My Water Party

I was flipping through the Sharper Image catalog (motto: “Buy a nose-hair trimmer once, get mail forever") and I saw something called a “Weapons-Grade Super Soaker.” Now, I’m all for summer fun, but there is something very, very wrong with a culture that gives its children “weapons-grade” waterguns. What is wrong is that I am no longer ten.

But I was ten once, and when I was ten, I loved waterguns. For weeks, I lusted after one that looked like a Tommy gun, only to discover after bringing it home that it shot absurdly crooked. I traded it in for an orange transparent Luger, also flawed. No matter which way you stuck it into your shorts, it always dripped down your crotch.

Water balloons had their appeal, too. They were cheap—you could get fifty balloons for a dollar, and pump each one to the size of an avocado, if you were skilled enough. I learned to work the bathroom faucet like a virtuoso. There was a little lip that you had to wrap the balloon around, then turn the faucet on slowly, slowly…Sure, there was some talent there, but I loved what I was doing. Hitting somebody with a water balloon gave me a sense of accomplishment, a satisfaction that I doubt even a “Weapons-Grade Super Soaker” could match. Balloons also had the advantage of distance, essential for a kid like me, who could throw well but couldn’t run a lick.

Of course, balloons had their flaws, too—they had a habit of exploding randomly, thanks to the lax manufacturing standards of third-world countries. When that happened, or I simply wanted to enjoy life’s simple pleasures, I pulled out the garden hose. I developed several different methods of sticking my thumb over the nozzle; one was for distance, another for accuracy. I was, in my limited way, a scholar.

What can be deduced from this boyhood mania is that I grew up in a hot place: Missouri may not seem hot to you, but the whole Midwest is much hotter than, say, Phoenix. In Phoenix (cue the cliché) it’s a dry heat. There’s nothing dry about summer in Missouri. My armpits ache just thinking about it.

Phoenix is also the desert, so people look at the thermometer and think, “Screw that. I’m staying in the air-conditioning.” Places like Missouri look all right—that’s how they get you. Take it from somebody who knows: from June to September, the Midwest is hostile to human life. It’s like a planet where, as soon as the astronaut takes off his helmet, he discovers the atmosphere is chlorine, the distress call a fraud, and the naked women just holograms. Then the mantis-people slice him up for food. (There are no mantis people in Missouri, just a lot of born-agains.)

The heat always made the question of what to do for my birthday—June 14—pretty tough. For a while my parents and I went to Six Flags, but eventually none of us could take it anymore. It was like spending the day standing in line on an airport runway, interspersed by rounds of Mystery Nausea. (“Is it from what you just rode, what you just ate, or the beginnings of heat prostration?”) I wasn’t even old enough to have really interesting hallucinations.

My tenth birthday, we decided to throw a “water party” in the backyard. In some respects this made sense—cheaper, cooler, less chance of vomiting—but in others, it was an example of the touching yet undeniably foolhardy optimism my family is known for. (You’d be amazed at how often things turn out okay. I’m amazed, anyway.)

Our backyard was an irregular rectangle fifty feet wide and 150 feet long, bordered by sticker bushes. There was a single tree about halfway down which was where we tied the dog, a black lab-Satan mix named Gus. Gus was the living embodiment of that optimism, and felt obligated to show us our folly whenever possible. Gus associated the backyard with being tied up, which he naturally resented; he sincerely felt he belonged indoors with us, no matter what he had chewed up or rolled in. Gus took out his righteous anger on the lawn, digging holes and tearing around in circles until the rope caught and yanked him off his feet. One entered Gus' radius at great peril.

Faced with this onslaught the scrubby grass, never strong, gave up almost immediately. By the time of our party, about 75% of the yard—all that Gus could reach—was as bare as the surface of the moon. In case you’re wondering, I still had to mow it. I remember the mower throwing up a gray, soot-fine soil. “Soil” is the wrong word. It was really just stationary dust.

The one good thing about there being no grass was that it was much easier to see the rocks, pieces of brick, and other assorted hazards sprinkled thickly underfoot. Chief among these was a foot-high seam, which ran the entire length of the yard, perfect for twisting ankles. I was, and remain convinced that this was a far-flung arm of the New Madrid fault, which spawned a deadly quake in 1836, and was just itching to do it again.

For the sake of time, I won’t talk about our neighbors, except to say that one was an alcoholic and the other were pot dealers. Speaking of criminality, a final strike against our backyard as the site of a child's birthday party was that it was right next to the Missouri State Penitentiary. Perhaps somebody out there is saying, “Come on, Mike—that wasn’t the pen. That was just the employees’ parking lot.” To which I say, maybe so, but it’s a lot closer to a prison than you’ve ever lived.

To sum up: if my guests and I didn’t mind getting a little dirty, could avoid getting jumped on by the dog, didn’t fall on a sharp rock, escaped twisting our ankle on the seam, kept a sharp eye out for escaped convicts and survived any minor earthquakes, we stood to have a pretty good time. My parents were convinced this was a great idea, and sent me out to mow the lawn for company. I sifted the dust a little and tried to think about presents.

Anyone who grew up with an insane relative in their cellar will understand why none of my invitees had ever seen my backyard. The invitations my mom drew up did not let on; as an abstract painter, she was used to fudging the details. As usual, my parents were convinced everything would work out. As usual, I expressed my grave doubts, then tried to be as cheerful as possible.

