If you're a regular Shiftless Chef reader, I thank you. Also, undoubtedly, you have noticed that my output had ground to an abrupt, unexplained halt. I'd like an explanation for it, too.
I suspect strongly that a certain organization whose name I won't state expressly sucked out most of the joy I'd gotten from writing, which began with a knock on my door. Sitting here thinking, I've decided that I'll just go ahead and call the organization "Worked Over in America" and state that it's funded largely by the AFL-CIO. I'll leave you to do the detective work if you're so inclined.
The young lady who knocked on my door stated that she works for Worked Over in America, that Worked Over in America receives much of its funding from the AFL-CIO, and proceeded to educate me on a labor-related issue that the organization is working on. I listened intently, and noted outrage in her voice, restrained but unmistakably there. "Aren't you outraged?" Yes, the knee-jerk liberal in me was, indeed, outraged. They think they can away with this?
After getting me to write a brief statement and sign my name to it, she asked whether I'd be willing to get involved. What could I do to make sure this never happens again? I told her that I write and that I'd be happy to do it for them. Welcome aboard, comrade.
Two days later, I got a call that originated from a local number that I didn't recognize. Sure enough, the call was from a representative from Worked Over and I won't be taking her calls anymore. She asked if I'd like to meet to discuss my writing ideas. We met at my apartment, and every idea I ran across her was a real hard-hitter in her estimation. I told her I could get started shortly after my wife and I returned from our vacation, which would be sometime in July, and a couple of days after that, she called again.
She asked about my vacation, which I told her about in perhaps more detail than necessary, and then asked me how the blog was coming. Because I was still getting used to returning to dry land, I asked her to remind me of the ideas we'd discussed. I could hear her turning the pages of her Franklin Planner back to late June.
Shortly thereafter, I began my first piece for the Worked Over blog. It was about being unemployed and the toll it's taken on me. I addressed it to President Obama, a real bravura piece of writing. She thought so too, if "Excellent piece!" means anything. She'd have to run it across Worked Over's "communication team" first, and a couple of days later, I get another call. When is a good time to meet up with her and the state director?
Two or three days later was good, and I greeted them at my door after they'd gotten lost on the way here. The state director was ecstatic about the piece, especially the end, and wanted to know what else was on my mind. I told him, and he was ecstatic about that, too. How would I like to speak about my experience as an educator that upcoming weekend? Other than getting out of bed before the afternoon, I was thrilled about the prospect. I started assembling my wardrobe for the occasion as soon as they left.
The state director picked me up, and asked if I minded whether he put the top down. I recalled the time that my brother and I tagged along when an uncle took my grandma out for a driving lesson in his convertible; otherwise, it didn't make much difference to me. The state director drives a Lexus, so I figured that Worked Over must have deep pockets. I directed him to the nearest Shipley's Donuts. He bought a dozen glazed donuts and two kolaches, one for me and one for him. The state director didn't waste any time unwrapping his kolache, and I followed suit.
We ate kolaches and he talked turkey on the way to a tenth floor office where Worked Over is headquartered. Not everyone had arrived by the agreed upon time of 10:30, but we went ahead and got started. The state director talked at some length about the labor-related issue that got me mixed up with Worked Over in the first place. I was at a meeting, of which the agenda was dedicated largely to the labor issue. My involvement in the meeting consisted of little more than saying a few words about what it was like to be a teacher, sheepishly reaching for donuts, and declining juice. Nobody made coffee. I was to attend another Worked Over event that upcoming Thursday, a rally that was held somewhere downtown.
Several days passed before I received another call from the Worked Over representative I met with the first time. She asked me what I thought about the meeting and wanted to make sure that I was still attending the rally. I asked her what the communication department had to say about my blog. I'd checked the website, and nothing I'd written had been posted. I reminded her that it had been two weeks since I submitted the piece to her, and that that seemed to be out of the ordinary.
I received an email from her a couple of days after the call. The communication department thought that my piece was too long, that the ending was ambiguous, and that citing statistics was unnecessary because I'm not an economist. The representative from the communications department was interested, however, in my involvement with Worked Over In America, and whether I'd like to discuss that. I haven't heard from her since, but I assume that she's already written the communication department. I also received an email from the organization itself in which I was asked to pledge a suggested $15. I didn't reply, so I'll leave them to whatever assumptions they might have concerning my future involvement.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Friday, August 30, 2013
Fun For All and All For Fun, or Life is One Long Week on The Carnival Magic. Part 6
Cozumel!
We descended upon Cozumel early, along with the rest of the ship. Cozumel was the shortest of the three excursions; we had to cram beach-going, eating, and shopping, among the more notable activities, into several hours. Being stranded in Conzumel was a more promising prospect than being stranded in Honduras, and decidedly more so than being stranded at sea aboard the Magic, a prospect that must have been in the back of every passenger's mind.
They know how to feed a guy in Conzumel, for one. The passengers were treated to a nice spread, gratis, at the resort, to which we were all bussed en masse. The food was expertly prepared, and gave stiff competition to the Magic's Mongolian Wok and burritos for the week's best lunch. All drinks were also on the house. My wife enjoyed a piña colada that she said was suitable for all ages. Evidently, Cozumel hadn't learned the practice of nickel and diming its visitors, one the Magic elevated to a high art.
Photo opportunities were rare for the duration of our trip. There wasn't much to take pictures of on the ship, and the best opportunity in Honduras was $15 nachos. I was starting to worry. Cozumel's shops put my fears to rest.
Throughout the trip, my wife and I had managed our money well. Our most extravagant expenses before reaching Cozumel were a carton of Kools, a couple of cups of good coffee, and the occasional tip to Magic staff members. One gentleman, upon receiving $5 for bringing us sandwiches early in the morning, called his children back home. We took leave of our senses in Cozumel.
If you walk around long enough in Cozumel, it's inevitable that you're going to trip on a sombrero. I did, and then I put it on my head. Everyone in my family with a camera began snapping pictures of me like they were Japanese tourists. My mom's picture was my Facebook profile picture for a week. She captioned the photo, "We brought this home with us," which was no mean feat. Sneaking back fruits, vegetables, and animals carries stiff enough penalties. I can't imagine what awaits a mother who brings back her son from Mexico in a sombrero.
The subject of most of my photos was the amusing signs in the shops of Cozumel. Some were amusing merely by dint of misspelling, while others were more ominous. One sign read, "We have surveillance cameras for security reasons." This sign appeared most prominently beneath the shelves of vanilla, and was sternly phrased enough to put any notions of my shoving a bottle of the stuff down my pants to rest, yet no less amusing than the other signs.
Back on the ship, due back in Galveston within a day and a half, my wife and I decided that the rest of the trip should be as relaxed and free of fuss as possible. The only things left to do were to get in the hot tub and smoke the nice Cuban cigar we picked up in Cozumel. My parents wanted to eat in the dining room again, but we declined because we'd learned by Day 3 that the food there was largely not worth getting dressed up for, with the exception of dessert. The fig, date, and cinnamon cake is one of the few things I'll dress up for.
Later that night, we settled in to check out Asian Led Zeppelin when I spotted the karaoke binder. As big as Lincoln's tombstone, surely there was something in it I had to perform. I was spoiled for choice. There was greater selection than there was at the buffet. I'd performed "Under My Wheels" by Alice Cooper in the shower to the point at which I'd practically perfected it.
Great tune that it, the Coop's was still too Brill Building for what I was cooking up. I needed a song that would make a more definitive statement. I'd been subject to the manifold forms the cruise director took (by then, in the flesh by the waterslides even), fat kids, bad food, nudity I didn't ask to see, and the nachos of Honduras for close to a week now. The cruise was almost over, and it was time for me to have some fun my way. To accomplish this, I'd need something more crude than Alice Cooper, and "Calling Dr. Love" is probably the crudest song in the catalog of the World's Crudest Band.
The DJ had to be dealt with, and my hat would feature prominently; aside from that, the performance details were vague, at best. I'd established my M. O. the moment I saw the binder: to do as much as I could get away with before I got kicked off the stage. The song's lyrics alone poised me for greatness.
I stopped just shy of summoning up my own blood. The DJ, hired at the behest of the cruise director, was not allowed a word in edgewise and was unnerved from the moment I stepped foot on that Magic karaoke stage. I gyrated every part of my body, including the seven pounds of pizza weight I'd put on since the beginning of the trip. I shoved the mic in peoples' faces and they all liked it, except the DJ, and I didn't like him, either. I utilized the mic stand for the solo portion of the song because it was part of the song. I extemporized many of the lyrics, mostly "yeah yeah yeahs" that weren't featured in the original. I swung the mic, which didn't get me kicked off so I should have done more of it. That didn't matter - by the time the song ended, I was the baddest motherfucker on the whole goddamned ship.
Some dude with a mullet informed me of my newfound status the next afternoon. He asked me if I was going to perform Dr. Love again that night, as conditioned, I got defensive. He extended the olive branch when he said that he appreciated how I'd incorporated my hat in the act. The tension left my shoulders, and I started planning my next performance. Nothing but my rendition of Beth as a drunk Peter Criss falling off a barstool would do.
I'm not sure how many people stopped me with cries of "Hey, Dr. Love!" before we debarked the next day, but I'm certain that one guy in a hat that said "Shit Just Got Real" rolled down his window to yell "Hey, Dr. Love!" at me on the freeway headed back home. I decided to leave them all wondering in favor of spending the night with my wife. We found some room in a hot tub above the fray of the Lido Deck, and let ourselves succumb to the effects of a fine cigar, all obligations on land and at sea vanishing in exhalations regarded by some as dispatches from on high.
