ve suffered constitutes sufficient grounds for a lucrative lawsuit that will never make it to court, but will nevertheless net me an ample payoff.

Does anyone else out there in cyberspace have experience with frivolous lawsuits–the kind that are turning our legal system into a sham of a mockery of a delusion? If so, please get in touch. My attorneys, a latter-day “dream team,” are eager to hear from you.

A reader, J. Star of “The Melodrama Jukebox” (http://trampolinetricks.blogspot.com/), said that being forced to listen to a George Bush press conference, a situation I found myself in a couple of days ago, was her idea of hell. I, for one, think that’s a pretty fair statement. My back was killing me on Tuesday (and still is), and I couldn’t get to the radio in time to turn it off. Had Bush blathered on forever, that truly would have been hell. The only thing that saved me (and the rest of this once-proud nation) was that the so-called “press conference” (not much of a conference in my opinion; not much of anything for that matter) was mercifully short, lasting well under a half hour. After awhile, Bush rans out of ways of praising Harriet Miers: “I know this woman. She’s a good woman. She has a good heart.” Those sounds like reasonable qualifications for a woman you might like to date, assuming you were single or cheating on the side. But does that qualify Miers for an appointment to the highest court of the land? Soon the conference came to an end, and I went back to my previous postiion, lying on the floor in pain, which came as a great relief to me.

I was lying on my back yesterday, working–no I’m not a male prostitute, unless you happen to consider freelance writing prostitution, as some do–when the radio show I was listening to, “On Point” (what promised to be an interesting discussion about Hillary Clinton) suddenly switched to that rare occurrence, a press conference with George W. Bush.

Were it not for my back injury, which makes getting up from the prone position slow and painful, I would have turned the radio off immediately. Instead I was forced to hear the president repeat himself endlessly about how his latest Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, is a good person and a “bright” one to boot (how’s that for qualifications?) who shares his “judicial philosophy.” Many questions, of course, spring to mind, with one, perhaps, more salient than the others: Since when does a pledge “not to legislate from the bench” constitute a “judicial philosphy”? That might be a talking point, a slogan, or, more likely, notes in bold print from a teleprompter, but a philosophy it is not. Unless the hallowed field of philosophy–the old stomping ground of Plato and Aristotle, before George Bush staked a claim to it–is in even worse straits than I ever imagined.

As we speak (are we “speaking,” or are am I just “talking” again, as usual?), the judges are poring over the many fine entries we’ve received to date for this month’s Octoberfest Blogging Bumper Sticker Sweepstakes (see October 1 post for important guidelines). Many outstanding entries have already been submitted, including numerous gems from yours truly (who invariably tends to win one prize or another, if not several). Nevertheless, we still haven’t heard from many of you, including a perennial winner in the name of one Gatemouth Brown, who may or may not the recently deceased musical genius of the same name. In any case, we’re reaching out to you Gatemouth–call it an “intervention,” a gentle tug from the lure of the TV screen–and to others who are thinking of entering but haven’t made the time or are ashamed of their entries and worried they’re just not “up to snuff.” Please don’t hold back. We’ve seen a lot of real stinkers over the months, let me tell you, and I promise not to laugh or otherwise humiliate you in public (unless absolutely necessary). After all, we do this for fun. Right? Otherwise, what’s the point? (I’ll need to think about that last question but, as of right now, I don’t have anything remotely approaching an answer.)

Earlier this year, I published an article about “Blogging and Journalism” (http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/ksgpress/bulletin/spring2005/features/search.htm) that explored the interface between those two media forms, discussing their respective pros and cons and detailing some of the many instances when bloggers have beaten mainstream journalists to the punch. When I started researching the story, I never imagined I’d be stupid enough to start my own blog. But the the “barriers to entry” were too low and the cost too cheap (how about free, does that work for you?), so I made the ridiculous plunge and “Call Me Snake” is the ridiculous result.

I never figured that this blog would, like others before it, play a role in the journalistic enterprise I wrote about in my article, but it has in a small way–almost too small to mention. But that’s never stopped me before. Yesterday’s New York Times had an article (front page, I’m told, though I saw it online with no page number identified) called “Theft Case Rattles Sedate World of Rare Maps.” The story concerns E. Forbes Smiley III, who’s charged with the theft of rare maps. I had written tangentially about the case during the summer, but yanked the stuff offline when people (at least one of whom I knew and liked) complained that my writings were malicious, tawdry, and any other negative adjective you might care to apply. I have no intention of reviving that whole controversy and won’t say anything here about Smiley. From what I’ve heard, he may very well be an outstanding guy and one, I might add, who has not yet been convicted of anything.

