Fools Rush In......

I love a good April Fool's joke. The best are just close enough to being real that their creation takes smarts, nuance and imagination.


But this year, Reality Bites. Why create hoaxes, when sometimes all we have to do is look around us and disbelieve what we see. Here's a randomly assembled Top 5 of things that are real:


# 5 -- Prince is a Jehovah's Witness.

I don't know when or where he's pulled door-to-door duty, but I really hope one day I walk out on the porch to find him handing out purple, lace-fringed Watchtower pamphlets. I'd tell him I've always loved his music, but that he shouldn't give Wendy and Lisa--or any gay folks--a hard time; why doesn't his God love all members of the Revolution?

#4 -- Dakkochan Dolls

In the summer of 1960, it was all the rage among schoolgirls and young women in Japan to clamp a caricatured black baby to their arms as they went about their everyday activities. Just weird. Apparently the manufacturer finally caved to criticism and created the must-have (blatantly racist) accessory in other colors with less outrageous features. Pretty sure they all winked, though.

#3 -- Dick Van Dyke pops the question to granddaughter-aged make-up artist.

 All-around perfect gentleman Bert from "Mary Poppins" must have had more than the luck of a chimney sweep to span the 46 years between him and new wife Arlene Silver, who applied his makeup for the SAG Awards some years back, and then applied for a marriage license in February. But Hey! As long as they're happy.

#2 -- The Mantis Orchid

This insect is so gorgeous and, let's face it, hot, it can climb into a flower and basically pretend to be its sex organ. When an aroused butterfly flutters in, to lap up some of the good stuff, WHAMMO! Naked lunch. No wonder the French call it

 la petite mort

And #1!     (and I'm still not convinced this isn't an expertly pulled-off hoax)  

THE PYGMY HIPPO!

What's cuter than miniature Hippopotamidaes munching on your azaleas? Check out the FAQs at the Smithsonian. My favorite question tops the list:

1. Are pygmy hippos friendly?

Hope everyone's having a fun-filled Sunday. Thanks for reading. And remember, just because your bike may be named for an insect featured in this post, it doesn't mean you shouldn't be careful where you flutter.

The ides of March, Venus and Jupiter in convergence, and my colonoscopy

In a feat of unbridled rhetoric, Blaiser will now attempt to juggle all three titular ideas of this post, without dropping anything, for the next few minutes.

Et tu, brother? Ever been stabbed in the back before? Me, too, but fortunately not with an actual dagger, only with the blunted intentions of confused, scared people who have forgotten--or perhaps never learned--how to promulgate kindness.

I have, however, been recently "stabbed" with an exploratory scope, recently, and highly recommend it: You put on a gown, someone shoves a tube into your arm, and then you take a nice nap while somebody else (also in a gown, so you know, you're equals, except that he doesn't have a tube shoved up anything) takes a close look where the sun don't shine. In my case, I woke up to the good news that all was clear on the nether front, and went home with some nice photos of my bungy. Kinda like going to Disney for the afternoon, and about as expensive... (with my [pardon the analogy] crap-ass insurance, I'm figuring it'll cost about $1500, or the amount of money that the Goldman Sachs chief makes every 21.74 minutes, all day, every day)

People who make great gobs of money from such procedures tell us that a huge amount of deaths from colo-rectal cancer would be prevented if more screenings were done in middle age. So, if you take the cynical 15-20% off the top, that's still a lot of preventable deaths. Ergo, Blaiser recommends paying someone to go have a look if you're over 50, and pretty much NOW if you have any history of colon cancer in your family, and you were old enough to stay up and watch Hill Street Blues. 

Please note that this is neither a confirmation, nor a denial, of any proximity "Blaiser" might share with "middle age."

For a good sense of perspective on age, take a look outside tonight at the rare convergence of Venus and Jupiter.

There's some pretty cool stuff up there, and if you're like me (which you are--we are all cousins on this planet), it's often both comforting and terrifying to remember that we really have no freaking idea about a lot of this stuff. Although it can be fun to theorize. We are here for a shutter's-snap length of time, and then, as Vonnegut would say, our "peephole," is closed. Sometimes by a bunch of knife-wielding Senators. And other times more metaphorically by a bunch of Bible-wielding Senators...

