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A column by Gary Webster |
Ha ha ha! Merry Christmas!
The above is not a misprint. It's the greeting children in parts of Australia will get from Santa Claus this holiday season, according to a story I saw in my computer recently. The story you are about to read is a classic example (in my humble opinion, at least) of political correctness run amok. The names haven't been changed to protect the innocent because the story in the computer didn't include the names of the individuals responsible for this travesty. If it had, I'd use them, because those responsible deserve all the ridicule I'm about to heap on them, in addition to the ridicule that is undoubtedly being heaped on them from other essayists around the globe. Heaping ridicule on people really isn't in keeping with the spirit of the Christmas season, but these people asked for it.
Children in Adelaide, Australia, shouldn't expect to hear Santa Claus greet them with a hearty "ho, ho, ho, what do you want for Christmas little girl/boy" when they plop down on his lap to make their gift request. That's because a company called Westaff, which apparently specializes in training Santa Clauses, has instructed its jolly fat men to substitute "ha, ha, ha" for "ho, ho. ho." Why, you may ask? I certainly did when I saw this flabbergasting story on the internet.
The people in charge of Westaff, who weren't named in the story as I mentioned, have decided that the phrase "ho, ho, ho" is derogatory to women and have taken it upon themselves to strike it from the Christmas vocabulary. How, you may be wondering, is "ho, ho, ho" derogatory to women? In case you're not current in your American street slang, the term "ho" is an abbreviation for hooker. Apparently that term has found its way across the Pacific to the land down under, and the people at Westaff, in the words of the immortal and overly emotional Barney Fife, deputy of Mayberry, North Carolina, are determined to "nip it, nip it in the bud!!" Thus, according to the computer, there will be no "ho, ho, ho's" emanating from the lips of any Santas trained by Westaff this holiday season.
I, personally, can't imagine strolling through a mall this month and hearing, amid the tinkling of bells and the happy chattering of holiday shoppers, the sound of a deep voice cackling "ha, ha, ha." Of course, I won't hear that because I won't be anywhere near Adelaide, Australia. That, however, is beside the point. The point is Santa Claus doesn't say "ha, ha, ha." Mad scientists in horror movies say "ha, ha, ha." The mechanical laughing lady outside the Fun House at Euclid Beach Park when I was a child wiggled and jiggled and said "ha, ha, ha" and scared the living crud out of me, so much so that between the ages of seven and 10 I refused any and all offers to visit the beloved amusement park. To include Santa Claus and that mechanical witch in the same paragraph is nothing short of blasphemy, but I feel it's necessary. Santa Claus does not say "ha, ha, ha." He says "ho, ho, ho." Unless he's trained by Westaff.
Am I to understand that the powers that be at Westaff honestly fear that children, female children I presume, will be psychologically scarred by hearing Santa boom out his traditional "ho, ho, ho?" Did someone employed by Westaff, while walking through a mall last Christmas, overhear a child innocently inquiring of its parent "why is Santa asking for a hooker?" Or did that someone hear a wisecracking boy jump on St. Nick's lap and say, "yeah, a hooker, that's what I want for Christmas. How'd ya know?"
According to the story in the computer, two trainees, presumably after they stopped guffawing, told Westaff what they could do with their "ha, ha, ha's" and quit on the spot. As a great American president once said, bully for them!
No "ho, ho, ho?" All I can say is "he-he-help!"
Dear Dan:
Do you mind if I call you Dan? Based on what I've heard and read about you, it sounds like you're an informal sort of guy. I hear you instituted stuff like casual Fridays at the business which earned you enough money to buy my favorite basketball team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, so I'm assuming you won't get bent out of shape if I address you by your first name.
A situation pertaining to the Cavaliers has inspired me to write this letter, and it has nothing to do with the fact that the 2007-2008 season opens on Halloween night and basically, you've done nothing to improve the team. I don't mean you personally. I mean the people you pay to run the team for you since you're not a basketball guy and you're smart enough to realize that. I'm not mad at those people, although they haven't done a doggone thing to make the Cavaliers a better team since the end of last season which, may I remind you, concluded when the Cavaliers got their butts kicked in the NBA Finals. But at least they got there, which they never did before you bought the team, so kudos to you for that momentous achievement.
No, I'm not worried about the team on the court. LeBron will take care of that. I'm concerned about a matter even nearer and dearer to my heart: the 2008 Cavalier Girls swimsuit calendar. The reason I'm concerned about the swimsuit calendar is because I plan on hanging one on my bedroom wall soon. I can afford a swimsuit calendar. Affording a ticket to a game is another matter entirely.
Just moments before I felt compelled to write this letter, I visited the Cavaliers' website and clicked the icon that took me to pictures snapped during the swimsuit calendar's photo shoot. I must say that I was shocked - SHOCKED - by what I saw. Make that totally appalled!
