CALL ME SNAKE

I read a story the other day about a man named Winter who is trying to drink a cup of coffee (caffeinated only) at every Starbucks in the world. Of all the nutty things…

So far he has visited nearly 5,000 stores owned by Starbucks out of a total of 6,055 such establishments, not counting licensed franchises in airports, grocery stores, and the like. The hard part is keeping pace: Starbucks plans to add 1,000 new stores in 2006, which means Winter may be on a treadmill for the rest of his life, never quite achieving his goal.

Well if it’s any comfort to him, Winter doesn’t have to worry about any competition from me. I have not had a single cup of coffee in my life, nor am I any fan of Starbucks. The most interesting thing about this whole quest, if you ask me, is that Winter doesn’t even like Starbucks. So why does he do it? You might say “because it’s there,” but unlike climbing Mt. Everest, he says, this is something no one else has done. Or tried. Or thought of doing, for that matter. Until an ambitious software developer from Houston came along with a singular dream…

Where do you turn for news? NPR? The New York Times? The Annals of Improbable Research? I personally rely heavily on the “Intelligence Report” in Parade Magazine and wish it came out seven days a week rather than just on Sundays, in which case I’d be seven times more intelligent. But, alas, it only comes out once a week, so I’ll have to settle for using just 14.3 percent of my ultimate brainpower potential.

Last Sunday, I saw an interesting item about Iraq. I can’t remember the details, because we’re pretty avid recyclers in my household, but here’s the gist of it: People like Paul Wolfowitz, one of the chief architects of the war, and former CIA director George Tenet, who provided some of the “intelligence” (not to be confused with the intelligence provided in the aforementioned “Intelligence Report”) that backed the Bush administration’s hellbent desire for war, are raking it in with high-paying jobs and/or lucrative lecture circuit fees. Paul Bremer, who helped convert Iraq into a safe, thriving democracy now has a cushy book deal, on top of the honoraria, etc.

Meanwhile, the enlisted men stuck fighting this ill-advised war are getting next to nothing, with corporals and privates earning just $3,000 or so a month. And U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq aren’t collecting even that meager sum. Now you can see why the good citizens of Iraq are so eager to have a democracy like ours.

Today Call Me Snake At the Movies will review two new movies in a shortened, special holiday edition. Well, actually, neither of these movies are “new,” though they are both fairly new to DVD. The first movie is “Heights,” a Merchant Ivory production starring Glen Close as “the grand dame du theatre” and a cast of other lesser knowns. After watching this movie, which is by no means terrible, I thought: Robert Altman, what have you wrought? In Nashville, which came out 30 years ago, Altman introduced the format that has since taken over cinema–that of multiple characters and story lines that intersect in unforeseen ways. He perfected the technique in Short Cuts (1993). Since then, and especially in recent years, there have been countless movies of that style and they all blend together. It’s hard to remember any of their names although last year’s “Crash” is a recent example, not to be confused with the execrable 1996 “Crash” starring James Spader and Holly Hunter (what’s a nice girl like her doing in a revolting picture like that?) Heights follows the formula of a group of people with seemingly disparate lives that are linked by a neverending chain of coincidences. My thumbs remain firmly in my pockets for this one.

The second movie, Bad Timing, is a 1980 film by Nicholas Roeg, who made the beguiling “Don’t Look Now” (1973) and the intriguing “Performance” (1970, though I’d have to see how well it holds up today). Bad Timing is supposedly a tale of “sensual obsession,” but it’s actually the story (to the extent there is a story) of a sordid little affair that (big surprise!) comes to a bad end. Art Garfunkel (who sings better than he acts) and Theresa Russell (who acts better than she sings and used to specialize in playing dissolute tarts) star in this picture, along with a youthful Harvey Keitel as the cop. In case you’re curious about the title, it has to do with whether Garfunkel gave a truthful rendering of the timing of events that occur near the movie’s end, chronologically speaking (though the narrative unfolds almost entirely through flashbacks). But for me, personally, “Bad Timing” means having had the bad fortune of looking at the screen during the two hours and two minutes this DVD was playing.

Halfway between here (my civilized city) and BF, New Hampshire (the exact location is immaterial, apart from the fact that it is a quintessential representative of smalltown New England), there is an outpost–an oasis in fact–called Mr. Mike’s where one can “gas up” (to use the local vernacular), buy a soda or snacks, and catch up on the local gossip. (Yesterday, for example, I asked the cheerful cashier about the fire in Troy we’d seen. We couldn’t have missed it, as traffic was backed up for miles. “Oh really,” she said. “I hadn’t heard.” Exchanges like that keep the customers coming back, day in, day out.)

Mr. Mike’s is open every day of the year–even on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s (as I know all too well)–and it’s a good stretching out point or “gassing up point” or basic junk food stop, seeing as it’s halfway, as I mentioned already.

My mother-in-law, who’s made the BF drive even more often than I have, uses Mr. Mike’s to keep track of distance: 40-some miles on Route 2, 10 miles on 140, and five miles on 12 bring you to Mr. Mike’s on the outbound leg. Another 20-some miles bring you to the metropolis of Keene and 20 or so more to BF.