Everybody I invited showed up, in trunks and/or goggles. There was my best friend Ross, whose Dad had an incredibly thorough (and highly organized) collection of Playboy; and my friend Larry, a really, really quiet guy with a filthy mouth that sprang to life whenever adults were not present, and my friend Kurt, whose main claim to fame was being able to replicate John Travolta’s dance from “Saturday Night Fever.” I still remember watching him do it for me—even at that age, I realized there was something creepy about a fourth grader doing pelvic thrusts. While Ross, Larry and I occupied pretty much the same social strata, Kurt’s family was much better off; his dad was a dentist. I remember at his birthday party, Dr. Name-Withheld-to-Avoid-Lawsuit gave everybody laughing gas.

Temporarily out of laughing gas, we issued everybody a squirt gun as soon as they walked in the door, along with a stern warning not to tease the dog. (Some did anyway, and got what they deserved; Gus was crazy, but he was fair.) We had positioned zinc tubs all around the yard, some filled with soda, others with water balloons. These were dutifully replenished by my mother, who was not a master of the art like me, but nevertheless did her best. She even tried to keep her sense of humor whenever she got wet. (Just the sight of her doing something as naughty as making a water balloon was a tiny little birthday present.)

My dad was manning the Slip ‘n’ Slide, bought especially for this occasion, which we spread out on the most grassy part of the lawn. There were still rocks and bricks under it, however, so after a few times through, all of us looked like we’d gone a couple of rounds with Ali. We didn’t care, but eventually there was a question of internal injuries, so Dad switched to the grill.

As he cooked hot dogs, we all ran around like small animals of every species, stalking and surprising and ambushing each other. Alliances were formed, broken, and reformed in the twitch of a trigger finger. We were all soaked within the first five minutes, and spent the next couple of hours in serious, if not exactly solemn, investigation to see if we could discover some way to get even wetter. From the first drop of moisture, the backyard turned to muck; when you added soda to it, the mixture got truly foul, so Mom set up the sprinkler for us to stand over. The mayhem didn’t stop when the hot dogs were done; I remember eating a hot dog with one hand, and squirting with another. We threw so many water balloons that the yard became covered with scraps of rubber, which Gus promptly ate. Then threw up, then ate again. Gus could eat anything, and did. He once ate a bee, but that’s another story.

There was no prison break. There was no earthquake. (I doubt we would’ve noticed either.) Even the dog had a good time; Gus always enjoyed it whenever things got crazy; that’s when he felt most comfortable, I think, not so judged. Sure, some people stubbed their toes, and even more stepped on grasshoppers (not painful, just gross, imagine crunching a Funyun filled with mucus), but there were no serious injuries. Only one kid Rory, got scratched by the dog. Rory always spilled fruit punch on the rug whenever my mom hosted my Cub Scout troop, so we all felt he had it coming.

Dusk started to fall, and the mosquitos came out (yet another thing they don’t have in Phoenix). That didn’t stop us, but the heat-lightning did, we everybody trooped inside to open presents; I don’t remember what I got—Star Wars stuff, probably, given the time. Maybe that was the year I got the little stormtrooper (they were out of Luke and Han and Darth, and Leia wasn’t allowed by my Y chromosome). Just as everybody’s parents came, there was a fierce, rip-the-siding-off summer thunderstorm. Perhaps God was celebrating my birthday; all I know for sure is I was the one that had to go bring in Gus.

So I went to see the X-Men movie...

...and was totally disappointed! None of my favorite ones were in it. I couldn't have been the only kid who loved "Lariat," the guy with the mammoth, prehensile penis. Or "Waft," the dorky dude who could turn into a mildly unpleasant smell. Him and Wolverine fighting would've been great comic relief. Or "Spurt"--remember Spurt, the guy who could empty his circulatory system at will? I guess I understand why they didn't use him; his was obviously a one-shot kind of skill. Still, I remember crying during the issue with the blood drive. "To Serve His Fellow Man."

And where was Sassy Silver, a/k/a "Chopper," who could crush walnuts without using her hands? She was Lariat's girlfriend, so I guess once they decided he wasn't in it, she wasn't either. There were so many great ones to choose from--Misapprehension, Tummler, Ennui--why did they stick with all the boring ones? I tell ya, audience testing is killing movies.

Five things you didn't know about the Indy 500

The famed Indy 500 auto race takes place this weekend, and even though only retards care, I thought I'd share a few Indy facts I've picked up over the years.

Fallacy #1: It’s called the Indy 500 because the track is located near Indianapolis, Indiana.
Untrue! The race is named for its first winner, Indira Gandhi.



Fallacy #2: The “500” refers to the number of miles in the race.
Nope! It can be as long or as short as the governing body decides. “500” is how many commercials they run before declaring it over. Whoever’s leading at that point, wins.

Fallacy #3: Women cannot drive race cars during their period.
A sexist lie! As Danica Patrick proves, there is no biological reason women cannot drive race cars—although the g-forces involved can rip off their breasts.

