You have not lived until you have tried to keep step with a senior citizen on the dance floor, and failed.
Now it's not that I expected to be able to hold my own at ballroom dancing, or at any of those other formal-type dances that have been beyond my ken as long as I can remember. But I would have liked to think that as a 28-year-old, I would be able to hold my own on "The Electric Slide."
No such luck. My wife and I attended a dinner this Sunday to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Hydesborough Senior Citizens, and I was thoroughly put to shame. Disgraced. And not just on "The Electric Slide," but on "YMCA" as well. I held out fairly well on "The Twister," but by that time the damage was done.
I'm not sure what I expected when Lou Possemato, president of Hydesborough Senior Citizens Chapter A, invited me to attend the anniversary dinner. I don't recall ever seeing either of my grandmothers dance, but if I had, I'm sure it would have been done to the music of Bing Crosby or someone else truly sleep-inspiring at 16 RPM.
My maternal grandmother did enjoy listening to music. One of her favorite songs was "Why can't the English learn to speak?", the song Henry Higgins performs in "My Fair Lady." When my grandfather was alive, she would play that song on their gramophone so loudly that Queen Elizabeth II once sent her a letter asking her to turn it down or risk an international incident.
I credit my grandmother with my love of the English language and my decision to enter first teaching and now journalism. As a writer, I get to break with impunity all those rules she guarded so zealously, on the grounds that I'm doing it "for effect."
The bulk of my remembered activities with my grandmothers involves stories. A question about what there was for breakfast usually elicited fond memories of Uncle Webster, who in 1927 bought a boat for $50 -- which in those days was quite a lot of money, you know -- and took it south from Rhode Island to Florida with his one-armed nephew Cyrus, my second cousin, three times removed, as his only crew.
I usually enjoyed listening to those stories, and even when I didn't, I was too polite to leave. By the time she finished, four hours would have passed, and it would be lunchtime.
I rarely ever actually got to eat breakfast when we visited Grandma Ergood.
Somehow I never expected a senior event would be so, well, active. When I decided to attend the dinner, I think I expected to have a good meal since, in my experience, senior citizens nearly always eat well. After eating, I would be subjected to some boring speeches and more stories of Uncle Webster and Cousin Cyrus.
After that, there would be some rousing games of Scrabble or Bingo, and of course the regularly scheduled organ concerts. ("Oh, my heart"; "Oh, my liver"; "Oh, my kidneys" ...) Any dancing would be something suitably old-fashioned, like a waltz.
The last time I tried to waltz, I was an exchange student in New Zealand attending a dance run by a seniors group in Rotorua. Three different girls tried to show me to do it. I was in heaven with that much female attention, but I remained a miserable failure at the waltz.
Worst of all, the music was ballroom arrangements of songs like "How Much is that Doggie in the Window?" with extra verses thrown in for the seniors in attendance. Every time I started to get the hang of the steps, the little old lady at the piano would croon, "How much is that kidney in the window?" and I would lose my ability to concentrate.
In all, I was quite surprised with the dinner Sunday afternoon. The food was good, as expected, but most of the speeches were short, and Possemato lightened his comments with amusing stories that had nothing to do with Uncle Webster's rock band or Cousin Cyrus' wooden prosthetic arm eaten by termites after they reached Florida.
There was some traditional dancing, as expected, but after most of the honored political guests had left, about 30 seniors ran up front to do "The Macarena." I joined them on "The Electric Slide," and I'm embarrassed to say that they know the steps much better than I do.
I'm not sure I really was at a seniors dinner on Sunday. They seemed too young. Either everyone there was dressed up in elaborate costumes to make them look older than they were, or getting old is going to be a lot more fun than I thought.
Thursday, July 15, 1999
Thursday, July 08, 1999
summer frost
Now that July is here, I've decided it's time to break out my sweatshirts and other heavy clothing. I'm worried about getting frostbite.
This might seem odd, considering that the temperature for the past week has rarely dipped below 100 degrees, but I stand by my statement. For some reason, Americans have a fascination with air conditioning that drives us to get the temperature inside as cold as it is hot outside.
Maybe I don't mind the heat so much because I grew up without air conditioning. Maybe my blood is still thin from living in Haiti from 1992 to 1993. Or maybe everyone else has thyroid problems.
I just don't understand why we feel the need to freeze ourselves during the hottest season of the year. Humanity lived without air conditioning or fans for at least five years before they were invented. At least 3 percent of the world survives without those things today, even in the tropics, but you would never know it by visiting most public places around here.
The advantages to over-air conditioning are pretty clear for restaurants, since they can increase their freezer space by the size of the dining room, but it still boggles my mind.
One restaurant Natasha and I visited awhile ago had the air conditioning turned up full-blast before the season's heat had even begun in earnest. It might have been 80 degrees outside, warm enough to wear shorts, but not necessarily warm enough to go shirtless.
Inside, it was so cold that the hair on my arms and legs stood on end. I shivered uncontrollably. Hanging on the wall next to me was a frozen side of beef.
"Could you turn the air conditioning down?" I asked the waiter when he came to get our drink orders. I had to repeat myself twice because my teeth were chattering. "It's freezing in here."
The waiter looked down his nose at me, out of a fur-lined parka that looked like it had once been an Arctic seal.
"You're the only who thinks so," he said coldly. His breath misted in the air in front of him.
"Fine," I snapped, wondering if it would be bad form to chop the table up for firewood. "Leave it alone. But bring me a cup of hot chocolate."
Natasha grew up in the desert, so she's usually even more affected by the cold than I. This spring, when everyone else in our church was wearing shorts and light shirts, Natasha was still wearing her long johns under her jeans, and had a T-shirt and a flannel shirt under a heavy sweatshirt she's had since college.
"I have a high surface area-to-volume ratio," is her most common defense.
The members of our church have been running a pool since April on when Natasha finally would be hot and come to church in shorts and a T-shirt. Now that she's five months pregnant, Natasha finally did just that, much to the delight of the elderly woman who won the pool, which passed the $5,000 mark in late June.
Natasha impressed even me with how hot she's been feeling lately. When we moved into our new house, the previous owner told me he was leaving behind a some functional air conditioning units in the basement.
Since air conditioning units are great at driving up the electric bill, I figured at the time that we wouldn't use them.
Wrong. Last week Natasha said she'd really like to have one in the bedroom so she can sleep. Who am I to tell her no?
At least we got some extra freezer space out of the deal.
This might seem odd, considering that the temperature for the past week has rarely dipped below 100 degrees, but I stand by my statement. For some reason, Americans have a fascination with air conditioning that drives us to get the temperature inside as cold as it is hot outside.
Maybe I don't mind the heat so much because I grew up without air conditioning. Maybe my blood is still thin from living in Haiti from 1992 to 1993. Or maybe everyone else has thyroid problems.
I just don't understand why we feel the need to freeze ourselves during the hottest season of the year. Humanity lived without air conditioning or fans for at least five years before they were invented. At least 3 percent of the world survives without those things today, even in the tropics, but you would never know it by visiting most public places around here.
The advantages to over-air conditioning are pretty clear for restaurants, since they can increase their freezer space by the size of the dining room, but it still boggles my mind.
One restaurant Natasha and I visited awhile ago had the air conditioning turned up full-blast before the season's heat had even begun in earnest. It might have been 80 degrees outside, warm enough to wear shorts, but not necessarily warm enough to go shirtless.
Inside, it was so cold that the hair on my arms and legs stood on end. I shivered uncontrollably. Hanging on the wall next to me was a frozen side of beef.
"Could you turn the air conditioning down?" I asked the waiter when he came to get our drink orders. I had to repeat myself twice because my teeth were chattering. "It's freezing in here."
The waiter looked down his nose at me, out of a fur-lined parka that looked like it had once been an Arctic seal.
"You're the only who thinks so," he said coldly. His breath misted in the air in front of him.
"Fine," I snapped, wondering if it would be bad form to chop the table up for firewood. "Leave it alone. But bring me a cup of hot chocolate."
Natasha grew up in the desert, so she's usually even more affected by the cold than I. This spring, when everyone else in our church was wearing shorts and light shirts, Natasha was still wearing her long johns under her jeans, and had a T-shirt and a flannel shirt under a heavy sweatshirt she's had since college.
"I have a high surface area-to-volume ratio," is her most common defense.
The members of our church have been running a pool since April on when Natasha finally would be hot and come to church in shorts and a T-shirt. Now that she's five months pregnant, Natasha finally did just that, much to the delight of the elderly woman who won the pool, which passed the $5,000 mark in late June.
Natasha impressed even me with how hot she's been feeling lately. When we moved into our new house, the previous owner told me he was leaving behind a some functional air conditioning units in the basement.
Since air conditioning units are great at driving up the electric bill, I figured at the time that we wouldn't use them.
Wrong. Last week Natasha said she'd really like to have one in the bedroom so she can sleep. Who am I to tell her no?
At least we got some extra freezer space out of the deal.
Thursday, July 01, 1999
house shopping
There are times in life when madness overtakes the best of us.
The first time I had a brush with insanity was when I decided between my junior and senior years of college to write an honor’s thesis on the religious themes of classic Star Trek. It cost me the respect of all three of my friends, but fortunately Mr. Spock appeared to me in a vision and showed me the Vulcan way to peace.
Then there was the time I asked Natasha to marry me, even though I knew there was a risk that she might squeeze her toothpaste in the middle of the tube. (Actually, I’m so in love with her that I still pop the Question on a regular basis, especially since she uses her own toothpaste, but she tells me she's already married me once, and that was enough.)
The most recent dance around the fringes has been with buying a house. I’m not sure why we thought we needed to buy a house, but we closed recently, and so we are now the proud owners of a 30-year adjustable-rate mortgage.
The first step we had to go through was deciding whether we really wanted to buy one. Conventional wisdom has it that buying a houses is better than renting an apartment.
When you rent, you pay large sums of money on a monthly basis to some megarich cementhead with no idea what life is like for ordinary people on a tight budget. With a house, you have to pay money on a monthly basis to some megarich lending institution with no idea what life is like for ordinary people on a tight budget.
It’s a remarkable improvement.
Additionally, houses come with a lot of extra responsibility. As a new homeowner, it is my responsibility to procrastinate fixing the basement stairs and cutting the grass. When I rented an apartment, it was always the landlord’s job to put off that sort of maintenance.
Once we decided to buy a house, we had to find a good Realtor. A Realtor’s job as a superfluous middleman is to complicate unnecessarily what might otherwise be the rather simple task of finding and buying an affordable house.
Our Realtor took us on a wild searching spree all over Middlesex and Somerset counties at breakneck speeds to look at houses that cost $20,000 more than we could afford.
"You need to tighten your belt a little to get a good place," April told me when I objected to the cost of some of the houses she wanted to show us.
"I don’t mind tightening my belt a little," I said. "I just want to have a waist after it’s all over."
(I’m willing to bet April does squeeze her toothpaste in the middle.)
I soon learned that finding the right house is more difficult even than finding the right spouse. Before I met Natasha, I dated at most a half-dozen women, and went steady with none of them. During the week April was running us ragged, we must have looked at close to 20 houses. We saw townhouses, condos, tool sheds, caves with doors on them -- you name it, we saw it.
Some of the houses were downright frightening. One in North Brunswick was a two-story house selling for something like $120,000. That’s not so bad, but the second floor was really a converted attic, and every room was built on an angle -- a different angle. Oddest of all, the only way to the second floor was the staircase that was built in the bathroom.
"What were they thinking?" I asked once we made that discovery. I pictured our child bursting through the bathroom door to go upstairs or down while I sat there reading a magazine.
"They’d have to lower the price to $60,000 first, and I still wouldn’t take it," Natasha said, after we finished touring the place.
Fortunately, Mr. Spock appeared to me in a second vision, and showed us the only logical course of action. We settled on a two-story Colonial less than a mile from the apartment we had been renting.
The next step was easily the hardest. In a civilized arrangement, we would have called the sellers, dickered over the price and some minor repairs, settled everything, and then been able to close after a few weeks.
But I live in New Jersey, and civilized arrangements are usually against the law. Both the sellers and we had to hire attorneys to represent us during the discussions over how to handle minor repairs -- there was no railing on the stairs -- and major ones -- the roof wasn’t capped correctly.
Imagine coordinating a discussion with one middle party. Now picture two. Now picture four -- two attorneys and two Realtors. Then for good measure toss in a home insurance company, a mortgage lender, an entire religious order, a woman named Edith, and 27 gallons of tapioca pudding. That should give you a rough idea what we endured.
Somehow -- I still don’t understand how -- Natasha and I managed to close. Most frightening of all, we’ll probably have to do this again in the next five years as our family grows.
I’ve stopped flirting with madness. Mr. Spock is here to stay. But at least he assures me that Vulcans squeeze their toothpaste at the end of their tubes.
The first time I had a brush with insanity was when I decided between my junior and senior years of college to write an honor’s thesis on the religious themes of classic Star Trek. It cost me the respect of all three of my friends, but fortunately Mr. Spock appeared to me in a vision and showed me the Vulcan way to peace.
Then there was the time I asked Natasha to marry me, even though I knew there was a risk that she might squeeze her toothpaste in the middle of the tube. (Actually, I’m so in love with her that I still pop the Question on a regular basis, especially since she uses her own toothpaste, but she tells me she's already married me once, and that was enough.)
The most recent dance around the fringes has been with buying a house. I’m not sure why we thought we needed to buy a house, but we closed recently, and so we are now the proud owners of a 30-year adjustable-rate mortgage.
The first step we had to go through was deciding whether we really wanted to buy one. Conventional wisdom has it that buying a houses is better than renting an apartment.
When you rent, you pay large sums of money on a monthly basis to some megarich cementhead with no idea what life is like for ordinary people on a tight budget. With a house, you have to pay money on a monthly basis to some megarich lending institution with no idea what life is like for ordinary people on a tight budget.
It’s a remarkable improvement.
Additionally, houses come with a lot of extra responsibility. As a new homeowner, it is my responsibility to procrastinate fixing the basement stairs and cutting the grass. When I rented an apartment, it was always the landlord’s job to put off that sort of maintenance.
Once we decided to buy a house, we had to find a good Realtor. A Realtor’s job as a superfluous middleman is to complicate unnecessarily what might otherwise be the rather simple task of finding and buying an affordable house.
Our Realtor took us on a wild searching spree all over Middlesex and Somerset counties at breakneck speeds to look at houses that cost $20,000 more than we could afford.
"You need to tighten your belt a little to get a good place," April told me when I objected to the cost of some of the houses she wanted to show us.
"I don’t mind tightening my belt a little," I said. "I just want to have a waist after it’s all over."
(I’m willing to bet April does squeeze her toothpaste in the middle.)
I soon learned that finding the right house is more difficult even than finding the right spouse. Before I met Natasha, I dated at most a half-dozen women, and went steady with none of them. During the week April was running us ragged, we must have looked at close to 20 houses. We saw townhouses, condos, tool sheds, caves with doors on them -- you name it, we saw it.
Some of the houses were downright frightening. One in North Brunswick was a two-story house selling for something like $120,000. That’s not so bad, but the second floor was really a converted attic, and every room was built on an angle -- a different angle. Oddest of all, the only way to the second floor was the staircase that was built in the bathroom.
"What were they thinking?" I asked once we made that discovery. I pictured our child bursting through the bathroom door to go upstairs or down while I sat there reading a magazine.
"They’d have to lower the price to $60,000 first, and I still wouldn’t take it," Natasha said, after we finished touring the place.
Fortunately, Mr. Spock appeared to me in a second vision, and showed us the only logical course of action. We settled on a two-story Colonial less than a mile from the apartment we had been renting.
The next step was easily the hardest. In a civilized arrangement, we would have called the sellers, dickered over the price and some minor repairs, settled everything, and then been able to close after a few weeks.
But I live in New Jersey, and civilized arrangements are usually against the law. Both the sellers and we had to hire attorneys to represent us during the discussions over how to handle minor repairs -- there was no railing on the stairs -- and major ones -- the roof wasn’t capped correctly.