Years ago, while driving home from Thanksgiving alone and somewhat fatigued (perhaps a result of an accidental tryptophan overdose), I saw Mr. Mike’s and was relieved, though surprised that I’d already hit the halfway mark. But things seemed off–the road kept going, well beyond five miles, with no sign of Route 140 or the McDonald’s that preceded it. How very odd. By and by, I passed Mr. Mike’s a second time–this time where it was supposed to be–just before the Golden Arches. The rest of the drive proceeded uneventfully, save for the moment I fell asleep at the wheel and caught myself as I drifted out of the lane.

For years, I’ve been puzzled by the strange case of the two Mike’s, though I forgot about it until yesterday when I drove back from BF with my mother-in-law, who began to recite the number of miles to Keene and then to Mr. Mike’s and then to our subsequent waystations: Route 140, Route 2, and a place the Car Talk brothers call the “fair city of Cambridge.” I confessed, somewhat tentatively, lest I be committed to the nearest institution, that I’d once seen two Mr. Mike’s during this drive, not just the one we normally stopped at. She said, to my relief, that there had been two but that the second one was shut down long ago.

And I think I know why. Having two Mr. Mike’s on that stretch of Route 12 was just too darn confusing. Can you imagine all the drug dealers setting up “buys” at Mr. Mike’s on Route 12 or the people on blind dates who arrange to meet there, let alone innocent drivers like me trying to figure out how close they are to BF, New Hampshire or, conversely, how far they are from BF?

No, I think they made the right move by turning that Mr. Mike’s into a regular old filling station. In my book, two Mr. Mike’s on the road to BF is one Mr. Mike’s too many.

My wife grew up in a city near Boston. The kids from her neighborhood were rather provincial, referring to outlying towns–that are sometimes called “the sticks”–by the disparaging term, “BF.” (I won’t say what BF stands for, but I will say the first part of the compound word is “bum.” The second part of that compound word is a four-letter-word that was not printable in the New Yorker until recently.) Well, I just got back from New Hampshire, where I celebrated Thanksgiving with my wife’s family in a “BF” kind of place–that is, if I were inclined to use such a term. My brother-in-law often points out homes for sale in his small village–one right across the street from their house, in fact–in an attempt to persuade us to move out there.

I think about it sometimes, wondering if could give up urban living and move to a more countrified setting–the kind of place (like the bar in Cheers) where everyone knows your name. I run into people I know from my neighborhood all the time, but they’re always busy and the conversations tend to last about 30 seconds or less. In their smalltown, I fear those same conversations could go on endlessly. Which gives me pause and makes me think I’m not ready for such a radical change in lifestyle and habitat. But one day, who knows, maybe I’ll be out there living with the rest of them folks in BF, wondering why it took me so long.

It’s true I have, upon occasion, used this space to vent. To rant. And to gripe. Call me a nitpicker but I don’t like torture. Nor do I like waging wars for no good reasons and for a lot of bad reasons. But today I’m not going to complain. Despite the state of our country and the state of the world, I do have plenty to be thankful for–a healthy family, both in my immediate family and throughout most of my extended family too. Plus I have a roof over my head, at least for now, and plenty to eat. So on this day, for once, I’m going to put all the carping aside and focus, instead, on all the good things in life–like “beating the rain,” watching flying squirrels, and playing volleyball. Who knows? Maybe it will become a habit.

We haven’t heard much about the “axis of evil” lately–a term Bush used to employ often–perhaps because of the sense among many people that the “axis” runs right through the offices of the President and Vice President, among other despots in the world. Bush, to me, represents the “banality of evil”(though I’ve never read the classic work by Hannah Arendt), showing how a regular, good-old-boy former drinking buddy can consistently drag our country down to some of the lowest, most degrading, depths it’s ever seen, while simultaneously waging war on multiple fronts: on the environment, on the economy, on the poor, on Iraq, and on common sense, to mention a few.

Cheney, on the other hand, represents (for want of a better term) the “audacity of evil.” Our Vice President has become a mad dog, of late–unchained, foaming at the mouth, and running wild. He calls the country’s recent experiments in torture a necessary walk on the “dark side.” He calls people who claim the Administration distorted “intelligence” about the threat posed by Iraq “reprehensible,” even though any semi-conscious observer knows that his remarks merely continue those transparent distortions. If the architects of the Iraq War were wrong on one count–the weapons, for example–perhaps we could give them the benefit of the doubt. But when they’ve resorted to one lie after the next to justify this disastrous war, their arrogance and deceit become glaringly obvious.

A few years ago, Bush pledged that the forces of good would prevail over the axis of evil. If only he could make good on that promise. But that, of course, is too much to ask for.

Doctors are taught to “do no harm.” It’s part of their basic training and part of their code. Why can’t we demand the same from our politicians?

The optimism of a three-year-old must be tempered against the harsh realities of meteorological fact. Despite the hope expressed yesterday, most exuberantly, by my daughter of “beating the rain,” it came down hard today and we were unable to “beat it” on the way to school this morning, nor on the way back. I had been riding high yesterday, swept away by the power of her fantasy. But after a getting soaked in several downpours today, I was forced to admit that nature has its own ways that are not subject to the wills of humans-even when those wills belong to an especially willful child.