Fallacy #4: The nickname “Brickyard” comes from the bricks originally used to pave the Speedway.
Uh-uh. In the early days of racing, all speedways were brick (except for the few “safety courses” that used three feet of water). This particular one was called “The Brickyard” after spectators’ penchant for hurling paving stones at drivers they didn’t like.

Fallacy #5: Upon winning the race, the winner is given a quart of milk.
If only! That’s a jug of piping hot boar semen.

A fishing story

In honor of Memorial Day and the official start of summer, I'd like to share my only fishing story. Like all the best ones, I have no evidence whatever that it actually happened, so you'll just have to take my word for it. I haven't been fishing since, not because of what happened (though it would be just like me to develop a phobia) but because I never got the hang of grabbing the fish after you catch it. Not being able to do this makes fishing pretty pointless, and after your grandfathers die there's nobody left to do it for you.

My only fishing story comes from a trip the family took to Wisconsin when I was about ten. My dad's grandfather had a place up near Hayward, and we used to go every year, so my parents could relax, and I could freak out. Strange place, strange people, strange rules, strange schedule, strange smells. No books. What little sports equipment I could find had inevitably been broken by my much more athletic Aryan step-cousins. Every day brought something new that I wasn't very good at--or very interested in. My only possible escape was to be cheerful, try really hard and hope for the best. It was "A Boy Called Horse," with occasional trips into town to get fudge.

One day I was fishing with my dad and uncles for muskies, big nasty late-Cretaceous Period items with lots of sharp teeth and no grasp of right and wrong, justice or mercy. You can tell how nasty they are by the size of the lures we were using: chunks of fish-like plastic as big as two of your thumbs. They had multiple hooks on them--apparently one isn't sufficient to get a muskie's attention.

I should start out by saying that I had been raised in an extremely urban, artistic, all-female environment. Putting me out in a boat in the middle of a Wisconsin lake with my dad and uncle--you might as well have drafted me. I remember strangers shouting advice from nearby boats. I was simply out there hoping to get through the day without having to poop over the side of the boat or otherwise humiliate myself.

It wasn't so bad; after the alcohol had kicked in and the adults started to relax, I began to enjoy myself, too. We spent the entire day fishing with no success--we went to every spot, tried going deep, tried going shallow, even tried casting near submerged logs and such. There was only the occasional lure-in-tree moment. It should not surprise you to know that I was convinced I would catch somebody's ear with every back-cast, and then for the rest of my life, every time I'd see my uncle or father, I'd be confronted with the big hole the backwoods doctor had to cut in their ear to get the lure out. I was also terrified of getting lured myself, but less so; if that happened, I would just be cheerful and muddle through.

Anyway, the sun's going down and it's getting cold--it never gets truly WARM on a shady Wisconsin lake, even in the summer, which suggests that what we call "a muskellunge" is in fact some sort of horrific beast from the cold wastes beyond the Van Allen belt. Look at it: the first muskie (possibly in larval form) doubtless rode to Earth on a meteor, plopped into a lake, and took it over. More evidence for this comes from the fact that there was (apparently) nothing else in the lake. The muskies had systematically eaten every other fish, and were now mouthing plants, dirt and the occasional rock. In addition to making suggestions to each other like, "Why don't you swim into that hole and see what's in it?...Of course you won't get stuck, don't be a pussy!...I'll wait out here."

So by the time we get to Lake Thunderdome, it's basically a moon crater filled with icy water and the most ruthless, amoral, cunning bunch of fish imaginable. The ones near the bottom were wearing SS uniforms. The ones deeper than that were plotting to take over the world. These are the things we're trying to catch, god knows why. Perhaps so they can jump into our boat, snip our hamstrings with one scissor of their jaws, then leap away, laughing or doing whatever muskies do in those fleeting moments when they aren't pissed. Or maybe a whole bunch of them will rush the boat, and tip us into the water, after which they can pick us off, one-by-one, at their leisure.

In an effort to distract myself from thoughts like this, I have concentrated all day on making sure my reel doesn't get tangled. To do this you've got to wind the line through your thumb and forefinger. After a day of nothing--nobody's line has so much as shimmied since we got there--everybody takes a final cast, and we all discuss how we're going to "spin" our dismal failure. Fishing is a lot about putting a good face on disappointment, arranging it in your head so that it doesn't crush you. In this way it's a lot like life. One uncle plans to blame the weather (too dry--they come up after a rain); another says it's too hot (they stay down, where it's cool--and also out of the reach of local law enforcement). As I recall my father's opinion--or maybe it was his grandfather's--was that we didn't get out there early; it was a moral failure.

So I'm listening to this, winding the thick, wet strand through my fingers when suddenly, BAM! The reel buzzes like a wasp as something big hauls out line. Before I can whip my fingers away, a groove 1/4 inch deep has been dug out of both my thumb and forefinger. Given that my 10-year-old fingers weren't that large to begin with, this is a significant slice and it starts hurting like a bitch. Blood isn't a problem, however--I'm holding on to the pole much too tightly for that.