My rage has nothing to do with the swimsuits, which were just fine, or the young women wearing them, who were also just fine. But Dan, baby, whose brilliant idea was it to shoot the swimsuit calendar in CLEVELAND????
Maybe you're not a swimsuit calendar buff, so let me clue you in. Sports Illustrated magazine, which started all this swimsuit stuff before either one of us was born - a statement I can rarely make anymore at my advanced age - didn't become famous by snapping pictures of scantily clad models posing in Dubuque! An exotic calendar is supposed to be photographed in an exotic location - which Cleveland ain't! For example, after I departed the Cavaliers' website, I visited the New England Patriots' web page, which includes several pages of photos taken at the site of their 2008 cheerleaders swimsuit calendar photo shoot, in Punta Cana. I don't know where Punta Cana is, but I think it's safe to assume, judging by all the water and sand and tropical foliage, that it isn't a suburb of Boston. That's how you shoot a swimsuit calendar.
I'm sure whoever hatched the idea of shooting the Cavalier Girls in swimsuits at various local landmarks had his or her heart in the right place. After all, the Cleveland Cavaliers should be promoting Cleveland. But if I want to see the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame, I'll drive past it along the Shoreway. I do it all the time. And the picture of two Cavalier Girls in a cheesecake pose behind City Hall was just a bit too embarrassing.
I know you're paying LeBron a nice chunk of change, and I understand if the crash in the mortgage market is hurting the business that made you a billionaire. If you're strapped for cash and couldn't afford to send the dance team to an exotic locale for the calendar shoot, that's okay. But posing the dance team in swimsuits in downtown Cleveland? For crying out loud, Dan, the least you could've done is send them to Cedar Point. Or Put-in-Bay.
I trust this marketing faux pas won't be repeated in 2009.
When is Columbus Day not Columbus Day?
When it's the day after Thanksgiving, of course.
From Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon, and all points in between, today is Columbus Day. Well, it isn't the REAL Columbus Day. That'll be four days from now. We were all taught back in elementary school, and elementary school goes further back for some of us than for others, that the great explorer Cristobal Colon, whose name was Anglicized to Christopher Columbus since we Americans hate learning to pronounce foreign names, discovered the New World on October 12, 1492. To be precise, the look-out peering through a pair of binoculars - assuming binoculars had been invented in 1492 - from the crow's nest of one of the ships in Columbus's fleet, and I don't recall which one it was since I'm one of those people for whom elementary school was a long time ago, uttered the fateful words "land ho!" Since the look-out was probably Spanish, he would've uttered "land aqui!" Despite studying Spanish for four years in junior and senior high school, I don't remember the Spanish word for "land." Anyway, the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria docked at the island of San Salvador, and the rest is history.
This momentous event is one of the days Congress has chosen to designate as a Monday holiday, in order to increase travel and tourism. This being October, I'm assuming this was strongly backed by the representatives of the New England states in the hopes nature lovers and photographers would take advantage of the extra day off work to enjoy the fall foliage and spend lots of money at quaint bed and breakfasts.
The administrators at my alma mater, dear old Kent State University, have gone a step further. I just discovered today that Kent State has declared Columbus Day to be a "movable" holiday, which the university's students will celebrate on November 23rd, which happens to be the day after Thanksgiving this year. Kent State also considers Presidents Day, celebrated by the rest of the country on the third Monday in February, to be another "movable" holiday, so they've moved it to December 24th, which happens to be Christmas Eve this year. In fact, December 24th happens to be Christmas Eve every year. I don't know if the folks at Kent State also consider December 24th to be Presidents Day every year, or if 2007 is just one of those years that it just happened to shake out that way.
Columbus Day and Presidents Day are the only "movable" holidays I noticed on the Kent State academic calendar for the 2007-2008 school year. I take this to mean Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day and Veterans Day are "immovable" holidays and will be celebrated when they're supposed to be celebrated.
Just a quick thought. Assuming we started celebrating Veterans Day, which commemorates the day the armistice ending World War I took effect right after that war ended, how did we celebrate the signing of the armistice that ended the war to end all wars, which the first world war was supposed to be, during the war that followed it?
Classes were held at Kent State today, and I'm assuming they were held way back on Presidents Day as well. Or is it Presidents Day of 2008 that has been "moved" to December 24th of 2007? If that's the case, where did the administration "move" Presidents Day 2007 to? Why doesn't the administration admit it doesn't consider Columbus Day and Presidents Day worthy of shutting down the college for rather than looking ridiculous by decreeing that they'll be celebrated on days the college wouldn't be holding classes on anyway? Declaring December 24th to be the day Kent State observes Presidents Days is bordering on blasphemy! How dare they tamper with Christmas Eve?
Here's hoping the Ghost of Christmas Present leaves a lump of coal in the stocking of whoever came up with the concept of "movable" holidays.
You can't squeeze blood out of a stone.
