Clang the Clangers! It’s Contest Time Again!

by Roger White

 

Either I’m having a patella-buckling, spleen-expanding, koala-slapping case of déjà vu, or I’ve written all this before and am now simply too addled to recognize it, but here goes: You know how sometimes the gods smile upon you. Yah? True, sometimes they do. This is when things somehow turn out OK despite your astounding lack of common sense. Sometimes, however, they just grin and chuckle, leaving you to fend for yourself. They are amused at your puny efforts.

And yet other times, the gods smirk or give you that blank stare like you really screwed things up.

My advice for these times is just to act like you truly intended the outcome, no matter how calamitous. This gives the gods pause, and that brief delay in the Great Spinning Wheel of Fate (GSWoF) often provides that slim window of time in which you have a certain measure of self-determination. Like that time you were second string on the seventh-grade football team, and the coach was trying to decide whether to let you in the game just before halftime and in your excitement you simply ran out onto the field and got to play two whole plays before coach yelled at you to sit down and quit acting foolish.

Kinda like that.

This is to say that I believe the big guys are smiling at present, because just in time for the Third Biennial Oldspouse Familiar Phrase Contest (OFPhC) I have received another supply of premium glossy bumper stickers as prizes, you lucky ducks. That’s ducks, with a “d.”

For those too young, old, sensible, or hirsute to remember, the OFPhC involves a pile of phrases, quotes, movie lines, book titles, common sayings, utterances, and/or bodily function noises that I’ve rendered in a somewhat obscure manner. Your job, should you decide to accept it, is to come up with the more common version of said utterances. For example, say I give you “A Male Homosapiens For All Periods of the Year.” You say—… oh, come on. You say, “A Man For All Seasons.” Bingo! See how easy?

First three humans (I will accept cats, too) to respond at roger.white@tasb.org with the correct answers each wins a premium glossy bumper sticker (sorry, the “Ronald Reagan for Governor” ones are all gone—you get “Jesus is Coming. Hide the Bong”). And you get your name in the Gazette! Pseudonyms are fine.

Exciting, huh? OK, ready and. Go. What are the more well-known versions of these sayings:

1. She steers me to imbibe.
2. There is a lollipop spawned each 60-second interval.
3. Expired males don’t do any storytelling.
4. Feline Atop a Heated Metal Canopy.
5. A Few Prefer It Scorching.
6. Do not allow the insects in your bunk to munch on you.
7. A countenance only one’s female parent would really like.
8. Leave snoozing pups to recline.
9. Chance, Manifest Yourself as a Woman This Evening.
10. At the rear of each guy who’s accomplished something one will find a female.
11. Idiot’s precious metal.
12. Traversing the brook and through the forest, to my mother’s mother’s abode we travel.
13. The Era of the Water-Bearer.
14. A Story of a Couple of Towns.
15. Mothers, do not allow your offspring to aspire to be ranch hands.
16. Stay Upright Near Your Male.
17. Lucifer persuaded me to act as I did.
18. If I’ve informed you 16 divided by 16 times, I’ve informed you 250 times 4 times.
19. This is the manner in which the small, rounded pastry disintegrates.
20. The third planet from the sun is your bivalve mollusk.

 

Roger White is a freelance bivalve mollusk living in Austin, Texas, with his lovely female spouse, two precocious offspring units, a very obese dachshund, and a cat with Epstein-Barr. For further adventures, visit oldspouse.wordpress.com. Or not.

Falling Off My Very Own Personal Fiscal Cliff

by Roger White

 

Pardon me while I faint. KLOMP!

 

Whew. Okay, I’m back. You see, I just checked my bank balance after the deposit of my first paycheck of 2013. I was anxious—fretting is the better word—over what sorts of new and exotic deductions would further erode my take-home income this fine year. But I had no idea it would be this bad.

 

Well, my Social Security deductions went through the roof; health insurance coverage for my family soared like a Roman candle (ooh, ahh); and we just added our oldest daughter to our automobile insurance coverage because she’s of that age so new and terrifying to all parents. Lindsey’s actually a good driver, but try telling that to a car insurance company. To car insurance companies, teenage drivers are like the proverbial golden geese, except with braces and acne and blue jeans full of holes.