Finally the fish gets tired, or complacent (it's shown me who's boss), and slows for a second. Now I was nothing if not gritty as a kid, so I grab the handle and start cranking, dragging the fish back towards me. If it had been just me in the boat, there's no way I would've been able to beat Mr. Muskie, but after I got tired, I handed it to my dad, who handed it to my uncle when HE got tired. (Their periodic grunts and swearing made me feel a lot less weak.) I'm sitting there in the bow, sucking my injured fingers, when my dad says, "Get the net." It takes me a second or two to realize this sentence means, "Go to the side of the boat, and lean over towards the water, where all this fish's buddies--the guys smart enough to elude us all day--can leap at your eyes." It is a measure of how much I wanted to please my father that I did it anyway.

First there was splashing, as we finally got it near the surface. As the splashing grew closer, I started to wonder how the hell I was going to scoop up this very mean fish who almost certainly hated me the way a Hell's Angel does somebody who dents his bike. And in that moment, I suddenly saw the appeal of being drunk. But that was not an option; even if I could done a few quick shots, I had to keep both hands on the net--my goal was simply to keep the muskie away from my face, throat and groin until we beat it to death or trapped it in our cooler or whatever the adults were planning.

The fish thrashed by the side of the boat, really giving it everything. You could tell this was no longer fun for it, and it started getting truly angry. I caught a glimpse of its face as it rolled on its side for a second. Not only were there a lot of teeth jutting out like a Swiss Army knife waiting to be stepped on, there was a look in its eye: "I blame YOU."

I didn't have time to contemplate the possibilities for revenge or vendetta because everybody started yelling for me to scoop up the fish. Far from sure this was a good idea, I gave a few timid swipes, not nearly deep enough; the muskie dipped and flopped, skimming under the net with ease. (Apparently one of us had done this before.) My grittiness came to the fore again; if I was going to die--I was a dramatic child, and often thought in these terms--I was determined to die honorably. Putting my knees in the brackish water that had collected on the bottom of the boat, I leaned 'way over the edge, and dipped the net deep. Success! The lake water sprayed my glasses as the muskie thrashed. Blind, I brought it straight up out of the water--the fish was mine. I had won!

Everybody in both boats cheered. I remember being shocked at how heavy it was, and how I had to use my stomach and back to keep from plopping the fish-loaded net straight back down into the water. Just as I brought the twisting, shuddering net into the boat, the net suddenly flew up; there was another, final splash, and the net was empty. It took us a second to figure out what had happened: at the last minute--with one, effortless snip of its jaws--the muskie had bitten through the metal leader and the net below it.

It was gone; all we had was the story. My dad started the engine and the beat-up boat (my step-cousins no doubt) began to dig through the waves towards the shore. My fingers began to really kill, but it wasn't a bad pain--it was evidence, a mark, my Red Gouge of Courage. I hoped my mom would make a big deal out of my injury. I'm happy to report that she did.

Cheating at Stutts

Reading the Times' recent expose on collegiate cheating—short version: it’s rampant, and they use iPods and other elder-mystifying technology to do it—made me wonder about the state of affairs at my alma mater, Stutts University. Not surprisingly, cheating at Stutts is state-of-the-art. Very surprisingly, it’s fully condoned by the university! “We’re just about to open an entire building dedicated to it, called the Center for Competitive Advantage,” said Kitty O’Shea. Kitty runs the Poor & Unimportant division for the Association of Stutts Alumni; she’s my first stop whenever I want to get the skinny on what’s going on up in Great Littleton.

Kitty put me in touch with University Provost Patrick Rivington, Stutts’ head honcho for anything having to do with dollars and cents. “Our students are our customers, Mike,” Rivington explained. “Whatever they want to learn, we want to teach. When a consultant told me that our students spent, on average, 17% of their entire Stutts career cheating their brains out, the next step was obvious: let’s turn it into a major. That’s what being customer-focused is.” When I mentioned that other schools might disagree, Rivington said, "Other schools' opinions don't really concern us."

The Alternative Moralities (“AltMo”) major was instituted at Stutts four years ago, but it’s already one of the most visible, powerful departments on campus. Though it started out as a branch of the Philosophy department, its wild popularity with the students—along with some Machievellian dealings by the AltMo professors themselves—soon made it one of the most voices inside Stutts. Proof of this came on April 23, 2003, when CHEATSTAR-1, the first-ever satellite dedicated solely to academic malfeasance, was lifted into geosynchronous orbit.

“There are times in life when the standard paradigm does not work,” President Rivington said in his pre-launch remarks. “That’s why we encourage our students to seek out new solutions, wherever they might be. Studying for a test, memorizing the information—that’s one solution. Uploading your entire textbook to CHEATSTAR, is simply another, more efficient solution…We know our students could ace any test if they wanted to—they’re Stutts students. That’s why nobody gets anything lower than a ‘B,’” Whitbread said, “and that’s why we’re launching CHEATSTAR.”

Naturally, there’s been a tremendous amount of interest in AltMo coming from the business world, and where corporations go, money inevitably follows. In July, Stutts will unveil the 30,000-square foot Wouk Center for Competitive Advantages, paid for by Kenneth Wouk ’67, CEO of Energon. According to a press release, Wouk’s first priority is to “develop a new version of the artificial intelligence software that allowed Energon to manipulate the world’s electricity supply so very effectively. My second priority is not to get caught this time.”