Among the things I'm constantly reminding myself of is the fact that the world is filled with people more than willing to be my worst enemy. It's not a position I have to fill myself. The message hasn't reached my subconscious, however, as it continues to drive me crazy.
If I understand the way nature works, the nighttime hours - at least those spent in bed - make that those spent in bed sleeping as opposed to engaging in other activities - are supposed to be relaxing. The metabolism slows and the body recovers from the trauma of the day. That isn't the way things go for me. My metabolism doesn't know the meaning of the word slow, and I often awake in the middle of the night with my heart pounding as if I'd just run a marathon. The covers scattered about indicate I may have.
There's been something bothering my subconscious for years, which the far reaches of my brain have been trying to communicate with me through the use of recurring dreams. If Sigmund Freud were alive, he'd have a field day with me. What exactly is a "field day," anyway? Freud, as the father of dream analysis, would have his hands full with me.
The recurring dreams began shortly after I left dear old Kent State University, having lived there while being a full time student, and moved back in with my parents. I was nine hours short of earning my degree in communications, but I got a job offer in my chosen field that I wasn't about to turn down in order to take three crummy classes I cared nothing about. Perhaps out of guilt over not having finished my course work and earning my degree - which I eventually did - or perhaps not, I began dreaming that I was in the boys locker room at Euclid High School. There was just one week left in my senior year, gym class was about to start, and this was the first class I'd attended since September. I'd been cutting gym for nine months and thus was going to flunk the class and thus wasn't going to graduate. (For the record, let me state that I never cut a class in high school. Not one!)
After several years of this dream, the focus of my recurring dreams changed. Instead of being in the locker room in high school, I could now be anywhere. The common thread connecting these dreams was that I was looking for something. It could be an object or a person. Regardless of what I was looking for, and where I was looking for it, I never found it. I'd be told that whatever - or whomever - I was seeking was right around the corner, or in the next room, but as soon as I got there, it was gone.
This dream ran its course over a few years, only to be replaced by an equally frustrating dream. For the past year or so, I've been dreaming that I couldn't remember the lines of a play I was performing in. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember my lines, which was particularly nerve-wracking on opening night, which is when the dream inevitably ends and my angst wakes me up, at which time I realize I've never been in the play I was dreaming about, explaining why I couldn't remember my lines. How could I remember lines I've never memorized?
Last night, this dream re-appeared in a different form. Rather than trying to recall lines from a play, I was trying desperately to remember the lyrics to the theme of the old 1960's TV show My Favorite Martian. I ran the show's theme through my head repeatedly, but the lyrics eluded me. When my angst woke me up, the show's theme was still playing in my head, and I suddenly realized why I couldn't remember the lyrics: the theme to My Favorite Martian was an INSTRUMENTAL! There were no lyrics, hence my inability to remember them. I've gone from not being able to remember the lines from plays I've never performed in and thus never memorized to not being able to remember the lyrics to TV theme songs that didn't have any lyrics to remember! What is my subconscious trying to do to me?
I wonder what Freud would make of this?
You pays your money and you takes your chances.
In the editorial section of a recent Sunday newspaper was an article about the enterprising men - I think they were all men - who took advantage of our system of capitalism and became rich. Filthy, stinking rich. Obscenely rich.
The leader of the pack continues to be the original oil baron, Cleveland's own John D. Rockefeller, who was Jed Clampett before Jed Clampett was. Rockefeller didn't find oil on his own personal property since there isn't much, if any, black gold in northeastern Ohio. But as soon as oil was discovered next door in Pennsylvania, Rockefeller knew what to do with it. He cornered the oil market - even though that was blatantly illegal - refined it, and made gobs of money selling it. According to the newspaper article, Rockefeller's fortune peaked at $192 billion, which makes the richest man in America today, Bill Gates, look like he should be selling pencils on a street corner in Seattle - probably outside a Starbucks, where he'd get a premium price for them - by comparison. None of America's other financial wizards have come close to compiling the kind of wealth Rockefeller amassed. It's little wonder Rockefeller tried to massage his public image as a greedy, ruthless business tycoon by passing out pennies to children on the streets of Cleveland. With 192 billion clams in the bank, he could afford to. Heck, he could've handed out oil wells to those grubby urchins. I don't know how they would've gotten them home. Rockefeller probably would've generously offered to operate the wells for the little rugrats, in exchange for 90% of the revenue they generated. That's how a person gets to be a mega-mega-mega billionaire.
Speaking of banks, in one or more of which I assume Rockefeller stored his loot since it would've taken an awfully big mattress to hide $192 billion in, that's how a few of America's all-time richest people achieved that exalted status. They owned banks. Could there be an easier or more logical way to get filthy, stinking rich? After all, what does a bank do? It accumulates money! And that, when last I checked, was the only way to get rich - unless you're content to own stocks, which I'm not. I want my fortune in cold, hard cash.