Ray Charles' peephole only opened on the inside, but more way poured out of it than our regular beer. When he hit the road, Jack, it was a good bit harder to get around than your daily commute. So chill. And listen to something wonderful* while you read the rest of the post.

When Roy Scheider made his commute to Jupiter in The Year We Make Contact, he took a nice nap too, although he did not, I think, wake up to some nice photos of his bungy.

But he did A) talk about baseball with John Lithgow and Bob Balaban; 2) flirt with Helen Mirren; and Gamma) interact with a partially human, partially alien intelligence that used to be Keir Dullea, who told him to get the hell out of Dodge before "Something Wonderful" happened, namely Jupiter getting gobbled up by monoliths and igniting into a small star, and PS stay the hell away from Europa, you human pig-dogs. Now THAT was a hell of a day.

Thanks for reading, and please try to bear in mind that even though Rick Santorum favors the sweater vest, it doesn't mean his warmth is capable of making it past the orbit of his immediate family, and therefore means his chances of igniting into a small star are much smaller than yours. Vote accordingly. And for god's sake, Stay the Hell Away from Europa!!!

* If someone who neither confirms nor denies middle age can use the word "phresh" in a sentence and you can still keep a straight face, then check out these guys. I did!

Leap Years As They Compare To The Music Of Phil Collins

HI! And welcome to February 29, otherwise known as that-which-only-happens-once-every-four-years, OR, When-Blaiser-finally-gets-off-his-duff-and-posts-something-to-the-blog... 
In this case, a very good friend made a Facebook query as to the origins and/or implications of Phil Collins's seminal 1980s hit "Sussudio." Below is a meditation. Enjoy, for it comes but once every four years...

I think Mr. Collins is being coy. Rather than some throwaway nonsense, "Sussudio" actually makes tangible the ineffable angst one feels when one has, in fact, a girl on his (or her) mind, ALL the time. Such a feeling reaches its zenith of overwhelmance (thank you), usually when one is about 16--the most likely time in one's life where one believes both literally and figuratively that "she don't even know my name." 

Not many 80s #1 pop songs nail this existential crisis so concisely, for the solution to what appears to be never-ending misery can be found with ease and simplicity: "I feel so good if I just say the word..." Hence, the release of "Sussudio" in 1985 had its maximal effect on those of us born in 1969/1970, offering a smart, peppy balm for our self-hating, self-defeating romantic impulses. 

Other songs of the era fall flat. Animotion's "Obsession" (debuting on the charts a week before "Sussudio"), correctly identified ubiquitous hormonal malaise, but swiftly degenerated into a whiny complaint of sexual inadequacy and a lack of any actionable game plan: "Who do you want me to be / to make you sleep with me?" And chicks don't dig that.

Providing additional evidence that Mr. Collins was ahead of his time, by 1988 other pop songs had evolved so slowly that the best available strategy to resolve overpowering attraction was to attempt to curry favor with the objects of one's crush fantasies by luring them into one's personal method of transportation, as endorsed by a B. Ocean in his sinister suggestion, "Get Outta My Dreams and Into My Car." Leaving aside the legal implications of a possible felony offense, it was just downright creepy. It certainly never worked when I tried it… However, "if I just [said] the word, Su-Su-sudio," I invariably did feel better. Especially when posting bail.

If ignored, the problem continues into early adulthood: Even with time and maturity, if one finally found the confidence to plainly state a carnal proposition, as in "All I Want to Do is [have unprotected sex with] You," Anne and Nancy Wilson's Baby-Daddy power ballad of 1990, the effort was culturally misplaced. Given skyrocketing out-of wedlock pregnancies and the emerging HIV epidemic, such songs encouraged the moral equivalent of throwing a lit cigarette into a coffee can filled with gasoline. Or, at least rubber-banding an M-80 to the back of a Star Wars figure and filming the resulting explosion with a Super 8 movie camera… which chicks certainly dig.