Today got off to a shaky start but tomorrow is already looking better. I was supposed to bike with my three-year-old to her preschool, but she threw a fit and insisted on “mommie” taking her. I told her that she hurt my feelings. “That’s OK, dad,” she said. “We can bike there tomorrow.” When I told her it was supposed to pour tomorrow, she said: “That’s OK. We can beat the rain, right dad? We can beat the rain.”

You gotta love that spirit–and maybe, just maybe, the kid is onto something. Maybe we can all “beat the rain.” Wouldn’t that be a wonderful world?

Today, Call Me Snake is doing the thing we do best, introducing a new feature called “Call Me Snake At the Movies.” In this segment, we’ll review five movies, maybe more, depending on how tired I get.

The first movie we’re reviewing is called “Bright Leaves,” a documentary made by former Cambridge resident Ross McElwee. (I don’t know him personally but have seen him around town; he’s still in the area.) “Bright Leaves,” like all of McElwee’s efforts, is an extremely personal film–the kind of self-reflective work that shows what a blog can strive for but probably never achieve. Calling it a movie about the tobacco industry, and the smoking habit, is like saying Moby Dick is a book about fishing. Three thumbs up for me.

Our second movie is “Dodge City” (1939), starring Erroll Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. The bad guy, played by Bruce Cabot, looks like a younger George W. Bush. And like Bush, Cabot has others (like Cheney and Rove?) to take care of the dirty work for him. This one gets a mixed review from me–one thumb up and one down. I like the way Flynn got his point across while speaking extremely softly. The bad guy stuff seems derivative, especially compared to the real thing we witness every day.

Our third movie is “The Rainmaker” starring Burt Lancaster and Katherine Hepburn–the original based on the N. Richard Nash play, not the remake based on a John Grisham novel. This is a truly great play that has everything–a great romance and a searing look at the American Dream. The movie is perfectly cast: Lancaster overacts as usual, which is perfect for the role of Starbuck. And Hepburn is both moving and convincing as the “old maid.” Three thumbs up for me. I’d give it four thumbs up if I had another.

Our fourth movie is “Batman Begins.” This one, we were promised, was supposed to be different from the usual comic book superhero saga. It was supposed to be deeper, more psychological. The main problem with “Batman Begins” is the begining–a Kung Fu, ninja training tutorial that comes off as ludricous. The movie also suffered from a mediocre middle and a none-too-satisfying ending. All I can say is that I know Spiderman. He’s a good friend of mine. And Batman, you’re no Spiderman. Two thumbs down for me.

That’s our show for tonight. Did I say we’d review five or maybe six movies? Sorry, we’ll have to get around to those next time we meet “At the Movies.” Until then, the balcony is closed. So all you folks sleeping back there, or doing other things I’d rather not mention, will have to take your business outside.

The returns are in and several readers, narrowminded ones at that, have complained about the so-called “Milk Post.” I was back to writing about “nothing” again, they claimed, after some encouraging signs that this blog might actually be about something. In truth, I was just reporting events as they happened. Sorry if it seemed like a step backward for some of you.

I suppose there is plenty of “something” to be writing about. I could, for instance, talk about Dick Cheney who claims that challenging the rationale used to get us into the Iraq conflict is “reprehensible”–more reprehensible, in his opinion, than dragging our country into a war that has killed untold thousands of people, including our own youth, in an effort that has, thus far, made the world a far more dangerous place.

But sometimes I prefer to write about nothing. The formula worked well for “Seinfeld.” So why can’t it work for “Call Me Snake”? My feeling is that the pressing news, the “cutting edge” stuff, has a short shelf life. After a couple of weeks, if not a couple of days, it’s hard to go back to it. Blogs about nothing, on the other hand, never get “dated,” because they were never timely to begin with. Perhaps I should remind you of an old saying that comes to mind: Nothing lasts forever. Which is why–all other things being equal–I choose nothing.

It happened again: Call Me Snake earned another mention–and an excerpt–in the Boston Globe column, “Blog Log.” The excerpt in question, not surprisingly, comes from my famous “Vegan” episode, which stands right up there with the “Chinese Restaurant” episode on Seinfeld and the equally celebrated “Soup Nazi” turn.

Sometimes it may seem like it’s all me–just one little man behind a big screen, you might say–but nothing could be further from the truth. Call Me Snake would not be what it is today–or even a microscopic fraction thereof–without the small, but still appreciable, contributions from all of you out there in a place we like to call the blogosphere. So pat yourselves on the back. You deserve it. And you too have earned your 15 seconds of fame, which is how long it takes to read the one-paragraph entry in last Sunday’s Globe.

Major League Baseball is getting tough on drugs, increasing the penalties for the use of steroids and amphetamines. The U.S. Congress took an active role in all this, essentially forcing the sport to adopt more stringent policies. But wait a minute? Why is Congress so worked up over performance-enhancing drugs in professional baseball when it’s done so little to curb the use of performance-degrading (and sometimes life-ending) drugs in our nation’s schools? Is there something wrong with our priorities? Is baseball really more important than the health and wellbeing of our children? Evidently so. They don’t call it the “national pastime” for nothing. In case you haven’t noticed, “the three r’s” are no longer reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic; they’re roids, reds, and roofies.