If there's one thing this country needs, it's more banks. Have you been keeping track of all the bank mergers that have taken place over the past couple of decades? When I opened my first bank account, way back in the summer of 1974, in order to have a place to store the excess money I earned on my very first job, I opened it at Euclid National Bank. As a loyal and, to that point, lifelong resident of the city for which the institution was named, I thought it was the least I could do. Bank One eventually bought Euclid National, acquiring its myriad assets, which included my savings and checking accounts, in the process. Two years ago, J.P. Morgan Chase Bank swallowed up Bank One, and my personal fortune changed hands again. See what I'm talking about? Has this happened to you? There's been an epidemic of big banks devouring smaller ones in this country, and that's why we need new ones! Competition is the life blood of capitalism, devout monopolists like Rockefeller notwithstanding!
How does one start a bank? Can I simply put a sign reading "Webster National Bank" on the door of my apartment and then wait for my fellow tenants, disgusted with the service they're getting from their financial institution, to hand over their money to me - for safe-keeping, of course. I'd guess that banks have to be licensed - I think they call them "charters" in the banking industry. Where can I obtain one of these? Who distributes bank charters? How can I prove to these people that I deserve one?
I'll worry about that later. First things first. A bank is all about service, meaning I'll have to hire some customer service representatives, formerly known as "tellers." I'll need lots of them, preferably with blonde hair and blue eyes. The interviews should be fun.
It's just too horrible to contemplate!
Sometime this year - maybe even this month - fans of the enormously popular "Harry Potter" books will find themselves dealing with "Harry withdrawal" after author J.K. Rowling publishes the final installment in the series of books that have made her a billionaire. I know how this feels. I went through the same thing after my idol, Dave Barry, went into semi-retirement after decades of writing the humorous columns that inspired me to follow in his footsteps. Barry said he'd decide after a year away from the grind of writing two, three, four, or however many columns his syndicator demanded per week, whether he'd make his retirement total, and it appears he has. Reading repeats of his columns, called "The Best of Barry" by the syndicator, just isn't the same.
Rowling's epic tomes have left behind a large amount of material for Potter aficionados to read over and over and over again. But what good is reading a book whose ending one already knows? Barry's anecdotes never get tiresome. At least, they haven't so far. Check back with me after I've read Dave Barry Isn't Taking This Sitting Down for the 10th time. How much fun can it be reading a 750 page book knowing on page one how Harry will triumph over evil on page 750. I assume Harry triumphs over evil at the end of each book. He's the good guy, isn't he?
I confess to never having read so much as a single sentence of a Harry Potter adventure. I did see one of the movies adapted from a Potter book, but it was quite by accident, and I couldn't follow the plot because the sound was off and the closed captioning wasn't on. The sound was off because I saw the film on one (actually several) of the many TV screens in the restaurant in Toledo where the servers are clad in tank tops and short shorts while visiting the woman I believed at the time to be the most beautiful in the universe. For some reason, whoever was supposed to flip the channel over to ESPN forgot and left the Potter flick on. It looked pretty interesting, but so did the most beautiful woman in the universe, so I spent most of my time watching her, since that was what I'd driven 137 miles to do. That was my only exposure to the world-wide phenomenon that turned Rowling from a pauper (or is that a pauperess?) into one of the world's richest women.
I realize Potter's legion of fans is despairing right now, wondering how they'll survive without their annual Harry fix. They shouldn't have to. Just because Rowling wants to move on to other projects doesn't mean the world should be deprived of the adventures of a character hundreds of millions of readers have come to love and almost regard as a member of the family. It also means the gold mine Rowling discovered shouldn't dry up just because she doesn't want to write any more Potter books. Fans of Harry, rejoice! I am prepared to carry on the tradition Rowling started and crank out 750 pages of Harry every year that you'll pay a handsome price for.
I already have an idea for my first Potter book. It'll be about the 10 year reunion of Harry and Hermione's graduating class at Hogwarts. They have to graduate sometime, don't they? I mean, that can't stay at Hogwarts forever, can they? How long can it take to learn to be a sorcerer, or a magician, or whatever they're studying to be?
My book will open in the living room of the palatial estate in London Harry and Hermione have called home since they got married. Hermione opens the letter from the Hogwarts 10 Year Reunion Committee.
HERMIONE: Look, Harry. It's an invitation to the 10 year reunion of our graduating class at dear old Hogwarts. Won't it be just ducky to see everyone after all this time?
HARRY: Harrumph! Where are my tea and crumpets, woman?
HERMIONE: Wave your magic wand, you lazy twit! Didn't you learn anything at Hogwarts?
It'll sell a bazillion copies! Bookstores will have to open new locations just to keep up with the demand! I can see the headlines now: YANK WRITES BEST POTTER BOOK EVER. I realize there are copyright laws and some other legalities to work out with Rowling, but I'm sure they won't pose a problem. HARRY POTTER MUST LIVE!