Fun For All and All For Fun, or Life is One Long Week on The Carnival Magic. Part 5
Honduras! Belize!
Honduras?
As it turns out, Day 2, in few ways pleasant, proved instructive. I'd decided that I'd eat exclusively at the Pirate if that's what it took, and that I'd take Klonopin in the middle of the afternoon because the doctor, daffy, to be sure, yet perceptive, must have seen run-ins on the High Seas coming; heck, everyone else, even high school seniors, was tippling, so I would too. To steal a cliche about maintaining an even keel, the duration of the trip would be smooth sailing, more or less, yet still with notable exceptions. Day 3 came and went without recollection save playing putt putt golf, so my plan worked.
Actually, it occurs to me just now that one of the ship's defining events took place on Day 3; as such, I'd be remiss if I did not mention it (my plan worked that well.) The cruise director, who'd be damned if he was going to let Honduras upstage him, planned a dance party that took place on the Lido Deck. We were on the periphery of it, but why we were present at all escapes me; surely we were there for a reason other than the cruise director's dance party. I'm speculating that my wife and I had just gotten out of the hot tub, only to wind up at the Cruise Director's Dance Party of the Damned (Attendance Mandatory.)
Paris Hilton would have fled into the arms of her mother and father upon seeing this spectacle; me, I sat and smoked cigarettes, utterly transfixed by it. The tangle of bodies was such that it looked like one big undulating, tan mass, a frat mixer in which the punch was spiked with PCP and a moonlit voodoo rite that was Fun For All if there had been questioning about the affair later all rolled up. At one point, the cruise director offered cold, hard cash to the partier who showed off his or her most lasciviousness dance moves. That was when I met the acquaintance of a gentleman I'd encounter twice more before going back home. Seated at a barstool, he turned to me and said, "They're workin' it!" I agreed insofar that you had to call it something for brevity's sake. I'll say this: the prize winner's moves must have really been something, and that Paris Hilton had more moral rectitude than I did for fifteen minutes. What did I care? I was ripped on 'ludes.
Honduras?
On Day 4, we arrived at the first of our three destinations, Honduras. I confess to knowing little about Honduras before our trip, other than the most vague suspicions of political unrest, American citizens mysteriously disappearing, and blood sacrifice. "Honduras: Vacation Destination" would have been among the last I would have imagined. I did imagine myself heading a junta a la Woody Allen in Bananas, an idea that my wife looked upon with strong disfavor.
Having spent a few hours there, I can say that Honduras has a ways to go before it can be considered a bona fide tourist destination; however, I'll add that it's already a bona fide tourist trap where you'll pay fifteen American dollars for nachos with runny cheese and bits of meat (your choice of beef, chicken, or shrimp) you'll get sick of picking out. I can also say that the phrase "Don't worry - it's safe" means "Death is a strong probability" or "Your hat will be stolen" in Honduras, depending on the context. In Honduras' favor, I can say that beach-going there is a lot like beach-going in Galveston, only with a Third World clean-up crew picking up everyone's Bud Light cans, Doritos bags, cigarette butts, and spent lighters.
If one sprung for a Honduran snorkeling excursion, one began that excursion from a pier constructed to look weathered, and, by the looks of things, did so at his unsupervised peril. My mom paid for three, but we all declined due to time constraints (the cruise director wanted us back aboard the ship so we could watch him on TV), the excursion's being misrepresented, and by my desire not to drown. It turns out that no one in our party wanted to jump off a rusty looking pier.
The water in Honduras looked like we'd washed our dishes in it. I wanted to a get a closer look at the waters the dolphins and snorkelers shared, so I took a walk down to the pier. There, I saw a gentleman in a Tommy Bahama t-shirt. The shirt had a slogan that read "Life is One Long Weekend." Judging by his t-shirt, I guessed that the gentleman was a retiree or independently wealthy. He's an older gentleman who, nevertheless, looks to be in good health. Blessed with time, money to blow, and vigor, what was he doing in Honduras? Maybe he was living the life of the narrator of Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville, a man whose biggest problems are torn flip-flops, pop-tops, and hangovers of such ferocity that he has a hard time piecing together the events of the past evening. All of those problems are easily remedied for the narrator and the bon vivant in the Tommy Bahama t-shirt. Their hangovers are cured with margaritas, and their flip-flops can be replaced without too much hassle. The clean-up crew has seen to the pop-tops, so Tommy Bahama can continue his endless bender without the risk of tetanus.
Both gentlemen seem to have adopted the slogan "Life's a Beach," or some variant of it. Indeed, both lead the charmed life of the eternal beach bum, the life of enviable insouciance free from concern over the bills, the boss, the consequences of drinking too much, or applying sunscreen. If you're like me, you've wondered how they finance their devil-make-care lifestyle.
I also saw the elderly woman whose likeness is the spitting image of Maxine's, the greeting card character best known for her grouchy musings on aging. I'd seen her once before, in the ship's dining room. Someone had smashed one of those paper crowns on her head, and Maxine's face indicated that she didn't like that thing on her head one bit. In Honduras, however, she was really living it up. It turned out that my initial impression of her couldn't have been more wrong. One night before bed, my wife and I turned on the TV, and there was Maxine, older than the Tenth Commandment, shaking her rump right in everyone's faces, and why not? Hallmark must have compensated her quite handsomely, so handsomely that she could live on the ship in her own special suite.
Belize!
Everyone in our party had full run of the ship the day it anchored at Belize. We took a pass on that excursion because the destination was a forty-five minute boat ride away. The Lido Deck was deserted. It was the most glorious afternoon I spent on the ship.
I'd had my fill of questionable pork, and since all the chubby kids were off picking on foreigners (secretly, I'd prayed that they'd all be kidnapped and forced to clean beaches), I took my place in line at the Mongolian Wok. The Tell Us How To Make Your Burrito line was shorter than usual, too, so I enjoyed a lunch of stir-fried noodles and a burrito that afternoon.
We had the pools and waterslides to ourselves that afternoon, too. I figured that if I couldn't go snorkeling, I'd slide down the Twister, a waterslide whose name I should have paid more heed to. I slipped in and shot down the slide like Jerry Lewis in a tear gas chamber. I agreed that the experience was much more efficient and pleasant than embarking the ship.
I'd looked forward to the expedition to Belize most, and with everyone gone, I was having the time of my life. I ate like a heathen, and I enjoyed my afternoon nap without interruption from the hubbub on the Lido Deck or announcements from the cruise director. For a few hours, I enjoyed the vacation I wanted.
Fun For All and All For Fun, or Life is One Long Week on The Carnival Magic. Part 4
All For Fun!
Around lunchtime on Day 2, the Magic still hadn't reached its first destination. I hadn't had my first hamburger yet, but I had dined in the dining hall the night prior, which required me to squeeze into my suit. I ate prime rib. The au jus, a concoction that smothered everything from prime rib to pork chops, had been spiked with cheap wine and was thick enough to plug holes in the ship should it spring a leak.
My wife asked if I'd felt the boat rocking. I hadn't, probably because of the sheer number of sleep aids my daffy doctor prescribed. I know now that that's why I felt like I'd been been beaten with pillow cases full of soap. I was sore, and my mood was foul. If I'd exercised any sense, I would've put on the bathrobe provided by the ship, called room service, turned the TV on, and crawled back in bed. I can't really fault myself for that. By Day 2, most of rest of the ship had gone nuts. Thankfully, my wife kept her head, and ministered to mine for too much of the trip.
We were greeted with the unmistakable, relentless thud of party music, Rihanna indistinguishable from Katy Perry indistinguishable from Miley Cyrus indistinguishable from Robin Thicke. It felt like the cruise director was trying to beat the fun into me if that's what it took per his duty and vow. Without the slightest embellishment, I can say that the music on the Lido Deck was louder than any I've heard at any concert I've ever attended. I'm surprised that the older passengers afflicted with osteoporosis weren't pummeled into dust and swept up by a member of the Magic's put-upon cleaning crew. I saw one of the members of the crew on the Lido Deck every day. She looked to be of Eastern European origin, and unceasingly dour. Every day, she stood behind what looked to be a Swiffer-type contraption, pushing piles of food and other, unidentifiable detritus into oblivion for, if what I heard is correct, more-or-less the same salary as that of a Korean putting Air Jordans together. I wouldn't be smiling much either, and I don't want to hear another complaint from an old person about loud rock music ever again, either.
To take it all in was quite an effort. I needed a cup of coffee whether it tasted like fertilizer or not just so I could stand in line to get something to eat. The Mongolian Wok looked promising. The line stretched all the way back to the water slides, but I took my chances. I stood just behind a group of junior high kids off their ADD medication. Their parents weren't around because they abandoned their children in favor of cocktails served in hollowed-out coconut shells that looked like Mr. Potato Head filled with alcohol.
I didn't know what the junior high kids were doing, but it didn't look like they were in line for food. I asked their leader, a chubby seventh-grader with a haircut his dad gave him, what the hell they were up to, which sparked a tête-à-tête that I ended by leaving the line. Our needless confrontation (truly, I wasn't spoiling for a fight) sent my head spinning. I had flashbacks to my days as a high school English teacher. I was reminded anew that teaching is yet another vocation I'm not cut out for.
My dust-up with the brat in the Mongolian Wok line left me feeling especially vulnerable. It could have been that I wasn't yet cut out for a cruise, either. There were too many people vying for the same things at the same time, with the unremitting thud muscling in, too. I staggered to the hamburger line in utter defeat. It didn't surprise me that the hamburger, outfitted just the way I like it though it was, tasted like a school lunch. Day 2 would be one to reckon with.