The Baseball Writers Association of America gave the American League MVP to Alex Rodriguez over David Ortiz (aka Big Papi), and in the immortal words of the Boston Herald (this city’s daily tabloid), “he [meaning Ortiz] wuz robbed.” Rodriguez bested Ortiz in a number of offensive categories in 2005, but Ortiz was still the MVP. Ortiz, who has an infectious, larger-than-life personality, drove in far more runs than A-Rod and, more importantly, he won far more games–coming through time and again in clutch situations. The term “walkoff,” which was much discussed in these pages, came into common usage this year mainly because of Ortiz who ended many a game with one swing of the bat. He drove in 33 runs with the game on the line, whereas A-Rod came through with just 12 RBIs when it mattered most. “In 2005, without question, Alex Rodriguez was the very best player in all of baseball,” Tony Massarotti wrote in the Herald (a paper I never read). “He just wasn’t the most valuable.”

The Washington Post now calls Cheney the “Vice President of Torture.” The administration claims (duplicitously) that they are not the champions of torture in the free world. Yet despite the denials coming from the executive branch, the association is clearly (and undeniably) there: A Google search of “Dick Cheney” and torture turns up 1,620,000 entries. That would seem to make him quite an authority on the subject. After years of dabbling in energy policy (i.e., big oil handouts) war mongering, and general efforts to make this a better country for Haliburton to do business in, our V.P. has finally found–in the art of torture–an issue he can really embrace.

Jungle Jerk (“JJ”) stopped by on the way back from Amsterdam where the movie screening was a big success. When he arrived, I was out buying milk at–you guessed it–the 7-11, the same one that keeps popping up in this blog. Naturally we sat down for some milk and cookies, the latter being Pecan Sandies (PRODUCT PLACEMENT!) and Lemon Snaps (Midel brand, MORE PRODUCT PLACEMENT!). When grown men sit down for milk and cookies the conversation, naturally enough, gravitates to … milk and cookies. JJ submitted that the Sandies were too rich for his blood and then proceeded to down a large number of the Midels. Eventually I had to cut him off. I ate more moderately, perhaps because I had eaten dinner just a short while earlier and not spent all day on an airplane with one small bag of pretzels to tide me over.

The conversation, in any case, turned to milk, as it invariably does when people start off talking cookies. Why, we wonderred, was 1% milk so much cheaper than whole milk or skim? If it costs money to get rid of the fat, then whole milk should be cheapest, and it definitely is not. If it costs money to retain the fat, then whole milk should be significantly more expensive, and that’s not the case either. A real conundrum, if you ask me. (Is it a conundrum, in fact, or a paradox? Or just another one of those puzzling facts of life?)

Before long we were discussing the price of milk. Out where he lives, they have milk sales which is something you don’t see much of in Boston, though I’d definitely like to. (Who can resist the allure of a true milk sale?) There is one exception, I pointed out: White Hen Pantry. They have milk sales, from time to time, and it is one of their better features if you ask me. But I don’t think White Hen Pantry (WHP) is a local chain, which suggests that he (JJ) could be right, though we get a glimpse of how the rest of the country lives through the lens of the occasional WHP. One day, 7-11 is going to get the idea that milk sales can be a great “loss leader,” and when that happens, you’ll definitely be hearing about it from me.

Next JJ introduced the subject of milk container tops and how some gallons have something that goes over the round plastic lid–a wrapper or cap of some sort that neither of us were particularly fond of. The discussion continued in this vein for quite awhile until JJ’s jet lag started kicking in pretty good (5am Amsterdam time he pointed out). I let him off the hook, after he promised me we’d resume the conversation in the morning over Cheerios (more PRODUCT PLACEMENT!) and milk. I’m anxious to do that as I’m already crafting some interesting arguments on the subject of milk additives. (TO BE CONTINUED…)

W took the occasion of Veteran’s Day to serve up the usual pack of lies in the guise of honoring American troops stuck fighting his war. W attacked his critics for having the temerity to suggest that he and his cohorts manipulated “intelligence” to justify the war in Iraq. These naysayers, W claims, are trying to “rewrite the history of how that war began.”

My first reaction is, HOW DOES HE COME UP WITH THIS STUFF? What planet does he live on? But then again, when everything’s going against you, it may be a natural reaction–especially for weak, cowardly types–to lash out at the people delivering the bad news, even when it happens to be the truth. The fact of the matter is, Bush doesn’t have a lot to go on these days, and this appears to be the last refuge of the desperate. A few people, I suppose, may be fooled by this smokescreen of doubletalk, but by now almost everyone knows that just about every major argument used to justify this war has proved to be baseless, if not an outright lie. If anyone is trying to rewrite history, it’s him.

Does W think the only way to honor the nation’s veterans (who certainly deserve to be honored) is to persist in these ridiculous lies? I, for one, don’t think so. Because Bush’s war effort, based as it is on a scaffolding of deceit, will inevitably increase the number of U.S. casualties. So that in the end, there will be fewer veterans to honor and more dead to mourn.

Yesterday I stopped off at the 7-11 for milk, the same establishment I often write about–the same one I worry about finding myself sitting in front of. At the register, I saw the sign for Mega Millions and the $262 million jackpot. Impulsively I bought a ticket for $1 knowing I was throwing my money away. Then I stopped at the ATM and a few other places and by the time I got home, I had misplaced my ticket.