How dare you read this commentary?
You've got some nerve! Where do you get off exposing yourself to my eloquence? Your eyeballs aren't fit to behold the brilliance written on this page - and the pages that came before it or will come after it. Begone, and never deign to darken my doors again!
Allow me to explain the above outburst. I have a friend, a fellow writer and aspiring comedian and contributor to this website whose story can be found in the "short stories" section if I'm not mistaken, with whom I spend a great deal of time discussing a great many subjects. Two of them are our shared passions of writing and comedy, often combined into a single discussion of comedy writing. Another topic that occasionally rears its ugly head is my inability to attract the love of a desirable woman - at least a woman I find desirable. My friend doesn't have that problem. In fact, one evening many years ago, after a play he attended with his desirable female companion to whom he is married, the subject of the play being a poor schlub's inability to attract the love of a desirable woman - at least a woman he found desirable, with any resemblance to the play's author (me) being purely intentional - my friend told me he hoped I'd never succeed in my quest to find the woman of my dreams because it was the angst caused by my lack of success in this quest that enabled me to write such good stuff. And the play about the poor schlub my friend and his wife had just witnessed is, if I do say so myself, a scream. Except for the first act. The first act stinks. Anyway, if angst is necessary to write good stuff, my friend must've found another source to allow him to write the good stuff he writes.
My friend also once told me, and this is a direct quote, "you'll never be a success in this business because you have no ego." The business to which he referred is the entertainment business, of which writing good stuff is a part. We both retain high hopes of leaving a lasting mark in the entertainment business despite our advances ages, of which mine is more advanced than his. My friend's assertion was that it takes an ego roughly the size of the Grand Canyon to be a success in show biz, and I don't have one, which he didn't see as a bad thing.
As they say in Parliament, "we beg to differ!" Just because I don't walk around with my nose in the air and pulling an adorable toy poodle wearing a rhinestone collar and answering to the name of Fufu on a gold plated leash doesn't mean I don't have an ego. I've just held it in check all these years so people wouldn't think I was snooty. But, if I must be an egotistical boorish snot to achieve fame and fortune in show biz, so be it.
That's why I insist that you cease and desist reading these commentaries immediately - after you finish reading this one. These essays weren't composed for puny intellects such as yours. These essays are only fit for people of taste, refinement and superior cranial capacity - such as the Pulitzer Prize committee. In truth, I'm not certain even that august body is capable of fully comprehending the brilliance of my thoughts and words and the exceedingly witty manner in which I arrange them. However, since it isn't possible to win a Pulitzer - and no one deserves a Pulitzer more than I do - without having the committee read my essays, I suppose I'll permit it. Grudgingly.
I've also figured out why my daily radio program has such a meager audience. Actually, the term "meager" is inaccurate. I prefer to think of my audience as "exclusive." I have an audience that can be counted on the fingers of both hands and the toes of both feet because, after 17 years on the air, those who don't understand and appreciate the brilliance of my program, or roughly 99% of the people who live within the sound of my voice, have drifted to other stations, to be entertained by the likes of Howard Stern or some local air personality. This is perfectly understandable. Who is going to spend three hours each morning listening to a superior intellect discuss matters of universal importance than an average person simply can't understand? I learned at dear old Kent State University that TV executives have long theorized that viewers won't watch a program whose content they consider above them, but they will watch programs whose content is beneath their intellectual level. The same theory applies to radio, explaining my program's miniscule audience.
I've also deduced that I'm not surrounded by beautiful, sycophantic women 24/7 because they're intimidated by my combination of overwhelming intellect and overpowering sexiness. Women realize that, unless they're J-Lo, they're just not worthy of me and they steer clear so as not to risk the inevitable broken heart.
How am I doing? Am I insufferable yet?
Keep your pants on!
The problem for Roy Pearson was that he couldn't keep his pants on because he had none. His pants had been lost by the dry cleaner, and if you've ever had an article of apparel misplaced by an institution entrusted with its cleaning, you're well aware of what a traumatic experience that can be. It nearly ruined Pearson's life. In his own words, the loss of his pants caused Pearson "mental suffering, inconvenience, and discomfort." Sixty-six million dollars worth, to be exact.
According to MetroSource-dot-net, from which I obtain 99% of the information I use on The Gloom and Doom Report, $66 million is the amount of damages Pearson seeks in the lawsuit he's filed against Custom Cleaners, the establishment at which he dropped off his precious pants for dry cleaning and from which he never retrieved them because they weren't available to be retrieved. Lest you think Pearson is some crackpot whose head was filled with pipe dreams of a quick and easy payday by some shyster lawyer looking for a quick and easy payday of his or her own, be advised nothing could be further from the truth. Pearson himself is an attorney and also serves as an administrative law judge in Washington, D.C. The computer information service didn't indicate whether or not he filed the suit in his own court. I'm guessing he didn't. I never studied law, but a judge filing a lawsuit in the court over which he presides has conflict of interest written all over it.