Shortly after finishing lunch, we met up with my family near the Lido Deck's main pool. Everybody wanted to get a closer look at the action several stories up. I was almost completely unwound, but for the good of the whole, I dragged myself up several flights of stairs to check out the amusements we'd not yet seen, stamping and cursing most of the way.
I didn't give a damn about waterslides, putt-putt golf, or the giant bucket that, when filled, would tip over and douse all below with a brick of cold water. None of that constituted any fun for me. My nerves shot and several stories closer to the sun, nothing was fun. I couldn't conceive how any of it could be fun for anyone. How could long lines for food be fun? How was getting pummeled by cold water and bad music fun? Aching legs and muscles were no fun either, but by the looks of things, most of the passengers, of age or not, drank the pain away. I'd forbidden myself of that luxury.
The next thing I knew, we were back in our suite. The walls closing in around me, all I could do was crawl into bed, crumple myself up in a ball, and cry. Not only was I not having fun, I was also an ingrate. My parents paid good money for my wife and me to go on this cruise, and this is how I showed my gratitude. My wife needed this vacation desperately, and her husband was crumpled up in bed crying. Aside from my wife and my family, at that moment, I didn't care for anyone on that ship. They could have all the fun that was expected of them while I hid out in our room. My wife stroked my head as I told her I was sorry for being no fun, but that the expectation for me to have any was just too great. A guy could find a hoot and a holler anywhere on the Magic, regardless of whether he was looking for them. No mention of kindness was to be found in the travel literature.
A guy can't even buy a pair of pants on dry land anymore without fun being forced onto him. You go to the mall and the pants store is playing music nobody truly likes unless they're too fucked out of their skull to know any better. It's not just the pants store that sells the ones with what looks to be a float from a Chinese New Year's parade on the pockets, either. You can't buy a pair of Levi's without this nonconsensual assault on your consciousness rubbing up against you, either.
It looked like life aboard the Magic was shaping up to be one long week of buying pants, and the dining hall wouldn't be open for dinner for another several hours. I suspected that maybe I didn't know what fun is, maybe fun is overrated, and that I just don't like fun anymore before I popped a Klonopin.
Fun For All and All For Fun, or Life is One Long Week on The Carnival Magic. Part 3
Set the Controls For the Heart of Fun!
You could say that I was "lost at sea," "trapped at sea," or you could use any other Maritime cliche for an existential crisis at your disposal to characterize my predicament. None of them would be quite true. My wife and I enjoyed the most restful sleep we'd experienced in months. The room was so dark that the Hamburger Mothership could've been floating in front of my face and I'd have neither known nor cared. There were snorkeling expeditions lined up. I'd always wanted to snorkel. Snorkeling would be exciting. There were water slides, the putt-putt golf course, slot machines, and extravagant Maritime theatrical productions. Yes indeed, the Carnival Magic put the merry time in Maritime, to use a cliche about fun on a boat.
After our first meal, my wife and I went back to the room and turned on the TV. Every other channel was dedicated to the Magic. One channel displayed the ship's coordinates. Another informed cruisers of the fun to be had sniffing out duty-free bargains in the Magic's shops. The ship seemed insatiably starved for attention. We agreed that that was really weird.
While flipping through channels, we caught our first glimpse of the cruise director. If recollection serves, there were at least two channels devoted to him. He looks about what he sounds like, meaning that he fancies tight shirts and trousers. He's young looking, maybe too young looking for the lofty position of Fun Manager for a 4000-capacity ship. He talks as much on television as he does on intercoms, and he loves the camera. He's the ship's biggest celebrity, bigger than the captain, from whom we heard not a word the entire trip, which, when I think about it, is comforting. Seeing the cruise director on TV didn't make me like him any more.
To be fair, the cruise director was the spokesperson for most of the ship's affairs, many of which were of a practical nature. He told us how to put on life jackets, how to order room service, and how track down lost luggage. The last of those proved to be useful to us. I'd packed a suit for the express purpose of putting it on to eat in the dining hall, and it hadn't been delivered by the promised time of 6 PM the day we set sail. As instructed, we went to Guest Services and, sure enough, the suit had been stowed away in lost and found. The desk clerk handed it to me like rats had been mating in it, and she was really friendly about it.
I don't know who would have been in charge of disseminating information if the ship had run out of food and gas or into a iceberg in the middle of the Caribbean. I like to think that he and the captain would have fought for control over the intercom, the cruise director arguing that he'd established a unique trust with the passengers, the captain arguing that he's the captain and that he's been waiting since the ship set sail for any opportunity to throw the cruise director overboard, if for no other reason than peace and quiet. Maybe their tussle would have been captured by the intercom for all the passengers to hear. That would have been fun the cruise director didn't plan.
I'm not sure whether the cruise director dreamed up Carnival Magic's slogan; if so, he's as licentious as I am. The channel that displayed the ship's coordinates had the slogan sprayed all over the top of the screen: Fun For All, and All For Fun.
It's been a week-and-a-half since we've returned, and I'm sitting here unsure of the slogan's meaning. Does "Fun For All" mean that Carnival is responsible for providing the fun as fashioned by the cruise director? Does "All For Fun," place responsibilities on the passenger? Does "Fun For All" make it incumbent on him to have fun because if he doesn't, the cruise director's plans fall apart and nobody has fun? What if the slogan had been "Fun For All, Or All For Fun?" Unless you knew the slogan before booking the trip (What sensible person would go on a trip that bears a slogan like that?), or you were willing to jump ship and swim to something you think is fun, it doesn't matter. Three things that are certain right now is that I'm having fun at the cruise director's expense, the cruise director didn't plan on a passenger having fun a week-and-a-half later with the cute little slogan he cooked up, and that the cruise director is a weasel for many reasons, including that slogan.
Fun For All!
Throughout, I've mentioned some of the activities the cruise director had in store for us. There were plenty more, of which I'll name but a few: hot tubs, slot machines, swimming pools, room service, and oceans of booze. Duty-free cigarettes, too, which are still for fun for me a week-and-a-half later. I can't leave out Asian Led Zeppelin. There were probably plenty more that were staring me right in the face the whole time. Sadly, for me, eating wasn't a high-priority fun activity for the cruise director. He wanted to be able to squeeze into his trousers.
There was more variety of fun than there was of sausages for breakfast, so much that no one could possibly take advantage of it all unless he booked consecutive cruises for the rest of the year, and maybe even then. My wife and I enjoyed the hot tubs, pools, and late-night room service, and I really enjoyed sinking into the cushy casino chairs and listening to Asian Led Zeppelin.
I also enjoyed long, mid-afternoon Klonopin naps. I hope the cruise director doesn't get wind of that, lest he shake his finger at me and accuse me of shirking my duties to him and, by extension, my fellow passengers. He planned loud activities on the Lido Deck during those hours, and that's how I thanked him, by conking out on prescription drugs. Didn't I hear his morning announcements? Don't I believe in bounding out of bed before sunrise, taking methamphetamine, and squeezing into my Speedo before the bacon hits the buffet? I wouldn't mind the accusations so much; in fact, I'd welcome them if I they weren't in his voice. Watching him shake his finger and get mad at me would be fun, though. So would telling him what I believe in.
While flipping through channels, we caught our first glimpse of the cruise director. If recollection serves, there were at least two channels devoted to him. He looks about what he sounds like, meaning that he fancies tight shirts and trousers. He's young looking, maybe too young looking for the lofty position of Fun Manager for a 4000-capacity ship. He talks as much on television as he does on intercoms, and he loves the camera. He's the ship's biggest celebrity, bigger than the captain, from whom we heard not a word the entire trip, which, when I think about it, is comforting. Seeing the cruise director on TV didn't make me like him any more.
To be fair, the cruise director was the spokesperson for most of the ship's affairs, many of which were of a practical nature. He told us how to put on life jackets, how to order room service, and how track down lost luggage. The last of those proved to be useful to us. I'd packed a suit for the express purpose of putting it on to eat in the dining hall, and it hadn't been delivered by the promised time of 6 PM the day we set sail. As instructed, we went to Guest Services and, sure enough, the suit had been stowed away in lost and found. The desk clerk handed it to me like rats had been mating in it, and she was really friendly about it.
I don't know who would have been in charge of disseminating information if the ship had run out of food and gas or into a iceberg in the middle of the Caribbean. I like to think that he and the captain would have fought for control over the intercom, the cruise director arguing that he'd established a unique trust with the passengers, the captain arguing that he's the captain and that he's been waiting since the ship set sail for any opportunity to throw the cruise director overboard, if for no other reason than peace and quiet. Maybe their tussle would have been captured by the intercom for all the passengers to hear. That would have been fun the cruise director didn't plan.
I'm not sure whether the cruise director dreamed up Carnival Magic's slogan; if so, he's as licentious as I am. The channel that displayed the ship's coordinates had the slogan sprayed all over the top of the screen: Fun For All, and All For Fun.
It's been a week-and-a-half since we've returned, and I'm sitting here unsure of the slogan's meaning. Does "Fun For All" mean that Carnival is responsible for providing the fun as fashioned by the cruise director? Does "All For Fun," place responsibilities on the passenger? Does "Fun For All" make it incumbent on him to have fun because if he doesn't, the cruise director's plans fall apart and nobody has fun? What if the slogan had been "Fun For All, Or All For Fun?" Unless you knew the slogan before booking the trip (What sensible person would go on a trip that bears a slogan like that?), or you were willing to jump ship and swim to something you think is fun, it doesn't matter. Three things that are certain right now is that I'm having fun at the cruise director's expense, the cruise director didn't plan on a passenger having fun a week-and-a-half later with the cute little slogan he cooked up, and that the cruise director is a weasel for many reasons, including that slogan.