In summation, although regularly denigrated (possibly by those for whose demographic was never truly aligned to absorb the self-empowerment soaked between its lines like teenage invisible ink), Mr. Collins' "Sussudio" is actually a buoyant rock to which one can reliably rig one's emotional sails--in a continuously nihilistic world--perhaps only outstripped by the paradoxical wisdom available in Jermaine Stewart's clever sexual koan of the following year: "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off," of which I will be pleased to offer analysis on the next February 29th, 2016, some 8 months before Bobby Jindal loses in a landslide to Vice President Andy Cuomo.

Until then, I encourage you all to "Give me a chance give me a sign" and in return, "I'll show [you] anytime" ! 

Or, to just say The Word.


Thanks for reading. And please remember that even though No Jacket May Be Required, it's almost never a bad idea.

A Correction

Hi All --

Hey something's been bothering me since my last post, and I thought I'd get it out in the open. Every now and then, I write something not so optimistic, or not so understanding, and, well, that's not my blog's purpose, nor its inspiration, nor how we, as a people, ought to be treating--or writing about--each other.

It was the reference to dwarfs--how the car in front of mine happened to be driven by a person of short stature--I said that I found it upsetting. It was a rather obscure reference, also, to a Stephen Sondheim lyric from "Into The Woods," during the two Princes' song "Agony" -- one of them sings an aside - "dwarves are very upsetting." I included it in the blog because 1) it happened, but 2) also as a bit of cheap humor. -- as in, ha-ha--there's a dwarf in a Mazda 3. But that's not funny, really. Just uncommon.

When we get uncomfortable around people who are different from us in some way -- race, sexual orientation, physical or mental handicaps, it is ostensibly because we are unsure of ourselves--out own capacities, our own bodies, our own strengths and weaknesses: We worry that we might be seeing the worst in ourselves if we are near something, or someone, that we do not perceive to be "right."  (Hey, there's something wrong with that guy!) and we edge away, or pretend we do not see someone. It's not nice. They deserve better, and we owe it to ourselves to fight against that urge.

I did a little research today. There appear to be well over 200 syndromes and conditions that contribute to or result in dwarfism. Some present no adverse affects as the afflicted child grows up. Others, however, can result in a lot of complications and hardships during childhood, including many surgeries and hospital time.

In other words, the woman who arrived on crutches on W. 56 street the other day to get into her (illegally parked) Mazda 3, may have had some pretty severe hardships to face, through no fault of her own. Everyone has a backstory, and hers is just as valid as someone's who's six feet tall (or five-eleven and three-quarters, who tells everyone he's 6 feet). Here's one I found you might want to read.

I also found out on the Little People of America site that some misguided legislative brother in Florida is trying to repeal a ban on dwarf tossing apparently--a head-scratcher of a priority, given the thousand or so pressing issues our congressional leaders ought to be turning their attentions to.

And I found out there's some reality show called Little People, Big World, on TLC (no cable since 1997, you see.)

So there you have it -- All people have the same right to park illegally in New York (just don't take a handicap spot if you're able-bodied. That's particularly not nice. I've always felt that way), and to enjoy a modicum of dignity as they go about their day.

 Thanks for reading, and please remember to expect the unexpected -- and in fact, be OK with it. You may not hit the lottery, but your life will be all the richer for it.

Blaiser's Live-Blogging Event Of The Season!!

5:15 AND WE'RE LIVE!!!! 

Phew - things were getting desperate there for a sec -- thought I might have to mug someone for their wireless access (you can do that, right? body check a Hipster for his iProduct, and while he's groping on the sidewalk for the flip-flops you just knocked off of him--like a blind guy searching for a dropped blind-guy poking-stick-antenna-thingy--and "hack" some serious "bandwidth?" I mean what's the guy gonna do, chase you? Not in those flip-flops, assuming he even retrieves them…. I don't know what, in fact, he can do while wearing flip-flops on a surface other than sand, except perhaps look ineffectual....