“‘Kenny Kilowatt’ is a full-stop, flat-out genius,” Rivington told me. “He’s already talking to the Physics department about quantum cheating technology. That’s going to make it possible for Stutts students to cheat on multiple tests at the same time. It’s a really exciting time,” Rivington said. “Money’s just pouring into the Center, because it’s a great way to hide your profits. We can’t wait for Kenny to come onboard,” Rivington said. “Three-to-seven years max, less with good behavior.”

Great Littleton's biggest used bookstore closes

Stutts is closed for the summer, but life goes on in Great Littleton—by which we mean it continues to get worse. Last week, local bibliophiles were saddened to hear that Shabby’s, the campus’ legendary used bookstore, was closing after 40 years of service to the local community. The move wasn’t a surprise; the future of the warren-like retailer had been in doubt ever since the recent passing of its larger-than-life owner. In March, Bill Shabby suffered his nineteeth heart attack, and decided to succumb to it, just to punish a customer for asking if there was a restroom.

“That was Bill,” said Sharon White, 57, a longtime Shabby’s customer and one of the few who could decipher Shabby’s rapid-fire barrage of swears. “It wasn’t about money to him. But it wasn’t about selling books, either,” White said. “I’m not exactly sure what it was about. Vengeance?

“He said to me more than once, ‘I want every moment in this store to be as unpleasant as possible.’”

Sales had been slumping for years, never having recovered from October 1997’s lethal shelf collapse. Nevertheless, for four decades, Bill Shabby was as much a part of Great Littleton as summer malaria. Looming over his shop like a sweat-sour, shirt-sleeved volcano, Bill fostered friendships: students and townies bonded in the high-stress environment forged by the owner’s incomprehensible patterns of abuse. Booklovers flocked from all over New England to hunt for bargains at Shabby’s regular “Water Damage Sales” (there was a Turkish bath directly upstairs), only to be disappointed when Bill insisted everyone still pay full price. And pawing through the “Moldy--Read at Own Risk” boxes outside the front door became as much a Stutts ritual as throwing up food from the dining hall.

Generations of Stutts students won’t forget spending hours pawing through Shabby’s dust-rimed, vaguely alphabetized stock. Many also recalled nestling in the rotting easychairs scattered randomly throughout the store. “You did that exactly once,” said Kevin Kleiman ’02. “The chairs put a funny smell in your clothes. I had to burn my favorite shirt.”

Tests are still being done to determine the nature of the smell, but many believe it came from the cats that prowled the store. “Usually, I like a cat or two in a bookstore,” said Tracy Gilbert ’88, “but these cats were scary. They were feral, incontinent, and I swear one was rabid. I remember being trapped by a big tabby, and having to fight my way out with the Compact OED.”

Sharon White laughs at the memory of the cats. “I don’t know whose they were,” she says. “Bill always denied they existed. I’d say, ‘There it is, Bill, mauling that girl,’ and he’d just grunt and keep watching that TV of his.”

On an average day, one could find Bill behind his desk, surrounded by piles of books, watching TV on a small, wavery black-and-white held together with tape. One student remembers, “He had to hit it about every five minutes to make it work. I was there the day it finally broke. That was scary.”

Indeed, fear seems to be the commonest reaction to Bill Shabby, who was at least 300 pounds, and perpetually enraged. “I saw him pick up a Girl Scout--she was selling cookies--and throw her out into the street,” said Fanton Mandrake, head of the University Museum and one of the few administrators brave enough to go into the store. “I think all that mold and dust and cat urine did something to his brain.”

“He was perpetually throwing up into his mouth, and it dribbled onto his beard,” said Constance Cornish, owner of The Lonely Scone next door. “He believed that burdock and dandelion soda made it better, so he was always coming over and stealing some. I couldn’t fight him, so I went over and stole books in recompense.”

The only people Bill Shabby ever got along with were “the two old guys playing chess in the reference aisle,” White said. “And when I say ‘get along with’ I mean, he didn’t hit them. At least I never saw him hit them.”

In the 1960s, Shabby’s was a center for the Free Speech movement at Stutts—at least until Bill Shabby found out. “He literally chased us out of the store,” said David "Che" Rodriguez, ’69. “He kept calling me ‘John [effing] Steinbeck’ for some reason. There was a big sign in the store: ‘I will NOT sell you any John Steinbeck!!!’, just like that, multiple exclamation points and everything,” Rodriguez remembers. “I think he was insane.”

So while there is nostalgia, the passing of the man and his store has an unmistakable undercurrent of relief. “In this era of online bookstores and antiseptic corporate behemoths,” Mandrake says, “Shabby’s was a real, old-time used bookstore. Bill was a true Great Littleton original, and having said that, I’m truly glad he’s dead.”

Has anybody else gone to Disneyland lately?

Uh, I don't know if there's been a shareholder revolt or something, but I have to say I was shocked to see that it's been turned into a shrine to H.P. Lovecraft. Where's Mickey? Where's Minnie? According to the guy on the tram, "all were driven insane after seeing things no mortal could withstand." For some reason, Pluto's still around, but now he's called "Yog-Sothoth." The "happiest place on Earth"? More like the crappiest.

I asked woman wearing a Disney badge, "Is this like a special thing for the 50th anniversary?" and she said, "No, it's permanent. Don't you love it?" I didn't like the look on her face, so I nodded yes and walked away quickly. At least I spoke English--a lot of the foreign people were confused; I can't tell you how many times I had to explain the difference between "the Deep Ones" and "the Old Ones." People from Red States were clearly put-off, and it scares the sh*t out of kids. And aren't kids what Disneyland is all about?