Fun For All!
Throughout, I've mentioned some of the activities the cruise director had in store for us. There were plenty more, of which I'll name but a few: hot tubs, slot machines, swimming pools, room service, and oceans of booze. Duty-free cigarettes, too, which are still for fun for me a week-and-a-half later. I can't leave out Asian Led Zeppelin. There were probably plenty more that were staring me right in the face the whole time. Sadly, for me, eating wasn't a high-priority fun activity for the cruise director. He wanted to be able to squeeze into his trousers.
There was more variety of fun than there was of sausages for breakfast, so much that no one could possibly take advantage of it all unless he booked consecutive cruises for the rest of the year, and maybe even then. My wife and I enjoyed the hot tubs, pools, and late-night room service, and I really enjoyed sinking into the cushy casino chairs and listening to Asian Led Zeppelin.
I also enjoyed long, mid-afternoon Klonopin naps. I hope the cruise director doesn't get wind of that, lest he shake his finger at me and accuse me of shirking my duties to him and, by extension, my fellow passengers. He planned loud activities on the Lido Deck during those hours, and that's how I thanked him, by conking out on prescription drugs. Didn't I hear his morning announcements? Don't I believe in bounding out of bed before sunrise, taking methamphetamine, and squeezing into my Speedo before the bacon hits the buffet? I wouldn't mind the accusations so much; in fact, I'd welcome them if I they weren't in his voice. Watching him shake his finger and get mad at me would be fun, though. So would telling him what I believe in.
Fun For All and All For Fun, or Life is One Long Week on The Carnival Magic. Part 2
Let Down Your Hair
The Magic hadn't left Galveston and I was in the grip of an apoplectic wig-out. The instant the boat opened for business, everyone was herded and bossed around by the voice of the still-disembodied cruise director and every corporeal form who wore a Carnival uniform, running around and into each other pants-crapping mad in an effort to get good seats for the mandatory Save Your Own Life training. At this point, I didn't feel like I was on vacation. I felt like I was starting boot camp, or going to the movies.
The training, which versed passengers on the finer points of putting on their lifejackets, replete with demonstrations from members of the Magic staff, was, mercifully, brief. Upon release, we all continued our vacations at our own leisure. At that point for me, my ideal of leisure would have taken the form of a twenty-four hour prescription narcotic-induced nap, which, no doubt, would have been interrupted by images of a mammoth hamburger, hovering like a UFO just out of my reach, and the hunger pangs that attend them.
My next recollection is of my wife and I meeting up with my family on the Carnival's Lido Deck, where most of the heavy-duty eating, drinking, partying, and nudity allowable within Maritime Law took place. The brain-boiling hurly-burly had ceased, thankfully, and I could focus my full attention on finding burgers.
My stride having regained its confidence, I approached a Carnival employee like a roguish Wild West sheriff demanding the whereabouts of hamburgers. My informant told me that hamburgers weren't available, but that the buffet would be in full swing soon and until then, I could visit Pizza Pirate. Chagrined but slightly, I quickly decided that pizza was not only a valiant second choice but also a damned sight better than Little League nachos. Point me to the Pizza Pirate, good man.
Over the course of the week, I became a late night fixture at the Pizza Pirate, something like its bedraggled, slightly brain-addled drunk regular. The Pirate's menu boasted five or six different pies, but really, its pepperoni was the only one worth writing home about, which makes sense: pepperoni's popularity overwhelmed the others, and its demand ensured its perfection. It must have been Night Four when, during one of my late-night peregrinations to the Pirate, the pizza guy, upon seeing the hat, cocked an eyebrow and so slightly smirked out "Pepperoni?" I'd become a celebrity, at least according to one contemporary definition: a person who has achieved fame in spite of dubious merit. I'd become like one of the Kardashians, Princess Kate, or even Pippa Middleton to the pizza guy, simply because of my nightly binges. I felt some merit in that; after all, the Guinness Book of World Records features a number of eating categories the last I checked, and one of those categories might be very well be "Number of Pizzas Consumed During a Week-Long Cruise." Because the book has standards, there's no category for "Girls' Names Decided Upon During a Giggling Fit." According to one more or less estimable source, my feat could be deemed meritorious. My feat does carry a healthy dose of shame, however, and that's not befitting a Kardashian-league celebrity at all.
The Pizza Pirate's eats weren't the best on the ship (that honor goes to the Fig, Date, and Raisin cake I had for dessert in the ship's dining hall), but they were the most reliable. The Pirate was open twenty-hours, for one, so I could eat like I eat at home. I sampled four of the offerings, and most of them were worth little more than a nibble (some passengers must have felt the same way: one of the favorite pastimes aboard the Magic appeared to be dropping pizza on the Lido Deck floor.) The pepperoni, not nearly exemplary, came out the same way most of the time nonetheless. Some were a little undercooked, others were a little overcooked (which I prefer - I wish they'd burnt more of them), but most came out of the oven with a crust that was crispy from end-to-end, pepperoni with a glistening greasy sheen, and cheese bespeckled with little brown bubbles. The sauce was this side of Italian flavored ketchup, which the chefs ladled on judiciously.
Otherwise, food was a disappointingly hit-or-proposition proposition. The prospect of eating myself retarded on a floating buffet for a week was one of the few about which I harbored little skepticism. The skepticism set in soon enough, as soon I slid into the roast pork. The Magic's chefs have a knack for food presentation such that if you don't like it, you feel like something's wrong with you, so either the pork, delectable-looking on the carving block with a chef sharpening his knife behind it, the steel singing with every stroke, really did taste like a shirt straight out of the dryer, or there was something wrong with my mouth.
Maybe the pork was a fluke. Maybe the food would be spectacular during the rest of our voyage. Everyone I'd spoken to who'd been on a cruise praised the quality of the food to the High Heavens, citing it as a highlight of the trip. I'm certain more than one veteran cruiser has said the food is "to die for." Breakfast the following morning confirmed that the pork was no fluke. Maybe there's something wrong with the veterans' mouths.
I usually skip breakfast because a container of yogurt topped with Grape Nuts isn't enough to get me out of bed; also, at that hour, I'm not functional enough to cook a breakfast that satisfies me; the possibility of my hand winding up in the deep fryer is a distinct one. But, figuring that the ship would have a full breakfast spread, I got up earlier than usual. About the size of the spread, I was right: there were several different breakfast stations, including "Omelets Your Way." I wasn't in the mood for an omelet prepared anyone's way, which was good, because the line extended to the putt-putt golf course. I took my place at the back of one of the two "Breakfast Grill" lines.
The Breakfast Grill featured variety so staggering I couldn't get my head around it at that hour; still, most of it didn't interest me, i.e. cantaloupe. It was still too early for me to contend with cantaloupe. As it turned out, I was interested in only three items: potatoes, sausage, and bacon. I'd wanted eggs, but I didn't bother because they looked like insulation material.
My wife and I seated ourselves near my family, who never passes on breakfast. I'd forgotten coffee, The Most Important Meal of the Day, so I immediately got up to pour myself some. My cup was so full that with every step I took, coffee hot enough to bore a hole in the Carnival Magic's hull splashed onto the floor and onto my hand. I managed to get back to my seat without blistering myself, and when I set my cup down, coffee splashed onto the table, too.
Now fully set, I started digging in. I should have dug more deeply into bed. The potatoes were, in a word, boiled, the sausages puzzled more than they did anything else (there were several varieties of those, too, but, in the interest of playing it safe, I chose "red"), and eating the bacon was like playing a game of Barrel of Greasy Monkeys: I'd pick up one piece, and five more were stuck to it. Worst of all, the coffee tasted like the kind you drink at the office. I would have to make due with coffee you drink at the office for a week.
I quickly discovered that food aboard the Magic was strictly "Let Down Your Hair Night" at the nuthouse fare. After two less than stellar meals, meals of the type only the most famished would risk death over, it was clear that my goal of eating myself into a coma was shot to shit. With that epiphany, I'd also disabused myself of the notion that I was going to sink my teeth into a burger the size of P-Funk's Mothership. I would no longer run around the ship like a fruitcake frothing all over the first staff member I could find asking if the burgers were ready. By then, I'd lost my zeal for burgers.
The only explanation that serves for all this is that the cruise director said "Starve them."
The Magic hadn't left Galveston and I was in the grip of an apoplectic wig-out. The instant the boat opened for business, everyone was herded and bossed around by the voice of the still-disembodied cruise director and every corporeal form who wore a Carnival uniform, running around and into each other pants-crapping mad in an effort to get good seats for the mandatory Save Your Own Life training. At this point, I didn't feel like I was on vacation. I felt like I was starting boot camp, or going to the movies.
The training, which versed passengers on the finer points of putting on their lifejackets, replete with demonstrations from members of the Magic staff, was, mercifully, brief. Upon release, we all continued our vacations at our own leisure. At that point for me, my ideal of leisure would have taken the form of a twenty-four hour prescription narcotic-induced nap, which, no doubt, would have been interrupted by images of a mammoth hamburger, hovering like a UFO just out of my reach, and the hunger pangs that attend them.
My next recollection is of my wife and I meeting up with my family on the Carnival's Lido Deck, where most of the heavy-duty eating, drinking, partying, and nudity allowable within Maritime Law took place. The brain-boiling hurly-burly had ceased, thankfully, and I could focus my full attention on finding burgers.