When I had the ticket in hand, I knew it was worthless, a one-in-a-billion shot, at best. But with it lost, and circulating around Central Square somewhere, I couldn’t overcome the conviction that I had lost the winning ticket and that some other bum was going to pick it up and lay claim to all my hard-earned millions. Should I retrace my steps and try to find that small scrap of paper, knowing that finding it would have been another one-in-a-billion shot?

But then I found it in my jacket pocket and, once again, it lost its value almost instantly. In fact, I forgot completely about it later that night and did not even check on the TV news at 11. When I did finally check online later that night, the results were predictable: Not only did I not have the winning numbers, I did not even have one of the six winning numbers.

So it looks like my financial problems were not magically solved after having invested the princely sum of a dollar. I won’t be taking my girls and all their friends out to their favorite restaurant. I won’t be taking my family on that trip to a destination that was so far out of reach, we never even contemplated it. No, it’s back to reality after that brief interval when my “lost” ticket had acquired so much power. I’m going to have to eke out an existence like the rest of the poor slobs out there trying to do the same. But it was a fun ride during the few minutes it lasted.

Remember the good old days, when TV was called the “boob tube” and the “idiot box,” rather than a “content service provider”? I think about that because a couple of days ago the Boston Globe had a short article about “Stacked,” a TV show starring Pamela Anderson I hadn’t heard about before. With respect to that show, both of those terms–boob tube and idiot box–seem apropos. I now know that I haven’t hit rock bottom yet because when I start watching Stacked on a regular basis, I’ll be there. The show, from what I gather from the Globe article, is about buxom women. And that’s it. Sounds like the “Hooters” (an establishment I’ve never visited) of primetime. It also reminds me of the old Tom Hanks TV show I never watched, “Bosom Buddies,” except without the buddies part. Still, I’m glad to have heard about Pamela’s show because as long as I can keep from watching it, I’ll know there’s still hope for me. On the other hand, it’ll be pretty sad if the only thing keeping me from hitting rock bottom is one trashy TV show that I refuse to watch.

Speaking of TV, which I try to steer clear of, last week Catherine commented about my “Loused” post, saying I should give the show (“Lost”) another chance. I did so and this week it was half-way decent–like the shows from the first season, without a lot of the nonsense about doomsday machines and doomsday numbers. So I’m glad she happened to see that post and set me straight to the point that I actually sat down and watched TV, which is something I never do.

Yesterday’s trifle on Jungle Jerk’s failed run for city council stirred up more commentary (dare I say controversy?) than I anticipated–enough so that I’ve decided to take up the matter here in a follow-up post. First off, let me say that I employed some levity in writing yesterday’s entry that started this little discussion. It’s true that my friend (Jungle Jerk) had trepidations about winning the job he ran for (though did not “campaign” for), but he is also a smart, responsible person who would have taken the job seriously (and done well at it, I’m sure) had he won, though some schedule problems might have ensued. He wasn’t running just to see if he could win. He was asked to run by some locals who thought he’d do a good job. On the other hand, he didn’t expect to win and when it looked like he might, it gave him some pause (as in, “what have I gotten myself into?” and thinking about “recounts,” and the like…)

The episode may not amount to much, but it does suggest how “campaigns” might be different. As Dr. Max said: “A candidate who doesn’t campaign? Who states his views in a public debate and leaves it at that? How the hell did he lose?” Flubberwinkle (gotta love that name) also astutely argued: “The upside is that voters are turning towards candidates without image-makers, publicity photos and stunts. Could become a trend. (Let’s hope so.)”

All this is not to suggest that Gatemouth and zardoz did not argue astutely in their own right. But what if, as Flubberwinkle said, this approach to campaigning really became a trend? (This is more likely to happen, of course, if a candidate like Jungle Jerk actually wins, campaigning in the manner he did.) What if people didn’t spend tons of money on ads and on glossy literature and instead expressed their ideas in public forums, without going around hounding people on sideways or bombarding them with cheesy TV and radio messages? Wouldn’t that be refreshing? And not only refreshing but revolutionary because if this approach really took hold, maybe we could get the money out of politics and make our democracy democratic–something it has not been for a long time, if it ever was one.

My friend Jungle Jerk [http://junglejerk.blogspot.com/] stopped by today en route to Amsterdam. He’s always stopping by en route to someplace or other, as if Cambridge, Massachusetts were not a destination city in its own right (which it is, damnitall). Anyway, he was off to Amsterdam for the European premiere of a movie about his experiences in the Amazon called “From the Inside Out.” (I may have had a role in picking that title. At a minimum, I endorsed the title when the movie was still in the formative stages.)

Yesterday, Jungle Jerk lost in his bid for a city council seat in his town in Western, Mass., yet the campaign was still remarkable. He was the only newcomer to that town (moving last year) who received the endorsement of both local papers. He also received 500 votes–a few hundred shy of what he needed to win–without campaigning, without printing any brochures, or putting anything in print, for that matter. He shook no hands, kissed no babies, and did not spend one cent of his own money (nor did he spend a cent of anyone else’s money). He did not raise any PAC money, any oil money, any money for that matter, which made him “beholden to no one. I never asked a single person to vote for me,” he says, and on voting day he didn’t stand outside the polling places holding a sign. “I refused to pander. I refused to grovel.”

