CALL ME SNAKE

Today we’re introducing a new feature called “Movie Ads You’re Not Likely to See.” This feature, sure to be one of our most popular, is pretty self-explanatory, as you shall see. Without further ado, here’s the first installment:

PSYCHO: “a moving family drama about a son and his undying love for his mother.”

When I was in my 20s and early 30s, I used to throw big parties with a group of guys, one of whom is arguing a case before the U.S. Supreme Court today on global warming. I mention it because it shows how far this guy has gone–and how high his star has risen–since our youthful party days. And here I am, by contrast, at home, rather than in our nation’s capital, still eager to go to those parties, if only I got invited.

I’m having wrist troubles lately (BORING), which has cut into my sudoku time. But I trained myself to do the puzzles with my right hand (I normally write with the left), and it’s working out fine. I shouldn’t make too big a deal of it, though, as I know a Boston area artist who lost the use of his right arm, as a result of a stroke, and had to learn to paint with his left. He even had a showing in Boston of his “Left Hand Work” last year, and it was spectacular. My right-handed sudoku triumphs pale by comparison.

I had my rollerblades on yesterday and felt like going somewhere, though I didn’t know where. I returned some DVDs to the Central Square library and continued on, exploring the rapidly-expanding industrial area in Cambridge between Central Square, MIT, and the river–a realm I barely know at all, apart from the Good News Garage and a few other landmarks. It was strange, after having lived in this town for 30 years, to go through one unfamiliar block after another, passing a paint factory (California), biotech companies like Vertex, and the occasional park and residential enclave tucked in between. Being Sunday, it was a fun time to roam this alien landscape, as traffic was light to nonexistent. In addition to getting some exercise, I learned that the town I thought I knew so well still holds plenty of surprises.

The other day, I saw a strange sight–a well-dressed man in a business suit thumbing a ride on a quiet residential street in Cambridge and, not surprisingly, getting nowhere. I figure he was about 60 years old and probably hitched a lot in the 60s. I did my share in the 70s and had a number of hair-rising rides over the years, coming close to death on a few occasions. But the best and longest ride I ever got occurred when I was 19. My brother and I were making our way back from Aspen to Chicago and we got a ride from Vail, Colorado all the way to Joliet, Illinois. A nice guy with a poodle took a chance on two young backpackers, carrying us roughly 1,000 miles and leaving us just a short commuter train ride from the city. When I look back on my hitchhiking years, there were many low points–including being hassled by cops in L.A. (“what’s a matter, no speaky English?”)–but that cross-country trek was surely the high point.

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is following the usual script–cutting services for the homeless and mentally ill, bashing gay marriage, and now invoking the name of God, or rather Ronald Reagan, in promoting small government and the virtues of the American people. (Query: How can the world’s most powerful nation and world’s largest economy be effectively run by small government?) It’s all too familiar. It was not so long ago that another Republican candidate invoked the name of the hallowed Reagan in his bid for the White House, touting the example of said B-movie actor at every opportunity. The candidate, of course, was George W. Bush, and we all know how that turned out.

On our annual drive to New Hampshire each Thanksgiving, Mr. Mike’s is a welcome half-way point, an oasis on a day of closed McDonald’s and abandoned donut stands. On the drive north, as if in a dream, I think I saw two Mr. Mike’s though the second one was a bit of a blur and perhaps apocryphal. My wife’s aunt thinks she saw a second one, too, though she can’t swear to it. On the return trip to Boston, earlier today, my mother-in-law claims to have seen three Mr. Mike’s, which comes as a complete shock to me (the driver). I could only swear to one and figured there could only be two, at most, along our long-familiar route. Yet she, a woman who is not prone to hyperbole, claims to have seen a third. As to how many we’ll see on the next journey, only time–and visual acuity (which may be in short supply)–will tell.

I haven’t watched these shows but saw it in the TV section of the paper, while looking for Sudoku: On ABC from 9-10 p.m., viewers can watch Potter of “Daybreak” relive the same day over and over again. Then on NBC from 10-11, they can watch Allison of “Medium” relive the same bad dream over and over again. Which makes me wonder: Are we doomed to watch the same TV show over and over again? Is that what they mean by hell? Or is it just TV hell?