Imagine coordinating a discussion with one middle party. Now picture two. Now picture four -- two attorneys and two Realtors. Then for good measure toss in a home insurance company, a mortgage lender, an entire religious order, a woman named Edith, and 27 gallons of tapioca pudding. That should give you a rough idea what we endured.
Somehow -- I still don’t understand how -- Natasha and I managed to close. Most frightening of all, we’ll probably have to do this again in the next five years as our family grows.
I’ve stopped flirting with madness. Mr. Spock is here to stay. But at least he assures me that Vulcans squeeze their toothpaste at the end of their tubes.
life as a movie
Life would be a lot simpler if it were like the movies.
Think of the angst that could be prevented just by adding a musical score. The minute someone walks into the room, you would know if the newcomer were an evil intruder because of the foreboding music. If there's romance in the air, the slow violin music would be a dead giveaway every time. It would have saved me a lot of trouble back in junior high.
If life were like movies, all problems could be solved within two hours, women would all be drop-dead gorgeous, men would be muscle-bound, and justice would prevail every time. (Women also would be inexplicably attracted to men three times their age, but I digress.)
Best of all, having a high-quality life wouldn't be a prerequisite for success. Just look at the most recent Star Wars offering.
(Not that I can afford to pay George Lucas $112 million to upgrade my life with computer enhancements. I would be more popular - except possibly for the Jar Jar Binks factor - but I'd hate to compromise my artistic integrity for Dave Learn action figures and Lego sets.)
There have to be ways to compensate for this deficiency. One idea that occurred to me recently was that stores and restaurants could distribute flare guns to their customers as they walk in the door.
See, my wife and I recently went on a quest to buy a toaster oven, which we finally found at a Target store -- sort of. They had a floor model with everything we wanted, but none of the boxes on the shelves corresponded to it.
In a movie, the camera would pull out to a wide-lens shot, and it would have been obvious to the entire store that something was wrong.
Instead, I had to work hard to get the attention of store employees. I marched up and down the aisles calling "Bartender! Bartender!" like a demented Daffy Duck, and still no one came to our assistance.
After a fruitless search, I grabbed the display model and carried it around the store until an employee stopped chatting long enough to scowl at me and see if I needed help. (I wonder what gave it away.)
The whole melodrama and spectacle could have been skipped if the store had given us a flare gun. Picture this: We reach the toaster section and find they're all out. Before panic sets in, Natasha pulls out the flare gun and fires a blue flare up into the ceiling. The light show alerts a manager, who grabs a walkie-talkie and sends help at once.
"Francine, this is Freddie at the customer-service desk. We have a mayday over in Aisle 12. The fat guy and his wife can't find the Iridium Pyew-39 Explosive Space Toaster."
Suddenly the time lost hunting for a toaster oven that they won't sell me - they don't sell floor models -- is cut from an hour to just under a few minutes. Department store owners, take note: Provide shoppers with something simple like flare guns, and customer satisfaction will go through the roof -- literally.
The other advantage to making life more like the movies is that you get unconventional solutions to problems, especially if you watch some of the same movies I do.
That would have come in handy last Thursday, when Natasha and I went to get our first ultrasound done of the baby at St. Peter's in New Brunswick. Darth Grappler -- our working name for a baby boy -- was every bit as reluctant as me to be captured on film, and so steadfastly looked down at Niki's spine.
The doctor, whom I will identify as Dr. Goosehead, decided the best solution was to shake Natasha's abdomen vigorously with the sensor like he was stirring a bowl of chocolate pudding. I won't print Natasha's thoughts about this here, since this is a family newspaper.
Had this been a movie, all sorts of sci-fi solutions would have been possible. We could have got Geordi to back up the toilets into the warp drive, couple the deflector dish to the impulse couplings, and plug in the Pac Man cartridge on Deck C. With all that done, Dr. Goosehead could have pressed the button on his command console, and Darth Grappler would have rolled around.
Another possibility was suggested by "The Phantom Menace." With a high enough concentration of midichlorians in his cells, Dr. Goosehead could use the Force to rock Darth Grappler gently in the womb. Alternatively, if Darth Grappler had a high concentration of the double-speak critters instead, he could have rocked Dr. Goosehead and not so gently. Actually, that would have been a lot more satisfying, ultimately.
And just think: If life were like a western, touchy confrontations would be great occasions for deadpan comments, like the immortal "Yep. Nothing like a good piece of hickory" from "Pale Rider."
After the ultrasound, Natasha and I made an appointment for a second one to pinpoint the baby's development more clearly. Dr. Goosehead walked over and told the receptionist, "I want them to come in for genetic counseling," without telling us what that was or why he wanted us to come in for it.
"Hello," I wanted to shout. "We're the parents; you can talk to us."
A much better solution comes from "A Fistful of Dollars." I can see myself standing before Dr. Goosehead in a Clint Eastwood posture.
"I don't mind a doctor who's rude," I could tell him. "But my horse is sensitive, and you hurt his feelings. I think you ought to apologize to my horse before someone gets hurt."
Ah, the drama we miss out on. Still, it's just as well life isn't more like the movies. With my luck, I'd be played by Jim Carrey.
Think of the angst that could be prevented just by adding a musical score. The minute someone walks into the room, you would know if the newcomer were an evil intruder because of the foreboding music. If there's romance in the air, the slow violin music would be a dead giveaway every time. It would have saved me a lot of trouble back in junior high.
If life were like movies, all problems could be solved within two hours, women would all be drop-dead gorgeous, men would be muscle-bound, and justice would prevail every time. (Women also would be inexplicably attracted to men three times their age, but I digress.)
Best of all, having a high-quality life wouldn't be a prerequisite for success. Just look at the most recent Star Wars offering.
(Not that I can afford to pay George Lucas $112 million to upgrade my life with computer enhancements. I would be more popular - except possibly for the Jar Jar Binks factor - but I'd hate to compromise my artistic integrity for Dave Learn action figures and Lego sets.)
There have to be ways to compensate for this deficiency. One idea that occurred to me recently was that stores and restaurants could distribute flare guns to their customers as they walk in the door.
See, my wife and I recently went on a quest to buy a toaster oven, which we finally found at a Target store -- sort of. They had a floor model with everything we wanted, but none of the boxes on the shelves corresponded to it.
In a movie, the camera would pull out to a wide-lens shot, and it would have been obvious to the entire store that something was wrong.
Instead, I had to work hard to get the attention of store employees. I marched up and down the aisles calling "Bartender! Bartender!" like a demented Daffy Duck, and still no one came to our assistance.
After a fruitless search, I grabbed the display model and carried it around the store until an employee stopped chatting long enough to scowl at me and see if I needed help. (I wonder what gave it away.)
The whole melodrama and spectacle could have been skipped if the store had given us a flare gun. Picture this: We reach the toaster section and find they're all out. Before panic sets in, Natasha pulls out the flare gun and fires a blue flare up into the ceiling. The light show alerts a manager, who grabs a walkie-talkie and sends help at once.
"Francine, this is Freddie at the customer-service desk. We have a mayday over in Aisle 12. The fat guy and his wife can't find the Iridium Pyew-39 Explosive Space Toaster."
Suddenly the time lost hunting for a toaster oven that they won't sell me - they don't sell floor models -- is cut from an hour to just under a few minutes. Department store owners, take note: Provide shoppers with something simple like flare guns, and customer satisfaction will go through the roof -- literally.
The other advantage to making life more like the movies is that you get unconventional solutions to problems, especially if you watch some of the same movies I do.
That would have come in handy last Thursday, when Natasha and I went to get our first ultrasound done of the baby at St. Peter's in New Brunswick. Darth Grappler -- our working name for a baby boy -- was every bit as reluctant as me to be captured on film, and so steadfastly looked down at Niki's spine.
The doctor, whom I will identify as Dr. Goosehead, decided the best solution was to shake Natasha's abdomen vigorously with the sensor like he was stirring a bowl of chocolate pudding. I won't print Natasha's thoughts about this here, since this is a family newspaper.
Had this been a movie, all sorts of sci-fi solutions would have been possible. We could have got Geordi to back up the toilets into the warp drive, couple the deflector dish to the impulse couplings, and plug in the Pac Man cartridge on Deck C. With all that done, Dr. Goosehead could have pressed the button on his command console, and Darth Grappler would have rolled around.
Another possibility was suggested by "The Phantom Menace." With a high enough concentration of midichlorians in his cells, Dr. Goosehead could use the Force to rock Darth Grappler gently in the womb. Alternatively, if Darth Grappler had a high concentration of the double-speak critters instead, he could have rocked Dr. Goosehead and not so gently. Actually, that would have been a lot more satisfying, ultimately.
And just think: If life were like a western, touchy confrontations would be great occasions for deadpan comments, like the immortal "Yep. Nothing like a good piece of hickory" from "Pale Rider."
After the ultrasound, Natasha and I made an appointment for a second one to pinpoint the baby's development more clearly. Dr. Goosehead walked over and told the receptionist, "I want them to come in for genetic counseling," without telling us what that was or why he wanted us to come in for it.
"Hello," I wanted to shout. "We're the parents; you can talk to us."
A much better solution comes from "A Fistful of Dollars." I can see myself standing before Dr. Goosehead in a Clint Eastwood posture.
"I don't mind a doctor who's rude," I could tell him. "But my horse is sensitive, and you hurt his feelings. I think you ought to apologize to my horse before someone gets hurt."
Ah, the drama we miss out on. Still, it's just as well life isn't more like the movies. With my luck, I'd be played by Jim Carrey.
Thursday, June 10, 1999
it's a conspiracy
There is nothing quite like a good conspiracy theory, and even they have nothing on the really far-out ones.
Bad or cheesy conspiracy theories are easy to come up with -- just ask the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy. During the 1950s, he was able to whip up enough hysteria over communism to create dozens of rabid theories.
During the McCarthy era, everything was a Red plot. The decision to put fluorides in our drinking water was a communist attempt to alter our precious bodily fluids. The invention of margarine was a Red plot to undermine the dairy industry.
Actually, even good conspiracy theories are easy to come up with. Just find something or someone you don't like, find a few unrelated coincidences -- only two or three are necessary, but friends and family enjoy it more if you can list a couple dozen -- and then use some logic too sketchy to find fault with.
If coincidences aren't readily available and you can't make any up, a cover-up is always a good defensive posture to take since critics are reluctant to engage in further discussion at this point.
An example of a conspiracy at this point could be:
"The federal government is covering up UFO activity in the Northeast because it has an arrangement with the aliens to sell the citizens of Rhode Island for mind-control experiments, in exchange for technology. I had some evidence but it was all destroyed."
I can't argue with that one, can you? Just as a side note, my oldest brother once bought our father a $1 million insurance policy against abduction by aliens, payable in annual increments of $1. It's too bad Dad lives in Pennsylvania; we'll never get to collect now.
Aliens and government make for some of the best conspiracy theories -- and remember, there really is no conspiracy afoot among our elected officials, they just want us to think there is -- but my personal favorite has to be the media conspiracy. I don't know why; I guess I just get a kick out of hearing how powerful I am. The news media supposedly are engaged in an all-out assault on, well, everything.
If you believe the conspiracy buffs, we're out to see Bill Clinton appointed president for life, wipe out the Republican Party, cover up murders at area movie theaters, eradicate traditional morals and religious beliefs, and back business interests in New Jersey at the expense of the common man.
Oddly enough, we're also working hard to get President Clinton removed from office, wipe out all the third parties, undermine local businesses, enforce a harsh moral code that makes the Inquisition look like a day in the park, and smear all the businesses in New Jersey so they can't function any more.
Apparently there are a couple high-level conspiracies and I haven't been initiated into either one. (Actually I have, but when they hired me I had to swear in blood not to tell.)
Truth to tell, there aren't enough truly soulless people to manage any one of these large-scale conspiracies, not even in the federal government. Sooner or later, someone would feel bad for all the people in Rhode Island and would crack, and the whole thing would come out unless it were an episode of "X-Files."
I used to get annoyed by people who accuse the federal government of blowing up buildings in Oklahoma City, who feel the news media are the Great Satan for not obsessing as much as they do, or who are afraid to admire the beauty of the stars because of the little bug-eyed aliens in their minds.
But after a while, it occurred to me that they're only like that because of the satellites broadcasting microwave signals directly into their minds from Rhode Island that we in the media have refused to cover, and so I figure it's OK if they're like that.
Bad or cheesy conspiracy theories are easy to come up with -- just ask the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy. During the 1950s, he was able to whip up enough hysteria over communism to create dozens of rabid theories.
During the McCarthy era, everything was a Red plot. The decision to put fluorides in our drinking water was a communist attempt to alter our precious bodily fluids. The invention of margarine was a Red plot to undermine the dairy industry.
Actually, even good conspiracy theories are easy to come up with. Just find something or someone you don't like, find a few unrelated coincidences -- only two or three are necessary, but friends and family enjoy it more if you can list a couple dozen -- and then use some logic too sketchy to find fault with.
If coincidences aren't readily available and you can't make any up, a cover-up is always a good defensive posture to take since critics are reluctant to engage in further discussion at this point.
An example of a conspiracy at this point could be:
"The federal government is covering up UFO activity in the Northeast because it has an arrangement with the aliens to sell the citizens of Rhode Island for mind-control experiments, in exchange for technology. I had some evidence but it was all destroyed."
I can't argue with that one, can you? Just as a side note, my oldest brother once bought our father a $1 million insurance policy against abduction by aliens, payable in annual increments of $1. It's too bad Dad lives in Pennsylvania; we'll never get to collect now.
Aliens and government make for some of the best conspiracy theories -- and remember, there really is no conspiracy afoot among our elected officials, they just want us to think there is -- but my personal favorite has to be the media conspiracy. I don't know why; I guess I just get a kick out of hearing how powerful I am. The news media supposedly are engaged in an all-out assault on, well, everything.
If you believe the conspiracy buffs, we're out to see Bill Clinton appointed president for life, wipe out the Republican Party, cover up murders at area movie theaters, eradicate traditional morals and religious beliefs, and back business interests in New Jersey at the expense of the common man.
Oddly enough, we're also working hard to get President Clinton removed from office, wipe out all the third parties, undermine local businesses, enforce a harsh moral code that makes the Inquisition look like a day in the park, and smear all the businesses in New Jersey so they can't function any more.
Apparently there are a couple high-level conspiracies and I haven't been initiated into either one. (Actually I have, but when they hired me I had to swear in blood not to tell.)
Truth to tell, there aren't enough truly soulless people to manage any one of these large-scale conspiracies, not even in the federal government. Sooner or later, someone would feel bad for all the people in Rhode Island and would crack, and the whole thing would come out unless it were an episode of "X-Files."
I used to get annoyed by people who accuse the federal government of blowing up buildings in Oklahoma City, who feel the news media are the Great Satan for not obsessing as much as they do, or who are afraid to admire the beauty of the stars because of the little bug-eyed aliens in their minds.
But after a while, it occurred to me that they're only like that because of the satellites broadcasting microwave signals directly into their minds from Rhode Island that we in the media have refused to cover, and so I figure it's OK if they're like that.
Thursday, June 03, 1999
voice of destruction
As I've grown older, I've started hearing voices. These voices aren't the sort that lead people to commit horrific crimes and make the news after a three-state police hunt, but I sometimes wonder if they don’t come from a different office in the same abyss.
What I'm talking about is the sort of voice that innocently asks, "Remember when you ...?" and sends people on a trip down memory lane.
It's a voice that makes people spend $15 to buy a videotape of an old "Speed Racer" episode they didn't like anyway. It's a voice that makes us go on wild roller coasters when we're told to keep our lunch down afterward. It's a voice that compels us to revisit childhood haunts and activities while making us forget how awful we thought they were at the time.
It's the voice of Satan, and it should be ignored at all costs. I know this because I recently let myself listen to this voice, and am still paying the price three weeks later.
On this particular occasion, the voice was all excited about bicycling. Investing a couple hundred dollars in a nice bike would give me the chance to spend more time outside, and if I rode the bike to work instead of driving, it would save us gas money and leave me a healthier man by summer’s end.
