CALL ME SNAKE

Not to “toot my own horn” but Gatemouth rated my last post as one of my best ever. “Now that we know what you’re capable of,” he says, “the handball diaries just ain’t going to cut it anymore.” I took his comment to heart and, as a result, haven’t written anything here for a couple of days. The fact is, I don’t want to raise the bar too high because, as I’ve said before, I don’t respond well to pressure. Even the best hitters don’t hit a home run every time up to the plate. Sometimes they get a single. Sometimes they bunt. And sometimes they strike out.

So I’m going to accept Gatemouth’s compliment (it’s clear, from the way he writes, that he knows what he’s talking about), but I’m also going to take the pressure off myself a little bit. If I’m lucky, every now and then I might connect and hit one for extra bases. But most times, I won’t do that. Maybe I’ll get on base with a walk. Or an error. Or beat out an infield ground ball. That said, I’m going for an infield hit here, at best.

First off, I pulled that rare feat in consumerism earlier today. Shopping at CVS (where else?) this morning, I “zeroed out.” To those of you amateurs unfamiliar with the term, I’ll explain. Or better yet, I’ll give you an example: I purchased a 6.4 ounce tube of Colgate “Cavity Prevention” toothpaste on sale for 99 cents. With my dollar off coupon, it was free. Gratis. That, my friends, is ZEROING OUT. It doesn’t happen often (trust me, as one who’s been there), so when it does one must savor it.

In my second at bat (not to tip my hand but I might be bunting or trying to make it on a dropped third strike), I’d like to issue a warning: Doing puzzles can be hazardous to your health. Especially if you’re over a certain age where injuries come in unexpected ways. As I was saying, after dinner my daughter and I were working on a new, 60-piece puzzle. We had it spread out on the living room floor in a slightly cramped area (which is how one might describe our entire house). I tried to maneuver around to put in a piece and as I twisted, my foot got caught beneath the couch, causing a serious strain to my right knee, which has been killing me ever since. So I want to caution you all about the hazards posed by puzzles. Maybe it’s time for the industry to start issuing warnings. We can begin that campaign right here. Right now. There’s no time like the present. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta take some Advils and ice the offending joint.

 

 

I saw “United 93″ last night. The movie is extremely well done, though I can see why it’s not a huge box office hit. Most people want to be entertained and don’t want to watch a planeful of people headed to their ineluctable doom. (Sorry if I spoiled the ending.) The best part of the movie, by far, is the confusion in the FAA and NORAD control centers as people try to figure what’s going on and what should be done about it. The military is trying to get fighter jets ready but needs authorization from the president to engage a hijacked jet. Of course, no one can reach Bush.

While watching these scenes, I kept thinking of him sitting there in the Florida classroom, like a deer caught in the headlights, after having been informed of the first attack on the World Trade Center. The movie, for me, really brought home how badly Bush let down the nation in a time of need. People’s lives, including those of the people on United 93, were literally hanging in the balance, yet he was unable to excuse himself from an elementary school and take some executive action. And then he gets reelected as the “war president” and fearless leader of the anti-terrorist cause. What a joke–and a painful one at that.

Last Christmas, as reported in these pages, the “Nun Bun”–a pastry resembling Mother Teresa–was stolen from my cousin’s Nashville coffee shop, Bongo Java. But he received an anonymous letter with a fuzzy picture that might have been the “purloined pastry,” plus more tantalizing clues than could be found in last night’s season finale of Lost. While fans of that series will have all summer to ponder the fates of John, Eko, Jack, Sawyer, and Kate, the rest of the world have more important things to think about, like where is the Nun Bun and will it be returned to its true home in exchange for a $5,000 reward and an even more valuable sense of knowing you’ve reversed a great wrong and, after some tragic missteps, finally done the right thing?

Just as I suspected, the headline news feature was so popular, I’m back at it again. The first headline, “He was a nice person,” was cribbed from “Metro,” Boston’s free tabloid. It concerns a man from Framingham, Mass. charged with bludgeoning his wife and 11-year-old stepson to death with a hammer. It makes me wonder: How would he have handled things if he weren’t “a nice person”?

Today’s second entry comes from the same paper (which I get for Sudoku, NOT TO READ) includes a useful “to-do list” for what you need to do to stage your own shooting and make it look like your son did it to get back at him as part of a bitter family dispute. (Did I mention a lot of money is involved?) A former MIT professor (and internet guru) is charged with doing just that. And if you ever find yourself in the same situation as this former MIT professor (and internet guru) apparently found himself in, the article contains a veritable goldmine of information.