My role in this, though it was extremely incidental, does nevertheless illustrate the potential power of blogging. The Times article said that Smiley went to Hampshire College (my alma mater), “according to a lengthy profile in The Hartford Courant.” Kim Martineau, the author of that Hartford Courant article (“From Life Among The Elite To Charges Of Theft.” September 25, 2005), got that information, as well as the name of the high school Smiley attended, from this blog and from me personally. I got that information, in turn, from comments posted on “Call Me Snake,” which resulted, in part, from my slow realization, posted online in serial fashion, that I might have gone to college with the individual in question. A New Yorker writer, who is also working on a profile of Smiley (soon to be published?), was also put in touch with some of his college and high school associates, in part, as a result of this blog.

I realize this is all inconsequential, yet I still see a certain irony in it. I started out last year, wholly ignorant of blogging, with a mandate to explore the gray area between blogging and journalism. Many months later, I unwittingly found myself living in that same gray area–a point hammered home to me when I read the Times yesterday. The intersection of the New York Times and Call Me Snake is, indeed, a curious one, and some might say a dubious one. But for me, it’s an historic event, or at least a footnote of some sort. In my book, any time “All the News Fit to Print” comingles with “Old News Unfit to Print,” the result is worth taking note of. Or making note of. But perhaps that’s because of my longstanding, singleminded devotion to the pursuit of nothing.

These “How Are You?” columns are fast becoming a regular feature here at “Call Me Snake,” and a popular one at that, according to the feedback I’ve received to date–a chance to take the spotlight off me for a change and put it on you. Speaking of me, I’m doing fine, apart from a new ailment (back spasms) that struck me yesterday at 12:30 as I tried to get my rollerblades on. The rollerblading did not go too well after that–I made it to my driveway, before turning back–but apart from that minor setback (or major setback depending on YOUR point of view. From my point of view it is major but this one, as I’ve stressed upfront, is all about you–your troubles, your hopes, your dreams, your pet chinchillas…)

So much for the “how are you” aspect of this multi-faceted post. Now for the “who are you” aspect. Starting on September 1, I noticed for the first time a “blog stats” link on the lower right of this blog. It has not worked too well: After several days, all the previous stats seem to evaporate like, uh, well, you can finish the sentence…. (After all, this is YOUR chance for the spotlight.) But in any case, getting back to the stats, I was surprised to see that according to whatever (or whoever) bean counter is at play here, nearly 50 “unique visitors” drop by on “Call Me Snake” each day. I only know a handful of you–and charges have been levied that some or most of those folks are my inventions to “pump up the ratings,” as my critics say. So the question remains, who the heck are the rest of you? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to hear that someone outside my immediate family is actually perusing these offerings from time to time, and everyone who does so is, by all means, encouraged to keep it up. Tell your friends and mention it at a church social, if it seems natural and not forced. But if any of the “unique visitors” who are flying below the radar care to introduce themselves, I’ll be glad to make your acquaintance. After all, this time it’s all about you.

Last night, a bit after midnight, as is my custom, I went to the 7-11 in Central Square–on the edge of all the bars and nightlife–to purchase some milk so the kids could have cereal for breakfast. A vagrant sitting near the door, whom I’ve seen many a time, told me he’d watch my bike. I didn’t need to lock it. I told him I’m a creature of habit and locked it anyway. On the way out, as I was unlocking the bike, he called out: “Hey buddy, come over here! I wanna tell you something. Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to his palacial spread on the sidewalk.

I was tempted. It looked kind of cozy down there, where one could kick back, have a beverage or two, and watch the world go by. But I was afraid I might get too comfortable and never get back up. “Come on, pal,” he implored. “Just for a minute.” I loaded the milk in my saddle bags and pedaled off. “Sorry,” I said. “I still gotta few things to do. But maybe later.”

You know I’m getting desperate (for material, fame, or even just a little attention) when I have to resort to the Monthly Blogging Bumper Sticker Sweepstakes, but a new month is upon us and so is another sweepstakes. Any entry, of course, is welcome. However, for those who need a little prodding, I can suggest a format you might use along the following lines: I’m a genius! I can blog and ____ at the same time. Here are a few examples:

I’m a genius! I can blog and chew gum at the same time.

I’m a genius! I can blog and watch TV at the same time.

I’m a genius! I can blog and sleep at the same time.

I’m a genius! I can blog and have a heartfelt conversation with you at the same time.

Please do not feel constrained by this suggestion. Surprise me, and more importantly yourself, with your own creativity. I know you can do it. After all, you’re a genius!