CALL ME SNAKE

NIGHTLINE led off with Gatesgate and the famous “Beer Summit,” introducing the story with a question as to whether the event warranted all the attention it had received. Of course, they might have tried to answer their question before running the ridiculous story in which they had nothing to show of substance other than a Michelob commercial.

One other curiosity: Everyone referred to three men attending the summit, even though Joe Biden was sitting there plain as day. Has he already receded into the anonymity of the Vice Presidency? Should the reporters have said–with no disrespect intended on my account, as I happen to like Biden–”three men plus one nonentity”?

What’s with the Boston Globe Magazine having a Special BOOMERS Issue? Don’t they know that’s been done before? Don’t they know that, by now, everyone is sick of hearing about Boomers? Even Boomers are sick of hearing about Boomers. I speak with some experience on this subject, being a Boomer myself. And I’m sick of hearing about myself too.

It’s another slow news day, & I can’t think of any jokes related to Gatesgate or the fact that Obama is serving beer to Skip Gates and the cop Crowley over at the White House. Which means it’s time for more great insults in the history of insult slinging and hurling, this one penned by Stephen Bishop (who he???) and sent to my attention by erstwhile CMS commentator Marco Polo: “I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.” -Stephen Bishop

I’ve been waiting all day to hear from an influential individual–a person of note, a genuine mover and shaker in his industry–regarding important information he might have about my book and its fate. I should qualify that remark by saying that the “important” information in question is probably important to just one person (that being the President, Chairman, CEO, & CFO of Call Me Snake Enterprises, Inc., LLC). Still, every time a new email came in, I checked to see if it was from “Mr. Big.” A minute ago, I was delighted to see that an email had, in fact, arrived from said “Mr. B.” A second later, I realized it was a form message that he sent to me and several thousand other people. So in the past minute or two I’ve just experienced all the emotional viccissitudes(sp?) one can go through between A & B. Despite all I’ve been through, I haven’t forgotten my primary obligations and responsibilities as a reporter, which is just what I’m doing right now (in case you didn’t realize it)–reporting.

It’s hardly original to suggest that Walden Pond has changed a bit from the days of Henry David Thoreau. We all know about the crowds and lack of parking and the loss of practically any beach. So I won’t go on about that. Instead I’ll mention a rather curious thing that happened there today. I placed my swimming goggles on top of my bag and went to the bathroom. When I returned the goggles were gone. Fortunately, everything else in my bag was still there–including my wallet, keys, sunglasses, Elmore Leonard book, etc. My wife’s wallet, in the adjacent bag, was there as well. Only the goggles went missing. I guess I should consider myself lucky that this thief just wanted to take a nice swim with a pair of Speedo goggles and was not interested in stealing my wallet, car, etc. So thanks, buddy. I hope you enjoyed the swim. You could have ruined my day in a big way and chose, instead, to just puzzle me.

My column in the Cambridge paper the other day went up against stiff competition: the Henry Louis Gates story (“Gatesgate,” as I call it), a man shot in the buttocks outside the Gourmet Express in Porter Square, and the Zumba explosion which appears to be taking over Cambridge faster than… [please feel free to finish this sentence with any cliche that comes to mind.] The point is, how am I ever going to get anyone to read a piece about an artist I’ve know for the past 25 years in the face of that kind of competition? If timing is everything in this business, I just got killed.

I just got an e-mail that had a note on the end I hadn’t noticed before (though perhaps it has become commonplace in this day and age). The note said: “Please consider the environment before printing this email.” And I promise to take that into consideration before printing the note and despoiling our environment.

I heard an expression on NPR this morning that I’ve heard all too many times before. People speak of “a high rate of speed” (which actually refers to acceleration) when they really mean “at high speed.” This mistake is often made by people who should know better, such as the automotive engineer who spoke on NPR today.

An educator recently told me: “Your writing is well-written.” I’ve learned to take the compliments as they come (since they come rarely enough) and to resist the temptation to edit them. So thanks, doc. You talk good too.

My latest column appeared online in the local paper today. They say ads are targeted to a certain audience. If you watch cartoons on Fox on Saturday morning, you’ll see ads relating to mindless action. If you rent a sappy love story on DVD, the previews tend to be for romance-related flicks. So what were the ads that went alongside my column? The first one concerned “colon cleansers,” which is a product I don’t know much about but am eager to learn more. The second was for the Mormon Church: “Give Peace Another Chance.” The third said: “Search for Sex Offenders.”