Despite the fond memories of riding my bike that the voice manufactured for me, I've never had a good relationship with bicycles. I used to ride one five miles every day on my paper route for The Pittsburgh Press, and in my 10 years as a paperboy, I had all the problems young boys have with bikes at that age.
The most frequent problem was getting my pants caught in the bike chain. For some reason, my first bike never had a chain guard, and my jeans -- I hate to admit it, but they probably had to be bell bottoms for this to happen -- would get stuck in the chain. The first time this happened, I fell over and was trapped under the bike for twenty minutes until a customer came out and saw what had happened.
My oldest brother, with his inimitable fashion sense, suggested wrapping my socks around the bottom of my pants to keep them from becoming stuck. Instead, I let my pants get caught a few more times, and finally just installed a chain guard.
On top of my paper-delivery spills and wrecks, I had a few more spectacular bike mishaps on my own time. I wiped out once on a gravel road one time and had to walk home with a red, raw leg. Another time, I took a trip over the handlebars that taught me the fear of God, steep hills, unseen potholes, and broken asphalt. Especially broken asphalt.
Fifteen years later, my forehead still has a few marks from one, and probably a few embedded bits of asphalt too.
But somehow that sweet-talking voice made me forget all that, and I ended up buying a 21-speed trail bike that I can use for my commute on slow days and ride off-road on the weekend on the area's wooded bike paths.
Commuting by bike has been an enlightening experience about New Jersey drivers I never would have received in a car. This has to be the only state in the union where motorists give bicyclists the finger for riding on the shoulder of the road. Nowhere else, I am sure do, drivers tailgate a bicyclist who's not moving 40 mph, even when there are other lanes to change to.
I take Route 514 for several miles during my commute, and even as a motorist I'm aware that it's a busy road, with cars and trucks whizzing by at 50 mph in some portions. And while traffic hardly flies on Route 206, with its perpetual gridlock, there are more than enough cars to make you feel vulnerable when all you have is a helmet to protect you.
With this in mind, it's easy to see what could have happened a few weeks ago, when I was riding my bike to work on a Thursday morning. I had forgotten to eat breakfast that morning, and was hypoglycemic about halfway through the trip. Despite this, I managed Route 514 all right, and even Route 206 was no problem.
The office parking lot was a killer.
I was literally about 100 yards from the office. I was going around a corner a little too fast, taking it a little too wide, and I saw a car coming. I didn't need to, but I put the brakes on ... a little too hard.
As the driver and his passenger watched, my bike screeched to a halt, and I flew over the handlebars onto the asphalt. I scraped my chest and legs on the ground, banged up both legs, and sprained my wrist and little finger so badly I couldn't use my right hand much for a week. I must have lost consciousness too, because I remember waking up to see people all around me.
"You klutz," my wife later said. "How can you have an accident in the parking lot?"
My co-workers were more sympathetic, but I think freelancer Minx McCloud summed it up for everyone when she came in and found me limping around the office.
"I feel badly about you being hurt in your accident, but I can't help but laugh at the thought of you flying over the handlebars," she said. "If only I had been in a bit earlier. I was having a lousy day and needed to laugh at the misfortune of others."
I'm not sure, but I think that voice of Satan might have been hers all along.
What I'm talking about is the sort of voice that innocently asks, "Remember when you ...?" and sends people on a trip down memory lane.
It's a voice that makes people spend $15 to buy a videotape of an old "Speed Racer" episode they didn't like anyway. It's a voice that makes us go on wild roller coasters when we're told to keep our lunch down afterward. It's a voice that compels us to revisit childhood haunts and activities while making us forget how awful we thought they were at the time.
It's the voice of Satan, and it should be ignored at all costs. I know this because I recently let myself listen to this voice, and am still paying the price three weeks later.
On this particular occasion, the voice was all excited about bicycling. Investing a couple hundred dollars in a nice bike would give me the chance to spend more time outside, and if I rode the bike to work instead of driving, it would save us gas money and leave me a healthier man by summer’s end.
Despite the fond memories of riding my bike that the voice manufactured for me, I've never had a good relationship with bicycles. I used to ride one five miles every day on my paper route for The Pittsburgh Press, and in my 10 years as a paperboy, I had all the problems young boys have with bikes at that age.
The most frequent problem was getting my pants caught in the bike chain. For some reason, my first bike never had a chain guard, and my jeans -- I hate to admit it, but they probably had to be bell bottoms for this to happen -- would get stuck in the chain. The first time this happened, I fell over and was trapped under the bike for twenty minutes until a customer came out and saw what had happened.
My oldest brother, with his inimitable fashion sense, suggested wrapping my socks around the bottom of my pants to keep them from becoming stuck. Instead, I let my pants get caught a few more times, and finally just installed a chain guard.
On top of my paper-delivery spills and wrecks, I had a few more spectacular bike mishaps on my own time. I wiped out once on a gravel road one time and had to walk home with a red, raw leg. Another time, I took a trip over the handlebars that taught me the fear of God, steep hills, unseen potholes, and broken asphalt. Especially broken asphalt.
Fifteen years later, my forehead still has a few marks from one, and probably a few embedded bits of asphalt too.
But somehow that sweet-talking voice made me forget all that, and I ended up buying a 21-speed trail bike that I can use for my commute on slow days and ride off-road on the weekend on the area's wooded bike paths.
Commuting by bike has been an enlightening experience about New Jersey drivers I never would have received in a car. This has to be the only state in the union where motorists give bicyclists the finger for riding on the shoulder of the road. Nowhere else, I am sure do, drivers tailgate a bicyclist who's not moving 40 mph, even when there are other lanes to change to.
I take Route 514 for several miles during my commute, and even as a motorist I'm aware that it's a busy road, with cars and trucks whizzing by at 50 mph in some portions. And while traffic hardly flies on Route 206, with its perpetual gridlock, there are more than enough cars to make you feel vulnerable when all you have is a helmet to protect you.
With this in mind, it's easy to see what could have happened a few weeks ago, when I was riding my bike to work on a Thursday morning. I had forgotten to eat breakfast that morning, and was hypoglycemic about halfway through the trip. Despite this, I managed Route 514 all right, and even Route 206 was no problem.
The office parking lot was a killer.
I was literally about 100 yards from the office. I was going around a corner a little too fast, taking it a little too wide, and I saw a car coming. I didn't need to, but I put the brakes on ... a little too hard.
As the driver and his passenger watched, my bike screeched to a halt, and I flew over the handlebars onto the asphalt. I scraped my chest and legs on the ground, banged up both legs, and sprained my wrist and little finger so badly I couldn't use my right hand much for a week. I must have lost consciousness too, because I remember waking up to see people all around me.
"You klutz," my wife later said. "How can you have an accident in the parking lot?"
My co-workers were more sympathetic, but I think freelancer Minx McCloud summed it up for everyone when she came in and found me limping around the office.
"I feel badly about you being hurt in your accident, but I can't help but laugh at the thought of you flying over the handlebars," she said. "If only I had been in a bit earlier. I was having a lousy day and needed to laugh at the misfortune of others."
I'm not sure, but I think that voice of Satan might have been hers all along.
Monday, May 31, 1999
have a productive memorial day
Monday, Memorial Day, is a time for us to remember those who have fallen in battle during the service of our nation. It is a time for sober reflection on the cost of freedom and for remembering those who have died.
During the Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln reminded his audience, "We cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract...
"It is for us the living, rather, to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us ... that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
The task President Lincoln set before the people gathered on the Gettysburg battlefield is one no generation has yet completed. It is a task that awaits us as surely as it awaited the Founding Fathers, President Lincoln, and every other citizen of this nation. It is a task we dare not shun, because we have presumed to include it in the very foundation of the country. Many claim that America is the greatest country in the world. That is a bold claim, but it is matched by a bold dream of equality for all people, regardless of their differences. Historically, that dream has gone unrealized as we oppressed blacks long after the end of slavery, stole land from the American Indians despite endless treaties, and denied women a voice outside the home. As dreamers, we have made progress, but we still have a long way to go before the dream becomes reality.
During the Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln reminded his audience, "We cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract...
"It is for us the living, rather, to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us ... that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
The task President Lincoln set before the people gathered on the Gettysburg battlefield is one no generation has yet completed. It is a task that awaits us as surely as it awaited the Founding Fathers, President Lincoln, and every other citizen of this nation. It is a task we dare not shun, because we have presumed to include it in the very foundation of the country. Many claim that America is the greatest country in the world. That is a bold claim, but it is matched by a bold dream of equality for all people, regardless of their differences. Historically, that dream has gone unrealized as we oppressed blacks long after the end of slavery, stole land from the American Indians despite endless treaties, and denied women a voice outside the home. As dreamers, we have made progress, but we still have a long way to go before the dream becomes reality.
Consider:
- In October last year Matthew Shepard was killed for being gay. Many were horrified at that crime, but others used his death to speed their hate campaign against homosexuals, complete with a Web site that counts off the days "Matthew Shepard has been in hell."
- Last fall, a group of white men chained James Byrd Jr. to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him to his death in Jasper, Texas. Byrd's offense? He was black.
- In April 1993, the entire Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, was destroyed after federal agents from the ATF closed in. In the ensuing blaze nearly everyone inside died. The group had had licenses for its firearms, and from the reports of survivors had been about to surrender when the attack occurred.
And while we experience the longest economic boom in history, poverty remains a problem, and not just in major cities. Even in towns in the Princeton area, people live below the poverty line and need assistance just to get by.
Some say the American Dream has failed; others, with a touch of melodramatic cynicism, claim it has come true. The truth is, the dream is waiting for the dreamers to catch up.
On Memorial Day, we remember the fallen. Their sacrifice reminds us of the task still undone: not to die for our country, but to live. This generation, like every generation before it, contains the architects of tomorrow's America. It is for us to make America a land of individual freedom for everyone, a land where parents and children can live without the sting of bigotry, a land where we truly celebrate our differences instead of forcing others to be like us.
The American Dream is a good one, and the dead we will remember on Monday gave everything they had for it. As the beneficiaries of their sacrifice, we can do no less.
Thursday, May 27, 1999
battle of the bulge
About three months ago, I decided this was the year to get back in shape.
Weight problems run in my family; actually, they run in our country. I read recently that something like a third of the country is considered "seriously overweight." Although I don't have my own ZIP code, I've been forced to admit that my gut hangs out farther than it should.
"Look dear," my wife told me recently. "Your belly is larger than mine!"
Ordinarily, that would not mean much since Natasha's stomach has been as flat as a washboard since the day I met her. But since she's four months pregnant, it really drove the point home. She drove it home even further when she started playing games like "See how far we can put a finger into Dave's belly button."
The F word has become one of her favorites. "You're fat," she teased me.
"I'm not fat, I'm big-boned," I lied.
"In the belly?"
So, much to my dismay, I have to admit that I have a weight problem again. The last time I was this overweight was back in college. After graduation, I moved to Haiti for two years and dropped more than 40 pounds, putting me at the lightest I had been since high school.
Of course, a good part of that weight loss came from things like dengue fever, amebic dysentery and tapeworms. I want to lose the weight again, but not that badly.
The chief culprit here is my eating habits. I love food, but unfortunately I don't have the metabolism I did as a teenager to burn it all off.
It's frustrating to watch my wife, who does have a high metabolism, eat and not gain a pound. It's even worse now that she's pregnant, because her appetite is increasing and so she's eating all the time. At least in a few months her belly (I hope) will be larger than mine.
As every weight-loss expert will tell you, proper diet is important to any weight-loss program. Nutritionists consider a balanced diet to come from the food groups.
My middle school health teacher defined those groups as dairy, bread, meat, and fruits and vegetables. In the past few years, I personally have redefined the food groups as soft drinks, french fries, pizza and cookies, preferably with chocolate chips.
So the first step of reducing my weight theoretically is to improve my eating habits. Just cut the junk and get back to those fruits and vegetables, and I'll be fine, a voice from middle school tells me.
If only it were that simple.
As fate would have it, there is a Pizza Brothers restaurant within walking distance of the Hillsborough Beacon's office. It would be easier to resist if their pizza were bad or overpriced, but it's not. It's cheaper than the national chains, I don't need to tip since I walk over there, and I like it.
"You go to Pizza Brothers a lot," Natasha said two weeks ago as she looked over our credit-card bill.
Even in the office there is no escape. Mary Stulack, the newspaper's office manager, keeps a tin on her desk filled with candy for us to eat. On a good day, when I demonstrate self-control, I'm out in the reception area three or four times to check the mail, and decide as long as I'm out there, I might as well take a few pieces of candy.
Two weeks ago, the tin was filled with gum drops, which I don't like. As a matter of fact, only one person in the office does like them, and it took forever for the gum drops to disappear.
It was hell. After waiting in vain for a week for Jack to eat all the gum drops, I drove to the ShopRite and bought a bag of bite-size Three Musketeers for the tin.
So here I am, fighting the losing battle I have fought since I became a journalist. How do you stay in shape at a job that keeps you at a desk? At least as a teacher, I walked around the room constantly to help students, keep their attention and stop them from cheating.
Whatever the answer is, I have to find it fast. The postmaster general recently called to let me know they have a few five-digit numbers that are still available if I want one.
Weight problems run in my family; actually, they run in our country. I read recently that something like a third of the country is considered "seriously overweight." Although I don't have my own ZIP code, I've been forced to admit that my gut hangs out farther than it should.
"Look dear," my wife told me recently. "Your belly is larger than mine!"
Ordinarily, that would not mean much since Natasha's stomach has been as flat as a washboard since the day I met her. But since she's four months pregnant, it really drove the point home. She drove it home even further when she started playing games like "See how far we can put a finger into Dave's belly button."
The F word has become one of her favorites. "You're fat," she teased me.
"I'm not fat, I'm big-boned," I lied.
"In the belly?"
So, much to my dismay, I have to admit that I have a weight problem again. The last time I was this overweight was back in college. After graduation, I moved to Haiti for two years and dropped more than 40 pounds, putting me at the lightest I had been since high school.
Of course, a good part of that weight loss came from things like dengue fever, amebic dysentery and tapeworms. I want to lose the weight again, but not that badly.
The chief culprit here is my eating habits. I love food, but unfortunately I don't have the metabolism I did as a teenager to burn it all off.
It's frustrating to watch my wife, who does have a high metabolism, eat and not gain a pound. It's even worse now that she's pregnant, because her appetite is increasing and so she's eating all the time. At least in a few months her belly (I hope) will be larger than mine.
As every weight-loss expert will tell you, proper diet is important to any weight-loss program. Nutritionists consider a balanced diet to come from the food groups.
My middle school health teacher defined those groups as dairy, bread, meat, and fruits and vegetables. In the past few years, I personally have redefined the food groups as soft drinks, french fries, pizza and cookies, preferably with chocolate chips.
So the first step of reducing my weight theoretically is to improve my eating habits. Just cut the junk and get back to those fruits and vegetables, and I'll be fine, a voice from middle school tells me.
If only it were that simple.
As fate would have it, there is a Pizza Brothers restaurant within walking distance of the Hillsborough Beacon's office. It would be easier to resist if their pizza were bad or overpriced, but it's not. It's cheaper than the national chains, I don't need to tip since I walk over there, and I like it.
"You go to Pizza Brothers a lot," Natasha said two weeks ago as she looked over our credit-card bill.
Even in the office there is no escape. Mary Stulack, the newspaper's office manager, keeps a tin on her desk filled with candy for us to eat. On a good day, when I demonstrate self-control, I'm out in the reception area three or four times to check the mail, and decide as long as I'm out there, I might as well take a few pieces of candy.
Two weeks ago, the tin was filled with gum drops, which I don't like. As a matter of fact, only one person in the office does like them, and it took forever for the gum drops to disappear.
It was hell. After waiting in vain for a week for Jack to eat all the gum drops, I drove to the ShopRite and bought a bag of bite-size Three Musketeers for the tin.
So here I am, fighting the losing battle I have fought since I became a journalist. How do you stay in shape at a job that keeps you at a desk? At least as a teacher, I walked around the room constantly to help students, keep their attention and stop them from cheating.
