CALL ME SNAKE

(Editor’s note: I’d like to apologize, in advance, to Kucinich partisans, as I have nothing against the man who is one of the most progressive candidates out there and who, admirably, had been a staunch and consistent critic of the Iraq war. That said, please allow me to proceed with my own special brand of attack journalism…) In what may be a desperate ploy to boost his standings in the presidential race, Dennis Kucinich is now claiming that he’s seen a UFO. Not only that he saw a UFO but that he saw one in the presence of Shirley Maclaine. In this way, he’s courting not only the UFO vote but the Hollywood nutjob vote as well.

Had I not been watching the World Series last night, I still would have known the Red Sox won. For a few minutes after midnight, when Papelbon struck out the final batter, I heard the sounds of helicopters circling overhead. As in 2004, the Red Sox had dramatic comebacks in the ALCS only to roll through the World Series with little resistance. It was a great team effort–everyone did so well, in fact, that it was hard to pick a World Series MVP. I don’t want to take anything away from Mike Lowell’s effort, which was outstanding throughout the regular season & throughout the Series as well. But if I were to single out one player in the World Series, that would be Jon Papelbon, who had three saves and did not give up a run. I don’t think another closer ever had a Series like he had, nor a year like he had. This I believe, while celebrating here in Red Sox Nation.

I don’t often send emails to people in Minneapolis. In fact, I can’t think of another time I did so except for last Friday when I sent an email to a University of Minnesota astronomer. As I was hitting the send button, NPR began airing a story about bridge repair in Minneapolis. Hence the title, “Freaky Friday.”

Bicycling home from my daughter’s school yesterday morning, I heard from a passing motorist who felt my road etiquette left something to be desired. He wasn’t shy about sharing his feelings and did so in no uncertain terms. Here’s what he said: “You’re a f_ _ _ _ in’ asshole on that f_ _ _ _ in’ bike!”

The first World Series game will begin in less than five hours, assuming the weather holds. When the Red Sox were down 3-1 against Cleveland, I always felt confident that they would come back. Josh Beckett was pitching the next game, which seemed like a guaranteed win, plus it seemed like Schilling was due to come up big the second time around. Which left game 7 at Fenway with momentum and the home crowd all favoring the Sox. It turns out, I was right. So I’m gonna’ say, “told you so.” Of course, it would have been better to have said all this a week ago, when the Sox were down 3-1. But the fact that I’m a week late doesn’t take anything away from what I’m writing here. I knew it then, deep in my bones. I just didn’t have time to get it in print. So I’m gonna say it again, one more time, in case you didn’t hear: Told you so.

Yesterday I was walking in Central Square when a panhandler asked me: “Spare a dollar, old-timer?” The fact that he called me “old-timer” really bugged me, as this guy looked like he had quite a few years on me. It also made me nostalgic for the good old days when people used to say: “Brother, can you spare a dime?”

Today we’re introducing a new feature here at CALL ME SNAKE called FREAKY FRIDAY which I have no doubt will prove to be an instant classic. And without further ado, here’s the first installment of FREAKY FRIDAY. (The fact that the events I describe here transpired on a Saturday take nothing away from the appropriateness of their appearing in a feature called FREAKY FRIDAY, as you shall soon see.)

I was headed to the park with my daughter and her two friends when I got a call from the local Mayor’s reelection campaign seeking my support. I let them know I would not be supporting the Mayor (note: his alleged three-martini-lunch habit has nothing to do with my stance), and there was nothing they could say that would change my mind. Literally one minute later, as I walked around the corner with the girls, I saw the Mayor walking on the sidewalk. THAT WAS QUICK! “All right,” I said. “I’ll vote for you so long as you promise to quit stalking me.”

That brings us to the end of the first installment of FREAKY FRIDAY. We hope you had as much fun reading it as we had writing it. And we’ll be sure to see you here next Friday. Or Saturday.

CALL ME SNAKE is introducing a new feature today called “OUR TOWN,” because introducing new features is one of the things that CALL ME SNAKE does best. Here’s our first installment of OUR TOWN, which already bears the look of a classic: In our legal justice system, you are innocent until proven guilty. And when you’re found innocent you’re still innocent. Yet in our town a new candidate for City Council was just found innocent of beating his wife with an umbrella in a case dubbed “umbrella-gate” by the local paper. While I like to keep an open mind, I’d have to say that, innocent or not, this does not seem like an auspicious start to a political career.