My stride having regained its confidence, I approached a Carnival employee like a roguish Wild West sheriff demanding the whereabouts of hamburgers. My informant told me that hamburgers weren't available, but that the buffet would be in full swing soon and until then, I could visit Pizza Pirate. Chagrined but slightly, I quickly decided that pizza was not only a valiant second choice but also a damned sight better than Little League nachos. Point me to the Pizza Pirate, good man.
Over the course of the week, I became a late night fixture at the Pizza Pirate, something like its bedraggled, slightly brain-addled drunk regular. The Pirate's menu boasted five or six different pies, but really, its pepperoni was the only one worth writing home about, which makes sense: pepperoni's popularity overwhelmed the others, and its demand ensured its perfection. It must have been Night Four when, during one of my late-night peregrinations to the Pirate, the pizza guy, upon seeing the hat, cocked an eyebrow and so slightly smirked out "Pepperoni?" I'd become a celebrity, at least according to one contemporary definition: a person who has achieved fame in spite of dubious merit. I'd become like one of the Kardashians, Princess Kate, or even Pippa Middleton to the pizza guy, simply because of my nightly binges. I felt some merit in that; after all, the Guinness Book of World Records features a number of eating categories the last I checked, and one of those categories might be very well be "Number of Pizzas Consumed During a Week-Long Cruise." Because the book has standards, there's no category for "Girls' Names Decided Upon During a Giggling Fit." According to one more or less estimable source, my feat could be deemed meritorious. My feat does carry a healthy dose of shame, however, and that's not befitting a Kardashian-league celebrity at all.
The Pizza Pirate's eats weren't the best on the ship (that honor goes to the Fig, Date, and Raisin cake I had for dessert in the ship's dining hall), but they were the most reliable. The Pirate was open twenty-hours, for one, so I could eat like I eat at home. I sampled four of the offerings, and most of them were worth little more than a nibble (some passengers must have felt the same way: one of the favorite pastimes aboard the Magic appeared to be dropping pizza on the Lido Deck floor.) The pepperoni, not nearly exemplary, came out the same way most of the time nonetheless. Some were a little undercooked, others were a little overcooked (which I prefer - I wish they'd burnt more of them), but most came out of the oven with a crust that was crispy from end-to-end, pepperoni with a glistening greasy sheen, and cheese bespeckled with little brown bubbles. The sauce was this side of Italian flavored ketchup, which the chefs ladled on judiciously.
Otherwise, food was a disappointingly hit-or-proposition proposition. The prospect of eating myself retarded on a floating buffet for a week was one of the few about which I harbored little skepticism. The skepticism set in soon enough, as soon I slid into the roast pork. The Magic's chefs have a knack for food presentation such that if you don't like it, you feel like something's wrong with you, so either the pork, delectable-looking on the carving block with a chef sharpening his knife behind it, the steel singing with every stroke, really did taste like a shirt straight out of the dryer, or there was something wrong with my mouth.
Maybe the pork was a fluke. Maybe the food would be spectacular during the rest of our voyage. Everyone I'd spoken to who'd been on a cruise praised the quality of the food to the High Heavens, citing it as a highlight of the trip. I'm certain more than one veteran cruiser has said the food is "to die for." Breakfast the following morning confirmed that the pork was no fluke. Maybe there's something wrong with the veterans' mouths.
I usually skip breakfast because a container of yogurt topped with Grape Nuts isn't enough to get me out of bed; also, at that hour, I'm not functional enough to cook a breakfast that satisfies me; the possibility of my hand winding up in the deep fryer is a distinct one. But, figuring that the ship would have a full breakfast spread, I got up earlier than usual. About the size of the spread, I was right: there were several different breakfast stations, including "Omelets Your Way." I wasn't in the mood for an omelet prepared anyone's way, which was good, because the line extended to the putt-putt golf course. I took my place at the back of one of the two "Breakfast Grill" lines.
The Breakfast Grill featured variety so staggering I couldn't get my head around it at that hour; still, most of it didn't interest me, i.e. cantaloupe. It was still too early for me to contend with cantaloupe. As it turned out, I was interested in only three items: potatoes, sausage, and bacon. I'd wanted eggs, but I didn't bother because they looked like insulation material.
My wife and I seated ourselves near my family, who never passes on breakfast. I'd forgotten coffee, The Most Important Meal of the Day, so I immediately got up to pour myself some. My cup was so full that with every step I took, coffee hot enough to bore a hole in the Carnival Magic's hull splashed onto the floor and onto my hand. I managed to get back to my seat without blistering myself, and when I set my cup down, coffee splashed onto the table, too.
Now fully set, I started digging in. I should have dug more deeply into bed. The potatoes were, in a word, boiled, the sausages puzzled more than they did anything else (there were several varieties of those, too, but, in the interest of playing it safe, I chose "red"), and eating the bacon was like playing a game of Barrel of Greasy Monkeys: I'd pick up one piece, and five more were stuck to it. Worst of all, the coffee tasted like the kind you drink at the office. I would have to make due with coffee you drink at the office for a week.
I quickly discovered that food aboard the Magic was strictly "Let Down Your Hair Night" at the nuthouse fare. After two less than stellar meals, meals of the type only the most famished would risk death over, it was clear that my goal of eating myself into a coma was shot to shit. With that epiphany, I'd also disabused myself of the notion that I was going to sink my teeth into a burger the size of P-Funk's Mothership. I would no longer run around the ship like a fruitcake frothing all over the first staff member I could find asking if the burgers were ready. By then, I'd lost my zeal for burgers.
The only explanation that serves for all this is that the cruise director said "Starve them."
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Fun For All, and All For Fun, or Life is One Long Week on the Carnival Magic. Part 1
Welcome Aboard, It's Fun!
The night before my wife and I took off for our week-long cruise to the Caribbean, I was talking to a friend on the phone. When I told him we were going, he offered two pieces of advice: people watch and act like an Ugly American. To his well-meaning advice, I responded that I wasn't out to write a piece of investigative journalism and that people were the last thing I wanted to see for a week, but not to worry because I planned to spend the first twenty four hours at sea eating hamburgers and that I'd packed every shirt with a fish on it I own plus my trusty floppy hat, which, when I put it on, would be a dead giveaway that I was there to order food in my rockiest English and pick up enough tacky knick-knacks that we'd have to throw our underwear and medications overboard to make room for them. We've been back for over a week now, and during that time, I've arrived at the conclusion that my friend has either been on a cruise he never told me about, or possesses preternatural powers of prescience.
On Sunday morning, my wife and I were up early awaiting a call from my parents, with whom we were to rendezvous at a Whataburger just before the 59/45 interchange. In a gesture of tremendous generosity, my mom paid for our tickets. I believe she did so because she thought we were in sore need of some time abroad. To be sure, there was a bit of damp and drizzle in our souls, but still, and speaking just for myself, I hadn't quite reached the point where I was knocking peoples' hats off in the grocery store. I wasn't quite convinced that a cruise would serve as that panacea (although I did look forward to a snorkeling excursion in Belize), but both of us sure needed to get the hell out of Houston for a while.
The ship was due to set sail from Galveston at 4 PM sharp; by 10 AM, I was outfitted in my nearly threadbare "Beat Kansas" t-shirt, shorts, flip-flops, and the hat, as prepared for an all-night burger crawl on the Caribbean as anyone could be. By noon I was up to the brim of my stupid-looking hat with vexations (my wife, on the other hand, bears up things like unpacked suntan lotion with remarkable grace and cool.) Embarkation ended at 3, our rendezvous had been delayed at least a good hour, and the members of our party, eight strong, began the procession to the Whatburger restrooms while I waited outside, drinking a bottle of water, smoking cigarettes, and talking to my aunt (whose ticket my parents also ponied up for) and dad. The prospect of watching the ship and its merrymaking passengers take off without us loomed large.
Naturally, my fears, like most, were chimera engaging in giggly chicanery. Even from the shadows of downtown Houston, and despite touch and go southbound traffic (I think somebody's cap blew off his head), Galveston's still a stone's throw from a sissy away. We made it with time to spare. Unfortunately, that bottle of water I drank at the Whataburger managed to make it all the way down. No restroom in sight, genuine panic overtook me, the type that causes folks to pee in their pants for reasons real or putative. My mom, no-nonsense during these types of crises, told me what any loving mother to a piss-silly son would: get out of sight and go. There was no other way; besides, as a seasoned cruise veteran, I can all but swear on the Holy Bible when I say that I was not the first guy to relieve himself all over the Carnival Magic's parking lot.
Also from the perspective of a seasoned cruiser: I cannot make any claims about dark arts, whether real or merely titular, although my wife, a redoubtable woman, saw an act levitation from the wings of the ship's theater, which Elvis Costello could probably pack, and maybe even Molly Hatchet. That should give you an idea of the vessel's girth. I'm certain that if we'd been on the lookout for it on the way there, we'd have seen it from ten miles away. Imagine a floating mall. Presto, you might be on it!
We'd been on the move since early that morning, and we weren't close to settling in for naps or burgers. Carnival Cruise took every reasonable measure to ensure against treachery on the Caribbean Sea, and we were subjected to each of them, along with the other 4000-odd cruisers. Two shirts with fish on them, a goofy hat, two lighters, six pack of cigarettes, four books, and a cellphone several models behind the latest and especially useless at sea evidently represented no threat to Carnival, so we were permitted to pass. We walked a good quarter mile, maybe more, navigating a few twists and turns before we reached the ship's foyer, located on the third floor. It's too easy to characterize our path to the ship as a long intestinal tract. Believe me, it was easier to think of it that way.