How Pearson's lost pants could be worth $66 million is beyond me, unless they were made of spun gold. If they were, I can understand how the cleaner may have absconded with them. It's Pearson's own fault for dropping such a valuable item of clothing off at a dry cleaner. He should've known better. Who wouldn't want to get their hands on a pair of pants made of spun gold? That's what laundromats are for!
I also don't understand how the loss of one pair of pants could cause their owner "mental suffering, inconvenience and discomfort." I suppose I can understand the inconvenience and discomfort part if the pants in question were the only pair Pearson owned. I doubt this was the case since, as an attorney and administrative law judge, Pearson undoubtedly earns a lot of money, and he's probably spent some of it on pants. I don't make nearly as much money as an attorney and administrative law judge, yet I have several pair of pants dangling from hangers in my bedroom closet. I'm wearing one of them right now. If, however, the lost pants were the only pair Pearson owned, I concede he might have a case in the inconvenience and discomfort department. Lack of pants would've forced Pearson to stay indoors lest he risk arrest for indecent exposure - a revolting development for an administrative law judge, even in a town where scandal is the order of the day such as our nation's capitol. If the pants were misplaced by the dry cleaner in the winter, discomfort would certainly result as it gets chilly in Washington in December, January and February.
Pearson claims to have valid reasons for demanding $66 million in restitution from the beleaguered dry cleaner for losing his pants, though the story didn't list any of them. I'll be following this case closely to find out if Pearson serves as his own attorney in his own courtroom and if he can convince a jury that a pair of lost pants made his life miserable.
If he can, then, as moronic as I think his claim is - and I re-iterate that I didn't graduate from law school as Pearson did - then I'm going to jump on the bandwagon. Somewhere, at some time, someone, somehow must've done something similarly traumatic to me that altered the course of my life for the worse and for which I'm entitled to $66 million in restitution as compensation for my mental suffering, inconvenience, and discomfort.
I'm going to see somebody in court!!!
A little help here!
What would you pay for a barbecue grill used only once by Manny Ramirez? If you're not into baseball, allow me to introduce Ramirez. He's a 34 year old man-child whose ability to hit a baseball will earn him election into his sport's Hall of Fame five years after he retires. Ramirez began his career with my beloved Cleveland Indians, then departed for greener pastures when the Boston Red Sox offered him an eight year contract worth $160 million. Even a man-child couldn't blow that kind of wad. Even a man-child who, according to local sources, occasionally left his paychecks in his car's glove compartment or under the front seat when he played for the Indians and never gave them a second thought. Must be nice! Ramirez isn't hard up for cash.
Why, then, was he selling a barbecue grill he claimed to have used only once on an internet auction site recently? He wasn't. Ramirez admitted to concocting a story about the grill belonging to him and selling it because he just didn't have time to use it in order to jack up the price on behalf of the friend to whom the grill DID belong and who IS hard up for cash. Why this friend didn't just hit up Ramirez for a loan I don't know. Bidding on the grill was to have started at $4,500, which means it must've been some kind of special piece of equipment. Either that, or the Ramirez name is worth a ton of money, and it's most likely the latter. The grill was pulled off the auction block when some weisenheimer bid a ridiculous $99 million to become its owner. Unless that bidder was Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, and we'll never know because the identities of the bidders are never revealed, I think it was someone's idea of a joke.
The Ramirez charade set me to thinking. A few weeks ago, I gave a friend who dabbles in auctioning off unwanted stuff on the internet an old Indians batting helmet I found in a closet and have no intention of ever again using. I told him I wouldn't part with it for less than $35, since I consider it a collector's item. The helmet, blue with a red, pointy "C" on the front, is at least 35 years old, since the Indians haven't worn caps or helmets with the red, pointy "C" on the front since 1972. Rare sports memorabilia are big business these days, so I think my batting helmet - not to be used in actual competition, at the risk of getting one's head cracked wide open - is a bargain. That is, I did until I heard about Ramirez's generosity. Now I'm thinking really big bucks.
At first, I wondered if Ramirez, being an ex-Indian, would do an Indians fan a really big favor and claim to have worn the helmet while playing for the team. Such an assertion, however, would damage my absolutely legitimate claim that the helmet is at least 35 years old since I don't think Ramirez is that old himself. I don't know how much a collector would pay for a helmet Ramirez would've worn in his crib. So I'll have to turn to someone who was playing for the Indians in 1972 and could've worn the helmet, even though it was a souvenir I bought at a concession stand for a couple of bucks.