Mitt Romney wants to be president. What are his qualifications, apart from his phoney anchorman looks, the successful Ice Capades show he hosted in Utah some years back, and the fact that he is now the leading presidential contender in Utah polls? Well for starters he seems destined to be one of the worst governors in Massachusetts history, putting him in the heady company of Paul Celluci and others. And here’s how the guv is saying happy thanksgiving to his constituents–by cutting support for homeless programs and through separate budget cuts that will prevent already-strapped state mental health centers from accepting any new patients. Well happy thanksgiving to you too, guv.

Over the next couple of weeks, a man living in Jamaica Plain (as reported in yesterday’s Boston Globe) is planning to string 250,000 Christmas lights around his giant, castle-like abode. He keeps the lights–some of which were installed in October–turned on until 1:30 a.m., and they will stay on even later as Christmas nears. Some neighbors are less than thrilled about the luminous overkill, complaining that it’s like living in Las Vegas. “Well, too bad. It’s Christmas,” says the man, Dominic Luberto, who’s already planning an even bigger display for next year’s holiday season.

We thought, according to the familiar adage, that there was no depth below which the American public will not stoop. But, to my surprise, we seem to have established a lower limit after all. And that lower limit, apparently, has a name: O. J. Simpson.

The thing I love most about PARADE Magazine (among the many things I love about PARADE Magazine) is that you can learn things from it that you cannot learn anywhere else. For instance, in yesterday’s issue there was a fascinating discourse on Amanda Peet’s hair color and style on the TV show “Studio 60,” which came close to being cancelled after a very brief run. “Amanda has the new look for brunettes,” a Hollywood “hair maven” commented. The style is called “paneling,” which evidently creates “the rich patina of wood panels.” I didn’t know this. In fact, I had no idea that so much thought and foresight went into a TV program. I don’t watch the show personally, but the article has made me think that if they had put as much effort into the scripts as they did into Amanda Peet’s hair, they might have actually produced a show that people want to watch.

All over the country people are literally rioting to buy the new Sony PlayStation video game console. At store after store, crowds have engaged in mad rampages–reminiscent of Pamplona itself–in their headlong rush to purchase the latest product in video-game-playing. Where do they learn such dangerous and violent behavior? Maybe from the video games they’ll soon be playing on their PlayStations.

I recently helped a friend build a loom for our daughters’ preschool class. It was a fun project, partly because I got the chance to use a chisel for the first time. I don’t own such a tool, though my friend has a very well-stocked workbench. I used the chisel to etch out some 88 grooves in the two pieces of wood that comprised the loom. I liked the feel of that tool in my hand, its shape, weight, and sleek functionality. In fact, as I clutched the implement, I gained a better appreciation of the old saw (old hammer?): When you’re holding a chisel, every problem looks like a groove.

Most sentences that contain the construction — ____ is the new ____ — are intended to make you feel better. The cover story of a recent Boston Globe Magazine article, “Small is the New Big,” was no exception. The point of the article was to make me and my family feel better about our overcrowded living quarters. But the article had the opposite effect on me. I looked at all those compact, ship-shape homes and realized that’s exactly our situation except that our house, rather than being furnished with the latest in sleek designer products, is crammed to the gills with junk. Now are they going to tell me that messy is the new tidy?

I must confess that until yesterday, I did not know who Kevin Federline was, though I had probably seen the name while standing in line at the grocery store. A gossip column in the Metro, the paper I get for sudoku (the puzzle is located in the celebrity/gossip section, which is how I pick up this stuff), suggested that Federline, Britney Spears’ estranged husband, burned through $50 million of her money, depleting her net worth from $100 million to $50 million.

I have no idea if it’s true. (I do not follow these things.) But supposing it is. My first impulse would be to call him a no-account, lazy bum. But on second thought, I have to admit that spending that kind of money has got to be hard work. It especially seems that way to a penny pincher like myself. My thriftiness came home to me the other night while I was watching a horrible David Mamet movie called “Edmond” in which the title character, portrayed by William Macy, tries negotiating at a variety of sex clubs and keeps walking out dissatisfied, protesting: “THAT’S TOO MUCH!”