Today we’re introducing a new feature here at Call Me Snake–Headline News (based on stories taken from the front page of the newspaper of record, the Boston Globe). The idea behind “Headline News” is self-explanatory. So without further ado, here is “Headline News,” which is certain to become one of the most (if not THE most) popular features here at Call Me Snake.

1. The U.S. has spent $4 billion on its war on drugs in Colombia. As a result of that multibillion-dolar campaign–the nation’s largest foreign aid program outside our current war zones–Colombia is now producing more cocaine than when the effort began. You have to consider that an excellent return on investment.

• Here in Massachusetts (we’re always ahead of the curve!) 2d graders are now preparing PowerPoint presentations for their classroom projects. Civilization, as a result, has taken a huge leap forward.

3. Cardinal Sean O’Malley has taken a hard line on Dr. Robert Haddad, president of the company that runs Boston’s St. Elizabeth’s Hospital (St. Elsewhere?). Haddad’s transgressions? Sexual harrassment (hugging, kissing, late-night phone calls) of the hospital’s female employees. I applaud O’Malley for taking this behavior seriously. Good job–you’re a real advocate for the oppressed. Too bad the Catholic Church turns a blind eye on the thousands of children, in our town alone, molested (and messed up for life) by their perverted priests.

The situation I was worried about–and wrote about so eloquently in the Cambridge Chronicle and here in these pages–has come to pass. Last week, I sprained my thumb (bashed it against the wall in a pathetic attempt to return Jimmie’s notorioius corner serve). Dannie was already out with back spasms. And the new Dannie, whom I’ve also written about as the potential savior of the declining local handball scene, was also out with a cut finger (dishwashing accident, he claims). That means that at the moment, there are only three available players–the aforementioned Jimmie, Ronnie, and Woody–not enough for even a single game of doubles. I knew the situation was dire when I wrote my answer to “Common Sense” two weeks ago, but it has quickly escalated to the “crisis” level (Code Yellow or Orange and maybe even Red). The solution is obvious, and hardly bears repeating, yet I will lest any members of the public have been caught unawares: Cambridge needs more handball players. It’s not just one Cassandra whining in the breeze. No, it’s much more than that: The future of a dying game is at stake.
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Stop the presses! The U.S. Senate has voted to make English the national language. After all those years I’ve spent studying Esperanto. What a waste!

Yesterday Gatemouth pointed out that 5518 words are not all that much and I agree. Yet a person can say a lot in 100 words or less, especially if those words are shrewdly chosen, as you shall see in our new feature named “IN 100 WORDS OR LESS…” The first entry is a book review, or shall I say mini-book review. Here it is; please count along with me to make sure I do not overstay my 100-word welcome:
 
It came without notice, turning my universe upside down–a new book from “Career Engineering-Physicist” Bobby McGehee, “NEW UNIVERSE THEORY WITH THE LAWS OF PHYSICS” (authorhouse, 2005).  According to the author (who hails from an Arizona retirement community), the New Universe Theory (NUT) agrees with the “Laws of Physics,” at least as he defines them, whereas the Big Bang Theory, in his estimation, was never compliant. Anyone worrying about the universe’s fate, as I often do, will find comfort in McGehee’s conclusion: “The universe is not expanding to its death: It is continuing to grow with vim, vigor, and vitality.”

Today we’re introducing a new feature here at Call Me Snake called “May We Suggest…” We’re proud of this new feature here at Call Me Snake and are sure it will become an instant hit, possibly becoming a daily (or even twice daily!) feature. So sit back and enjoy “May We Suggest…”

 MAY WE SUGGEST… A Brief History of Bycatch Management Measures for Eastern Bering Sea Groundfish Fisheries. DAVID WITHERELL and CLARENCE PAUTZKE.  Marine Fisheries Review (Fall 1997): p15(1). (5518 words)

EDITOR’S NOTE: If this is a “brief history” at 5518 words, I’d hate to see the “compleat history.”

We’ve gotten upwards of 9 inches of rain in the past few days–and double that in hardest-hit areas to the north. I know this from watching TV news, plus from meteorological experiments I’ve conducted on my deck with implements from my children’s play kitchen. On the news tonight, the weatherman on Channel 7 (I don’t know his name; they change so fast I can’t keep track of them) said we “NEEDED more than an inch of rain overnight to get more flooding,” as if “renewing the flooding,” as he put it, was a good thing. If your house if full of water and your furniture is floating away, it’s definitely not a good thing. But for TV weathermen, renewed flooding is a great thing–the best thing that could ever happen to them. It’s career-building stuff that puts them right at the top of the news, as the lead story of the day. And on those rare days when weather rules, we don’t even get to hear about where the biggest fire was. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard about any fires for days.