Fortunately, no violence was resorted to,* and here I sit, reclined in my driver's seat, coffee secured in coffee-cup-holder thingy, bravely scamming Internet access from some router nearby that calls itself by the Unusually Intriguing Name of "Delores Netgear." Well, Ms. Netgear, you really ought to be more careful about your hardware - you never know when some douchebag✝ is going to randomly drive by in a station wagon and muscle in all up in your digital business. Don't mess with me, I've laid claim to an illegal parking spot in New York. I'm a baaaaaad man (please read with Muhammad-Ali-like inflection)

And now, please pull up a "chair," and prepare to be enthralled as I live-blog the incredibly daring act of sitting in my station wagon on West 56th street for 45 minutes while I wait for my parking to become legal at 6 o'clock!!! It's GUARANTEED to be the meh-ta live-blog Event Of The Season: the ACTUAL experience of sitting in a station wagon in Midtown, ever vigilant for the appearance of the evilest arm of oppression known to man (outside of the Syrian government): The NYC Meter Maid….

5:20 -- Double Phew!™  

It took so long to write that opening post that I burned through 5 minutes. If I were a smart Meter Maid, I'd time a stealth assault on 56th street at, like, now. There are a whole bunch of cars sitting here, illegally, in broad daylight. The city'd clean up, and then the police wouldn't have had to confiscate the generators from Occupy Wall Street in order to power their flat-screens during long stake-outs.

5:25 -- 

Still recovering from the first update...

5:26 --  

I need to pee.

5:30 -- 

Finally taking a good look around. When I look in my side-view mirrors, I'll be able to see Meter Maids sneaking up from either side of the car. Hopefully, I'd catch her writing a ticket on the guy behind me:

a new, black Toyota, and I'd have time to A) engage the Stealth settings on my gunmetal grey Taurus, or execute the 9-point turn necessary to extract myself from this parking spot 

5:34  -- 

Wow, I think maybe 1/32 of an inch, although not touching, isn't exactly neighborly posturing to that Mazda 3. 

Although I will tell you I made it into this spot on the first try. I rule. Still, an adjustment may be necessary. One needs those options in life. A meh-ta-phorical Fordian rolling back of an inch, or so, speaks Volumes about who I am, what my Personal Code is, and why I don't wear flip-flops. Skye Masterson wouldn't be caught dead in them, and that's good enough for me.

5:34:30  -- 

Yeah, that's much better:

5:38 --

 I really need to pee...

5:38:43 -- 

I know what you're thinking: You're thinking, "Hey Blaiser… what if the Meter Maid catches up to you as you're making your 9-point escape? With rush-hour traffic, you'll be a dead duck, and while you're waiting for the light to turn on 8th Avenue, WHAMMO! You get nailed. She's not wearing flip-flops!" Well, calm down, Everyone -- I have a backup. If the light's red, I simply peel out and sprint through the adjacent underground parking lot--the entrance through which I can see the clear daylight of 57th Street. Here, let me "uplink' a digital facsimile of what I'm seeing so that you, the faithful Blaiserblogudilian can "see" what I mean. 

Only one possible downside -- when a grouse flushes near the house where I grew up, something similar happens, but occasionally with deadly results: the grouse peels out very much like an '03 Taurus, flies toward the house, looks through the front door window--through the kitchen--sees daylight (and subsequent woods through the kitchen window {just like I'm seeing the warm glow of 57th Street} and thinks he's home-free, just before smashing into the reinforced front-door window at about 40 knots, thereby breaking every bone in his body, and landing in a heap on the porch, like an appetizer dropped from the heavens.** Seriously, we ate a grouse who met that exact end on my dad's birthday once. Think there's no God? Think again.

5:43 --

OK, a dwarf (forgive the nomenclature -- is this acceptable? Small Person with Different Proportions?) just stumped up, on forearm crutches, and got into the Mazda 3. That was upsetting. The space was immediately taken up by a Porsche Boxster. Dude better not hit my '03 Taurus Wagon.

5:45 

They just switched the lights on the perimeter of a striking high-rise built over the Deco building of a particular publishing company where I used to work. 

5:46 --

Porsche Guy can't parallel park to save his life. He's having trouble in a two-seater with a space roughly the size of Weehawken. I suspect flip-flops.

5:50 

AND he's got a vanity plate. Awesome.

Vanity Plate intentionally blurred for Boxster Guy's Protection...
5:50:25 

Maybe I should pee on the Boxster.