Not anymore. Now it's all about "mind-shattering terror" and "non-Euclidean geometry." The Matterhorn is now "The Mountains of Madness." "Pirates of the Caribbean" has been turned into "Callin' with C'thulu," starring Rick Moranis. Main Street has been transformed into Innsmouth, and every night at 7:30, "those who have interbred with the Deep Ones caper and cavort in an obscene parade." (We left long before that idiocy started.) People in freaky polyp costumes are always popping out at you, screaming "Cthulhu fhtagn!" I nearly hit one of them. The only good thing is that the "tentacle hats" are a lot cooler than those stupid mouse ears.

I could go on, but you get the picture. The whole place is incredibly depressing, and for children, pretty damn scary. Two thumbs down!

We saw the letter!

According to The New York Times, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has written President Bush a letter. Jon Schwarz and I have seen a copy of the letter which, frankly, blew us away. Ahmadinejad's reaching out represents a turning-point in the current stalemate between America and Iran, and will very likely spur a whole flurry of similar letters between world leaders. In yet another example of the blogosphere scooping the outdated, slow, accuracy-crazed mainstream media, I reprint the entire text below:

"Dear President Bush:
I am writing you on the advice of my therapist, who says I have alot of unresolved feelings towards your country. I have my doubts, but I want to show Dr. Gulzar that I'm committed to our therapy.

Iran and America ought to work together to reduce international tensions. I propose a simple trade: if you promise not to invade Iran, I promise to wear a tie. Of course, the choice of tie will be Iran's alone.

Since Dr. Gulzar is always telling me to 'speak my truth,' I want to tell you something. The goal of Iran's nuclear program is not a bomb. It is to make a working replica of the time-traveling car from Back to the Future. Have you ever seen that movie? Not everyone knows this, but there are three of them. If you want, I can loan them to you, but you have to PROMISE to give them back.

To achieve this dream, Iran requires two things: nuclear power, and a DeLorean. Could you keep your eyes open? I'm working Craigslist, but so far nothing. I'm sure you agree, there's really no point in doing it, if it's not authentic.

Respectfully,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
PS--Do you know how I can get in touch with Christopher Lloyd?"

History's greatest bullies?

In the wake of Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen calling satirist Stephen Colbert "a bully," Jon and I started wondering: is Colbert the biggest bully in history? Probably. But being believers in the democratic process, we decided to assemble a list and leave the choice to you.

1. Charlie Chaplin attacks a defenseless Hitler
(1937)
Anybody who's ever seen "The Great Dictator" knows that it's Chaplin with the problem. And the "comedian" made money off it, which shows you what he was really interested in.


2. Rich Little does impressions of Richard M. Nixon at a time when the President was really going through a lot
(1974)
This card-carrying Canadian must've really hurt the President's self-esteem. Talk about kicking a guy when he's down--I guess that's considered "manly" up north.




3. Vaughn Meader brutally spoofs JFK
(1961-1963)
Not content with nearly driving President Kennedy out of politics ("I just can't take it anymore") this jerk made fun of the whole family--even, if memory serves, the retarded sister. I bet he liked it when Kennedy got shot.



4. Mark Russell writes a symphony of pure hate
(1979-present)
No one is safe from Russell, who seems determined to bring down anyone more successful than himself. Like so many of history's greatest scoundrels, the openly sociopathic Russell puts his attacks to music, so you remember them better. And the worst thing of all: he uses your tax dollars to do it!

Ze Frank

"[On zefrank.com] there's the joyous sense of experimentation and play, which goes against a very popular form of humor these days, which is unlimited up-scale sarcastic anger, I guess. I happen to think it's very funny. I'm a huge South Park fan, and I really enjoyed the Jackass movie. On the other hand, I think there's a real lack of humor that has a kind of sweetness, like what the Marx Brothers had, or Laurel and Hardy. There needs to be a space for that more simple, fun, light, and intelligent humor."--Web artist/humorist Ze Frank

Thanks to the magic of Stumble Upon, I discovered the website of Ze (short for Hosea) Frank. It's full of weird and wonderful stuff, including "How to Dance," which has been circulating around the web for years, and "naughtybird," a series that every cat owner will enjoy. After you're finished poking around his site, you should check out this interview with Ze, which is quite fascinating and, honestly, a bit inspiring.

O'Donoghue at Harvard?

In the midst of a conversation about Conan O'Brien (specifically my complaint that some of his stuff, like a lot of post-1985 comedy, seems over-refined somehow), I asked pal o' mine and Michael O'Donoghue biographer Dennis Perrin, "What kind of stuff would Michael O'Donoghue have created, had he gone to Harvard and gotten a TV gig within minutes of graduation? Do you think he would've been a comedy writer at all?"

Dennis responded thusly: "O'D would've never lasted at Harvard. Hell, he could barely stay on at Rochester. Too combative. Too intensely creative. That's why he startled the Harvard boys he worked with. They were used to socializing after exchanging a few droll japes. O'D steamrolled them with his intensity and focus. He had no time for niceties, which is why he never finished college. I still feel that he fell into comedy by default. People laughed at his early stuff because I honestly think they had no other way of dealing with it."