Controversy racked the April Fool’s Day bumper sticker sweepstakes here at Call Me Snake, with charges of plagiarism reared, levied, and hopefully quelled. Now I gather that plagiarism is a broader problem in the blogosphere at large. Take Beth, for example.

“Beth gets more than 500 hits per day at her blog, Cursed to First…She didn’t realize until recently that they were also being ripped off. Last month, an alert reader informed Beth that her blog was being plagiarized…, word-for-word, over six months. Names of people in her life were changed to the names of people whom the plagiarist apparently knew, creating the impression that she had lived Beth’s experiences and had thought her thoughts.”

If the foregoing paragraph sounds familiar, it should. As it was lifted, verbatim, from a Boston Globe article published last week (“Online plagiarism strikes blog world.” Boston Globe. May 8, 2006, E8.) I put that in there just to show how easy it is to plagiarize on the web. I don’t know if anyone has plagiarized Call Me Snake in the same way “Beth” has been violated, but perhaps there is a blog out there, somewhere, called “Call Me Jake” which is ostensibly a volleyball blog but seems to have more to do with handball and scones. Frankly I think I’d be flattered if someone felt my experiences were compelling enough to call their own. But maybe I’d find it creepy. And perhaps you would too. So consider this a cautionary tale. And be on the lookout for blog identity theft. The blog you save may be your own.

After controversy embroiled the last bumper sticker competition, I thought we were going to take a long break. But Gatemouth, a gifted bumper sticker writer, stepped up big with the following comment which forced my hand. With such a promising start, I had no choice but to go forward with the new competition. So here, without further ado, is Gatemouth and his celebrated “Celebrity Guest Comment.” (Somebody hire this guy quick or I’m going to nab him as my “creative director.”)

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GATEMOUTH SPEAKS: How about a contest for bumper stickers about whining? I’ll start:

1) Bush: “No 1st Amendment, no whiners, no problem!”
2) If a liberal whines in the forest, does Dick Cheney shoot him?
3) If whining could save the world, you’d be the Messiah.
4) Global warming - it’s not just for whiners anymore.
5) The kids in my other car whine, too.
6) A whine a day keeps pretty much everyone away.
7) First thing we do, let’s shoot all the whiners.
Give peace a chance: Shoot a whiner.
9) If you can hear me whine, you’re driving too close.
10) This is the way the world ends: not with a bang but with a lot of whining.

And please, can we all agree to skip the obvious “Whiner on board!” and “I whine, therefore I am”?

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EDITOR’S NOTE: I can’t promise not to use those, particularly “Whiner on board,” which has a nice ring. All I have for now is:
Stop me before I whine again.
Eating out, for us, means whine and dine. And then more whine.

 

 

You try to make amends. You try to do the right thing. But fate has a way of lifting you up, ever so gently, and smashing you down on the pavement. Take yesterday, for example. I stopped in the morning at the place I love to hate, Whole Foods, after bicycling with my first grader to her school. As many people know (I’ve made my struggles all too public, some would say), I’m trying hard to break my scone “habit.” Muffins were on sale for 89 cents. It seemed like a great opportunity to try something different. But then fate stepped in as he (she?) always does. Every muffin was burnt–every last one. Not just slightly browned on the edges but black. (When I’ve mentioned this to the managers of this establishment before, they act surprised, as if they’ve never noticed. Yet it is a daily occurrence.) Curiously the scones are never burnt.  Which put me right back in the jackpot. No one said it’d be easy, and it ain’t.

I never promised you a bowl of cherries. The heart is a lonely hunter. Apples don’t grow on trees. (Actually they do but bear with me anyway.) And fate is a four-letter word.

After dropping my daughter at preschool this morning, I found myself at a hip coffee shop near Harvard Square, ordering a blueberry scone, when I suddenly remembered my decision to swear off scones. So I asked to switch to a bran raisin muffin. I got a lot of attitude about this request, and outright rudeness, from two “servers” on account of the higher math involved in the transaction (40 cents owed me). Don’t you just love it when people give you a loud, ironic “Have a nice day”? The whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth, as did the dried-out brain muffin. Which makes me realize, it won’t be so easy to get off scones as I thought.

Say the names Bill Murray, Steve Martin, and Woody Allen, and you’re probably thinking funny. Very funny. But if their latest pictures are any indication, you’d better think again. Murray deadpanned his way through his last two movies–Lost in Translation and Broken Flowers. In both cases, he betrays little emotion and turns in a flat, listless performance. (In “Broken Flowers,” however, Murray sports some pretty nifty sweatsuits.) Martin, similarly, seemed bored in Shopgirl, a poorly-written mess in which he does not so much as crack a smile. Allen’s latest effort, Match Point, was insipid and filled with bad acting. (i.e., Scarlet J. [tough to spell] is one of the worst femme fatales on record.) Why do these talented comedians equate dullness with seriousness? Have they forgotten how to be funny?