The endorsements from the local papers, on the basis of his performance in the town debate, his sole campaign effort, took him by surprise. “That’s when I started to worry that I might actually win,” he says. That was going to be a problem because he plans on spending quite a few months in South America next year, as is his custom. When the returns were coming in last night, for awhile it looked like he was going to win. It looked like he had 1183 votes, owing to a quirk of the sign, when he actually had just 483. Once again he got nervous, “ready to demand a recount,” as he put it. But in the end, he did not win. Which was a relief. And now he’s on the road again, flying across the Atlantic for the film premiere this weekend. Bon voyage, Jungle Jerk!

Bush insists that military prisoners or “detainees,” as he and his coconspirators prefer to call them (because of the greater “flexibility” it gives us), are treated lawfully and that the United States never tortures captives. (Violence, abuse, and degradation perhaps, but never “torture.”) If all this were true–and no one who knows anything of the goings-ons at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo’ believes this for a minute–why has Dick Cheney made it his goal to defeat John McCain’s amendment that would keep the U.S. from employing cruel, inhuman, or degrading tactics? Why is the evil Cheney lobbying to make the CIA exempt from international rules of conduct?

It’s a disgusting position to take, I admit, yet I’m glad Cheney is playing such a visible role in this debate, which lowers our standing in the world to an all-time low point. There’s nothing to cheer about here, but at least the veil has finally been lifted and everyone gets to see what this abomination of an administration is all about. And what we see is unremitting ugliness. Now that we see it, what will we do?

The first installment of “Flotsam&Jetsam” was so successful, based on early returns, that some people (impetuously, if you ask me) are now calling for a new name for this blog–you guessed it, “Flotsam&Jetsam” in place of the old “Call Me Snake.” There is clearly an upside to introducing new features as we are wont to do, in terms of drumming up popular interest, but there is also a downside: Your whole blog, that you’ve built up painstakingly over the months, may be rashly brought down in favor of the proverbial “latest thing to come down the pike.” That said, I should point out that I too am a great admirer of “Flotsam&Jetsam,” and believe that the people I mentioned above who are clamoring to see this every day, instead of a volleyball blog or Boston Celtics blog, may be on to something. All I can say is time well tell. That may indeed be a providential idea, but let’s not be hasty. Rome was not burnt in a day, as is often pointed out in obscure footnotes and on bathroom walls.

And now, without further ado, the second installment of our sensational new feature… (Pardon me if the transition here seems abrupt, but I’d really like to get on with this, without a lot of exposition, “setting the stage,” and that sort of thing.) While the kids slept tonight (sleeping at night–what a radical concept), I was busy throwing out things, or getting stuff ready to send to the rummage sale, or to the recycling center, including books that they’d outgrown or books that “reinforced negative gender stereotypes,” as my wife often says. One of the books I came across when I did this thorough cleaning (pre-cleaning actually before the real cleaners–as in the pros–get here tomorrow) was Hansel and Gretel.

Actually, I just told the story all wrong. Sorry. Let me begin again, this time getting it right (I promise): During my major cleanup, I found a puzzle piece that went with one of the dozens of puzzles we have. (So the story comes back to puzzles again. Might this be a common thread in “Flotsam&Jetsam”? Maybe. It’s a work in progress and that may, indeed, prove to be an important leit motif.) After considerable head-scratching, I concluded it was a piece from a Hansel and Gretel puzzle. As I looked for the box (and didn’t find it because this puzzle did not have a box; it was a board puzzle), I thought about the story. About how that evil witch wanted to fatten up the children so that they would be bigger and tastier when she ate them. What I thought about was this: Kids at our children’s schools aren’t eating much these days in the way of lunch or snacks, and we’ve had several conversations with teachers on this subject. Of course, eating disorders have been rampant in this country for decades. Could Hansel and Gretel be at the root of this problem–or if not at the root at least a significant contributor?

“Why eat?” these kids might be telling themselves. “Maybe they’re just trying to fatten us up?” I’m not sure if there’s any sound, scientific basis for this concern but it is certainly a thought, if not a worry. And if it’s not a worry, it is a concern. And if it’s not a concern, it ought to be.

Today we’re introducing a new feature here at Call Me Snake. We like introducing new features here at Call Me Snake, as “new features” tend to rank very high in our focus groups and informal polling, as well as in casual conversations with “the man on the street” (say, for example, on his way to get junk food in the mid-afternoon). I think it’s fair to say that introducing new features is one of the things that Call Me Snake does best. It may even be our forte’.

Anyway, getting back to our new feature which is called “Flotsam&Jetsam,” in case you haven’t already guessed. The name is pretty self-explanatory, it seems to me. Rather than try to belabor the obvious, I think we should just get on it with it and all will be clear very soon if it’s not already so.

First, I want to say a word about my cat “Sunshine,” who is the one who is not missing. (That one, the missing one I mean, is called “Moonshine.” One reader already has complained about the names. In my defense, and in defense of the cats, I can say they were named by girls who at the time were just 2- and 5-years-old. But is such a defense really necessary? What’s so bad about “Sunshine” and “Moonshine,” apart from the fact that Moonshine is AWOL and possibly dead?)