5:52 

OK, if a dwarf gets out of the Boxster, I'm totally peeing on something, dammit.

5:53 

Two white, puffy lapdogs have snuck up, on leashes, on my passenger side. I can hear them, but can't determine what they're doing because they're too close for the side-view now. There's a gaggle of kids with them, and they're laughing (the kids, not the dogs.) I have a sinking feeling the dogs are peeing on my Taurus. Or hitching me to a tiny tow-truck.

5:55 

No Meter Maid sightings at all. How much money is the City losing by allowing all this lawless parking on West 56th Street? I may have to A) write a letter 2) stop driving in protest. That'll show 'em.

5:56 

Am I the only douchebag sitting in his car in case of unlikely Meter Maid Materialization? I'd get out to look, but then I'd get NAILED for sure. Less than five minutes now….. I need to be strong. My bladder needs to be especially strong.

5:57 

Well, there's the douchebag in the vanity-plated Boxster…

5:58 

A hansom cab passes slowly, the horse patiently clip-clopping down the Left Lane. He could pee any time he wants--not even stopping if he didn't want to. Strangely, he doesn't.

5:59 

Almost there……. almost theeeeeeerrrrre…… !

6:00 

Huzzah! My hands are sweating, but I have not 1) been ticketed by a Meter Maid or B) peed in or near my Taurus. At the stroke of 6, an elderly gent in business clothes got out of the Boxster and wandered down the South Side of the Street. Rich Guy. Total douchebag. I gotta find a bathroom. I'm betting, also, the Meter Maids were on a pee break. 

* Please feel free to nominate this for the 2011 Pro-Am Bloggers' Association Worst-Opening-Phrase Award.

✝ It's important to note that liberal use of the word "douchebag" does not, in fact, violate my blogistic raison-d'etre of so-called Zany Optimism™. It merely means I live in Jersey.

** In this meh-ta-phor, I'm not sure what the parking-garage equivalent of the front-door window is. Hopefully not a nun pushing a baby carriage on her way to volunteer at the soup kitchen.

6:01

Thanks for reading, and please remember: one should always make unexplained allusions to "stealth" settings on their beat-up Fords. It not only helps to expose the patent absurdity of the whole flip-flop miasma, but also reinforces the coolness of Spock Ears, which I'm totally wearing right now. 'Cause chicks dig that.

RIGHT!!

So --- Like I said about 20 minutes ago, HUGE!

So, without further ado, Here We Go:

I'm about to set the blogosphere on fire with the live-blogging Event Of The Season, and you, dear faithful Blaiserblogarians, are about to get in on the ground floor:

The first fifteen commenters on this post will get VIP all-access preferred seating to my live-blogging Event Of The Season, which happens TOMORROW, at 5:15 p.m. (weather permitting*)


Hang on to your shoe size, 'cause Here It Is, and No One Has Thought Of It Before!!! ™

For a brief, brief window of 45 minutes, I will live-blog the experience of sitting in my 2003 Ford Taurus station wagon, in an illegal New York City parking spot, while I wait for the ... WAIT FOR IT!..... 

parking space to become a legal parking space at 6 p.m!

Brilliant, right? I know, I know--- please hold your applause until the end of the blog post. 

That's it --- tomorrow, Friday the whateveritis of November, I, Blaiser, will live-blog the must-read event of the season. Be There. And tell Kim Kardashian to stop calling my cell phone.

Thanks for reading, and please remember that even though a bunch of people can get up in front of a bunch of other people and say things to each other, it doesn't mean you're watching a play......

* Weather-permitting = if I can find free Internet access from the parking spot. Hey -- if there's nothing at stake, no one's going to care, right?

HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

It gives me great personal pride to announce that I will make an announcement later this evening, at 8:15 p.m. local time., some 20 minutes from Right Now.

This announcement will be at once profound and provocative, astonishing and alliterative, courageous and courageous. Also, it'll be pretty cool.

Bring your friends and your neighbors, and See You Then.

As always, thanks for reading, and please keep in mind that even though you heard it first in The New Yorker's recent cartoon issue, it's in fact statistically possible that Newt Gingrinch is indeed a flock of Shetland Ponies.