After a several-month-long hiatus, we are most grateful to have heard from Gatemouth on the subject of the bumper sticker sweepstakes. He raises some very serious concerns, and we take those concerns very seriously. Please allow me to introduce Gatemouth, though he is already a familiar voice to most of our readers.

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GATEMOUTH speaks: Oh no–the plagiarism pandemic has spread to blogs and bumper-stickers! S.’s so-called “original” bumper-sticker has at least a 4-year history around my town, and probably yours as well. Maybe he internalized it? Maybe the large bumper-sticker author packaging company that helped him produce his winning entry didn’t fact-check it properly? In any case, I think Snake should take away S.’s prize and cancel his lucrative bumper-sticker contract.

Now, since there is no official winner, I thought I might as well hand in my late entries. (I was away on a fact-finding expedition. Turns out there aren’t any in the U.S. I had to go all the way to England to find just one. And that was really more of a factoid than a true fact.)

BUMPER STICKER ENTRIES:
1) Thank God Bush doesn’t know any countries with *five* letters.
2) Israel knew when *their* leader was incompetent.
3) I support the 36-month Presidential Vacation Plan.
4) The Bush Diet: six helpings of bullshit every day.

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SNAKE replies: This is not Little Brown and we do not often hear charges of plagiarism. Since Gatemouth has not established beyond reasonable doubt that S. did not, in fact, pen the bumper sticker he has seen in his town for “at least” four years, the ruling stands. However, we the judges have decided to add another winner, namely ME! No, actually, Gatemouth for his brilliant entry:

“The Bush Diet: six helpings of bullshit every day.”

Thank you Gatemouth. Thank you judges. And thank you most of all wise readers.

Sincerely,
The Decider

Buoyed by the pseudonymonous (sp?) Flubberwinkle’s comments, I’ve decided to tow a harder line. After all, I am not a “puppy dog”–all bark and no bite. Nor am I “putty” in anyone’s hands or a “pushover,” popover, or turnover. I asserted myself at the first opportunity at “our home away from home” (CVS), telling my little darlings, “No, you CAN’T have that!” Incredulous, as my remark was truly out of character, the girls asked why. “BECAUSE DADDY SAYS SO,” I replied in calm, measured tones. At first they didn’t understand. And then grins formed and the laughter began. “Ah, forget it!” I said, after about 10 seconds. “Go ahead, buy what you want. Take the whole store for all I care.”

Flubberwinkle (not her real name) recently wrote in her blog Flubberwinkle (not her real blog; see link on right) that mothers have a natural, instinctual (basic instinct?) way of handling children if and when, for instance, they clamor for more and more. When mothers lay down the law and confront the inevitable “why?” from their kids, all they have to say in response is: “Because mommy said so.” Case closed. End of matter.

Men are not nearly so adept, or at least this man surely is not. I don’t know how to manage the kids when they start creating a scene and screaming for more. My response is clearly different from the four-word prescription that Flubberwinkle advanced. Instead, I usually say. “All right, all right. Enough already! Just keep it under $100 if you can. And if you can’t, no biggie…”

In the Y locker room yesterday, a guy I’ll call “Courtesy Flush” complimented me on the flip-flops I was wearing. It was nice of him to say so, but he inadvertently hit upon a sore spot. You see, I never planned on wasting my $20 sandals on the locker room floor, making the dreary trip from the locker to shower to pool and back and then languishing 23 hours a day in a plastic bag with the rest of my gym stuff. I had big plans for those sandals. I planned on taking them out to see the world a bit. To explore. But I couldn’t find any $2 flip-flops anywhere in the winter, though Lord knows I tried. So I had to use my expensive ones for these mundane purposes. Which is a shame, because I had such big plans. We were going places, the two of us. And now we’re living out of a plastic bag.

One month later, we finally have a winner to the Great April Fool’s Day Bumper Sticker Sweepstakes. I had been waiting for Gatemouth to send in the winning entry but have been unable to reach him. (Unlisted phone number.) I was uncertain as to the winner when I realized I’d been staring at it all along; it was in fact the punchline of a recent post (“Letter to the New Yorker…”). And the winner is … ME!!! No, actually, this time the winner is not me. The winner is S. for his entry, which he did not, in fact, submit but is, nevertheless, an actual bumper sticker:

“Jesus to Bush: Stop using me as a reference!”

And the runner up is: Everyone who sent in an entry, thought of sending in an entry, or thought of sending in an entry and wisely decided not to.

Save your ideas. Another contest will be announced soon!