But getting back to Kevin. If what they say is true, how do you blow that much dough in two years? For a guy like me, who hates parting with $50, $50 million seems stratospheric, almost unfathomable. That could very well make him the greatest mooch of all time. And if I were the kind of guy who wore a hat (hate ‘em), my hat would be off to him right now.

I ran into a neighborhood friend at the Star Market (or is it Shaws?) near MIT yesterday. Sensing in me a kindred spirit, he mentioned that being Sunday it was a good day to shop because of all the coupons in the paper, as if there was little doubt I knew just what he was talking about. Although I had not seen the circulars that day, I let on that I did clip the occasional coupon too, so he wouldn’t feel bad. He told me that on one historic day he saved more than $22–a personal best, if you will–and felt pretty proud of it.

I have, in the past, written about the dream of every coupon clipper, ”zeroing out,” so I know the territory better than most. Unlike me, who needs to “scrimp and save” (to borrow a line from Shelly Winters in “A Place in the Sun” long before the Beatles got there), my acquaintance friend is a lawyer who is not hard up financially. But we both share the New England trait of thriftiness, despite the fact that I’m from the Midwest and he’s from who knows where.

Recently I’ve interviewed a lot of high-powered types for the terrorism article I’m working on. Almost all of them set aside 15 minutes for these interviews. However, one of the experts allows only 10 minutes for such conversations. I tried to explain to his secretary that 15 was the industry standard, but she held firm: 10 minutes was the limit, no ifs, ands, or buts. This guy is a big deal and possibly a trendsetter in his field, which makes me think that 10 may be the new 15. Remember, you heard it here first.

A guy I see regularly at the Y gym seems to be everywhere these days selling “Spare Change,” the Boston homeless newspaper. If I were Larry David, or at least the confrontational character he plays on TV, I would ask this guy how he can be selling a homeless newspaper when I know for a fact that he lives at the Y and is therefore not homeless. However, I’m not Larry David and have not brought up this matter. There are several reasons for my forbearance. First off, the individual in question is very big. And could probably take me in hand-to-hand combat, should our verbal fisticuffs escalate to physical conflict. Second, I know he has done some “time,” as they say, spent some time in “the joint,” and I’m not talking about a BBQ rib joint. Which means he’s likely to be tough, maybe even tougher than a handball-playing, beach volleyballing soccer dad like myself. Third, after some reflection, I’ve realized that living at the Y is not the same as having your own home, so maybe I should keep my big trap shut. Which I’ve done, successfully, so far. But if the Larry David side of me ever wins out, I guess we’ll see how this particularly fellow likes being outed by a loudmouth busybody like myself.

Lost amidst the hubbub about the Democrats gaining control of Congress and Rummy stepping down was an even more important story that unfolded earlier this week (Wednesday, November 8): On that day, the Boston Globe ran a story called “West due for a breakout game,” which said that it was time for Delonte West, a struggling guard for the struggling Boston Celtics (winless at the time), to step out. So what did West later that night? He handed the Celtics their first win by dropping the game-winning shot at the buzzer. Don’t get me wrong: The midterm election news was big and deserved the coverage it received. But this was even bigger.

George Bush described his interactions with Donald Rumsfeld over the Defense Secretary’s imminent sacking as “a series of thoughtful discussions.” I wonder how that went. How’s this for thoughtful discussion: “YOU’RE FIRED!!!” Of course I’m sure that Bush, being loyal to a fault, did not pull off that line with the aplomb of a Donald Trump, who knows how to let someone go.

More likely, Bush said something different, more along the lines of: “Rummy, I love ya’ but yer killin’ me.” True to form, by “killin’,” Bush would be referring to the political toll Rumsfeld has exacted on him and the Republican Party–not all the American troops who died in Iraq, lacking sufficient equipment or manpower, in accordance with Rumsfeld’s brilliant war plan.