A friend invited us to go with her and her father on a cruise through Boston Harbor in her father’s boat. The boat was moored in Winthrop and on the way to and from the yacht club we passed a red, white, and blue water tower that looked awfully familiar. I soon discovered where I’d seen that water tower before: It was in a landscape painting of Winthrop done by a friend that has been in our bedroom for years.

When I was in elementary school, we played four square and it was a pure, straightforward game. My kids play it at day camp and everything has changed. Now kids catch the ball and throw it and they throw it up in the air and clap their hands and they call out things like “post office,” “assistance,” and “chicken feet!” It’s complicated and confusing and the simple things I used to appreciate about the game are totally gone. So this is one more vote for the good old days, when men were men, and boys were boys, and four square was, well, four square…

I’d been calling the Cambridge DPW for weeks, trying to get the little fountain/sprinkler in the park across the street turned on for the kids, especially my younger daughter. Earlier in the week (my third call), things were looking bad. The guy who was responsible for that, I was told, was on vacation and it would have to wait until he came back. “That’s great,” I said. “He’s spending a week at Winnepesaukee(sp?) and my kids have to wait until he gets back to run in the water? Are you honestly telling me there’s only one person in Cambridge who knows how to turn on the water?” I was told to call back the next day when the Parks&Forestry person returned. But she wasn’t in when I tried the number (fourth call). Finally yesterday (fifth call) I got through to her. It was 10:00 a.m. I went through my pitch again (“It’s for the children!”), expecting her to say they’d get to it next week, because whenever is something done on a Friday? She told me they’d get to it before noon and, to my surprise, they did.

Given how much I write about NIGHTLINE, one might get the mistaken impression that I watch the show. And nothing could be further from the truth. Ted Koppel used to interview heads of state on the program; now it’s a cheap tabloid disguised by the affect of its so-called “reporters.” I don’t watch it but I do find out what’s on when the 11:00 news is over. And practically every day for the past 3 or so weeks, Nightline has led with the Michael Jackson story. Just when you thought they’d run out of Michael Jackson stories, they’d dredge one up, like the time his hair caught fire many years ago. Or what will happen to the children.

Tonight was the first time they didn’t have something about Michael. Instead they had nothing to say about a double murder in Florida that they’re undoubtedly going to milk for all it’s worth.

I’m writing an article about a famous equation that has made the top 100 list for the century. An equally famous physicist has said that equation is wrong as well as irrelevant. I asked him why and he answered me in two sentences: one explaining why it’s wrong and the other explaining why it’s irrelevant. I appreciate his brevity but am not convinced he’s right. In fact, I think his arguments may be wrong as well as irrelevant.

The house behind us went on the market today. It’s being advertised as an “urban sanctuary.” From the top floor, the couple and child currently living there can, according to the prospectus, “lie in bed and watch birds in flight, trees and sky throughout the season, and moon rise.” There’s a “waterworks glass tile bathroom with radiant heated beach stone floor, sea glass tiles, skylights and plant shelf,” not to mention the “extensive perennial gardens and water lily pond.” Although our home would never be described in this way, I still consider it a great honor to live in such close proximity to an “urban sanctuary,” if not an “urban oasis.”

This is a test of the emergency blog broadcasting system. In the event of a real emergency, please go the the CALL ME SNAKE homepage and await further instructions. However, this is not a real emergency. This is only a test. (What I’m actually testing is whether I can type in my entries on the new blog.com “platform,” which has been introduced over the past week or so. I could not type in my entries on the old platform and, instead, had to cut and paste everything. Editing was a real chore. But this seems to work OK. Sorry again to waste your time with a test post, rather than the real thing. I promise the next post will be real. Or at least as real as it gets around here…)

I interviewed an astronomer yesterday who wrote an equation almost 50 years ago that has since become famous. In fact, it appeared in a book of the famous equations of the 20th century, right up there along with E=mc^2. That made him uncomfortable, as he didn’t think his equation belonged in that company.

I actually think his equation deserved to be in the book, as it has been quite influential, but I still know what he means. I once wrote a knock-off news item about cars that appeared in compilation book called ELEMENTS OF WRITING, right alongside an excerpt of Martin Luther King’s “I Had a Dream” speech.

A list of great insults was forwarded to the field office of Call Me Snake by “Marco Polo,” formerly a regular commentator on Call Me Snake who was (at least) once referred to as “Deep Throat.” Here’s my favorite insult on the list, but many are excellent, and I’ll be returning to this list from time to time–especially when I run out of original ideas of my own:

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends..”-Oscar Wilde