 

Holy smokes. Counting federal income tax, Medicare tax, dental insurance, life insurance, anti-insurance insurance, death insurance, dismemberment insurance, dismemberment cleanup insurance, disability other than dismemberment insurance, retirement, retirement insurance, and, of course, insurance against not having enough insurance insurance, I’m practically taking home less actual money than if I wasn’t working. Counting cost of gas, car upkeep, work clothes, lunches, the imposition of regular hygiene, etcetera, I do believe I’m virtually paying for the privilege to go to work.

 

Wha? Wha happen? How did it get to be like this? I thought that after about 30 years of the daily grind, I was supposed to be doing at least okay, relatively speaking. And speaking of relatively speaking, I’m certainly glad my relatives are speaking to me, because I may very well have to hit them all up for some low-interest loans. These be hard times, people. And the weird part is, my family’s not extravagant. We really don’t have any corners to cut to re-mash our household budget because all of our cuttable corners have already been trimmed long ago. We’ve cut so many corners that every piece of furniture in the house is circular. We’re so bent on cutting corners that we switched from Saltines to Ritz crackers. (Get it? No corners. Bah-doom boom.) We’re saving coupons, taking cold showers, eating at home, bundling services—you name it. We’ve bundled so many services that AT&T provides our cable, phone, internet, water, electricity, sewage, and even medical and pharmaceutical needs, I think. The last time I was on the phone to the AT&T technician in India about a cable outage, he reminded me that I needed my regular allergy shot. That’s how bundled we are. I eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch just about every day, and I’ve worn the same dress shoes since Bush was president—the first Bush, that is.

 

Yes, if this first measly paycheck of the new year is any indication, my little family has barreled over our own personal fiscal cliff. All we’re waiting for is the big thud. I’ve actually sought out assistance to soften the thud. I’ve been to many an online “cost savings” site. They all say about the same thing. Buy store brands. Duh. We’ve been doing that forever. And I must say, “Everything’s a Dollar” brand beer is quite the sacrifice. They say to use up your leftovers and freezer foods. We’ve done that. Just last week, we used up our last can of Manwich and our final jars of Tang powdered orange juice and Taster’s Choice instant coffee, all circa 1972, I believe. Another savings tip from these online cost-cutting gurus is to buy only what’s on sale. Well, we tried that one, but now we’re stuck with 30 jars of gefilte fish, 10 pounds of leeks, and two dozen turkey necks.

 

Who’s up for pot luck?

 

Roger White is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas, with his lovely wife, two precocious daughters, a very fat dachshund, and a self-absorbed cat. For further adventures, visit oldspouse.wordpress.com.

And Now the Rest of the Story

by Roger White 

You know who I miss? Well, yes, I do still pine for Irene Ryan. Granny wielded a razor wit and a mean shotgun—or was it shotgun wit and a mean razor? Whatever. And you just couldn’t beat her possum stew.

But no, my point was that I miss Paul Harvey. If you’re not dilapidated enough to remember him, Paul Harvey was a radio broadcaster who for years and years mingled news, opinion, urban legend, and cleverly disguised product plugs in a quirky one-man show he called “The Rest of the Story.” I didn’t always agree with his politics, but Harvey was funny and sincere. He sounded like one of your slightly deranged uncles telling oddball stories by the campfire.

 

Harvey transitioned to that great studio in the sky in 2009, and in the years since I’ve come to realize he left a huge hole with his passing. News cycles today are so unrelentingly fleeting that no time is allowed for follow-up. You get a headline, a couple of paragraphs of story, and no more. Then it’s on to the next bath-salts-induced-face-eating story. I say it’s time we slowed things down a bit. I say it’s time for more in-depth coverage, for broader, more extensive, more thoughtful deliberation of the day’s events and trends. I say it’s time for another Paul Harvey.

So, friends, followers, and finagling philanderers, I give you Carlos Carlos Moore.