Whatever the answer is, I have to find it fast. The postmaster general recently called to let me know they have a few five-digit numbers that are still available if I want one.
Thursday, May 20, 1999
world's end
A little more than two months ago, the world was knocked out of orbit and flung into uncharted space.
My wife and I are expecting. A baby. Our first one.
This is a big event for me, bigger even than finishing my first novel, or when I discovered Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" series of trade paperbacks. It even tops the time a stampeding goat ran over my brother at the petting zoo.
"How did this happen?" I asked Natasha recently. "I don't remember filling out an application to have children."
She tried to explain it to me, but I'm afraid I didn't quite understand it all. What kind of sicko entrusts babies to people who haven't even taken a qualifying exam? I'm still a tender young lad of 28 myself. Who decided I was cut out for being a father?
My pastor tried to reassure me during a recent panic attack that becoming a father really isn't the end of the world.
"People have been having babies for a long time, at least 20 years," he told me. "So far, they've managed to survive the experience."
Of course, if the people who have been having children for the past 20 years were having this one, I wouldn't be alarmed. They obviously know what they are doing by now. But Natasha and I are complete novices.
A baby. The thought makes my mind reel. This is an even bigger responsibility than the time I was asked to cut Mr. Schatz's grass for my brother 17 years ago. I blew that one so badly that Mr. Schatz never asked Herb to mow the lawn again. What's Mr. Schatz going to do to Herb if I blow this one?
I never realized how involved having a baby would be. For starters, everyone keeps asking us if we have found a name yet. One friend of mine -- let's call him "Brian Tarantino" -- observed during his own wife's pregnancy that you can tell people you’ve settled on a name like Quagmyra, and even though they think it's an ugly name, they'll lie and say how lovely it is, especially if you tell them that Quagmyra is your mother's name.
So far I've found that's true. The only disapproval Natasha and I have encountered for the girl's name we've settled on has come from family members who know my mother's name is Ellie, and not Quagmyra.
On top of the whole name struggle is the matter of preparation. A few weeks ago, my sister-in-law hit us with the question of a theme for the nursery. I usually leave such details to the last minute -- my wedding party had to appoint a best man for me, for example -- but Rhonda won't let us off the hook so easily. She insisted we select a theme.
"Rabid moose," I wrote her in an e-mail. "I want nursery decorations that show wild moose foaming at the mouth."
"I'm not going to buy my niece or nephew clothes and toys with rabid moose on them!" Rhonda wrote back, even after Natasha suggested a wild-animal theme, complete with birds, frogs and moose.
I suppose eventually my world will stop spinning and settle into a new orbit, perhaps a stabler one than I've been accustomed to before now. A friend of mine with two sons has observed, "Marriage is the tie that binds; children are the stakes that hold it in the ground."
That's undoubtedly true. But I still wish someone would give me the instruction manual.
My wife and I are expecting. A baby. Our first one.
This is a big event for me, bigger even than finishing my first novel, or when I discovered Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" series of trade paperbacks. It even tops the time a stampeding goat ran over my brother at the petting zoo.
"How did this happen?" I asked Natasha recently. "I don't remember filling out an application to have children."
She tried to explain it to me, but I'm afraid I didn't quite understand it all. What kind of sicko entrusts babies to people who haven't even taken a qualifying exam? I'm still a tender young lad of 28 myself. Who decided I was cut out for being a father?
My pastor tried to reassure me during a recent panic attack that becoming a father really isn't the end of the world.
"People have been having babies for a long time, at least 20 years," he told me. "So far, they've managed to survive the experience."
Of course, if the people who have been having children for the past 20 years were having this one, I wouldn't be alarmed. They obviously know what they are doing by now. But Natasha and I are complete novices.
A baby. The thought makes my mind reel. This is an even bigger responsibility than the time I was asked to cut Mr. Schatz's grass for my brother 17 years ago. I blew that one so badly that Mr. Schatz never asked Herb to mow the lawn again. What's Mr. Schatz going to do to Herb if I blow this one?
I never realized how involved having a baby would be. For starters, everyone keeps asking us if we have found a name yet. One friend of mine -- let's call him "Brian Tarantino" -- observed during his own wife's pregnancy that you can tell people you’ve settled on a name like Quagmyra, and even though they think it's an ugly name, they'll lie and say how lovely it is, especially if you tell them that Quagmyra is your mother's name.
So far I've found that's true. The only disapproval Natasha and I have encountered for the girl's name we've settled on has come from family members who know my mother's name is Ellie, and not Quagmyra.
On top of the whole name struggle is the matter of preparation. A few weeks ago, my sister-in-law hit us with the question of a theme for the nursery. I usually leave such details to the last minute -- my wedding party had to appoint a best man for me, for example -- but Rhonda won't let us off the hook so easily. She insisted we select a theme.
"Rabid moose," I wrote her in an e-mail. "I want nursery decorations that show wild moose foaming at the mouth."
"I'm not going to buy my niece or nephew clothes and toys with rabid moose on them!" Rhonda wrote back, even after Natasha suggested a wild-animal theme, complete with birds, frogs and moose.
I suppose eventually my world will stop spinning and settle into a new orbit, perhaps a stabler one than I've been accustomed to before now. A friend of mine with two sons has observed, "Marriage is the tie that binds; children are the stakes that hold it in the ground."
That's undoubtedly true. But I still wish someone would give me the instruction manual.
Thursday, May 13, 1999
y2k
I got a call recently from someone who was distraught by what she has heard about the Y2K computer bug. Like many other people, this person was wondering what the Y2K bug would mean for her personally and what she could do about it.
In case you don’t know what Y2K is, you’re obviously from an Amish community in Pennsylvania or Ohio, and therefore have nothing to worry about, so you can skip the next paragraph.
The Y2K bug stems from a programming shortcut that makes computers look only at the last two digits in the year. On Jan. 1, 2000, so the story goes, computers will think it’s 1900 and the IRS mainframe immediately will begin issuing refunds for all the taxes collected during the last 100 years. Well, maybe not, but I can dream.
The truth is, for all the furor over it the past few years, Y2K has caught absolutely nobody by surprise. My younger brother Ward figured it out when he was 8 because all the deposit slips at Dollar Savings Bank had 19__ for the year, and even he could tell that 2000 wouldn’t fit into that little space, and even if it could, it would say 192000.
So if an 8-year-old who hadn’t even seen a computer could figure it out, why couldn’t all the computer programmers figure a way around it? Actually, they did, but they decided they could make more money by waiting 20 years for people to start panicking and then rolling out the Y2K-compliant merchandise at inflated prices.
A few self-labeled computer experts have predicted the computer problems will result in incredible disaster worldwide, from airplanes crashing and fax machines not working right to the entire eastern seaboard sinking beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.
As a result, a lot of people have been buying property in Ohio for the real-estate appreciation when it becomes beachfront property, once they have made sure the land isn’t under any major airplane routes.
Other impressionable people have equated Y2K with the End of the World, especially because -- as everyone knows -- round numbers make God very angry, so he goes around smiting people with greater frequency than normal.
Some people, like doomsday prophet Gary North, have even offered to help God with the smiting business, and have drawn up lists of people to smite. (We can be sure newspaper editors are high on that list.)
Otherwise normal people have been buying houses in the woods and stockpiling ammunition and toilet paper. My advice for the rest of us is, if you have a house in the woods, sell it immediately and buy property in Ohio.
With your leftover money, invest heavily in the firearms and toilet-paper industries, and remember to buy some 24-packs of Charmin yourself. There will be no toilet paper production after civilization collapses in January, so those two-ply sheets will be worth their weight in gold.
My Uncle Dave Coates recently declared that the bulk of the Y2K craze is media-driven. Are you kidding me? Of course it is. This is the best thing that’s happened to newspapers since Watergate.
Which story would you rather read: "New Jersey will perish in flames on Jan. 1" or "Bob Oaks considers run for school board?" I would too, but unfortunately Bob missed the filing deadline to run this year.
So we’ve been milking Y2K for all we can. So far, I’ve been able to get a three-part series, a couple letters, two cartoons and a column out of it in just this newspaper.
My big problem next January won’t be how to live in a house without running water or electricity, it’s going to be what to write about.
In case you don’t know what Y2K is, you’re obviously from an Amish community in Pennsylvania or Ohio, and therefore have nothing to worry about, so you can skip the next paragraph.
The Y2K bug stems from a programming shortcut that makes computers look only at the last two digits in the year. On Jan. 1, 2000, so the story goes, computers will think it’s 1900 and the IRS mainframe immediately will begin issuing refunds for all the taxes collected during the last 100 years. Well, maybe not, but I can dream.
The truth is, for all the furor over it the past few years, Y2K has caught absolutely nobody by surprise. My younger brother Ward figured it out when he was 8 because all the deposit slips at Dollar Savings Bank had 19__ for the year, and even he could tell that 2000 wouldn’t fit into that little space, and even if it could, it would say 192000.
So if an 8-year-old who hadn’t even seen a computer could figure it out, why couldn’t all the computer programmers figure a way around it? Actually, they did, but they decided they could make more money by waiting 20 years for people to start panicking and then rolling out the Y2K-compliant merchandise at inflated prices.
A few self-labeled computer experts have predicted the computer problems will result in incredible disaster worldwide, from airplanes crashing and fax machines not working right to the entire eastern seaboard sinking beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.
As a result, a lot of people have been buying property in Ohio for the real-estate appreciation when it becomes beachfront property, once they have made sure the land isn’t under any major airplane routes.
Other impressionable people have equated Y2K with the End of the World, especially because -- as everyone knows -- round numbers make God very angry, so he goes around smiting people with greater frequency than normal.
Some people, like doomsday prophet Gary North, have even offered to help God with the smiting business, and have drawn up lists of people to smite. (We can be sure newspaper editors are high on that list.)
Otherwise normal people have been buying houses in the woods and stockpiling ammunition and toilet paper. My advice for the rest of us is, if you have a house in the woods, sell it immediately and buy property in Ohio.
With your leftover money, invest heavily in the firearms and toilet-paper industries, and remember to buy some 24-packs of Charmin yourself. There will be no toilet paper production after civilization collapses in January, so those two-ply sheets will be worth their weight in gold.
My Uncle Dave Coates recently declared that the bulk of the Y2K craze is media-driven. Are you kidding me? Of course it is. This is the best thing that’s happened to newspapers since Watergate.
Which story would you rather read: "New Jersey will perish in flames on Jan. 1" or "Bob Oaks considers run for school board?" I would too, but unfortunately Bob missed the filing deadline to run this year.
So we’ve been milking Y2K for all we can. So far, I’ve been able to get a three-part series, a couple letters, two cartoons and a column out of it in just this newspaper.
My big problem next January won’t be how to live in a house without running water or electricity, it’s going to be what to write about.
Thursday, May 06, 1999
by no other name
It was a letter from some company I had never heard of, even though they claimed to value my years as a customer. Some noodlehead somewhere in the corporate world typed my name into a database somewhere, and -- bless the noodlehead's heart -- typed it in wrong.
Maybe the noodlehead thought he was doing me a favor by "fixing" my name (a problem my brother Brian regularly has had with both his first and last names), or maybe the noodlehead simply knows someone named Learned, and unintentionally transposed the name onto mine. Worse gaffes than that happened at Ellis Island, I'm told.
I try to take these things philosophically. Learned is a common name, and the Learneds probably are related to the Learns somewhere back there.
Learned is one of the milder screw-ups I've seen of my name. In my time, I've seen my last name spelled Lern, Lear, Lean, Loorn, Leorn and once, even Warren. It does make it easier to tell which companies sell my name to mailing lists, but still ...
It's frustrating to see someone get your name wrong, and even after 28 years, it can still get my goat.
I could understand the confusion if my name were a fairly difficult one like "Beowulf Rosencrantz-Oppenheimer III," but how much simpler does a last name get than Learn? That was one of my spelling words in third grade.
Because I sometimes have to spell my name 50 times in one week, I try to make it as simple as possible. "It's David Learn," I say when people ask me my name. "L-E-A-R-N, like in school." Most people appreciate the extra effort, but I was tempted to give it up one day when someone returned my call and asked for "David School."
Beowulf Rosencrantz-Oppenheimer III looks better all the time.
At least I know I'm not alone in this mess. Everyone I know has some horror story about a named that was misspelled or mispronounced once, and how it irked them no end.
My wife's maiden name is Hanson. Back before we started dating, she told me people sometimes asked her if she was related to Jim Henson, the man who brought us Cookie Monster, Count von Count and the other Muppets.
I told her the proper response was to start crying and explain that her father had died a few years ago, and that, despite a will clearly stating the family business was to be split, her brother Brian had taken control of the entire Muppet empire and left her penniless.
While the Hanson-Henson issue no longer applies, Natasha still has name issues to contend with. People regularly misspell her name, and now she's fighting the never-ending battle to get her new surname spelled correctly.
"Learn!" she fairly shouts sometimes. "Like the verb."
It's just a matter of time until someone sends her a letter addressed to Natasha Henson Verb.
Copyright © 1999 by David Learn. Used with permission.
Thursday, April 29, 1999
gas out
In case you didn't know, Friday is supposed to be the day of the great American "gas out."
Friday is the day when drivers all across the country are supposed to boycott gasoline stations, according to a petition circulating on the Internet. Supposedly, by not buying gas, the American consumer public will send a clear message to oil companies -- and the oil-producing countries in the Middle East -- that the recent hikes in the price of gas are unacceptable.
Yeah. That'll work.
I heard about this undertaking through an e-mail a friend sent me. The message has been circulating nearly two months now and, given the nature of the Internet, probably will circulate in one form or another as long as there are people with e-mail.
The text runs something like this:
After outlining this strategy, the author of the note asks for gullible readers like my friend to pass the letter on to as many people as possible, with the assurance that only a few million participants will be enough. After all, we can make a difference.
I rank this particular exploit right up there with tilting at windmills as a suitable pastime for Don Quixote. Much as I love the idea of the common person "sending a message" to the corporate world, I'm unconvinced that a boycott of this nature is going to have any real effect; moreover, it strikes me as incredibly immature.
It's quite possible the nameless author of this petition doesn't remember the mid-1970s. I was less than 10, but I remember some parts quite clearly. As I recall, the world supposedly was running out of oil then, and by the end of the century, so popular belief had it, all the fossil fuels would be gone.
We had strict rationing of gasoline based on the last number on our license plates. If your plate ended in an even number and you had an empty tank on an odd day of the month, you were out of luck. A few years earlier, when I was too young to remember, there were limits on how many gallons motorists could buy at one time.
Nowadays gas costs about $1 a gallon in Central Jersey, a little less in some places and a little more in others. I usually can fill my Cavalier for less than $15. I'll assume the author is from California, where a gallon of unleaded costs about $1.80, according to the Gas Out Web site. He still doesn't know how good he has it.
When I was in Haiti during the 1994 embargo, gasoline cost upward of $40 U.S. a gallon and had to be bought on the black market because it was being smuggled in from the Dominican Republic. Even in countries not currently under economic sanctions, gasoline can cost about $4 or $5 a gallon everyday.
So while I admire the idealism, however misplaced it has to be, I feel kind of sorry for people who are up in arms over a measly 20-cent gas hike. If they really want to send a message to the oil industry, they should buy a bicycle and ride that to work all summer instead.
It might even improve their health and the air quality.
Friday is the day when drivers all across the country are supposed to boycott gasoline stations, according to a petition circulating on the Internet. Supposedly, by not buying gas, the American consumer public will send a clear message to oil companies -- and the oil-producing countries in the Middle East -- that the recent hikes in the price of gas are unacceptable.
Yeah. That'll work.
I heard about this undertaking through an e-mail a friend sent me. The message has been circulating nearly two months now and, given the nature of the Internet, probably will circulate in one form or another as long as there are people with e-mail.
The text runs something like this:
It's time we did something about the price of gasoline in America! We are all sick and tired of high prices when there are literally millions of gallons in storage.
Know what I found out? If there was just one day when no one purchased any gasoline, prices would drop drastically. ...