Maybe Gaylord Perry would claim to have worn the helmet when batting that season. Pitchers still had to bat in the American League in those days, and Perry won the Cy Young Award as the league's best pitcher that year. Think how high the bidding would go for a 35 year old batting helmet (in nearly mint condition) worn by a future Hall of Famer in his Cy Young Award winning season. That $99 million bid on the phony Ramirez barbecue grill would be chicken feed by comparison.
I'd cut Perry in for a share of the profits in exchange for a little white lie. Anybody got his e-mail address?
How about "Fred?"
Each morning at 6:18, The Gloom and Doom Report seeks to educate the few people listening at that early hour with a program provided by the National Science Foundation called Earth & Sky. It's really much too early for such a cerebral offering, but that was the only time slot available when we added the show to our morning line-up, so that's where it has stayed. A recent program brought to my attention an injustice that needs to be addressed immediately.
Did you know our sun, the giver of warmth, the provider of life, doesn't have a proper name? While its celestial brethren and sistren, if there's such a word as sistren, which I don't think there is since my word processor drew a squiggly red line under it, have proper names such as Polaris and Betelgeuse, our sun hasn't been given an official name by the scientific community. While they were busy demoting Pluto from a planet to a dwarf planet last year, you'd think the brainiacs would've found time to give the sun an official name, but they didn't. The hosts of Earth & Sky pointed out that our sun isn't the only star slighted by the folks in charge of giving official names to heavenly bodies. There are thousands of identified stars in the universe, but only a handful have been named. That doesn't excuse the fact our beloved sun has been neglected. This grievous oversight should be corrected posthaste and forthwith.
Obviously, someone at the International Star Registry has been asleep at the switch. You may have heard their advertisements touting their service as the ideal gift for your significant other. For a mere $49 - at least that's what they were charging the last time they ran a commercial on the network news - the ISR, which is not to be confused with the dreaded IRS, claims it will pick an unnamed star from the vast array of unnamed stars in our vast universe and name it after anyone you choose. A map of the universe with, I assume, an arrow pointing to your personal star, will be provided, plus documentation proving that forever and ever more, that star will bear the name of the person you've asked the ISR to name it after. I really expected a heavy advertising blitz from the star naming people just before Valentine's Day. Naming a star after the object of one's affection is a lot cheaper than buying a diamond necklace. And there's a great big star just 93 million miles away that hasn't been named yet.
I think giving Old Sol (just its nickname, not an official name) a human name would be much too mundane. Frank and George and Rufus are all right for people, but not nearly grand enough for something as integral to our very survival as the sun. Natasha, Monique and Serena are certainly exotic and beautiful, but still not quite appropriate. After all, if it weren't for the sun, none of us would be here. And if we were, we'd all be freezing to death in the dark. The sun needs a grand, glorious name commensurate with its importance to the human race.
Allow me, then, to suggest the name "Gragilop." I have to confess I didn't concoct that name. That honor goes to my fifth grade teacher, Miss Leona Bugeda, who may have been the first to notice my potential as a writer. As a class assignment one day way back in the middle 1960's, Miss Bugeda wrote the word "gragilop" on the chalkboard and told us to write a story about it. She didn't tell us what a "gragilop" was. It could be anything we wanted it to be. I don't remember what my "gragilop" was or what my story was about. Probably some hideous creature I imagined to be hiding under my bed or in my closet. I don't remember the story I wrote, but I do remember the word. Who could forget a word like "gragilop?"
Why not name our beloved sun "Gragilop?" You got a better idea?
Dear________________. I love you. Will you marry me?
This is a great day to be a bachelor. Forbes magazine has just published its list of the 20 richest women in entertainment. The financial magazine, which for years told us who the 400 richest people on the planet (Earth) are, is apparently breaking down its list demographically, as we say in the broadcasting business. I assume the list I'm about to pontificate about will be followed by the 20 richest men in entertainment which, frankly, doesn't interest me since I'm not one of them. These essays qualify as entertainment, right?
According to Forbes, Oprah Winfrey is the wealthiest woman in the world of entertainment. Her personal fortune of $1.5 billion must place her among the wealthiest people in the world, or at least in America, her gender and choice of vocation notwithstanding. We won't know this until the Forbes 400 list is published later this year.
In second place is J.K. Rowling, the woman who created Harry Potter and friends. I think I read recently that Rowling is either in the process of writing, or will soon start writing, the final book in the Potter series. Sales of that book, plus the subsequent sale of the movie rights, if such rights haven't been sold already, will add significantly to Rowling's $1 billion bank account. That's not bad for a lady who used her initials when submitting her first Potter manuscript to a publisher to disguise the fact she's a woman. Rowling feared a publisher wouldn't consider a manuscript written by a woman. She must not have heard of Margaret Mitchell. Or Harper Lee. Or Jackie Collins.
Holding third place on the Forbes list is Martha Stewart, whose trip to the pokey didn't damage her financial empire, estimated by the magazine to be a cool $638 million. Who knew showing people how to bake cookies and make doilies and plan weddings could be so lucrative?
