CALL ME SNAKE

In the aforementioned movie, FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, my wife laughed outloud at a line I didn’t think was supposed to be funny, when the ex-girl yelled at the sad-sack guy: “I DID tell you. But you were so stupid you didn’t hear me.”

I don’t get it. Why would a woman find a statement like that funny?

In “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” a guy who’s wallowing in self-pity after being dumped is told to move on. “It’s like ‘THE SOPRANOS,’” his friend says. “It’s over. Find a new show.”

The UPS delivery guy in my Cambridge neighborhood is kind of crazy. He’s always blaring his horn, yelling my name, and driving like a maniac while I’m on my bike. The other day, I got a chance to return the favor. He was in the middle of my street wheeling some packages when I approached on my bike, yelling: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET?” I thought he would laugh but, to my surprise, I scared him half to death and he almost had a heart attack. Now I’m in big trouble as his last words to me were: “I’m gonna get  you, Nadis! I’m gonna get you…”  If this turns out to be my last post, you can probably guess what happened.

I’m not a litigious person; I’ve never been in a legal dispute before. But I am being pushed into one by someone who more or less told me: “Go ahead, take it to court.” I ran into this person at the local cafe where we exchanged pleasantries. I picked up a scone and then went home to take care of the next item on my agenda: Talk to my lawyer about suing this individual.

On  my way into the YMCA swimming pool, I often ask a guy I’ve been seeing there for years about the water. He normally comments on the water temperature and on how crowded it is in the pool. The last time I saw him, he gave me the lowdown on that, as usual, and added that “it’s high tide.” I asked him what he meant, and he told me I’d see when I got there. The pool was overflowing the sides and high tide was, indeed, an apt term.

Now when I go in the pool, I not only hear about the water temperature and how crowded it is, I also get a tide report.

I have said that Nightline has become a pretty trashy show, certainly in comparison to the Ted Koppel days. Not that I liked it much then; I used to complain about that too but the current show is nothing like it. Whereas the Koppel program had some gravitas, even if he was a bit stuffy and self-important, the current version is more like a tabloid. And it’s not just like a tabloid; it is a tabloid. Still I watch it sometimes because I watch the weather and sports at about 11:30, and then Nightline comes on, and if I’m in the middle of Sudoku or some other important business, I just leave the TV on. A couple of nights ago, they had a harrowing episode on crystal meth taking over a border town in New Mexico. It started off unexceptional enough but midway through the piece they interviewed two meth addicts, “tweakers” as they’re called, and that was haunting. They were a fairly young couple who had  aged visibly and scarily under the drug, and they spoke about their addiction in a resigned tone that made it clear they were likely to keep taking the drug until they died. A while back, they guy stopped for a couple of days–and felt pretty good, in fact—but it seemed pretty obvious that that was not likely to happen again. They would ride it as far down as it would drag them, and all that came through, to bone-chilling effect, in a 30-second interview. They should show that interview to every kid in high school.

Yesterday, I got a phone message from someone trying to contact “the author of that incredible column” in the local (Cambridge) newspaper. My wife and kids played the message first, and everyone wondered what it was all about. I too got curious when I heard it as to whether the person calling was a literary agent or magazine editor–someone, in other words, who might be in a position to further my career. It turned out the caller was none of the above–just a nice guy who wanted to let me know that he really liked my piece. Although I don’t stand to gain in a material way from his favorable review, in some ways getting praise like that, from out of the blue–from someone who had no compelling reason to call me other than to say a few kind words–is even better. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

In a recent post, I made much of the fact that the defeat of the Red Sox gave me “my life back” and also gave me my couch back that a neighbor had been camping out on during the last two rounds of playoff baseball. The statement makes perfect sense and sounds good, but there is a slight problem: I don’t really have a life.

First the bad news: The Sox lost. Now the good news: I have my life back. Now the bad news: I’ll miss the guy (my neighbor) who’s been sitting at the other end of the couch during these last 11 nights. And finally the good news: His family will have him back. And now the bad news: I’m not sure they want him back.

The  Red Sox victory last night–coming back from a 7-0 deficit to win 8-7 in the 9th inning–was sensational and inspirational. No matter what happens in the rest of this series, or in the World Series if they get there, the Red Sox redeemed themselves. For Boston fans, last night’s game was magic and illustrated the potential of sports, on rare occasions,  to surpass any drama penned by any human playwright. For Red Sox partisans who stayed to the end, the winning hit by J.D. Drew created a moment of pure exhiliration. It’s why we watch.