I have decided to see how many Americans we can get to not buy any gasoline on one particular day!
Let's have a gas out! Do not buy any gasoline on April 30, 1999! Buy on Thursday before, or Saturday after. Do not buy any gasoline on Friday, April 30, 1999.
After outlining this strategy, the author of the note asks for gullible readers like my friend to pass the letter on to as many people as possible, with the assurance that only a few million participants will be enough. After all, we can make a difference.
I rank this particular exploit right up there with tilting at windmills as a suitable pastime for Don Quixote. Much as I love the idea of the common person "sending a message" to the corporate world, I'm unconvinced that a boycott of this nature is going to have any real effect; moreover, it strikes me as incredibly immature.
It's quite possible the nameless author of this petition doesn't remember the mid-1970s. I was less than 10, but I remember some parts quite clearly. As I recall, the world supposedly was running out of oil then, and by the end of the century, so popular belief had it, all the fossil fuels would be gone.
We had strict rationing of gasoline based on the last number on our license plates. If your plate ended in an even number and you had an empty tank on an odd day of the month, you were out of luck. A few years earlier, when I was too young to remember, there were limits on how many gallons motorists could buy at one time.
Nowadays gas costs about $1 a gallon in Central Jersey, a little less in some places and a little more in others. I usually can fill my Cavalier for less than $15. I'll assume the author is from California, where a gallon of unleaded costs about $1.80, according to the Gas Out Web site. He still doesn't know how good he has it.
When I was in Haiti during the 1994 embargo, gasoline cost upward of $40 U.S. a gallon and had to be bought on the black market because it was being smuggled in from the Dominican Republic. Even in countries not currently under economic sanctions, gasoline can cost about $4 or $5 a gallon everyday.
So while I admire the idealism, however misplaced it has to be, I feel kind of sorry for people who are up in arms over a measly 20-cent gas hike. If they really want to send a message to the oil industry, they should buy a bicycle and ride that to work all summer instead.
It might even improve their health and the air quality.
Thursday, April 22, 1999
scarred for life
Being a journalist has scarred me for life.
I entered the field as something of a last resort. When I started my first newspaper job, I had been out of college just over four years and already had gone through two teaching jobs and a host of other fulfilling occupations, including pizza delivery and gas station attendant.
I had enjoyed my stint on The Lafayette, the college newspaper where I had been an editor and columnist since my freshman year until I ran afoul of political correctness gone amok my senior year, and at the advice of a friend, I applied for a job in Somerville at the chain of weekly newspapers where he worked.
I worked there as an editor for 18 months, and if the journalism bug didn't get me, I was intrigued enough to apply for a job with The Packet Group and in November 1997, I discovered community journalism. No longer was I a plain and simple Joe; now, by stepping into a phone booth, I could become Clark Kent.
The job often lacks the excitement Hollywood gives it. On TV and in the movies, every episode details a fight against corrupt politicians, a Satan-worshipping board of education, and a cover-up so big that someone's bound to win a Pulitzer and make a mongo-huge book deal.
In the past three years, I've heard the magic phrase "Stop the presses!" only twice, and in neither case had they even started. And book deals on corruption? Don't make me laugh. (I never did investigate the possible occult entanglements of school boards, though.)
So much for "The Newspaper," where Michael Keaton and Glenn Close get into a fistfight over whether to stop the run or not. (I also learned my lesson from that scene, and ever since have never engaged in fisticuffs with my superiors. Glenn Close's line, "You are so fired," has as much power in reality as it does in a movie.)
But there was a rush to knowing that people counted on me in my reporter days for an unbiased account of what happened in their schools, in their municipal government, in their police department, and in their neighborhood.
"Check out last Tuesday's arrest sheet for the next town," a voice mail message told me, and sure enough, I found an arrest some people would rather have go unnoticed. "Someone tried to abduct a little boy yesterday," another person told me, and bam! another story.
Nothing gets the blood of a reporter racing like a news story to cover. One day a friend of mine and I were headed out of the office for a moment to get some cavities in a bottle. An ambulance zoomed up the side street and stopped behind our parking lot.
"I have to check this out," I told my friend, and raced back to the chain link fence behind our lot. Over the past 20 years, these fences have become a lot harder to climb, and I caught my foot on the top. I finally pulled free and made it down the other side of the fence, but my shoe decided to land on the parking lot.
On the next pass over, my pants leg caught on the wires that line the top of the fence. I hung there for a minute, scraping my hands on other wires, before I finally yanked it free, tearing a six-inch gash in my work pants.
I made it to the scene with both shoes, a torn pants, and a left hand that was bleeding profusely where I had cut it on the fence. At home that evening, I found I had another cut on my stomach and more scrapes on my legs. Months later, a quarter-inch white line remains on the palm of my hand where the fence cut it.
Journalism has scarred me for life. But I got my story.
Copyright 1999 by David Learn. Used with permission.
I entered the field as something of a last resort. When I started my first newspaper job, I had been out of college just over four years and already had gone through two teaching jobs and a host of other fulfilling occupations, including pizza delivery and gas station attendant.
I had enjoyed my stint on The Lafayette, the college newspaper where I had been an editor and columnist since my freshman year until I ran afoul of political correctness gone amok my senior year, and at the advice of a friend, I applied for a job in Somerville at the chain of weekly newspapers where he worked.
I worked there as an editor for 18 months, and if the journalism bug didn't get me, I was intrigued enough to apply for a job with The Packet Group and in November 1997, I discovered community journalism. No longer was I a plain and simple Joe; now, by stepping into a phone booth, I could become Clark Kent.
The job often lacks the excitement Hollywood gives it. On TV and in the movies, every episode details a fight against corrupt politicians, a Satan-worshipping board of education, and a cover-up so big that someone's bound to win a Pulitzer and make a mongo-huge book deal.
In the past three years, I've heard the magic phrase "Stop the presses!" only twice, and in neither case had they even started. And book deals on corruption? Don't make me laugh. (I never did investigate the possible occult entanglements of school boards, though.)
So much for "The Newspaper," where Michael Keaton and Glenn Close get into a fistfight over whether to stop the run or not. (I also learned my lesson from that scene, and ever since have never engaged in fisticuffs with my superiors. Glenn Close's line, "You are so fired," has as much power in reality as it does in a movie.)
But there was a rush to knowing that people counted on me in my reporter days for an unbiased account of what happened in their schools, in their municipal government, in their police department, and in their neighborhood.
"Check out last Tuesday's arrest sheet for the next town," a voice mail message told me, and sure enough, I found an arrest some people would rather have go unnoticed. "Someone tried to abduct a little boy yesterday," another person told me, and bam! another story.
Nothing gets the blood of a reporter racing like a news story to cover. One day a friend of mine and I were headed out of the office for a moment to get some cavities in a bottle. An ambulance zoomed up the side street and stopped behind our parking lot.
"I have to check this out," I told my friend, and raced back to the chain link fence behind our lot. Over the past 20 years, these fences have become a lot harder to climb, and I caught my foot on the top. I finally pulled free and made it down the other side of the fence, but my shoe decided to land on the parking lot.
On the next pass over, my pants leg caught on the wires that line the top of the fence. I hung there for a minute, scraping my hands on other wires, before I finally yanked it free, tearing a six-inch gash in my work pants.
I made it to the scene with both shoes, a torn pants, and a left hand that was bleeding profusely where I had cut it on the fence. At home that evening, I found I had another cut on my stomach and more scrapes on my legs. Months later, a quarter-inch white line remains on the palm of my hand where the fence cut it.
Journalism has scarred me for life. But I got my story.
Copyright 1999 by David Learn. Used with permission.
Thursday, April 15, 1999
surviving easter
If I have to eat another ham sandwich, I'm going to throw a fit.
This past Easter Sunday was the first Easter my wife and I celebrated as a married couple. Last year, when we were only engaged, I think we observed the holiday by eating out at a restaurant, hanging out for a while, and finally heading back to our respective apartments, where we passed the rest of the day doing our individual things.
Not this year. This year, by gum, we're a family and I was determined to make sure we celebrated Easter properly. So on Holy Saturday, I paid a visit to the local supermarket to buy the proper ingredients for a Learn family Easter dinner.
It was about the time I pushed the shopping cart through the front door that I realized I had no idea what a proper Learn family Easter dinner involved. I don't know why that should be the case; I've been a member of the Learn family for 28 Easters, and all but five of them had been with my parents.
"Mashed potatoes," Natasha had told me before I left. "You have to have mashed potatoes."
I'm not sure why she thinks she's an expert on these matters; she's been a Learn for only 10 months. Still, in only 10 months I've learned that when Natasha uses that tone of voice, I have to listen. Natasha is only 4-foot-11, but she can make every inch count when she has to.
I picked up the potatoes in one aisle, bought some pork stuffing from another aisle, and found the perfect Easter ham in the back. ("I can't wait to hear how you plan to stuff a ham," one friend told me Sunday morning at church. Before I could tell her that that wasn't the point, Natasha cut in with, "He just likes to eat stuffing," and proceeded to embarrass me by recounting the time a box of stuffing was all I ate for dinner one night when I was a bachelor.)
Now I should mention that due to various circumstances, I have become the de facto househusband. I take our dirty clothes to the Laundromat every week, I wash the dishes after most meals, and more and more lately, I have been preparing the meals. I'm a liberated man of the 90s, and this is not a problem for my self-image.
The only problem is I don't know how to cook.
So it was that late Sunday afternoon, Natasha was talking to my parents about their Easter celebration. I walked into the study where she was and asked, "Honey, how do I glaze a ham?"
She told me, and when I still didn't get it, she made a mixture of mustard and brown sugar and glazed it for me. I popped the ham into the oven, peeled the potatoes and went back into the study where she was now talking with my brother Brian, who had just called.
"Honey, how do I make mashed potatoes?"
"Boil them!"
"How long?"
"Until they're done!"
(My brother later commented that it sounded like Natasha and I had been at any moment ready to file divorce papers over the mashed potatoes.)
Next it was, "Honey, how do I cook broccoli?"
"Steam it, or it'll lose its nutritional value," she said. (She really does talk like that, mind you. She's the only woman I've ever known to complain that she has a large surface area-to-volume ratio and that her glomerular filtration rate is higher than convenient.)
Of course, we have no bamboo steamer, despite the many TV ads I saw for them when I was a boy. I finally improvised a steamer by placing a colander of broccoli on top of a pot of boiling water.
By 8 p.m. - thank goodness for daylight-saving time - dinner was finished. We had a nicely done (if I do say so myself) box of stuffing; mashed potatoes with undercooked, unmashed pieces of potato mixed in for variety; mostly cooked broccoli and the ham.
All 10 pounds of it. For the two of us.
Did I mention that I'm sick of leftovers?
This past Easter Sunday was the first Easter my wife and I celebrated as a married couple. Last year, when we were only engaged, I think we observed the holiday by eating out at a restaurant, hanging out for a while, and finally heading back to our respective apartments, where we passed the rest of the day doing our individual things.
Not this year. This year, by gum, we're a family and I was determined to make sure we celebrated Easter properly. So on Holy Saturday, I paid a visit to the local supermarket to buy the proper ingredients for a Learn family Easter dinner.
It was about the time I pushed the shopping cart through the front door that I realized I had no idea what a proper Learn family Easter dinner involved. I don't know why that should be the case; I've been a member of the Learn family for 28 Easters, and all but five of them had been with my parents.
"Mashed potatoes," Natasha had told me before I left. "You have to have mashed potatoes."
I'm not sure why she thinks she's an expert on these matters; she's been a Learn for only 10 months. Still, in only 10 months I've learned that when Natasha uses that tone of voice, I have to listen. Natasha is only 4-foot-11, but she can make every inch count when she has to.
I picked up the potatoes in one aisle, bought some pork stuffing from another aisle, and found the perfect Easter ham in the back. ("I can't wait to hear how you plan to stuff a ham," one friend told me Sunday morning at church. Before I could tell her that that wasn't the point, Natasha cut in with, "He just likes to eat stuffing," and proceeded to embarrass me by recounting the time a box of stuffing was all I ate for dinner one night when I was a bachelor.)
Now I should mention that due to various circumstances, I have become the de facto househusband. I take our dirty clothes to the Laundromat every week, I wash the dishes after most meals, and more and more lately, I have been preparing the meals. I'm a liberated man of the 90s, and this is not a problem for my self-image.
The only problem is I don't know how to cook.
So it was that late Sunday afternoon, Natasha was talking to my parents about their Easter celebration. I walked into the study where she was and asked, "Honey, how do I glaze a ham?"
She told me, and when I still didn't get it, she made a mixture of mustard and brown sugar and glazed it for me. I popped the ham into the oven, peeled the potatoes and went back into the study where she was now talking with my brother Brian, who had just called.
"Honey, how do I make mashed potatoes?"
"Boil them!"
"How long?"
"Until they're done!"
(My brother later commented that it sounded like Natasha and I had been at any moment ready to file divorce papers over the mashed potatoes.)
Next it was, "Honey, how do I cook broccoli?"
"Steam it, or it'll lose its nutritional value," she said. (She really does talk like that, mind you. She's the only woman I've ever known to complain that she has a large surface area-to-volume ratio and that her glomerular filtration rate is higher than convenient.)
Of course, we have no bamboo steamer, despite the many TV ads I saw for them when I was a boy. I finally improvised a steamer by placing a colander of broccoli on top of a pot of boiling water.
By 8 p.m. - thank goodness for daylight-saving time - dinner was finished. We had a nicely done (if I do say so myself) box of stuffing; mashed potatoes with undercooked, unmashed pieces of potato mixed in for variety; mostly cooked broccoli and the ham.
All 10 pounds of it. For the two of us.
Did I mention that I'm sick of leftovers?
Friday, January 29, 1999
Piers Anthony: 'Volk'
If you're familiar with author Piers Anthony, it's probably through his works of fantasy, like "Ogre, Ogre."
Anthony is an established writer of science fiction and fantasy, particularly set in the fiction world of Xanth, based on Florida. But what do you do when you want to write something outside your standard genre? Anthony recently addressed this by self-publishing his new novel, "Volk," with a startup called Xlibris, that gives authors editorial control of their books and prints books on demand. Think of it as self-publishing without the investment in a run that depends entirely on your efforts to sell.
Anthony bills "Volk" as a politically incorrect novel of the forbidden love between a Nazi officer and the Quaker fiancee of his pre-war American friend. The book nicely brings out some of the ironies of WWII: that not all Nazis subscribed to their party's ideology, and that the Allies also engaged in practices as barbarous as the Nazis did.
Unfortunately, the novel does little more than play around with some of these ideas or the characters themselves. The storyline covers a six- or seven-year period, but little in the novel reflects that. The writing fails to engage the reader deeply, with the result that it's hard to care much when the Quaker heroine is captured by Nazis for smuggling Jews; neither can the reader properly appreciate her anguish at the compromises wartime forces on her.
The book also suffers from poor editing. Xlibris allows authors to circumvent the big publishing houses to get their books into print, but it apparently doesn't provide editing services. In the case of "Volk," Piers Anthony would have been better off hiring a freelance editor or giving the book a closer second read himself.
"Volk" is readable, but disappointing. Unless you're a tremendous fan of Anthony's writing, you're unlikely to finish Volk after you put it down.
Anthony bills "Volk" as a politically incorrect novel of the forbidden love between a Nazi officer and the Quaker fiancee of his pre-war American friend. The book nicely brings out some of the ironies of WWII: that not all Nazis subscribed to their party's ideology, and that the Allies also engaged in practices as barbarous as the Nazis did.
Unfortunately, the novel does little more than play around with some of these ideas or the characters themselves. The storyline covers a six- or seven-year period, but little in the novel reflects that. The writing fails to engage the reader deeply, with the result that it's hard to care much when the Quaker heroine is captured by Nazis for smuggling Jews; neither can the reader properly appreciate her anguish at the compromises wartime forces on her.
The book also suffers from poor editing. Xlibris allows authors to circumvent the big publishing houses to get their books into print, but it apparently doesn't provide editing services. In the case of "Volk," Piers Anthony would have been better off hiring a freelance editor or giving the book a closer second read himself.