We were welcomed first by a blast of cold air. After close to six hours of packing loose ends, driving, walking, being frisked, walking some more, and a depositing enough pee in the parking lot to float a Carnival Cruise lifeboat, I was now no longer on the lookout specifically for a double bacon cheeseburger. Movie nachos, the kind with the runny, pulsating-yellow cheese and stale chips would have done by that point, and I expected someone to hand me a paper basket spilling with them and put a lei around my head at the entrance. Impossible, because we were next welcomed by the voice of the cruise director. The cruise director made lots of things impossible.
I wanted nothing more than nachos and to deposit our carry-on luggage onto the floor of our suite, but first, the cruise director commandeered the ship's intercom to instruct us to report to a site which we didn't know the whereabouts of (Someone Ina A Carnival Uniform: "Do you know where your site is?" Me: "LIKE HELL I DO!") for mandatory safety training, aka, Instructions For Putting On a Life Preserver. Not fifteen minutes on the ship and I hated the cruise director already.
For one, he was born to take to the intercom and make announcements so loud my ears rang. For another, his voice was of a quality anyone would be hard-pressed not to call "fruity." I hated him and I hated taking instructions from him in that dribbly, Robin Leach accent of his. I hated his lack of regard for my peace, quiet, and comfort. He was on that intercom all day announcing each of the hundreds of activities he'd planned for us, and I hated most of those, too. I hated him before I'd even set eyes on him, but that would happen soon enough. It turns out that our cabin's television had a channel devoted entirely to him. The cruise director turned out to be an impossible presence to elude from the moment we stepped foot on the ship to the moment I was giving it the finger out the car window on the way back home. The cruise director is a greasy little weasel, a weasel who makes a living planning activities that are no fun on land and less fun at sea, a weasel addicted to the sound of his own voice, the rush of histrionic personal displays, and methamphetamines. He's also Australian, I don't care that he said that hails from Great Britain. He has to be Australian. The British are too polite to beat this guy up, and this guy's been beat up a lot, at land and at sea, by cruisers, staff, and Australians alike.
You think I'm being rough on the cruise director. Spend a week at sea with him. If you don't throw him overboard, you're a worse person than I am.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Yelping About Architecture
If you happen to be reading my latest while dining out, the odds that you chose the restaurant as a result of reading yelp are about as good as a hair making an appearance in your soup. If that's so, the place is also likely to be crawling with yelpers. If your use of yelp is limited to consulting the site for restaurant recommendations, you might be hard-pressed to identify the yelpers. Fret not, dear reader: identifying a yelper is easier than identifying a Mason.
One thing yelpers don't do is acknowledge fellow yelpers with a series of gestures that, to the unfamiliar, resembles the carryings-on of the lunatic. What I've described does not become the yelper - too gauche in such posh surroundings, as is a holler of "Hey, girl!" across a crowded restaurant. You'll have to work a little harder to suss the yelper, but not too much. If you spot someone in the foyer with a look of chagrin furiously scribbling something on his phone, you've likely identified a yelper, one who's upset that he hasn't yet been seated during peak hours. They also like to gather in groups. If you spot a party of three to five whose badinage is restrained yet hearty, you've likely identified a pack of yelpers.
Plus Personne Ne Peut M'accuser d'être <<White Trash>>
At this point, some disclosure is in order: I consult yelp for a number of things, from finding out where a guy might get a good egg roll is this town to where I might find an obscure plumbing part. I also yelp. I yelp when my wife and I have eaten a meal worth yelping about (good or bad), about service received at a given business (more likely when the service is egregious such that, I like to think, I'm assuming the role of a consumer advocate), and, often, for the sheer joy of writing and the hell of it. One of the personae I like to assume is that of the lout. Boy I'll bet that makes yelp mad. That tickles the devil out of me.
Still, to my mind, none of my yelping activities qualify me as a yelper. I like the Grateful Dead, but I don't have the stomach to be a Deadhead. I'm can't drop everything, pack a plastic shopping bag, and travel from one corner of the country to the other expecting everyone to give me money and food at all points of my psychedelic journey.
Likewise, I don't have the commitment, nor the savoir faire peculiar to yelp, necessary to fully surrender myself. I am perfectly happy with my yelp outsider status, and I enjoy shopping at Big Lots and other businesses that attract a cheapskate like me. Yelp just seems too rich for my blood.
I say, without shame, that I don't have the cultivation required for full membership. Lack of cultivation is distinct from being an uneducated rube, which I am not (I paid good money for my degrees.) I am, largely, disinterested in self-cultivation, and fully distrustful of cultivation as an enterprise.
For one, cultivation is conspicuous. With the Information Age (is the term too quaint? Does it beg cultivation?) in full swing, one cannot afford to be caught with his pants down. His boss might be looking! Worst still, his boss' boss might be looking over the shoulder of his boss! That's why he's advised to mind his P's and Q's and take down that profile picture taken on he night he stuck the lampshade on his head and balanced a Budweiser tall boy on it. The savages he hung out with that night sure got a kick of it. The boss, on the other hand, is less than amused with his employee's shenanigans. "Does he do that when I'm not looking?" The picture he took at MoMA speaks better of him. Now the boss thinks his employee is smart and cultured.
For another, cultivation is an act of negation. When a person takes voice and diction lessons in an effort to remove all vestiges of his Southern twang (and, by extension, those that betray his Southern upbringing) and winds up sounding like William F. Buckley, that person engages in cultivating himself out of existence. No longer can his peers claim that he's "white trash like me." His boss thinks he's well-spoken.
Ultimately, acts performed in the name of cultivation are designed to help one get a leg up in the class above that he currently occupies, while, at the same time, his perceived lessers' grip loosens, a most propitious, welcome byproduct. When one's grown sick and tired of driving that hunk of junk, eating junk, and staying at home and watching junk because he can't afford to go out and, as I've heard it put, "hang with the effective crowd," he's advised to take up ostentatious jogging, use NPR and The Daily Show as his sources for current events, both political and cultural, and start watching Girls because it serves as the voice for not only its generation, but, better put, the Zeitgeist. He's advised to list them as favorites on Facebook. His boss thinks he's hip and fit. He can work some overtime without breaking a sweat, and look cool doing it.
His friends will also advise him to splurge once in a while. There's this place, godot's. I read about it on yelp. It just opened up. Me and some buddies from the office are going on Friday after work. Dude, their happy hour is supposed to be cray-cray, and they have a Four Horsemen, except they call theirs the Five Horsemen! It's supposed to be in-teeeeense. Dude, I'm worried about you, bro. Tell you what, bro - first horsemen's on me.
His friend is right, so he'll go. He'll drink six Five Horsemen, eat a Kobe beef burger with serrano ham, have some selfies taken, deal with the hangover on Saturday, and finagle rent on Monday. His friends will drive him home because he had one horseman too many, and he'll spend much of the latter part of Saturday and Sunday scrubbing off the dicks his pals drew all over him Friday night because he can't go in looking like that on Monday. He's advised to check Facebook sometime over the weekend - there are pictures up that his boss won't like.
Yelp is an all but essential vehicle if he wants to show everyone how much he's grown.
We Waited at godot's For What Seemed, Like, an Eternity Before We Were Seated
Food has become as treasured as books and virginity used to be, and yelpers seem to know better about what tastes good than anyone else. One yelper's nickname (yelp asks you to choose a nickname, and I'm certain that all power yelpers have one) is "french fries....hand cut, fried twice, no exceptions. got it?" Got it boss man, right away, and hand cut, if you're reading this, like, duh!
Not only do yelpers know what tastes good, they also know where to get it. Moreover, yelpers aren't ginger when it comes to writing about their transcendent eating experiences. It seems that they reserve their most florid prose for the most floridly priced and praised restaurants. What follows are examples of purple prose written about a local establishment called The Hay Merchant, a relatively recent addition to Montrose that boasts 274 reviews and an aggregate yelp score of four stars. My wife and I visited The Hay Merchant three or four times when we were the drinking kind.
First, my review (not published on yelp): Quality and sheer selection of beers considered, a wealthy man could conceivably drink his way to a happy death. I wish I could say the same for the food! I've had a hambuger/chili-cheese fries combo from Sonic that was comparable in most ways, save price. The wealthy man is well advised to spend his food dollar at The Hay Merchant's next-door neighbor, Underbelly, between bouts, if the scuttlebutt is to be trusted.
Hope my boss isn't reading this!
Why don't we, instead, read the words that come from more informed tongues? Their words follow:
"I put the fun in funeral" luxuriated re: the pig ears: "The pig ears were amazing-like fried bacon, but better." (sic) [Five Stars]
No Nickname wrote,
Astonishing beer selection and inventive, delicious pub menu. I love this place. Sadly though, on our most recent visit (a busy Wednesday), the service was abysmal. Complete indifference from the front staff. I'll be back for the food and drink, and hopefully they'll get their act together on the service end [Four Stars]
Finally, and from undoubtedly the yelper with the best yelp nickname I've encountered yet, "PRUVEIT - that's what my license plate says."
Ok, I'm a little late on writing this review, but wanted to definitely get this one in!
Great place for dinner, drinks, oh and did I say drinks. Beer - tons of everything on tap, mainly from local (Texas) brewerys and they are indeed tasty. Lots of Belgium esque beer, mmmm.
Food, great and good healthy portions. Fried chicken and maccaroni are phenominal, gotta love it. Great portions too.
You can go here to have a nice dinner with friends at a table, or drinks and food at the bar, or just plain old drinks at the bar or outside on the patio.
It's not your typical bar scene, which is nice. Go here to drink good beer, eat good food, and just chill.