That rings true. Could it be that true groundbreakers in comedy are creative first, and comic second, with "comedy" being simply the closest external category to the unique feeling their work creates? It's an interesting question.

Colbert vs. the Sharks

I try to keep politics to a minimum here, simply because other people write more lucidly and more amusingly about it than I do. However, Jon Schwarz's ladling of scorn on the press' extended pants-wetting over Stephen Colbert launched me into a Jaws-generation reverie.

Imagine you're a lifeguard on a beach. You're very proud of yourself. You worked hard to become a lifeguard, and you make sure everybody knows what an important job it is. Mostly, they agree with you. It's a nice job, and you like it. You even like the sense of responsibility.

Unfortunately, there is a shark prowling your beach. Every so often, a bather gets chomped on. You feel bad about it, really you do. And you try to stop it from happening whenever possible. But you're only human.

One day, you see some kids playing in the water. Suddenly, you hear one of them yell, "Shark!" You don't pay attention--kids yell that all the time. Then there's a lot of splashing--no worries, kids do that, too. But this day, another adult takes it seriously, and goes bolting off into the surf. Moments later, he comes back, and says, "I scared it away--for the moment, at least." Some people lift him onto their shoulders and carry him off the beach, calling him a hero. While this is happening, some other people come up to you and say, "There was a shark! You're the lifeguard--why the hell didn't you go out there?"

You're embarrassed. So here's what you'd say:
1) "I'm a lifeguard, he's just some guy. He probably saw a school of fishes."
2) "Kids act that way all the time. How was I supposed to know?"
3) "So what if there was a shark? Nobody got hurt. We'll just wait a while and it'll go away."
4) "YOU try being a lifeguard. It's so hard, I bet you wouldn't last one day! You're lucky that people like me exist, so you can be safe."
The beachgoers are still mad, but they can't fire you. All they can do is say, "I wish somebody else was lifeguard," as they walk away. At that moment, you don't hate the shark. You hate the fella who scared the shark away.

If the media wants people to stop laughing at it, calling it ineffectual, corrupt, self-aggrandizing, and stupid, there's only one thing for it to do: catch the shark.

And if they can't be shamed into it, perhaps they should remember this: sharks eat lifeguards, too.

Plagiarism scandal rocks Stutts

No one expects the Stutts Daily Spectacle to have its facts straight, least of all its readers. After all, they know better than anyone how much work it takes to maintain a 4.0.

But even a blind squirrel finds an occasional nut, so in March the Spec reported that a Stutts student, Malati Sulabha '08, had plagiarized large chunks of her first novel, "Girl with Perfect SATs Goes Nuts, Drinks Cosmos, and Hooks Up," from another "chick-lit" offering, "The Rodeo Drive Club's Blow Job Queens of MySpace." Ms. Sulabha had received $500,000 in a two-book deal, an astonishing advance for an unpublished writer, even one attending Stutts, the world's finest university.

Ms. Sulabha (or as she was known on campus, "the fucking bitch who got all that money to write a book I totally could if I wanted to--did I tell you I won like, five literary prizes in high school?--it's just that I spent the entire summer doing Outward Bound with like, poor kids") initially characterized the disputed passages as "unintentional." This defense became problematic when evidence surfaced showing that whole chapters had been simply photocopied. Ms. Sulabha then backtracked, saying, "The Xerox machine at my Dad's office is totally weird."

As the scandal deepened, Ms. Sulabha's publishers professed shock and surprise. "When I was reading along and all the characters' names changed, I thought, 'Wow, postmodern," said Bernys de Lesseps of Sutton Place Press. When asked if he had ever read the book Ms. Sulabha had copied from, de Lesseps replied candidly, "I haven't read anything but spreadsheets since 1993." But you just said you'd read... "I was lying."

Just when it couldn't get any worse, copies of the earlier book began to surface with the author's name crossed out and Ms. Sulabha's name written on them in Sharpie. At that point, the student decided to come clean. "It's better to seem corrupt than stupid," as they say in Great Littleton, and so the young writer's tune changed to a symphony of contrition. "I'm really, really, sorry this happened." So far, her sorrow, while great, has not taken any financial form. In fact the whole brouhaha has done wonders for her book sales.

As a result, publishers have begun to scour Great Littleton for other writers who are willing to shamelessly plagiarize novels. "We're looking for that 'Stutts touch,'" one publisher said anonymously. "Somebody who doesn't have anything to say besides, 'I am smart and hard-working and will TOTALLY WHORE MYSELF OUT FOR SUCCESS.'" The publisher paused. "Make sure you put that in all-caps," she said.

They're likely to find a lot of takers. Happily, the rise of book packagers means that no content whatsoever need originate with the student. "We sell the proposal, we write the book, we deliver the book," said Jonathan Greene-Green of King's Cross Productions, creators of the wildly popular "Sodomy Girls Go Shopping" series. "The job of the author is merely to apologize to whatever audience is appropriate given our book's demos."