"Volk" is readable, but disappointing. Unless you're a tremendous fan of Anthony's writing, you're unlikely to finish Volk after you put it down.
Friday, January 01, 1999
Christmas vacation in Indiana
Here it is, the first day of the last year in the millennium. Well, not really, since the millennium technically ends Dec. 31, 2000, but no one's going to consider that next New Year's Eve.
As I write this, it's about 11 a.m. Friday on our last whole day in Indiana with my brother, sister-in-law and their son, Caleb. I'm sitting in the back room of their house in, freezing my fingers and my tucish.
Natasha and I arrived in Chicago, Ill. On Dec. 24 about 2:30 or so, nearly two hours later than we had been told we would. The plane had some mechanical difficulties in New Hampshire, and so it was a couple hours late picking us up.
The flight in was pretty uneventful; Natasha slept about an hour of the trip; I dozed for about half an hour, and then read Piers Anthony's "Volk," a book of historical fiction set in Europe during World War II.
I'm kind of disappointed in it, and regret buying a copy for Popper for Christmas, since I doubt he'll enjoy it any more than I have. The book details a triad of relationships among a pilot in the Royal Air Force, his Quaker fiancee and his German college buddy, who also happens to be a Nazi without buying into some of the party's more monstrous beliefs and practices. He's anti-Semitic, but not nearly as much as his cohorts in the Nazi party.
So in that sense, it's interesting, because it breaks some of the stereotypes we have of different groups; the Nazis weren't all evil (some, such as Oskar Schindler, tried save Jews from the death camps) and the Allies had a few dark secrets of their own that history books usually gloss over, like the concentration camps we put the Japanese in for the duration of the war.
Anthony also gives a lot of detail to the aviation battles. You can tell he researched the combat techniques and understands the aviation machinery of the time, and that he has some familiarity with how the Quakers run their rescue missions. (He was raised a Quaker himself).
All the same, I'm disappointed. While those things are good and lend the book some believability, and it's interesting to see the way he incorporates actual battles like Dunkirk into the plot, there's too much that's lacking. He hints at espionage and turncoats, spies and machinations, he never really does anything with it, at least as far as I've read so far. If I don't read the book today, or tomorrow on the flight home, I probably will never finish it.
Anyway, Rhonda and Caleb were waiting for us at the airport and brought us here to Indiana, where we've had a whopping good time. We went to a late-night service Christmas Eve at a nearby Methodist church, since Ward and Rhonda's own church didn't have a midnight service. (They did have a Christmas morning service that we skipped.)
I don't remember much of the service. The organist played the Christmas hymns too slowly for my taste, and they had a choral cantata that probably was decent if you're into those things. I did a little writing on the back of the church bulletin that turned out decently, about the magi and their expectations when they followed the Star of Bethlehem.
After the service ended, we came back home and put Caleb to bed before we got all the presents out. Rhonda's preference is to sort the presents by person so each person gets to be in the spotlight for a while. That was different than we did it as children, but it worked well. Ward and Rhonda had bought so many presents we actually had to make two trips to a neighbor's house, where they had stashed gifts for Caleb, including a 24-inch 18-speed mountain bike that he has ridden nearly every day since.
I'm not sure what Caleb makes of Santa Claus. He's at the age I think he knows something is up, but he still wants to believe that Santa is for real. At any rate, he came out of room around 11 p.m. and nearly caught us in the act of putting Santa presents under the tree.
Apparently, the lad woke up at 3:30 Christmas morning. Ward and Rhonda were able to keep him down for a while, but finally at 5 a.m., we all got up and opened our gifts. It was nice to see Caleb so excited about the gifts he received, and there were a lot of them, but I still decided that when Nastasha and I have children and they wake up early for Christmas, I'm going to have them call Uncle Ward and talk with him before anyone gets up.
Caleb has enjoyed a lot of the presents he got, such as the mountain bike, apparently the only thing he asked Santa for. But Herb, Caleb's Uncle Dutch, got him a functional children's tool set that includes a router, drill press, table saw and a few other items. Caleb played with that like mad on Christmas the next couple days. He's been busy the past two days with a tornado-maker Ward and Rhonda bought him at a science museum in Chicago. Attached to two two-liter bottles, the device's inside spirals so that water pouring from the upper bottle starts to swirl as it enters the lower bottle, with the result that it can create some impressive-looking whirlpools.
Caleb's a pretty cool kid. I'm impressed with how well-balanced he is, considering he's changed homes four times, twice after leaving homes where he was firmly entrenched. He seems to hold a few things inside at times, but he's outgoing and acts a lot like any other child his age. He emulates Ward, which has been fascinating to watch. And Wardloves Caleb so much you never would be able to tell from his behavior that Caleb isn't Ward's biological son.
It's been a tremendous visit in many ways since I've had a chance to see a whole new side of Ward (and Rhonda) that I never saw before. Fatherhood suits him; I hope I live up to the role as well as he is.
Caleb seems to like me too; we've gone out and done a couple things ourselves when Ward was at work and wasn't available. We went biking together on Saturday, and on Sunday, he went with me in Ward's truck to get some things from the store, including a "Prince of Egypt" soundtrack I bought at Kmart. We've been roughhousing a bit together too, mostly good, old-fashioned rassling in the living room, although we've also done some funky weird dances to "Through Heaven's Eyes," a danceable song by Jethro, high priest of Midian, in Prince of Egypt.
I'm taking it easy today since Caleb starts school on Monday and Ward and Rhonda want him to have wound down for that.
Oh yeah. Caleb also got a present that's been used more by Natasha so far than by Caleb. Ward and Rhonda gave him a virtual dog that he named Dips and Rhonda mistyped as Dipsa. Natasha has not left Dipsa's side since then, or the other way around. She even took Dipsa to Michigan City with us when we visited the Yeohs.
The other day I picked up the thing to see what the fascination was, started pressing buttons and was pretty impressed with myself for figuring out how to feed Dipsa dog biscuits and comb and pet him. After a few more buttons, Dipsa's name flashed up on the screen, and then again and again. So I asked Natasha why, and she nearly went ballistic. It turns out I had been yelling at the dog, and ruined its state of near-total happiness that she had been building up all day.
Anyway, we've been here in Indiana all week, and plan to leave tomorrow if the snow doesn't block us in. Ward said there's about a foot coming in tonight. That could delay our departure, and could by extension cause problems with my attending the reorganization meeting in Princeton Township on Sunday, which reminds me that I need to call Michelle and make sure she needs me to cover that.
As I write this, it's about 11 a.m. Friday on our last whole day in Indiana with my brother, sister-in-law and their son, Caleb. I'm sitting in the back room of their house in, freezing my fingers and my tucish.
Natasha and I arrived in Chicago, Ill. On Dec. 24 about 2:30 or so, nearly two hours later than we had been told we would. The plane had some mechanical difficulties in New Hampshire, and so it was a couple hours late picking us up.
The flight in was pretty uneventful; Natasha slept about an hour of the trip; I dozed for about half an hour, and then read Piers Anthony's "Volk," a book of historical fiction set in Europe during World War II.
I'm kind of disappointed in it, and regret buying a copy for Popper for Christmas, since I doubt he'll enjoy it any more than I have. The book details a triad of relationships among a pilot in the Royal Air Force, his Quaker fiancee and his German college buddy, who also happens to be a Nazi without buying into some of the party's more monstrous beliefs and practices. He's anti-Semitic, but not nearly as much as his cohorts in the Nazi party.
So in that sense, it's interesting, because it breaks some of the stereotypes we have of different groups; the Nazis weren't all evil (some, such as Oskar Schindler, tried save Jews from the death camps) and the Allies had a few dark secrets of their own that history books usually gloss over, like the concentration camps we put the Japanese in for the duration of the war.
Anthony also gives a lot of detail to the aviation battles. You can tell he researched the combat techniques and understands the aviation machinery of the time, and that he has some familiarity with how the Quakers run their rescue missions. (He was raised a Quaker himself).
All the same, I'm disappointed. While those things are good and lend the book some believability, and it's interesting to see the way he incorporates actual battles like Dunkirk into the plot, there's too much that's lacking. He hints at espionage and turncoats, spies and machinations, he never really does anything with it, at least as far as I've read so far. If I don't read the book today, or tomorrow on the flight home, I probably will never finish it.
Anyway, Rhonda and Caleb were waiting for us at the airport and brought us here to Indiana, where we've had a whopping good time. We went to a late-night service Christmas Eve at a nearby Methodist church, since Ward and Rhonda's own church didn't have a midnight service. (They did have a Christmas morning service that we skipped.)
I don't remember much of the service. The organist played the Christmas hymns too slowly for my taste, and they had a choral cantata that probably was decent if you're into those things. I did a little writing on the back of the church bulletin that turned out decently, about the magi and their expectations when they followed the Star of Bethlehem.
After the service ended, we came back home and put Caleb to bed before we got all the presents out. Rhonda's preference is to sort the presents by person so each person gets to be in the spotlight for a while. That was different than we did it as children, but it worked well. Ward and Rhonda had bought so many presents we actually had to make two trips to a neighbor's house, where they had stashed gifts for Caleb, including a 24-inch 18-speed mountain bike that he has ridden nearly every day since.
I'm not sure what Caleb makes of Santa Claus. He's at the age I think he knows something is up, but he still wants to believe that Santa is for real. At any rate, he came out of room around 11 p.m. and nearly caught us in the act of putting Santa presents under the tree.
Apparently, the lad woke up at 3:30 Christmas morning. Ward and Rhonda were able to keep him down for a while, but finally at 5 a.m., we all got up and opened our gifts. It was nice to see Caleb so excited about the gifts he received, and there were a lot of them, but I still decided that when Nastasha and I have children and they wake up early for Christmas, I'm going to have them call Uncle Ward and talk with him before anyone gets up.
Caleb has enjoyed a lot of the presents he got, such as the mountain bike, apparently the only thing he asked Santa for. But Herb, Caleb's Uncle Dutch, got him a functional children's tool set that includes a router, drill press, table saw and a few other items. Caleb played with that like mad on Christmas the next couple days. He's been busy the past two days with a tornado-maker Ward and Rhonda bought him at a science museum in Chicago. Attached to two two-liter bottles, the device's inside spirals so that water pouring from the upper bottle starts to swirl as it enters the lower bottle, with the result that it can create some impressive-looking whirlpools.
Caleb's a pretty cool kid. I'm impressed with how well-balanced he is, considering he's changed homes four times, twice after leaving homes where he was firmly entrenched. He seems to hold a few things inside at times, but he's outgoing and acts a lot like any other child his age. He emulates Ward, which has been fascinating to watch. And Wardloves Caleb so much you never would be able to tell from his behavior that Caleb isn't Ward's biological son.
It's been a tremendous visit in many ways since I've had a chance to see a whole new side of Ward (and Rhonda) that I never saw before. Fatherhood suits him; I hope I live up to the role as well as he is.
Caleb seems to like me too; we've gone out and done a couple things ourselves when Ward was at work and wasn't available. We went biking together on Saturday, and on Sunday, he went with me in Ward's truck to get some things from the store, including a "Prince of Egypt" soundtrack I bought at Kmart. We've been roughhousing a bit together too, mostly good, old-fashioned rassling in the living room, although we've also done some funky weird dances to "Through Heaven's Eyes," a danceable song by Jethro, high priest of Midian, in Prince of Egypt.
I'm taking it easy today since Caleb starts school on Monday and Ward and Rhonda want him to have wound down for that.
Oh yeah. Caleb also got a present that's been used more by Natasha so far than by Caleb. Ward and Rhonda gave him a virtual dog that he named Dips and Rhonda mistyped as Dipsa. Natasha has not left Dipsa's side since then, or the other way around. She even took Dipsa to Michigan City with us when we visited the Yeohs.
The other day I picked up the thing to see what the fascination was, started pressing buttons and was pretty impressed with myself for figuring out how to feed Dipsa dog biscuits and comb and pet him. After a few more buttons, Dipsa's name flashed up on the screen, and then again and again. So I asked Natasha why, and she nearly went ballistic. It turns out I had been yelling at the dog, and ruined its state of near-total happiness that she had been building up all day.
Anyway, we've been here in Indiana all week, and plan to leave tomorrow if the snow doesn't block us in. Ward said there's about a foot coming in tonight. That could delay our departure, and could by extension cause problems with my attending the reorganization meeting in Princeton Township on Sunday, which reminds me that I need to call Michelle and make sure she needs me to cover that.
Saturday, October 31, 1998
'A /nightmare on Sesame Street'
"A Nightmare on Sesame Street"
Directed by Clive Barker
Special Guest Star Stephen King
Scene 1
[The scene begins with Big Bird surrounded by the various human characters of Sesame Street, who are offering various condolences.]
Big Bird: But I don't understand. Why did Snufflufagus have to leave?
Maria: It was just his time, Big Bird, that's all. I'm sure Mister Snufflufagus is happier now.
Big Bird: Did I do something wrong? Didn't he like it here with me?
Maria: Of course he did. You were his best friend. But when we die, Big Bird, we have to go away, whether we want to or not. There was nothing that Snufflufagus could do.
Big Bird: Then I'll wait for him. Snufflufagus was my friend. I won't leave him. He'll come back for me.
Bob (cutting in): People don't come back from death, Big Bird. It's like when Mr. Hooper died. He hasn't come back.
[Oscar the Grouch appears from inside his trash can.]
Oscar: Well, look-ee here! Why all the glum faces? You're still not all upset about the recent... departure... of that overgrown hairy elephant friend of yours, are you?
[Big Bird looks away, pained]
Bob: Oscar, I think that now is a really bad time to...
Oscar: And now you've gone and brought up another blast from the past. But Mr. Hooper never had a chance to come back. He didn't have the same friends that Mister Snufflufagus and I do!
[Oscar leans way out of his garbage can, craning his neck to look at Big Bird.]
Your pal Snuffy will be back, Big Bird, I guarantee it! We have a VERY powerful friend, and he'll bring your precious Snufflupagus back.
Big Bird (wiping at his beak): Really, Oscar? But when? When will Mister Snufflufagus be back?
Maria: Oscar, this is a HORRIBLE thing for you to do to Big Bird! His best friend is gone! How can you talk like that to him?
Oscar: Aw, you just don't understand, Maria. My friend just borrowed Snufflufagus for a short while, but ol' Snuffy will be back, Big Bird, just you wait. Heh-heh-heh. Just you wait.
------------------------------------------------------
Scene 2
[Guest star Stephen King is sitting at a typewriter, writing a book, speaking the words out loud as he types. Big Bird comes in behind him and stands quietly.]
King: "Almost ... everyone ... thought ... the ... man ... and ... the ... boy ... were ... father ... and ... son." Oh, hello, Big Bird. How are you doing?
Big Bird: I'm all right, I guess, Mr. King. I was just at Mister Snufflufagus's funeral.
King: I was sorry to hear he died, Big Bird. My children and I all loved Snufflufagus an awful lot.
Big Bird: Me too. (Pause) Mr. King, Maria and Bob say Snufflufagus won't be coming back, but Oscar the Grouch says he'll be returning tonight. Do people really return from being dead?
King: (looks perplexed by the question) I really don't know, Big Bird. People believe all sorts of things about death. In Egypt, they used to believe the pharaohs would come to life again, which is why they made mummies out of them.
Big Bird: Do mummies come back to life?
King: Maybe. In other places, like Haiti, they believe in creatures called zombies. They're people who died but are magically revived.
Big Bird: But what about Snufflufagus? Will he come back to life? I miss him.
King: I don't know, Big Bird. To be honest, no one I've ever known has come back to life. But we'll have to wait and see.
------------------------------------------------------
Scene 3
Animation: A big blue V appears and then melts and changes colors to the
following words, all accompanied by voice-overs and light background music.
V
Valley
Vagrant
Vane
Valentine
Veil
Varnish
Victoria (a little girl with red hair)
Vampire (a picture of the Count)
V
------------------------------------------------------
Scene 4
Big Bird [Nervously excited]: Is he coming, Oscar? You said Snufflufagus would be coming back soon.