I’ve never watched “Dancing with the Stars,” which does not sound like my cup of tea. (Not that tea is my cup of tea either, as I don’t drink it.) But I have seen the last minute of the show on several occasions, and I’ve never seen more hugging–not even at a wedding or a bar mitzvah. Which is why I suggest a new name for the program: “Hugging with the Stars.”

I’ve never watched “Dancing with the Stars,” which does not sound like my cup of tea. (Not that tea is my cup of tea either, as I don’t drink it.) But I have seen the last minute of the show on several occasions, and I’ve never seen more hugging–not even at a wedding or a bar mitzvah. Which is why I suggest a new name for the program: “Hugging with the Stars.”

Our medical system does not do well with vague, ill-defined ailments. Can you blame it? Last week I visited a foot specialist in orthopedics. My heel has not been normal for more than three months due to something I did in handball or volleyball or both. Yet each time the doctor asked me to do something–walk on my toes, walk on my heels, etc.–or poked me somewhere on my foot, it didn’t really hurt. So he told me my symptoms were “underwhelming” and basically sent me packing. I can understand his reaction though something’s still not quite right down there and I don’t know how I’m going to get to the bottom of it.

[Editor's note: My shopping post clearly struck a nerve. Which is why I've elected to go with this Celebrity Guest Comment by "Fletch" despite the fact that I have many other pressing items to post. Sincerely, CSM Editor-in-Chief]

“Fletch” speaks (and speaks well): By my calculations, you forked over cash of $13 for $24 of stuff. That may have put you only $2 short of zeroing out, but I’m not sure. (My formula is secret for now.) Of course, the real hitch to coupon shopping, which may be trumped by zeroing out (another matter for readership determination), lies in answer to the question: Do you really need the stuff you just bought? For example, the SNAKE household may, for the moment, have an abundance of dental products and 9 volt batteries. Come to think of it, however, I need a couple of those 9 volts at our house, meaning a trip to CVS, meaning the possibility of zeroing out.

[Editor's Note: Thank you "Fletch" for your sage remarks. At least somebody "gets it."]

Shopping is getting more interesting, and more exciting, at the same time. Yesterday at CVS I had a peak experience, coming close to the elusive “zeroing out.” I bought a dental product for about $3 and immediately received a store credit for three dollars. Then I bought a household product for $3, using the store credit, plus another of the dental product items, for which I received another $3 credit. I applied the $3 credit toward two 9-volt batteries that cost $5. But the cashier said that if I spent $10 on batteries, I would get a $5 credit back. I did that and used the $5 credit to buy two boxes of Total. At that point, I was done for the day deciding, wisely, to quit while I was ahead. Well, at least I thought I was ahead. Being so dizzy from all those transactions, I didn’t really know. Reconstructing it now, in the light of day, I realize I did quite well–coming close, though not quite achieving, the ultimate goal of “zeroing out.”

If you ask me our country goes nuts over steroids–with Congressional hearings, federal “probes,” and the like. Now Marion Jones is facing possible imprisonment for lying over steroid use. I think we should save prison for real criminals. Jones has already been stripped of her medals and disgraced and on top of that she’s already broke. If you ask me, she’s already been penalized enough.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Who needs pocket protectors when you've been to every single Ig Nobel Prize ceremony? My nerd credentials are intact. And, if I'm not mistaken, the nerds are the guys getting all the girls these days, right? But I'm getting off message. A transcript of my latest IG NOBEL coverage follows...]

Here I am, packed into Harvard’s Sanders Theatre with the rest of the philistines. A paper airplane rams into my ear, followed by a moist projectile on the back of my neck. The noise is deafening: jeers, catcalls, and strange clucking noises. Have people lost all traces of civility?

Wait a minute. Nothing’s amiss after all. For this is the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony–the 17th year these shenanigans have been allowed–and such behavior is not only tolerated but applauded. Good. I’m glad glad we sorted that out.

7:35 p.m. Somebody’s on stage carrying on about restrictions against “the flying or throwing of chickens.” Really? That’s news to me.

7:45 p.m. Finally the Nobel Laureates enter the stage, albeit with some trepidation. And with good reason. They’re about to be degraded in ways they never thought possible.

7:47 p.m. Lawyers for and against Chickens parade by, trailed by representatives of the local MENSA group. Maybe I’ll tag along with that MENSA crowd. It will probably be my only chance to get in.

7:51 p.m. Master of ceremonies Marc Abrahams tells us that 10 prizes will be given for work that “first makes you laugh and then makes you think.” And then makes you cry.

7:56 p.m. The King and Queen of Swedish Meatballs take a bow. They used to walk into this place but now just bob up and down. All those meatballs, it seems, have taken a toll.