Anyway, about our cat “Sunshine”–she is, I think, a pretty extraordinary creature. This evening, for example, I was doing a puzzle. I should say I was doing a puzzle that our younger girl (now 3) had dumped on the living room floor before being dragged, kicking & screaming, up to her bedroom for our unfailingly pleasant bedtime ritual. Sunshine took a particular interest in this puzzle and seemed to want to help. (She is a curious creature, in addition to being “pretty extraordinary,” and gets up on the counter when I wash the dishes. She seems to want to help with this chore, as well.) The last piece in the puzzle was a cat, and Sunshine came up and looked at it closely, and seemed to sniff it. Or maybe she was just sniffing my hand that might have had some weird scent on it, not that I intentionally go around applying weird scents.

Well, that’s all I have to say on this subject. And that, not coincidentally, brings us to the end of the first installment of our new feature, “Flotsam & Jetsam.” I hope you’ve all enjoyed it as much as the rest of us here at “Call Me Snake” have.

Yesterday, I was too harsh on “LOUSED,” I mean “LOST.” An astute reader encouraged me to give the show a second chance, this time while putting down the dishrag. Other things she said leads me to believe she has extremely high credibility, so I’d like to take the extraordinary step of retracting my previous criticism and doing as she suggests. (Author’s note: It takes courage to admit it when you’ve made a mistake–something a lesser man might not have done, something our president seems to have a hard time with. But I don’t want to get all political here. We’re talking about a TV show, after all, and it’s not even reality TV. It’s the opposite of reality TV in that it purports to be ‘mythology TV.’ Well, that’s about all I have to say on this first point. Shall we move on then?)

As for the “Great Day,” I tried hard to live up to the pressure my 3-year-old put on me yesterday when she told me to have a great day. When I showed up at my weekly handball game at 5pm, my opponent (who is a fierce competitor known to emit loud screams in the middle of a point) asked me how my week had gone. He’s never asked me that before in the 8 years we’ve played together, which I found slightly odd in view of my daughter’s pronouncement earlier in the day. I told him I’d get back to him in an hour. After whipping him and one other player (we sometimes play ‘triples’) in the first game, I answered the question decisively: “It’s been an excellent week, thank you.”

And the rest of the week (and perhaps beyond) is already shaping up well. My three-year-old has promised to wake me up every morning with a song. With a start like that, how bad can a day be?

I’ve done some complaining in these pages but now I’m trying to focus on the positive. On Wednesday, I wrote about my “Lucky Day,” which stemmed in large part from getting a free bottle of sparkling apple cider from my normally overpriced grocery store. But how can I complain about “free”? When it comes to prices, free works for me just fine.

Today is another experment in my new “Moral/Emotional Uplift Series.” I won’t tell you about any natural disasters, or the horrible war in the Mideast, or the misdeeds of Republicans in federal government. Maybe I’ll save that for tomorrow, but none of that today. Instead I’m going to tell you a little story. Well, it’s not actually a story. I guess it’s more of an anecdote really. You can decide for yourself, because here it is. And pay attention because it’s very short; if you blink you could miss the whole thing.

I dropped my three-year-old off at preschool this morning. I stuck around for a few minutes while she painted and did a few puzzles. Then I said goodbye. “Have a great day, Dad,” she said, which kind of blew me away. I sure don’t want to let her down, so I’m going to have to do that. My weekly handball game is at 5 pm and there’s not too many hours before then for things to go really south on me (sorry to any friends from the south who resent that expression), so I think I just might live up to the incredible pressure she’s put on me. Dammitall, that girl is right. And smart beyond her years. I AM going to have a great day.

Some of you might be saying that for a guy who doesn’t watch TV, he sure watches a lot of TV. I can’t control what people say, even if they do spread falsehoods from time to time. The point I want to make is that I have been seeing a bit of “LOST” since this past summer–a time during which I’ve felt a bit lost myself. Now for a bit of explaining: I have not “watched” LOST in the same way that people who actually watch TV might watch it. I put the TV on and then get to work–doing dishes, paying bills, sorting my laundry, finishing my daily sudoku ritual (at which point I might be ready to engage in my daily seppuku ritual, if indeed it is possible to commit seppuku on a daily basis). The point is, I try to turn the TV on Wednesday nights between 9-10 p.m. EST, no matter where my attention lies.

I missed LOST the first time around and never had any intention of seeing it. But then a friend, who I assume to be a non-TV type since he is of a literary bent, told me it was “pretty interesting; you might want to check it out.” At that point, it was too late, so I waited for the summer rerun season and watched when I could. And, to my surprise, I agreed with him: It was pretty interesting. The other reason I trust this guy’s judgment is that I know he has good taste; he’s constantly telling me this blog is “outstanding,” which might be the only reason I persist in this folly.

But I digress. (Note to myself: Stop digressing!) As I was saying, then season two came around and I’m not so sure anymore. It seems to me, they’ve got all these people here on this island (if, in fact, it is an island. Everyone calls it an island, so maybe it is one, unless no one has gotten a good enough view of the perimeter to know whether it is or not.) But I digress again. (Note to myself: Stop digressing again!) As I was saying, they’ve got all these people on this island, or whatever it is, and they don’t know what to do with them. And no one seems to be going anywhere, except for the three who got off on one episode only to return in the next. (Maybe no one will ever go anywhere if the producers are determined to keep this series on the air as long as Friends, only by then no one on this show will be on speaking terms, let alone friends.)