Oscar [looking around, pleased]: He's almost here, Big Bird. He just had to cross the threshold first.
[A light fog begins to roll in. In the distance, we hear a low groan, like the one that Snufflufagus is known for.]
Big Bird (tilts his head): Did you hear something, Oscar?
Oscar: Heh heh heh. He's coming, Big Bird! I told you my friend would bring him back!
[The fog deepens. There is another groan, louder this time.]
Big Bird [Timidly]: Snufflufagus--is that you?
[The fog is now up past Big Bird's waist. We can barely see the outline of Oscar's trash can.]
Oscar (loudly): Snufflufagus! Has the master sent you?
Snufflufagus: (now becoming visible) He has. Big Bird, my friend, where are you?
Big Bird (hopefully): Here I am, Snufflufagus. Over here! What happened, Snuffy? They told me you had gone away and weren't coming back!
Snufflufagus: I'm sorry, Bird. It wasn't my choice. But things are better now. There is a lot that Bob and Maria do not know. Come closer, and I will show you.
[Big Bird shuffles forward, and we see Snufflufagus raise his trunk to embrace Big Bird. Suddenly there is a frightened squawk, and Oscar laughs crazily, right before we cut to--]
------------------------------------------------------
Scene 5
[Kermit is plucking at the mandolin and singing the opening verse to "The Monster Mash." As the song continues, he is joined in order by Elmo, Telly, Cookie Monster, Max, and Grover. Halfway through the song, Elmo exits for no apparent reason. Last of all to appear is the Count, who sings the last two lines solo:]
For you the living, my dance was meant too;
When you get to my house, tell them Big Bird sent you!
Ah-ah-ah-ah!
------------------------------------------------------
Scene 6
[Bert and Ernie are at their house. As they talk, Ernie is making the rounds of the room, hanging up garlic at first the window and then the door to their bedroom.]
Bert: What are you doing, Ernie?
Ernie: I'm putting up garlic, Bert.
Bert [slowly]: Ernie, do you have any idea how expensive garlic is? Why are you wasting it as a decoration?
Ernie: It's not a decoration, Bert. It's PROTECTION.
Bert: Don't be ridiculous, Ernie! Protection from what? Good smells? Paper clip vandals? Our neighbors?
Ernie: It's protection from vampires, Bert! Mr. King told me earlier today that vampires can't enter a house with garlic around the doors and windows.
Bert: Don't be ridiculous, Ernie. There is no such thing as a vampire.
Ernie: I'll bet that's what Big Bird thought, Bert. And Elmo too! But now they're both (pause) Well, I heard Maria say they had small holes in their throats.
Bert: (getting steadily more exasperated) Then they were bitten by an animal, Ernie. No one believes in vampires anymore.
Ernie: That's probably why Big Bird and Elmo are dead, Bert. [Ernie finishes hanging the garlic around the bedroom door, but he still has a bunch in his hand.] There.
Bert: Will you stop being so ridiculous, Ernie? There are no vampires!
[Bert rips down the garland Ernie had hung over the bedroom window, startling his friend. Suddenly from outside comes the sound of squawking, fluttering pigeons.]
Bert: What's that? What's the noise?
Ernie (spooked): Bert, maybe you --we -- should --
Bert (approaching window): Matilda? Bernice? My pigeons? Is that you? Is something wrong?
[Bert leans closer towards the window, trying to peer through and see what is wrong with his pigeons. Suddenly he screams and jumps back. But before he can flee the room, a large wolf smashes through the glass, knocks Bert to the ground, then howls madly into the air. As the stuffing begins to fly, Ernie
clutches the garlic to his chest and holds out a large wooden crucifix in the direction of the wolf.]
Ernie: Bert! No! Bert!
------------------------------------------------------
Scene 7
[Some random purple Muppet with black hair is dressed up like Elvis in a white outfit with silver trim, a cape and black shades. Behind him is a black curtain with the number 13 emblazoned in dark red numerals. He sings, accompanied by other nondescript Muppets on various instruments.]
Thirteen
Is such a lovely number
Thirteen
Everything else is such a bummer
Except thirteen.
One is too lonely for fun
Two is company,
Good for playing with a buddy
Three is a crowd; this music's too loud.
But thirteen
Is such a lovely number
Thirteen
Everything else is such a bummer
Except thirteen.
Four, you need to lock the door
Five you won't get out alive
Get to six and grab a crucifix
So that seven will get you into heaven
But thirteen
Is such a lovely number
Thirteen
Everything else is such a bummer
Except thirteen.
Eight? Man, it's getting late.
Nine and we're almost out of time.
Ten we're in a jackal's den
Eleven, twelve? Put 'em on the shelf.
But thirteen
Is such a lovely number
Thirteen
Everything else is such a bummer
Except thirteen.
All hail our lord and master, Satan.
[Close-up on the purple Elvis, and now we see that he has protruding canines.]
------------------------------------------------------
Scene 8
Stock footage from various horror flicks, accompanied by lighthearted, upbeat music.
Girl: (v/o) Mommy, where do vampires comes from?
Pictures of Bela Lugosi and other Draculas from film (Nosferatu, etc.) as they walk the night, summoning bats, wolves and fog, et cetera, interspersed with various happy scenes, like flowers in the sun, and pictures of vampires feeding on living prey. Finally close on a coffin, as from an old Hammer film. Long fingers appear from the underside of the coffin lid, and it begins to open as the vampire emerges from its slumber, blood streaking its chin. It grins cheerfully, eyes alight, welcoming, as the song ends on a pleasant note.
------------------------------------------------------
Scene 9
[Kermit the Frog is standing outside on Sesame Street in his reporter's garb, holding a mike.]
Kermit: This is Kermit D. Frog, live with Sesame Street news. Something strange is happening here on Sesame Street, the likes of which have never been seen before. Here comes someone now! Excuse me, sir, could you--
Passerby: Out of my way, you fascist media punk.
Kermit: (under his breath) Jerk. Excuse me, I'm from Sesame Street --
Passerby: Get that microphone out of my face!
[Second passerby pushes Kermit down.]
Kermit: Asshole. (gets back up) Excuse me, I'm a reporter with -- AIGH!
[The third person picks Kermit up and throws him into a bunch of garbage cans.]
Kermit: I knew I should have stayed on The Muppet Show. At least I got some movie gigs there.
Oscar the Grouch: (pops from can) All right, all right, what's all the commotion here? Hey! Aren't you that reporter person?
Kermit: Yes, I'm trying to do a spot piece on the recent rash of killings here on Sesame Street.
Oscar: Well isn't that funny! [He leans back and yells down into his garbage can.] Right, Slimey? Isn't that funny? [He leans over to Kermit and says, a little conspiratorially.] It just so happens I know who's been doing them.
Kermit: You do?
Oscar: Of course I do. It's long overdue. You've all put me down for so long, making me live in this smelly old trash can and making fun of my junk collection. But now, well, Oscar has some powerful friends who are going to put things right!
[As he talks, a long striped worm slips from the can and slithers around Oscar's neck. As it does so, Oscar unconsciously pets it. The entire scene is very unsettling. Slimy thpps out a forked tongue as Kermit watches, engrossed.]
Kermit [finally]: Um, Oscar, I thought you wanted to live in that can.
Oscar: Oh, you're a regular comedian, aren't you? Everyone's got to be a comedian. Well, my master is going to put it all to rights. And he's already taught me so much. So laugh about THAT, frogface!
Kermit: Taught you? What has your master taught you, Oscar?
Oscar: It's all in the blood, Kermit, everything. How do people live? By eating things that were once alive. They consume the life of smaller creatures, and it stretches out their lifespans.
Kermit: Um, that's very interesting, Oscar ...
Oscar: But think what would happen if they ate LIVE things, Kermit. The life force would be that much stronger. What things do you eat?
Kermit: Me? Um, flies mostly, I guess.
Oscar: And they're alive, aren't they? And how old are you? And how much have you aged? You still look the same age as when we first went on the air. Maria and Bob both look older. Mr. Hooper died. But because you eat living things, you've barely aged at all!
Kermit: Um ... I thought it was because I was made of felt and came with a dozen spares.
Oscar: Now suppose you drank the blood of something larger than yourself, Kermit. You'd swallow its life force and live that much longer, wouldn't you? Now, suppose you drank the blood of something like... Mister Snufflufagus?
Kermit: (shocked) O-Oscar, did you -- ?
Oscar (rolls his eyes): Of course not! Don't be an idiot. The MASTER did that. And then Snufflufagus took Big Bird. And then the master took Elmo, whose life was so strong and ticklishly vibrant. And then he took Bert too.
Kermit: You--You're mad, Oscar! Mad!
Oscar: (begins to laugh) Is that what you think? Did you hear that, Slimy? The frog thinks I'm mad! Heh heh heh! Well, Kermit, the master will set you straight! You'll learn! You'll ALL learn!
Slimy: [Thhhp]
[As Oscar's laughter crescendos, Kermit runs away in terror.]
------------------------------------------------------
Scene 10
[Stephen King, Cookie Monster, Kermit the Frog and Grover are all assembled.]
Kermit: ... and that's what he said has been going on.
Grover: That's horrible! Who could do such a thing?
Cookie Monster: Uh-oh. Me have idea.
King: Are you thinking of whom I'm thinking of, Cookie Monster?
Cookie Monster: Me not know what you thinking of.
King: (slowly) Oscar described the basic practices of a vampire. Do you know any vampires on Sesame Street?
Cookie Monster: Me thinking same thing Mr. King was thinking.
[There is a long pause.]
Grover: No! That is silly. The Count just likes to count things. He does not do these things.
Kermit: He's always been so friendly, Mr. King.
King: He might be friendly, Kermit, but he's a vampire. And it's a vampire's nature to drink blood.
Kermit (finally): So what if it's true, then? What can we do about it?
Cookie Monster: Me not know. How you stop vampires, Mr. King?
King: There are a few ways. Direct sunlight is always best, since that burns their bodies to dust.
Grover: But it's getting dark already! How can we get them out into the sunlight?
King: There's also another possibility, Grover. You can put stakes through their hearts.
[The three Muppets recoil at the thought.]
Cookie Monster: Me not like steak, Mr. King. Me like cookies.
King: Not a steak you eat, Cookie Monster. A wooden stake -- like this one. (Produces a stake) If you pound it through the vampire's heart, it should kill him instantly.
Kermit (eyes King, then the stake, then King again): Um... Will you come with us, Mr. King?
King (shrugs): I can give you a lift to the Count's castle, Kermit, but that's it. My wife wants me back in time for dinner, and vampires are scary.
Cookie Monster: Oh! Me like dinner. Especially if dinner is cookies.
------------------------------------------------------
Scene 11
Animation: Stephen King, Cookie Monster, Kermit and Grover are all in a car. While the animation plays, the car moves forward through woods haunted by ghosts and werewolves, and we hear a song. Tune is "We Three Kings."
Stephen King and we three are
Driving through dark forest afar
To a castle near Newcastle
Where await certain scares.
Oh-oh! Evil incarnate, fiend most foul!
Form of mist or wolf on prowl.
Ever-hunting, bringing many
To a fate much worse than death.
There a vampire fattened on gloom
Waits to seal our final doom
Cross and garlic, stake and mallet,
We take with us to the tomb.
Oh-oh! Evil incarnate, fiend most foul!
Form of mist or wolf on prowl.
Ever-hunting, bringing many
To a fate much worse than death.
Meet him there we fear we must do
Fight to the death in night's dark dew
Till the sunrise in the east fries
Him and his evil brood.
------------------------------------------------------
Scene 12
[Kermit, Grover and Cookie Monster stand in the massive foyer of a large hall. They are huddled close together, each facing a different direction and holding out their crucifixes.]
Grover: Hel-lo! Is anybody home?
Kermit (eyes bulging): Are you crazy, Grover? Do you want him to know we're here?
Count: (v/o, very loud) One! Ahaha! Two! Ahaha! Three! Three lovely victims!
Cookie Monster: Count! Me abjure you by all things holy, come out so me can see you!
[Fog begins to fill the room, thick, enveloping fog that looks like it could choke a horse. Near an old grandfather clock appears a large avian shape.]
Grover: Big Bird?
Big Bird: Come here, Grover, and we can play together.
Kermit: No, Grover, don't! It's a trick!
Big Bird: A trick? [Big Bird sounds sad.] Would I ever lie to you, Grover?
Grover (shaky): No, Big Bird never lied to friends.
Big Bird: And I am your friend, Grover. Come closer, and we can be together forever.
Kermit: Grover, don't believe it. Big Bird is dead.
[There is a low mooing sound.]
Lulu the Cow: Cookie Monster, come eat my cookies. I have them for you-oo-oo, they're all chocolate chip. I know you-oo-oo love chocolate chip cookies.
Cookie Monster: (eyes going crazy) No, me love chocolate chip cookies, but you no love me. You want to suck Cookie Monster's blood!
Miss Piggy: (appears from mist) Hello, Kermie.
Kermit: No! You're not Miss Piggy!
Big Bird: Come play with me!
Lulu: They're fresh from the oven!
Miss Piggy: Our children are waiting for you, Kermit. Come join us!
[There is a long pause as the trio tries to resist, but they cannot. Each one breaks rank, running to join his vampire seducer.]
Grover: Oh boy! What shall we play first, Big Bird?
Cookie Monster: Me love cookies! Me eat this one first!
Kermit: Oh Piggy!
[Suddenly there are three blood-curling shrieks, and Big Bird, Lulu and Miss Piggy all fall to the ground, screaming the agonies of the damned.]
Grover: What is the matter, Big Bird?
Kermit (with sudden brilliance): The crosses--they can't bear the crosses!
Cookie Monster: Oh boy! Chocolate CHOCOLATE chip! That is Cookie Monster's favorite!
[Kermit draws out his mallet and a wooden stake, which he positions over Miss Piggy's heart.]
Kermit: Forgive me, Miss Piggy. To death -- in peace.
[He slams the mallet down hard on the stake, ramming it through Miss Piggy's heart. A trickle of blood slips from the corner of her mouth.]
Miss Piggy: (sweetly) Oh, Kermie ...
Kermit: (choked up) In peace forevermore.
[Realizing the truth, a sobbing Grover finishes off Big Bird with his stake.]
Cookie Monster: Oh boy! Oreo cookies! These also are Cookie Monster's favorite.
[He puts the cross down on Lulu absently to get the cookies with both hands, and doesn't notice when she bursts into flames with a hellish moo of agony. Then there is silence, except for Cookie Monster's eating, and in that quiet we hear Kermit sobbing quietly to himself over the dust of Miss Piggy. Grover shuffles over and slings his arm across the frog's shoulder.]
[None of them notice a bat circling overhead.]
Grover: I am sorry, Kermit. It was all you could do. It was a mercy to them.
[Suddenly the bat stops near Cookie Monster and morphs into the Count. He grabs the preoccupied Muppet by the scruff and flings him across the room. Cookie Monster smashes into a wall and then slides down its length, trailing blue fur, peppered by cookie crumbs.]
Count: One! Ahaha!
[The count rips up a huge flagstone and flings it at Grover, smashing him flat beneath its weight, leaving only one blue furry hand visible.]
Count: Two! Ahaha!
[At the sight, Kermit drops his cross and falls to his knees, hands behind his back. He shakes violently. When he finally speaks, his voice is filled with terror.]
Kermit: No, Count, please. Please don't kill me.
Count (pondering, then...): No, my frog. You shall join me instead.
Kermit: Yes! Join you! Thank you!
[The Count comes close, preparing to bite Kermit's neck, when the frog suddenly brings up his arms. In one smooth motion, he slams the stake onto the Count's chest, then drives it into his heart with one hard blow.]
Kermit: I'll join you in hell!
[Both stare at each other for a long moment, the Count with a puzzled look on his face, as if he does not understand what has happened. Then the confusion resolves into resigned sadness.]
Count (hoarsely): One. [cough] One dead vampire.