Type in the words “miserable failure” on Google and the first person that comes up is “President of the United States–George W. Bush.” It’s an example of so-called “Google bombing”–a way of manipulating Google searches to reach a desired end. So in a sense, it’s just a web artifact, a “hack,” if you will. Yet the words still seem appropriate, in light of our president’s miserable performance to date and in light of the Democrats’ big victory yesterday, which has to be interpreted as a repudiation of Bush’s policies–especially how he got our nation embroiled in a bloody, winless conflict in Iraq that has left us with no good options, just different ways of losing. The only gratifying aspect to all this is that U.S. voters have finally recognized our president for what Google aficionados have long known him to be: a “miserable failure.”

Some food for thought on an autumnal election day: We went into Iraq supposedly to free it from a ruthless dictator at whose hands an estimated 200,000 people have perished. But a study published last month in the medical journal, The Lancet, found that about 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the March 2003 invasion and its bloody aftermath. I was always opposed to this particular exercise and was never sure what the Administration meant by “liberating” Iraq. Now, as we sift through the ruins of a failed, ill-conceived policy, we have a clearer picture as to what that term really means.

It’s the Vietnam syndrome (I won’t use the word “quagmire”) all over again: We had to destroy the country in order to save it.

I heard about this on Halloween but was too busy to report on it, with all the hubbub over the Solaris videotape and whatnot. For some reason I remembered this bizarre story last night, and it was too good to pass up: A Maine attorney, armed with a squirt gun and wearing a Bin Laden costume he purchased over the internet, was arrested on Halloween for–well, frankly, I’m not sure what the charge was. (Dressing up as a scary person?) “There was a First Amendment this morning when I woke up,” claimed the lawyer, Tom Connolly, who has worn George W. Bush masks many times in the past without being arrested. “I don’t know how it evaporated with the dawn.”

Connolly was also carrying a sign that read, “I love TABOR,” a reference to the Taxpayer Bill of Rights that will be voted on in Mane tomorrow. A passing motorist misread the sign and thought it said: “I love the Taliban.”

Yesterday a sick child sent me to CVS in Central Square, where I purchased a digital thermometer. I locked my bike next to the T (subway) elevator where a few weeks earlier I’d spotted a VHS copy of “Solaris” (the original, not the tepid remake) that continued to lie there, apparently untouched, for days. This time the video was nowhere to be seen, which makes me think my blog posting–which was later excerpted in the Boston Globe–brought “Solaris” cultists from all over New England to lowly Central Square in hopes of scoring a free copy. Only one lucky person walked away with the coveted videotape, while many others, I’m sure, were left to dream about what might have been…

It’s not surprising that a man like Mitt Romney, who has made no secret of his ambitions for the White House, would want to consult with the nation’s experts in preparation for an all but inevitable presidential run. We see that he was able to master complex issues regarding bolts and epoxy. So who is he talking to now? And what are other great issues of the day would he like to be brought up to speed on and focus his keen powers of intellect on? Romney’s top priority for now–don’t worry, I wasn’t about to say governing the state of Massachusetts–seems to be reconciling his Mormon faith with the religious and political leanings of evangelical Christians. Most of us (normal folks, I’m tempted to say) didn’t realize that extreme Christian right views of Mormonism was the number one issue in America today, surpassing the war in Iraq, the mounting national debt, and other concerns. But it is.

It’s not every day the Senate calls, although lately it seems to be a daily occurrence. As you may recall, I had to break off my conversation with the esteemed Senator on Tuesday on account of my daughter’s halloween party. Yesterday, I gave his secretary explicit instructions for him to call before 4:45, which is when I leave for my 5:00 handball game. So what did he do? He called at 4:45 sharp. We chatted for a minute or two–going over the usual intelligence stuff (all on “deep background” on a “need-to-know” basis), and then I said, once again, “Sorry ____, I’d love to chat. But I gotta’ run. I’ve got a handball game.”

Yesterday, as I was getting my daughter ready for her preschool Halloween party, I got a call from a prominent Senator who said that some other bigwig had suggested he talk to me. I was writing about reforming the intelligence community, and he had been on the Senate Intelligence (not an oxymoron) committee for about a decade. It’s not every day the Senate calls, so I decided to speak with him, even though we were supposed to leave for the party. But my daughter had other plans and created enough of a ruckus–shouting, banging, and tearing apart my office–that I had to say, “Sorry ___, this really isn’t a good time. Can I call you back later?”