Carlos Carlos is an old pal from journalism school (North Lamar Street Continuing Adult Ed) who found his niche with a show he calls “Moore to the Story.” His hour-long format has been running on Matamoros’ K-PUTA radio for 22 years. I called up my old classmate to see if he’d be willing to put a bit of his talents down on paper, and he graciously obliged, so without further ado, here’s a sampling of “Moore to the Story.”

“From Santa Fe Springs, California, comes this disturbing item that’s made news around the world recently: A 62-year-old employee of the local Bumble Bee Tuna plant was found baked to death in the facility’s giant steamer oven. It remains unclear how the man got into the industrial cooker, but officials are tentatively ruling the death an accident…

…but there’s ‘Moore to the Story.’ Agreeing to be interviewed on the condition of anonymity, an assistant plant manager at the Bumble Bee facility said that due to declining tuna harvests in recent years, select Bumble Bee plants have been ‘retiring’ lesser known employees, particularly undocumented workers, in this manner to fill production quotas. Cans of tuna supplemented with these special ingredients are shipped mainly overseas. In a possibly related story, a spokeswoman for the New Delhi Board of Trade commented at a public hearing last week how her daughter texted her during school lunchtime to ask if tuna fish had fingernails.”

“From the French news organization BVA comes this bit of dirt. According to a new poll, one fifth of French citizens say they don’t wash on a daily basis, and almost 4 percent say they avoid soap and water more than once a week. The study also found that approximately 20 percent of French people don’t wash their hands before eating, and about 12 percent don’t wash their hands after using the toilet…

…but there’s ‘Moore to the Story.’ In a recent interview for his latest biography, actor Sean Connery, a self-confessed ‘germaphobe,’ said he had known since early childhood about the unsettling personal proclivities of the French and that he avoided close encounters with them whenever possible. Connery admitted that during the filming of the 1968 British western “Shalako,” he donned a full-body condom and antibiotic face shield in his scenes with French starlet Brigitte Bardot.”

“From ABC News’ ‘Good Morning America’ show comes this ‘passing’ fancy. As if the bizarre allure that the rare Indonesian gourmet coffee Kopi Luwak holds over some fanciers isn’t enough, Anantara Resorts in the Maldives Islands has introduced its select Black Ivory coffee. For those unfamiliar, Kopi Luwak is made from coffee berries eaten and excreted by small Asian critters called civets. At about $2,200 a pound, Black Ivory, passed through the digestive tracts of Thai elephants, has now one-upped—or should I say ‘sur-passed’—Kopi Luwak as the caca coffee du jour…

 

…but there’s ‘Moore to the Story.’ Our research team has spanned the globe searching for café concoctions even rarer and more exotic. So far, we found two blends on opposite sides of the world we believe are worth taste-testing: In south central New Jersey, a secretive underground cabal of coffee connoisseurs brews an aromatic, nutty-tasting cup made from an exacting process. First, a half-can of Folger’s red-label beans is marinated in automatic transmission fluid in that big puddle under the Fremont Avenue Bridge, near the Camden tracks. Then the beans are left to soak precisely an hour and a half in the urinal trough at Big John’s Bar up the block. The locals call it Jersey Joe. Insiders’ tip: Grind slowly with cinnamon and rosemary for that perfect touch. For a change of pace, coffee gourmands in the northern Ukraine offer this zesty java that literally leaves your tongue tingling. Called Oblast Blast, the recipe for this epicurean extravagance is quite interesting. A gross of beans is shipped to the lone remaining citizen of the ghost town of Pripyat. This man, named Vedislav, sucks on each bean individually for one minute then lays each bean out to dry in the street. There the beans cure for six months—in the shadow of the deserted Chernobyl nuclear plant. When the beans are a nice day-glo green, they’re mixed with asbestos and ground for consumption. Oblast Blast, by the way, has a remarkable shelf life.”

Roger White is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas, with his lovely wife, two precocious daughters, a very fat dachshund, and a self-absorbed cat. For further adventures, visit oldspouse.wordpress.com.