"Of course she plagiarized. What else could she do?" asked Randy Gillespie, an adjunct professor in the Stutts English Department. Since the scandal broke, several of his colleagues have been hospitalized with acute schadenfreude. "Look, most people don't have a pamphlet in them," Gillespie said, "much less a novel, much less two novels. It was an impossible situation, a sucker's bet, and one that no Stutts student could ever turn down. Five hundred grand just to make some stuff up? Where do I sign? Then you start and find out it's not as easy as it looks..." When asked why she didn't simply give back the money, Gillespie laughed. "Kids here know how to do everything but fail. Better to be the girl who cheated rather than the girl who failed."

The professor's own novels, a satirical tetralogy based on the Epic of Gilgamesh which send up academic life "from an insider's perspective," have sold 1,007 copies, mostly in Dutch. When it is suggested that he's just bitter, Gillespie replied, "Hell yes! Why'd I spend all those years learning to write when it obviously comes down to--I don't know, something else. Did you hear? She doesn't even want to be a writer--she wants to be an investment banker!"

But this sad story of ambition run amok does prove one thing: the enduring power of the written word. When it comes to knocking a classmate off their pedestal, nobody works harder than the Daily Spec. "As soon as we got copies of her book, it was like Woodward to the power of Bernstein in there," said Cal Davis '07, an editor on the paper. Davis intimated that Ms. Sulabha's fate was sealed from the moment that her deal went public. "As soon as everybody heard that she was getting $500,000, she was meat," Davis said. "I only got fifty grand for my memoir about Aderol addiction, and my uncle edits Details, bitch!"

UPDATE (5-2-06): After the kind of media scrutiny once reserved for heads of state, natural disasters, and other things that actually matter, it has been discovered that Ms. Sulabha's book contains verbatim passages from at least 58 more books. The list, which was still growing at press time, includes "The Good Earth," "The Origin of Species," "I'm OK, You're OK," "Bleak House," and--perhaps most worrisome of all-- the 1973 Chilton Guide to Small Engine Repair.

In a statement this afternoon, a badly shaken de Lesseps said, "I think it's clear that Ms. Sulabha has written not a book, but some sort of pernicious, cannibalizing chick-lit virus. In ways not yet known, 'Perfect SATs' absorbs portions of any book it comes into contact with and absorbs it into its narrative structure. For the sake of the world's literature, I'm asking--no, begging--anyone who bought the book to destroy it immediately. May God have mercy on our souls."

This just in: Stephen Colbert has a pair

As many of you know, I spent much of my twenties trying to get things that were actually funny broadcast on television and published in magazines. This is relatively impossible when you're dealing with a large-scale outlet like The New Yorker (for which Jon and I wrote pieces) or SNL (for which Jon and I wrote Weekend Update jokes). The more layers of management that your stuff has to go through, the more anxiety it accumulates; every editor or producer loads his/her own fear of blowback onto the material until running the thing seems like a bad bet. The amount people might like it--which is abstract--is outweighed by the possibility that somebody might get yelled at or fired--which is all too concrete. So the gatekeepers at these august places aren't people who know how to spot something funny and nurture it to its maximum, they are people who know how to spot danger, and pare back that threat as much as possible (while still keeping funny in there somewhere). Most of the time, most of the funny falls in favor of safe.

To the outsider, this is maddening. You can't get considered unless you're funny, but once you're being considered, your ability (or desperate desire!) to say anything to anybody--makes people nervous. That honesty, though it is essential equipment for being funny, gets you labeled a loose cannon. And that is the kiss of death. Nobody--and I mean NOBODY--is perceived as so mindblowingly funny or talented as to be worth worrying about. So, the media constantly presents us the weakest tea imaginable and calls it "comedy." And then it puts a dash of brown food-coloring in it and calls it "satire."

Stephen Colbert's speech at the Correspondents' Dinner (which can be found here--scroll down and you'll see the three segments of the video) suggests that this might be changing. Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire was perhaps the first crack in the dam; not only did he not suffer blowback from it, he became even more popular than ever. Here's hoping the same thing happens to Stephen Colbert and "The Colbert Report." (Full disclosure: I know a smidgen of people on both shows.)

Because the truth is this: institutions like The New Yorker or SNL or Comedy Central are simply ways to get amusing material out to the audience; their efficacy in that job is what makes them useful, admirable or worth preserving. Of course, one feels differently if one receives a check every other week from Newhouse/GE/Viacom. Those people work to preserve the safety of the institution. If the material isn't as funny as it could be, well, that's a small price to pay.

The reason that Stewart and Colbert can take the risk is that their institutions are pretty small. Their audiences are vocal and influential, but not mass. Still, what I'm hoping will happen is that the people inside the bigger institutions will start to realize that popularity--in the end, their only real form of job security--comes from honest, fearless comedy. I'm not advocating all satire all the time, or the fascination with the morbid and profane that has stood in for "honesty" since about 1970, simply comedy that reflects some person's reality. Comedy that you can't relate to on a human level, that doesn't attempt to reflect reality as it lived by some human being--is deadening and worthless.

Basic cable isn't network--it isn't even HBO--but I'm hoping that this trend towards honesty strengthens and flows upward, to bigger and starchier and more fearful insistutions, and bigger and more mainstream audiences. I think there's a chance it will, because there are rewards there; financial as well as aesthetic. Being honest is the only way to truly make people laugh, and people who laugh give you more money than people who merely smile on their way towards falling asleep.