[With a final sniffle, the Count bursts into white flames. In seconds, he is burnt to ash, which scatters across the floor of the room. Kermit falls to the floor, shaking. A group of various Muppets, led by Snufflufagus, arrive on the scene and perform Michael Jackson's "Thriller."]
[As the song finally ends, the screen fades to black.]
------------------------------------------------------
Scene 13
[We now cut to Kermit, who is waking up in a hospital bed while Bob and Maria wait by his side. Bob is wearing a festive green- and red-striped sweater.]
Kermit: What? Is it really you? Was it all a dream?
Maria: Oh thank goodness you're awake, Kermit. We were worried, you were so sick.
Kermit: I had the scariest dream, Maria. I thought the Count had turned everyone on Sesame Street into vampires.
[Bob and Maria turn to look at each other, smiling.]
Maria: Oh, don't be silly, Kermit. Why would he do that?
[As she speaks, the full moon peaks through the window. When the light hits Maria, she contorts as if in agony. She sprouts fur and begins howling like a wolf as Kermit shrinks back in his bed. With one final eerie cry, she crashes through the window, disappearing into the night.]
Bob (shaking his head and sighing): This place is going to the dogs.
[Although still distinctly Bob's, the voice now sounds like churning gravel. Kermit cowers in terror. When Bob turns back to face the frog, his face is now covered with hideous burn scars. And when he lifts his right hand and wiggles his fingers, the razor blades attached to his leather glove tinkle merrily in the moonlight.]
Bob [cruelly]: All right, froggie. About time for you to croak.
[Bob leans way over the bed, his sweater blocking the camera as Kermit begins to shriek. Only undulating green and red stripes can be seen as the background music begins to roll.]
Oscar's voice (v/o): Sesame Street is a production of the Children's Television Workshop. Today's show has been brought to you by the letters E, V,
I and L, and by the Number 13.
Come on, Slimy! We've got another crate to deliver!
Wednesday, March 19, 1997
Weekend Vampires: larping in Central Jersey
"Why have you come here?" Osrich asked me. He was the third one so far to ask me that.
"I've come for the gathering," I said as smoothly as I could. It had worked so far.
Osrich regarded me closely for a moment, and then said, "Do you realize what sort of gathering this is, David? You are in great danger by being here."
Well, so much for going undetected, I thought, and proceeded with my scheme: As an ambitious member of the press, I was willing to cut a deal. In exchange for exclusive information about the political scene in New Jersey, I would help Osrich and his fellow vampires to keep their activities secret.
The offer seemed to appeal to Osrich, who assured me we would work something out that night and extended me his protection. The next vampire to notice I was a mortal was not so inclined to care for me, my offers or my well-being. (Nor, as I would shortly find, was Osrich.)
"Are you breathing?" were Dr. Roberts' exact words.
Before I knew what had happened, this local author and TV personality was talking to one person after another, and pointing at me in a decidedly unfriendly way.
By the end of the night, I was running for my life. No one ever saw me again.
At least, not as that character.
I wasn't taking part in a murder mystery dinner where I was the main course. Nor was I taking part in an innovative theatrical performance where audience and actors alike are swept up into a prewritten plot. Although each comes close, the truth is I was taking part in a live-action role-playing game, commonly know as a larp. This particular larp was put on by Cranford-based Nightmare Productions and was based on gaming company White Wolfs role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade.
The essential premise to the game is that vampires exist and live among us, disguised as ordinary human beings. (The night person you know and that woman who works third shin might actually be vampires.) And, unlike the vampires of movies, real vampires cast shadows and reflections, can cross moving water and can't be affected by holy objects unless they believe they can. (Tbe popular Hollywood image of vampires is one they themselves have perpetuated to make us disbelieve their existence.)
"[A larp is] perhaps the next evolution in role-playing," said Ken Cliffe, vice president of games, editing and developing for White Wolf. "If you're a traditional tabletop role-player and you feel you can't portray your character to the fullest, this allows you to go the extra step."
Daniel Ravipinto, a college student from Berkeley Heights, first became involved in larps in 1995 when he was reading a newsgroup on the Internet about Vampire: The Masquerade. After corresponding with a member of a New York City larp, Ravipinto agreed to give it a try.
Ravipinto says the furl began when his friend, whom he had never met in person before, stepped out of her car, greeted him by his character's name and began talking like they were old friends -which, of course, their characters were.
"At that moment, I realized I had stepped over into something I had never been a part of," he said. "We just slipped into the characters. There was a moment there when reality and fantasy blurred. You're given a character and a motivation, but beyond that, everything is left up to the individual."
Larp players get a variety of reactions to their hobby, ranging from interest and surprise to sometimes even concern.
"The reactions when I mention this to people or when it comes up in conversation [are] pretty interesting: 'I never thought you would do this.' It shows how odd people think this is," said Ravipinto.
And when nonplayers come upon the action, locale makes a big difference in shaping their reactions to the event, In New York, no one paid much attention to the pale-skinned, sharp-toothed players.
"In Colorado, they stare at you and they keep staring," said Ravipinto, who played there last summer.
Since his initiation into larps in 1995, Ravipinto has been to about 10 different gaming sessions in New York and Colorado, and expects to play again when his schedule allows him.
"It's definitely the fun of being what you're not," he said. "It's Halloween for adults."
Ravipinto also connected larps with the ancient customs of storytelling. In older times, a clan would sit and listen to a bard sing epics about their heroes and gods, . In our own society, parents still read children bedtime stories, but there is little family-centeredness surrounding reading or telling stories.
'Role-playing may be a way to recapture that. Whether it's a play or interactive fiction, it's storytelling on an interactive level," he said.
"There's a social aspect to it, certainly," he added. "It's sort of almost an excuse to get together and interact with other people, especially in a society like today where we're supposedly connecting with other people but we're really distant from one another."
While vampire larps are easily the most common, they are far from the only kind of larp played. An organization called NERO sponsors medieval larps, and a Montclair organization called Lyonesse Games holds larps based on White Wolf's role-playing game centered around changelings, the children of faeries.
"We tried it as an experiment, because it's not the most popular White Wolf game," said storyteller Eric Logan. "We thought we could offer people an alternative, something more fun. We decided that we wanted to run a chronicle where all the characters were playing childlings. That's what some people game for anyway ... It's a big game of' Let's pretend' with rules."
In Lyonesse Games' larp, the characters realize they are faeries when they undergo a "chrysalis." As the game progresses, the individual changelings remember more of who they were through occasional glimpses into Arcadia, where they came from. At this point in the larp's chronology, each game is assumed to take place a year after the previous one; once the characters become teenagers, however, game time will resemble real time more closely.
"The whole idea of the larp is so players can feel time slipping away on them," said Logan. "Childhood goes so quick, but then you're a teenager forever ...The whole idea of the chronicle will be eventually for the character [to] grow old and die."
Lyonesse runs the only changeling larp in New Jersey, and one of only two on the East Coast While that exclusivity does grant it some measure of success, the larp has run into some setbacks lately. Two of its most recent larps happened to fall on the same date as vampire larps, forcing the organization to find a new place to play. Although a player has offered the use of his house for the larp, Lyonesse now faces losing one of its members to the Peace Corps.
"It's always been our biggest rule this game will never interfere with our real lives," said Logan. "We feel our lives are much more important than any game. It's a hobby."
Despite these setbacks, Logan is confident the larp will take off because of what he perceives as a need for more creative entertainment than most people can find.
"For the price of dinner and a movie, where you go out and are passively entertained, you can go to a larp," he said. "We believe that larping stimulates your mind; you get a chance to roleplay."
Besides Nightmare Productions, Central Jersey is also host to Capitol Chronicles, a vampire larp set in Washington, D.C., complete with vampires portraying political figures.
"What better place for intrigue and subterfuge than the nation's capital?" asked Nick Stember, whose wife, Maritza, is the larp's founder. Although Capitol Chronicles has only met four times, its larp Saturday attracted 85 players, a success Maritza Stember attributes to the larp's three-tiered approach to role-playing. Events might have a citywide story, such as an invasion of garou (werewolves); a clan-oriented story, in which the clan as a whole has an objective to achieve; and the individual level, shaped by individual players.
Capitol Chronicles also encourages players to keep their characters' humanity rather than playing them as soulless blood-sucking monsters. Players have taken to this approach with gusto. At Saturday's event, two of the vampires were married, and a third, a jealous suitor, tried to disrupt the process.
"That was not a plot that we created. That was not a plot we had any control over. It was a player-driven plot, " said Maritza.
"I'd say that's another thing that makes us a little different from the rest of the larps," she said. "We permit our vampires to experience those emotions."
At my second larp, I played a Malkavian, a vampire suffering from a form of insanity. In my character's case, it was multiple personalities. At times, I was bullying and full of myself At others, I was paranoid, fearful of a vast worldwide conspiracy by "The Six-Fingered Hand" to destroy me. When neither of those was dominant, I was a 4-year-old boy looking for his mommy and throwing a temper tantrum when he couldn't get his way.
I was insane. I was Rhadamanthus, Binkley and Tommy. I was having a thrill.
"We believe there's a big future in larping," said Logan.
Count on it.
"I've come for the gathering," I said as smoothly as I could. It had worked so far.
Osrich regarded me closely for a moment, and then said, "Do you realize what sort of gathering this is, David? You are in great danger by being here."
Well, so much for going undetected, I thought, and proceeded with my scheme: As an ambitious member of the press, I was willing to cut a deal. In exchange for exclusive information about the political scene in New Jersey, I would help Osrich and his fellow vampires to keep their activities secret.
The offer seemed to appeal to Osrich, who assured me we would work something out that night and extended me his protection. The next vampire to notice I was a mortal was not so inclined to care for me, my offers or my well-being. (Nor, as I would shortly find, was Osrich.)
"Are you breathing?" were Dr. Roberts' exact words.
Before I knew what had happened, this local author and TV personality was talking to one person after another, and pointing at me in a decidedly unfriendly way.
By the end of the night, I was running for my life. No one ever saw me again.
At least, not as that character.
I wasn't taking part in a murder mystery dinner where I was the main course. Nor was I taking part in an innovative theatrical performance where audience and actors alike are swept up into a prewritten plot. Although each comes close, the truth is I was taking part in a live-action role-playing game, commonly know as a larp. This particular larp was put on by Cranford-based Nightmare Productions and was based on gaming company White Wolfs role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade.
The essential premise to the game is that vampires exist and live among us, disguised as ordinary human beings. (The night person you know and that woman who works third shin might actually be vampires.) And, unlike the vampires of movies, real vampires cast shadows and reflections, can cross moving water and can't be affected by holy objects unless they believe they can. (Tbe popular Hollywood image of vampires is one they themselves have perpetuated to make us disbelieve their existence.)
"[A larp is] perhaps the next evolution in role-playing," said Ken Cliffe, vice president of games, editing and developing for White Wolf. "If you're a traditional tabletop role-player and you feel you can't portray your character to the fullest, this allows you to go the extra step."
Daniel Ravipinto, a college student from Berkeley Heights, first became involved in larps in 1995 when he was reading a newsgroup on the Internet about Vampire: The Masquerade. After corresponding with a member of a New York City larp, Ravipinto agreed to give it a try.
Ravipinto says the furl began when his friend, whom he had never met in person before, stepped out of her car, greeted him by his character's name and began talking like they were old friends -which, of course, their characters were.
"At that moment, I realized I had stepped over into something I had never been a part of," he said. "We just slipped into the characters. There was a moment there when reality and fantasy blurred. You're given a character and a motivation, but beyond that, everything is left up to the individual."
Larp players get a variety of reactions to their hobby, ranging from interest and surprise to sometimes even concern.
"The reactions when I mention this to people or when it comes up in conversation [are] pretty interesting: 'I never thought you would do this.' It shows how odd people think this is," said Ravipinto.
And when nonplayers come upon the action, locale makes a big difference in shaping their reactions to the event, In New York, no one paid much attention to the pale-skinned, sharp-toothed players.
"In Colorado, they stare at you and they keep staring," said Ravipinto, who played there last summer.
Since his initiation into larps in 1995, Ravipinto has been to about 10 different gaming sessions in New York and Colorado, and expects to play again when his schedule allows him.
"It's definitely the fun of being what you're not," he said. "It's Halloween for adults."
Ravipinto also connected larps with the ancient customs of storytelling. In older times, a clan would sit and listen to a bard sing epics about their heroes and gods, . In our own society, parents still read children bedtime stories, but there is little family-centeredness surrounding reading or telling stories.
'Role-playing may be a way to recapture that. Whether it's a play or interactive fiction, it's storytelling on an interactive level," he said.
"There's a social aspect to it, certainly," he added. "It's sort of almost an excuse to get together and interact with other people, especially in a society like today where we're supposedly connecting with other people but we're really distant from one another."
While vampire larps are easily the most common, they are far from the only kind of larp played. An organization called NERO sponsors medieval larps, and a Montclair organization called Lyonesse Games holds larps based on White Wolf's role-playing game centered around changelings, the children of faeries.
"We tried it as an experiment, because it's not the most popular White Wolf game," said storyteller Eric Logan. "We thought we could offer people an alternative, something more fun. We decided that we wanted to run a chronicle where all the characters were playing childlings. That's what some people game for anyway ... It's a big game of' Let's pretend' with rules."
In Lyonesse Games' larp, the characters realize they are faeries when they undergo a "chrysalis." As the game progresses, the individual changelings remember more of who they were through occasional glimpses into Arcadia, where they came from. At this point in the larp's chronology, each game is assumed to take place a year after the previous one; once the characters become teenagers, however, game time will resemble real time more closely.
"The whole idea of the larp is so players can feel time slipping away on them," said Logan. "Childhood goes so quick, but then you're a teenager forever ...The whole idea of the chronicle will be eventually for the character [to] grow old and die."
Lyonesse runs the only changeling larp in New Jersey, and one of only two on the East Coast While that exclusivity does grant it some measure of success, the larp has run into some setbacks lately. Two of its most recent larps happened to fall on the same date as vampire larps, forcing the organization to find a new place to play. Although a player has offered the use of his house for the larp, Lyonesse now faces losing one of its members to the Peace Corps.
"It's always been our biggest rule this game will never interfere with our real lives," said Logan. "We feel our lives are much more important than any game. It's a hobby."
Despite these setbacks, Logan is confident the larp will take off because of what he perceives as a need for more creative entertainment than most people can find.
"For the price of dinner and a movie, where you go out and are passively entertained, you can go to a larp," he said. "We believe that larping stimulates your mind; you get a chance to roleplay."
Besides Nightmare Productions, Central Jersey is also host to Capitol Chronicles, a vampire larp set in Washington, D.C., complete with vampires portraying political figures.
"What better place for intrigue and subterfuge than the nation's capital?" asked Nick Stember, whose wife, Maritza, is the larp's founder. Although Capitol Chronicles has only met four times, its larp Saturday attracted 85 players, a success Maritza Stember attributes to the larp's three-tiered approach to role-playing. Events might have a citywide story, such as an invasion of garou (werewolves); a clan-oriented story, in which the clan as a whole has an objective to achieve; and the individual level, shaped by individual players.
Capitol Chronicles also encourages players to keep their characters' humanity rather than playing them as soulless blood-sucking monsters. Players have taken to this approach with gusto. At Saturday's event, two of the vampires were married, and a third, a jealous suitor, tried to disrupt the process.
"That was not a plot that we created. That was not a plot we had any control over. It was a player-driven plot, " said Maritza.
"I'd say that's another thing that makes us a little different from the rest of the larps," she said. "We permit our vampires to experience those emotions."
At my second larp, I played a Malkavian, a vampire suffering from a form of insanity. In my character's case, it was multiple personalities. At times, I was bullying and full of myself At others, I was paranoid, fearful of a vast worldwide conspiracy by "The Six-Fingered Hand" to destroy me. When neither of those was dominant, I was a 4-year-old boy looking for his mommy and throwing a temper tantrum when he couldn't get his way.
I was insane. I was Rhadamanthus, Binkley and Tommy. I was having a thrill.
"We believe there's a big future in larping," said Logan.
Count on it.
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