John McCain mentioned Joe the plumber (from Holland, Ohio) more than a few times in tonight’s debate, and a few  times too many. But for an hour-and-a-half and then some, Joe the plumber was the most famous plumber in America. So Nightline scored a real coup in getting a big interview with him after the debate. Except that as an interview subject, Joe the plumber is a lot worse than Michael Phelps the swimmer. And though I know nothing of his plumbing ability, he is unlikely to be the Michael Phelps of his field (as in the all-time world’s best). But it’s not Joe’s fault as he didn’t ask for his 150 minutes of fame. He can thank John McCain for that. And hopefully he gets at least one new client out of the deal in exchange for the invasion of his privacy.

According to the investigation into the Alaska troopergate scandal, Sarah Palin was found to have committed ethics violations and abused her power. Palin has a different spin on that, saying she is glad to have been cleared of any wrongdoing. It seems the invisible hand of Karl Rove is always ready to come to the aid of the party.

Two guys are working out in the free weight room of the Cambridge Family YMCA. One, who just finished the bench press, offered advice to his partner. “The whole time I was doing that, I was thinking of Richie and how much I wanted to break his neck. You gotta use that stuff!”

A conversation overheard (in my living room or kitchen): “Daddy’s not mad at you. He’s just really, really angry.”

RECOUNT, the story of how Bush stole the election from Gore, is a well-done movie but painful to watch. When you consider the state of the union eight years later and the state of the world, it’s hard to live through that again, watching the Republicans and the Supreme Court stand in the way of counting ALL votes and thereby hand the election to W., a man widely considered to be the worst president of all time.

Has anyone noticed that McCain looks unhinged (insane) during the debates? For some reason, none of the pundits mention it. He had that crazed look when he promised to take care of bin Laden (“l’ll get him”) and he had that same demented look when he said that fixing social security was easy. There’s nothing to it. Medicaid/Medicare is a bit harder but he had a plan for that too. Just get the smartest people in the country together in a room and lock the door. He can do it. We can do it because we happen to live in the greatest country in the history of Earth and maybe of the whole galaxy.

This is a warning to Osama bin Laden. (In case you’re not familiar with that name, he’s the man who wants to kill us all.) You’d better watch out, Mr. bin Laden sir cause John McCain is gonna get you. He knows how to do it. HE JUST KNOWS. And he’ll get it done. He’s gonna get it done. He’s gonna get you. We don’t have to worry about a thing. All we have to do is vote this guy into office and he’ll take care of the rest.

Years ago, while writing an article about drug addiction, I spoke with a researcher/activist with whom I’d talked many times over the years. At the time he was suffering from acute leukemia and from what he said about it, I thought he was a goner. I had not heard his name mentioned for many years which confirmed my hunch that he had not survived. But yesterday I read an article on the same subject about which I had written more than 10 years ago. The guy I was worried about is still alive and kicking–and still pursuing his research.

The house next door was on sale recently and someone was evidently quite interested–interested enough to want to know whether the garbage cans came with the house. This was a house that was selling for nearly half a million dollars. The garbage cans about which he inquired cost about $15 when they were new–10 YEARS AGO. I guess this individual was disappointed to learn that some of the garbage cans belonged to the neighboring house (i.e., my house) because he did not end up purchasing said dwelling.

The Republicans have been playing the “expectations lowering” game for a long time. Why? Mainly because their candidates for the top jobs have generally been somewhat  lacking in intellect compared to the Democratic candidates. There’s been one excuse after another–”I’m not an Oxford debater” or “I’m not from Washington,” etc.,etc. Bush relied on this crutch for years; McCain is using it too, and so is his running mate.

The really maddening thing about it is that this strategy seems to work, time and again. As a result, Gore couldn’t beat Bush in a debate, Kerry couldn’t beat Bush in a debate, Obama couldn’t beat McCain in a debate, and now Biden couldn’t beat that hockey mom who was like a high school debater onstage with someone who actually knew what he’s talking about.

Expectation lowering only works for one reason: intelligence lowering.

What a polite society we live in. I’d been getting junk email from Thrifty Car Rental for awhile and finally decided to put a stop to hit so I hit the “unsubscribe” button and took myself off the list. I got the following response: “Thank you for choosing Thrifty Car Rental.” And you get a nice note like that even when you’re choosing to have nothing further to do with them.