Yet I digress a third time. (Note to myself: Stop digressing a third time!) As I was saying, another problem I’m having is that all the characters (whom I found generally intriguing/engaging the first time around) are really starting to get on my nerves. That Michael, for example, who had been generally sympathetic (despite a hotheaded streak) is now acting like a total idiot, yelling for his son every time he opens his mouth, and, in addition to being an idiot, has become a real jerk. Jack is getting hard to read, but seems pretty unpleasant most of the time. He’s getting moody–in an uninteresting way. Why spend an hour with a crabby guy? And Locke (Lock?) doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself when he’s not killing boars. Without a boar, he’s becoming a bit of a bore himself. And the worst kind of bore at that–a mystical one.

At the moment, this show, which got off to such a promising start in its first season, seems to be totally LOUSED. A few more nights like last night’s rerun, which I missed the first time around and that apparently had been my good fortune (it was incoherent and nothing of consequence happened), and I’ll have to reconsider this whole Wednesday night ritual. If I were smart, what I really ought to do is stop watching TV. Which is what I do best anyway.

Yes, things are definitely looking up. First I had written that I was a mere “footnote to a footnote in history,” and then I heard from astute readers that my role was more important than that, arguably constituting a “toenote to history.” Yesterday, I heard that payment had been issued for my flying squirrel article (START THE LAUGHTRACK, PLEASE!) which had been lost in the editorial equivalent of a black hole for months. And today, so far, has gotten off to a promising start too. First I got my daughter (at least one of them) to school on time because we were able to make some lights in Central Square and zip through on our bikes (or rather trailer bike) past some usually troublesome intersections.

On the way back from her school, I stopped off at one of the two Whole Foods I like to complain about–not because of the ambience, which I enjoy–but because of the prices. Today was different. I grabbed four bottles of sparkling cider (marked at $3.69 apiece, which is exactly the kind of thing I normally complain about) on sale for $1.29. But they rang up at $3.69. After my suspicions were confirmed by a “price check,” the cashier–in accordance with store policy–gave me one bottle free and the other ones for $1.29. So I walk away with all four for $3.78, rather than getting just one at the inflated price of $3.69. I don’t think I’m going to top that–”zeroing out,” as a coupon-crazy friend of mine calls it–so maybe I’d better quit while I’m ahead.

I just read William Finnegan’s New Yorker article, “A Theft in the Library,” which discusses the world of rare maps and the strange case of E. Forbes Smiley III. It took me awhile to get to the piece, which was published in the October 17 issue, because magazines have a way of disappearing into my wife’s handbag and not surfacing again for weeks. But I did finally read it, last night in fact, and was impressed with the level of research and scholarship that went into the article.

In previous posts, I mentioned that I had helped Finnegan out by putting him in touch with people who’ve known Smiley since grade school, high school, and college. I even discussed my “role” in a post about the convergence of blogging and journalism.

But after reading the New Yorker article, I now realize I was seriously deluded. Finnegan’s article takes up 10 PAGES of the magazine, which is a lot of text, and his discussion of Smiley’s college days takes up all of TWO SENTENCES. At the very most, the contacts I pointed Finnegan toward contributed to sentences totalling a mere 37 WORDS, which amounts to a small fraction of one percent of the whole article. In short, this blog was not at the nexus of blogging and journalism, as I once fancied. Nor did my efforts constitute even a “footnote to history,” as I previously claimed, which clearly overstates the case. Best to call it a “footnote to a footnote of history.” That, I believe, is a fair representation and something I can, in good conscience, put on my resume.

It seems appropriate on Halloween to think of our coal-black cat Moonshine, who’s been missing for more than three weeks. His disappearance hit me hard–harder than I would ever have expected because I am not a cat person. I am, in fact, allergic to cats, and spent most of my life trying to stay away from them. But my wife and kids couldn’t help themselves and brought back two kittens from a New Hampshire farm last spring. I really had no say in the matter though I guess I could have moved out if my allergies got too bad. And they were bad for awhile, but then they eased up which surprised me, except for the occasional night when I’m up wheezing and coughing, wondering whether our sweet little kittens were the source of the problem. In spite of all this, I still got attached to them critters, which is something I never figured on.

Then Moonshine went missing and I’ve spent untold hours looking for him, putting up signs, talking to people–untold hours I don’t really have. (Any less sleep and I probably shouldn’t even bother going through the motions.) I’d pretty much given up hope but then we hear from neighbors who are fairly certain they’ve seen him, and I go out looking. And calling (something I don’t love doing as it seems kind of ridiculous to go around yelling “Moonshine.” People don’t know what I’m up to and probably figure I lost my still in the woods somewhere.) Most times were false alarms. But last Thursday night might have been different. I just might have seen the rascal. Seen him without coming close to catching him. Cats can be damn illusive.

Well it seemed like a lost cause. I had pretty much given up hope. Then my wife forwarded me a story from AOL News about a Wisconsin couple whose lost cat turned up in Nany, France three weeks later. So there’s still hope for you ole’ Moonshine. Maybe you’ve finally got the spilkes out of your system and are ready to come home. If so, I know one guy with severe cat allergies (and borderline asthma symptoms) who’ll still be happy to see you.