Just go! (sic) [Four Stars]
Besides licentious spelling and grammar (though, in "Pruevit"'s defense and in his words, he "definitely had to get [his review] in"), one item of note is the Most Sensibly Nicknamed No Nickname's mention of "abysmal" service. I've read more than my fair share of restaurant reviews on yelp, and, surely as ants will swarm a dog a day dead, a yelper will yelp about a service slight, busy night or not. In my experience as a restaurant gadabout, I can recall but two instances of service so bad that they warranted any amount of attention; for yelpers, bad service seems like a fait accompli. Never does bad service go unmentioned. Yelpers don't go out with a whimper. Many of them yelp before leaving.
In the Room the Yelpers Came and Went
Bad service's frequency of mention leads me to believe that service, or maybe even the food, is not the true subject of discussion at all. Really, the yelper yelps about himself. If, like me, you're the type of masochist who'll endure mild discomfort in the name of entertainment, surely you've noticed this, too. If you really want to get your kicks, make friends with someone who's well-heeled with yelp and beg this new friend to invite you to a Yelp Elite party.
I've attended several of these so-called "Elite" parties (short and blunt, becoming an Elite is nothing like becoming a Green Beret), and, enjoying the privileges membership bestows, if only for an evening, I cadged all the high-class food and drink I wanted. Almost as much, I enjoyed listening to yelpers yelp on and on about themselves. If they're to be believed, yelpers are true movers and shakers, real shapers of opinion who dropped the names of cool people, places that pained them to pronounce, and shiny things they paid pretty pennies for with the same elan it took to fill their faces with free food, and every bit as effortlessly as the fellow who stopped, dropped, and yelped after the house had served him one too many pink drinks. I wonder whether yelpers have ever yelped about yelp or yelpers other than themselves (if I were a yelper, yes.) I also wonder whether the yelper who yelped a night's worth of pink drinks is still in yelp's good graces.
Yelp: Reviews You Can Trust
This past weekend, my wife and I decided that we desperately needed a foray well outside Montrose, which, for me at least, had become too stifling due, in part, to the unbending smirks its new residents probably picked up at Walmart. They'd never tell you, and they'd sooner do that than yelp about Walmart and its smirk aisle.
We were on the way to Katy when we'd just passed the entertainment complex on I-10 across the street from Ikea. We'd both heard about about this Asian buffet that sits near a bowling alley within the complex. As legend has it, the buffet is a like a double decker luxury liner filled to groaning with food, only moored adjacent to a Dave and Buster's and the bowling alley.
Traffic was only getting thicker the farther west we went, and we were starved. We were fast upon the U-Turn when we decided to ditch the Katy idea and head for the buffet. When we hit the eastbound feeder, our excitement mounted. Still, I was a bit apprehensive.
Opinion about the place was as colorful and loud as a grown man brought to his knees by a pink drink too many, except on yelp. The place had been reviewed seventy-four times, and had an aggregate score of three stars. Sushi was good, not great. Selection was dazzling, and every item was good, but not up to yelp snuff. As I negotiated the left turn to the restaurant, I chuckled to myself. "Gets three stars on yelp. Can't be that bad!"
All that food (including a churrascaria?), but no egg rolls? The sushi was not only not great, it was also hot and gray in the middle. My mind was made, and my notes detailed. I, too, would weigh in. I didn't think twice.
Five Stars.
I told you I'm not a yelper.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
The Pizza That Would be King
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| The Pizza That Would be King
"Where were you on the day that Pizza Hut announced that you could order any pizza, any size, any number of toppings, for $10?" I remember where I was when Elvis died. I was at the doctor's office. KPRC delivered the news. I remember the announcer's grave intonation, and the final line, delivered darkly: "Elvis Presley has died." I was eating lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Port Lavaca, Texas, where I learned about the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy. Every station interrupted the afternoon stories with news of the explosion. The footage was looped, a nation's hope renewed each time the loop began anew. I was spending the night at a buddy's when Saturday Night Live was interrupted by the news of a crackdown on the Polish Solidarity Movement. Bill Murray was the host, and the news broke during his monologue. The bulletin's timing was such that we both thought it had to be a joke. I wasn't even a glimmer in my daddy's eye when JFK was assassinated, but I do know that Joe Dimaggio acted alone, and I also know that Pizza Hut's announcement was a banner day for me.
At the time, I was working at the library, where I was paid dog food wages, and by dog food wages, I mean one can of store brand dog food per day. Every once in a while, though, I took fiduciary license and ordered out. I could order a $10 pizza stacked to the Heavens and eat it for two days, relieving me of eating dog food for two days. Since Pizza Hut was down the street, I could pick it up, thus avoiding tipping the pizza guy. But some evenings, the ones when I felt generous and lazy, I'd have my masterpiece delivered (having delivered pizza for the Big Three and lesser outfits during college and lean times, I understand what tips mean to the delivery guy. I sometimes tipped extravagantly, enabling the pizza guy to pick up a sixer of Shiner after his sweaty, greasy shift instead of his usual swill.) Yes my friends, the day of Pizza Hut's announcement was one that will go down in history for me. A $10 pie and a six pack of lonester set me up nicely many an evening. Two pies and a case of cold stuff when I had company and no one was complaining, until we ran out of beer. Ordering a pizza itself was fun, but to confess, I feel a little sorry for anyone who's ever taken an order from me. Surely the person on the other end of the phone thought my orders pranks. While I never made demands such as "form smiley faces with pepperoni," "place one cube of pineapple precisely in the middle," or "Italian sausage, mushrooms, a deck of playing cards fanned out on it, and candles," I still pushed the envelope. Once, upon placing an order for what would have been a truly mammoth whopper of a pie, the dispatcher stopped me before I could tell him what I wanted my fifteenth topping to be with "Whoa, whoa, whoooa, un-uh. No. No. No WAY." "But you said unlimited..." "Yeah, I know what we said, and now we regret it, but you've gone too far!" To my knowledge, I'm the only person Pizza Hut's said "No, you can't have that on your pizza" to. Even so, when I ordered pizza from one of the Big Three, nine times out of ten, it was from Pizza Hut. Domino's, one can't escape, reeks of "game of chance," and "Better Ingredients, Better Pizza" my ass. I worked for Better Ingredients for a mercifully brief period, and what they mean is "They were pretty good ingredients when we received them a month ago. We hope you don't get food poisoning." Consider the preceding an "Insider's Consumer Tip," and then order accordingly. Pizza Hut had one sure thing going for it that the other two simply couldn't come close to: good thin crust. Make no mistake: Pizza Hut's is largely lowest common denominator fare. Arguably, its thin crust resulted due to an accident in the kitchen. If that's true, it's one of the happiest accidents in culinary history. That accident begat a crust that inspires envy and curiosity; indeed, I'd tried for years to divine its recipe, to varying degrees of success. It's too bad that of late, Pizza Hut tops its miracle with psychiatric hospital-grade ingredients. The last several I'd eaten caused unusual, disturbing cramps. Maybe that's their way of exacting revenge against smart-alecks with the nerve to take their promotion at face value. So to Hell with Pizza Hut: I'll just make my own, and I'll put what I damn well please on it, and as much of it as I want. A few nights ago, I came close to making the best pizza I've ever eaten. The crust was almost perfect: the first three-quarters of the crust were a little floppy, but the outside was perfectly crunchy. A work in progress. I also used good ingredients. Lots of good ingredients. Truly, my pizza served as a fine example. It was so good, one might choose it as a last meal, to name but one special occasion. Some folks say that the crust isn't important. If you're of this mind, disregard much of what follows and instead, buy a loaf of Wonder Bread. If, like me, you think that crust makes or breaks a pizza, start here: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001199.html. That's the best dough recipe I've used yet. The recipe yielded two pizzas and two calzones. If you're fortunate enough to have a Trader Joe's where you live, you can get most of your ingredients there for pennies on the dollar; furthermore, Trader Joe's products are of the highest standard. We're lucky that we have one down the street. If you don't have a Trader Joe's, shop around. If you bought Wonder Bread, you can probably get away with using ketchup, too. Or Ragu. If you have a pizza oven, a coal burning oven, or an oven that reaches 1000 degrees, you're in luck; if not, you'll need to crank yours to screaming. It'll scream around 500 degrees. A pizza stone helps. If you have one, preheat it. As the oven heats, roll out your dough. I rolled mine on a large wooden cutting board, one big enough to accommodate the butchering of a turkey. I laid down a couple of fistfuls of corn meal, which is helpful for two reasons: your dough won't stick, and your can slide it right onto your heated pizza stone for shaping. I rolled my dough to near water cracker thinness, a true exercise in patience. Also, the dough wasn't round. It didn't matter. When the stone was heated, I slid the dough onto it, trimmed the excess, poked holes in it with a fork to prevent those tumors that tend to form (some people like a tumor or two, I understand), and then put into my 550 degree oven. If you aren't Gwyneth Paltrow, I strongly recommended par baking your crust. Par baking increases your odds of a crispy crust. Do that until the crust is nicely browned and crisp (to test for crispiness, I reached in the oven and poked the crust with my finger. I'm not recommending that, but, since I'm more prone to kitchen catastrophes than most, you might dare.) Crispiness achieved, remove the crust, stone and all, from the oven, and top your pizza. I topped mine to the very edge. That helps to prevent the edge from turning black. I also topped mine such that it barely fit into the oven. I baked the pizza until the toppings looked done. Since I'm not Gwyneth Paltrow, I turned on the broiler during the last couple of minutes of baking time, which encourages your pepperoni to shrivel up, among other things. I won't kid you: making a pizza is somewhat labor intensive. The reward for your hard work is a pizza of the sort that you'll snap pictures of for posting on Facebook and a blog. All told, I'm not sure how long the process took. It doesn't matter. The pizza was incredible. Also, we avoided food poisoning and poorly-considered promises. What the heck: I'm putting fireworks on the next one. Up yours, Pizza Hut! |
Friday, July 19, 2013
"Wait, I'm Not Finished"
I subscribed to Media Matter's mailing list several years ago, and receive frequent email alerts from them. During the past couple of years, I typically throw their alerts away unread. One vexing reason for the sheer frequency is that Media Matters often issues alerts that seem like little more than tattle-telling. These alerts are issued with the same "stop the presses" urgency as those of real import.