The good news is eight of the 20 richest women in entertainment are unattached, and a ninth soon will be. The better news is four of them are drop dead gorgeous, and a fifth is pretty darn close.
I know Oprah is single, but she's still waiting for her boyfriend of long-standing to pop the question. Despite her wealth, she's not the one for me, so Steadman Graham has nothing to fear. I have no idea if Rowling is married or not, but two writers in the family could be a problem, especially with only one of them earning a royalty check, so she's not a candidate. I also can't picture myself with Martha. I don't want to marry a woman with a prison record, even if it was a trumped up charge. I'll bet Martha doesn't look good in stripes, although I think orange is standard prison garb now-a-days.
I can, however, easily envision a lifetime of wedded bliss with Mariah Carey, whose personal fortune of $225 million places her fifth on the Forbes list. I've made a tiny contribution to that fortune since I have a bunch of her records, on which she warbles of eternal love and devotion and gooey stuff like that. Mariah's floated my boat for years. Maybe we could go on a cruise for our honeymoon.
Jennifer Aniston has suffered enough watching her ex, Brad Pitt, cavort with Angelina Jolie, the woman who stole him from her. I'd be glad to end Jennifer's loneliness, and the fact that she has $110 million has nothing to do with it. Really. I'd be interested in Jennifer if she was only worth half that much.
Cameron Diaz is heartbroken after parting ways with her beau, and there's no reason why she and I and her $75 million couldn't live happily ever after. Renee Zellweger and I and her $45 million would make a charming couple, too. As soon as Britney Spears is officially single, I'd be glad to help her manage her $100 million.
Decisions, decisions.
This is getting dangerous.
It started more than a decade ago, when a marketing genius employed by a National Football League team came up with the concept of the Personal Seat License, to be referred to from this point forward as the PSL. Or, more appropriately, the DREADED PSL.
Before I continue, allow me to assure you I'm a capitalist. I'm all for everyone - particularly myself - making as much money as they can. In my economics class at Cuyahoga Community College way back in the spring of 1976, I was introduced to the philosophy of "whatever the market will bear." This means a manufacturer can and should charge as much for its product as the public is willing to pay for it. This philosophy has made billions for America's oil companies since Americans, myself included, will pay through the nose to maintain our precious mobility. I intend to put this philosophy into practice regarding these essays as soon as I have evidence that someone will actually pay to read them. So far, no one has expressed a willingness to do so. Once someone does, look out!!
Like any other business, the NFL exists for one reason and one reason only: to make money, and as much of it as possible. I remember walking into the ticket office of dear, departed Cleveland Municipal Stadium on an October afternoon in 1994, with cash in hand, to purchase ducats for myself and several friends to the game between the Browns and New England Patriots. It was the last time I was able to perform this relatively simple task. About a year later, the owner of the Browns announced the re-location of the team to Baltimore, where a new, ultra-modern stadium was under construction. For the chance to sit in this facility and cheer for their new team, Baltimoreans were gladly handing over sizable wads of cash to purchase the DREADED PSL. A PSL merely gave the holder the right to buy tickets. In other words, to watch the transplanted Browns play in their new digs in their new city, people had to pay for the right to buy tickets. This rip-off quickly became the rage throughout the NFL, and it was instituted by the ownership of the new Browns in 1999. This explains why I haven't attended a game since that November day in 1994, and I probably never will again.
While checking out ESPN's website recently, I noticed that the day's top story was the $20 million contract signed by a Japanese pitcher named Kei Igawa with the New York Yankees. Spending that kind of money is no big deal to the Yankees. They pay their bat boy a six figure salary. In order to negotiate with Igawa, however, the Yankees had to pay his previous employer $26 million. That adds up to a cool $46 million, which, even for the Yankees, is hardly pocket change.
That amount pales in comparison to the $103 million it cost the Yankees' arch rivals, the Boston Red Sox, to add another Japanese pitcher, Diasuke Matsuzaka, to their team. Of that total, $51 million goes to Matsuzaka and his agent. The rest goes to the Japanese team he used to play for, which auctioned off the chance to talk turkey with Matsuzaka to the highest bidder. Fortunately for the Red Sox, had they not been able to reach an agreement with Matsuzaka, their $52 million bid would've been cheerfully refunded. Well, probably not cheerfully.
What goes on here? Fans paying for the right to buy tickets? Teams bidding for the right to throw mountains of cash at players? Spending money, and lots of it, for the right to spend more money! What's next? I think I know, and it scares me.
I have to believe that, at corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, the Walton family is monitoring these developments carefully and liking what they see. Is the day coming when the friendly Wal-Mart greeter extends a hand to collect a fee for the right to enter America's largest retailer and look at the merchandise?
Why not? This is capitalism at its best.
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Copyright © 2007 by Gary Webster |