8:01 p.m. Doug Zonker of the University of Washington delivers the keynote address: “Chicken Chicken Chicken: Chicken Chicken” –the same treatise that earned him accolades at this year’s AAAS. The talk is interesting though repetitious.

8:05 p.m. Not to be outdone, Dudley Herschbach offers his own take on chicken–this year’s theme, in case you haven’t guessed. The biggest problem to ever stump Einstein was not trying to develop a unified field theory but rather figuring out how to unscramble an egg. On this score, Herschbach succeeds where his fellow Nobel laureate failed. “You feed a scrambled egg to a hen and, in a day or two, you’ll get a nice new [unscrambled] egg,” Herschbach says. Sorry Einstein, you’ve met your match.

8:08 p.m. Dutch naturalist Kees Moeliker holds up a mallard duck and explains to those who don’t know the first thing about chickens that the thing he’s waving about is not a chicken but rather the creature that earned him a 2003 Ig Nobel Prize (for his study of homosexual necrophilia in mallard ducks). “To the best of my knowledge,” he says, “this behavior has not been observed in chickens.”

8:11 p.m. The first Ig Nobel Prize is given out, in Medicine, to Brian Witcombe, a radiologist who specializes in swallowing disorders, and Dan Meyer, the U.S. record holder for swallowing swords under water, for their report, “Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects.”

8:17 p.m. Johanna E.M.H. van Bronswijk of the Netherlands captures the Biology Prize for cataloging all the mites, insects, spiders, and other critters we share our beds with. Thirty years of research have taught her “that you never sleep alone.”

8:28 p.m. In a stunning upset, Japan’s Mayu Yamamoto wins the chemistry prize for extracting vanillin from cow dung. The Nobel laureates are provided ice cream made from said vanillin and, with 1,000 eyes trained upon them, they can’t get out of it.

8:37 p.m. Stanford physicist Robert Laughlin is dangled as bait in the Win-a-Date-with-a-Nobel-Laureate-Contest. “Laughlin likes to spend quiet evenings watching quasiparticles behave badly,” the announcer proclaims.

8:46 p.m. Kuo Cheng Hsieh of Taiwan wins in Economics for devising a net to catch bank robbers. Abrahams, who’d been unable to reach Hsieh, worries that “the gentleman may be trapped inside his own machine.”

8:52 p.m. The Argentines win the Aviation Prize for discovering the jet lag recovery properties of Viagra. Diego Golombek of he National University of Quilmes thanks his graduate students for their fine work and, more importantly, “for going to the drugstore to get the Viagra.”

8:56 p.m. The Nobel Laureates pile onto the stage for the last act of the opera, “Chicken versus egg.” They’re dressed as chickens. Or eggs. It’s hard to tell whether it’s the chicken or the egg.

9:03 p.m. A speech and photo op later, and the whole thing is suddenly over. And I still haven’t won my Ig Nobel. Which gives me a year to figure out who to bribe.

I have not seen the latest Jesse James movie, which has not stopped me from writing about it repeatedly. (This way, not having seen it, I can write about it objectively.) I commented last time about the title of the film in question–a point that several movie reviewers have picked up on. This nice quote, for example, appeared in Wesley Morris’ review in yesterday’s Boston Globe: “As you might expect from something called ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,’ brevity is not a virtue here.” Another reviewer pointed out that the title gives away the ending, which is something that I mentioned as well. As for the question, if I’m going to keep writing about this picture should I actually see it? I don’t know. For now I think I’d rather keep my palette fresh, uncluttered by images of the movie itself. (Also I heard it might be boring.)

Fred Thompson, like every ambitious Republican, wants to be Ronald Reagan. Which might explain why Thompson is still talking about the Soviet Union. Or maybe he’s just reading some old TV scripts.

In his review of Sean Penn’s latest effort, “Into the Wild,” Peter Keough of the Boston Phoenix wrote last week: “As Penn sees it, Chris [McCandless] is a pure soul like the Buddha or St. Francis… As I see it, Penn and Chris are both self-indulgent bores.” (And as I see it–not having bothered with the movie itself, Keough may well be right.)

This morning I turned on NPR and was surprised to hear two wisecracking guys talking a lot of rubbish and doing so in colorful, definitely not-PC language. How refreshing, I thought. Then I remembered I’d been listening to the Red Sox game the other day and had left the dial tuned to an AM station and that this kind of lunacy was how they filled the airwaves, 24 hours a day, except when a Red Sox game (and a relative bout of sanity) broke out.