Media Matters lost me after I'd received an alert about so-and-so calling Hillary Clinton names. I don't care about these alerts of a "Johnny pulled Suzy's hair" nature, and I'm certain that former Secretary of State Clinton cares even less that some blowhard called her a witch or whatever it was. However, several days ago, I received an alert with a subject so tantalizing, I just couldn't not read it. The alert concerned Rush Limbaugh's latest on-air stunt. The subject was: "Inevitable: Limbaugh Finally Says N-Word On Air." I waited a while before throwing out this alert.
I knew, alert unread, that this was going to be good; yes, it was good. What I didn't know was just how good it was going to be. I found out soon enough. The following is worth watching, excepting commentary from one of Media Matters' wishy-washy talking heads (I'm still not all that crazy about Media Matters): http://mediamatters.org/video/2013/07/16/limbaugh-after-jenteals-interview-i-can-now-say/194904 And no, the footage is not taken out of context, nor is it doctored.
Rush argued that he should be able to use the term in question with impunity. Newly liberated, he can sashay around, say, Houston's Fifth Ward and mouth the epithet to his black heart's content and emerge on the other side without having gotten his fat ass rendered into a blob of greasy white lard.
Yes, some black people refer to one another using the term. I dare say that most black people think the practice a denigration of their race. Regardless, and here, I'm defending neither the term nor the practice, for some black people, it's a term of endearment (some might argue that it's "a way of gaining ownership of the term." I don't buy that.) Out of Rush's maw, the term in question is not one he uses in the name of brotherly love.
For all of his bluster, Mr. Limbaugh is prone to whining like Media Matters does himself. He whines that he can't walk around and act like a thug, too. But he can; as Mr. Limbaugh might be fond of saying, "It's a free country," so he can act like a thug. He already does, in fact. He does it five days a week on his show. But Rush also wants to act like a thug without getting his fat ass kicked. Alas, free speech has consequences, dear friends, something that Rush Limbaugh doesn't talk much about, with regards to himself, anyway. At the Limbaugh Ranch, Rush eats what he wants and as much of it as he wants, smokes as many fine cigars as he wants, used to take enough Oxycontin to knock off a horse plus a man twice his size, and says whatever he wants without consequence. Rush Limbaugh might characterize all that as enjoying the fruits of his labor or living the American Dream, but the Limbaugh Ranch does not represent America.
At the Limbaugh Ranch, Mr. Limbaugh enjoys immunity and isolation. His isolation is such that he just doesn't understand that there's a disconnect between him and most Americans. His boasts of a large listenership* notwithstanding, most folks strongly prefer a healthy berth between themselves and Rush Limbaugh and his kind.
Rush Ventures Forth
I'm genuinely surprised that Mr. Limbaugh visited the final frontier. Although he's flirted with all manner of derogatory language throughout the course of his career, I still couldn't bring myself to believe that he is a racist. After all, and to his credit, he is typically well-spoken, if you'll excuse all the Beavis and Butthead-like "uh-uh-uh's" between bouts of thought. Not only is Limbaugh articulate, he's also a master of his black art. You don't have to believe me, but maybe David Foster Wallace will convince you. To consider: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/04/host/303812/
Without question, Rush Limbaugh is an intelligent man - that his is a native intelligence refined through his autodidactic pursuits is immaterial. My mistake occurred due to my faulty thinking. I thought intelligent men, even a man such as Rush Limbaugh, simply incapable of feelings so heinous. What's worse, Limbaugh still possesses uncanny powers of persuasion and exerts tremendous influence. Worse still, he still has loyal listeners who will rise to his defense, his outrages excused for a variety of dubious reasons. That's an awfully bitter pill to swallow.
Before You Accuse Me...
One cannot accuse me of having never listened to Rush Limbaugh's program. Twenty years ago, I lived in a small town a couple of hours south of Houston, where I managed a warehouse that stocked parts for transmissions. Since I was the only employee I managed, I had full run of the warehouse radio. I listened to not only Mr. Limbaugh's program, but other programs of its hue as well. I listened to them partly to amuse myself, and partly because I couldn't listen to any good music unless the wind blew right.
Certainly, I was amused, but also outraged, freaked out, and downright puzzled. As it turns out, I received a pretty good education in the warehouse. I heard the voice of America's Underbelly, a population which most mainstream Americans would rather just go away, mainly by refusing to acknowledge its existence, its members so gauche you dare not invite them to your child's birthday party for fear that they'll spoil it with all their Fear of the Wrath of God gibberish, thus facilitating the children's subsequent nightmares about burning in Hell. The representatives of this population (chiefly radio and television talk show hosts) fulminate breathlessly against women's health issues using the familiar enough "pro-life" canard, homosexuality, the Civil Rights Act, and labor unions, along with hobgoblins such as Hollywood and Halloween. Amusing stuff all right, and scary.
Equally amusing, for the right reasons, was Roger Gray's broadcast, which, at that time, ran hot on the heels of Rush Limbaugh's. Mr. Gray was a talk radio anomaly: he claimed no ideological affiliation. Indeed, Mr. Gray analyzed a given issue using, as he put it (to the best of my recollection), "pure, cold reason," a more rigorous method than first filtering the issue through an ideological lens. His methodology ruffled many listeners' panties, but Mr. Gray took on all comers (as well as I could ascertain, he did not screen his calls), and he did so fearlessly. I didn't nearly agree with him issue for issue, but still, twenty years later, he remains one among a handful of great thinkers who have exerted profound influence on my own political thinking.
Sadly, there just wasn't any room on the dial in Houston for someone who thinks like Mr. Gray. Dan Patrick, former KHOU TV sports buffoon and current Texas Senator and born-again Christian, owned the station, and eventually helped to run Gray out on a rail. People talk often about "a voice that will be missed," or the voice we could sure use right now. Roger Gray's voice ranks among them.**
Many, by no means all by a long shot, conservatives remind me of a hapless high school senior, the victim of countless taunts and wedgies at the hands of assorted jocks, stoners, the garden variety of mean creeps, and the garden variety of cruel teachers, who will go to the prom with the first girl who accepts his invitation. The conservative who perceives that he's similarly disenfranchised and despised, whether his perceptions have basis in reality, will often, quite gladly and readily, let someone else do his talking. Someone Like Rush Limbaugh. And Ann Coulter. And maybe even Ted Nugent, a truer paragon of red meat killing and eating virtue you couldn't hope to meet.
My Thinking, Reconsidered
I've heard Rush called a contemporary Mark Twain, a true satirist of the first order. The satirist has a tall task before him. It is incumbent upon him to maintain ironic distance from the subject at hand in order to point up its folly. Let's say that Rush Limbaugh is a satirist, one in league with Mark Twain, or even Jonathan Swift. Mr. Limbaugh is no blowhard or even bigot at all; rather, he portrays the part of a blowhard and bigot, and has done so throughout the course of his long career. In doing so, he has pulled off the greatest media con since Andy Kaufman wrestled women. *** Mr. Limbaugh's hoax might be even better than Kaufman's: he never breaks character.
Rush Limbaugh's commitment to maintaining the persona he has so scrupulously cultivated is unrivaled. Such is his commitment that he chose to let it all hang out during the initial fallout from the Trayvon Martin trial. A lesser talent would be accused of racism and stooping to vile new lows. Now that I know better, I see Limbaugh's latest "stunt" for what it is: his boldest statement yet. Yes indeed, Rush Limbaugh has ventured forth into new territory, territory that even Archie Bunker didn't have balls big enough to enter.
Some twenty-five odd years into his career, Rush Limbaugh still has some fresh tricks up his sleeve. My thinking adjusted, I look back now in awe. We all thought he couldn't top even himself after the Sandra Fluke affair, a high water mark in its own right. I see now that that dust-up was the Huckleberry Finn to his current achievement's Tom Sawyer. I can't wait to see Rush' A Modest Proposal.
Until then, a word of advice to Rush: don't apologize this time. While I understand that that apology was a token, you came too close to comfort to breaking character. Then again, it really pissed some people off even more. Like those crybabies from Media Matters. I'm sorry, Rush. I'm still getting acquainted with my new thinking, and I hope you'll forgive the lapse.
Still, courage Rush. Never allow your courage to falter. So what if a few advertisers bail out? You'll never make some people understand.
Yeah, I said that Rush Limbaugh is a fat ass. It's a free country, right? Besides, what's he gonna do about it? Kick my ass?
Ha ha ha - suckers...
* Rush Limbaugh's audience is said to number15-20 Million listeners weekly. That's 16% of the total population using the most generous numbers and math available. But still, maybe not: http://www.businessinsider.com/rush-limbaughs-audience-may-be-so-much-smaller-than-you-think-2012-3
** Mr. Gray's impressive dossier follows: http://www.dbandassociates.net/RogerGray
*** Admittedly, this piece finds an antecedent in this: http://www.citizenschwartz.com/nation-still-reeling-after-rush-limbaugh-revealed-to-be-30-year-long-andy-kaufman-prank/ I so wanted this brilliant bit of Internet hooliganism to be true. To tell you the truth, I did entertain the notion. Sucker...
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