Fellow scribe Lenore Skenazy is writing a column this week about how she left her 9 year old at the perfume counter at Bloomingdale's in Manhatten to fulfill his wish to make his way home on his own like an adult. She thought this was fine, but others thought it tantamount to child abuse. So, here's what I think...
Lenore: "New York City is as safe as it was in 1963." Why 1963? Is that when Batman finally got the Joker off the streets? I mean, there's a lot of nasty supervillains roaming Gotham's dark, drippy alleys you know--The Riddler, The Penguin, George Steinbrenner. Next thing you know, your poor kid has been whisked away to be trained as a bemasked Henchman, striped-shirt cannon fodder for the Dynamic Duo. BIFF-POW-BAM, I mean, it's hard for your average Henchman to get a decent medical coverage nowadays...
But seriously folks, the issue is how are we defining "kid." Perhaps the eyebrows would not be so raised if your son were 12 or 13. So long as you're in single-digit territory, there may very well be a good reason to be concerned. Heck, some 12 year olds are bigger than I am, they're physically imposing, i.e. not going to be easily whisked away to slave away in the Yankees farm system.
Of course, you're in Manhattan. In Baltimore, leave the kid alone for five minutes, chances are he'll end up with an STD and a corruption charge against him.
Then again, you might be guilty of child endangerment just by leaving your son at the perfume counter. Without an adult to protect him, he might be spritzed beyond recognition as a swarm of Bloomie's perfume workers hit him from every side with shots of ETERNITY FOR MEN, ARAMIS and the latest concoction from Calvin Klein...
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Too Sexy?
This time, the lost Lenore inquires, "Victoria's Secret...now too sexy?"
Me reply:
Dubbed the "poor man's Playboy," Victoria's Secret is not too sexy, not in today's anything-goes world where you can see--on basic cable--a woman give a man "digital" satisfaction (BREAKING BAD is the show) and where on "regular" TV, a bare butt or bare nearly anything is considered family viewing. Asking if VICTORIA's SECRET is too sexy is like asking are the Montgomery Wards/Sears bra ads too sexy, i.e. it's old school, old world, just plain old. Better question is, who even CARES about Victoria's Secret anymore? My guess is this "too sexy" business and the new line Victoria's Secret is now touting is more than likely a publicity stunt to give their tired line some attention. I'm reminded of a line from the movie, INHERIT THE WIND, where Gene Kelly, playing the H.L. Mencken role, says of "Matthew Harrison Brady" (William Jennings Bryan), "How do you write an obituary for a man who has already been dead for 20 years?" Victoria's Secret has been dead since the early 90s. The internet and cable killed it. It just doesn't know it yet.
Me reply:
Dubbed the "poor man's Playboy," Victoria's Secret is not too sexy, not in today's anything-goes world where you can see--on basic cable--a woman give a man "digital" satisfaction (BREAKING BAD is the show) and where on "regular" TV, a bare butt or bare nearly anything is considered family viewing. Asking if VICTORIA's SECRET is too sexy is like asking are the Montgomery Wards/Sears bra ads too sexy, i.e. it's old school, old world, just plain old. Better question is, who even CARES about Victoria's Secret anymore? My guess is this "too sexy" business and the new line Victoria's Secret is now touting is more than likely a publicity stunt to give their tired line some attention. I'm reminded of a line from the movie, INHERIT THE WIND, where Gene Kelly, playing the H.L. Mencken role, says of "Matthew Harrison Brady" (William Jennings Bryan), "How do you write an obituary for a man who has already been dead for 20 years?" Victoria's Secret has been dead since the early 90s. The internet and cable killed it. It just doesn't know it yet.
Believe it Or Not, it's a (Guiness) Record!
Recently, pal Lenore of the NEW YORK SUN put out an APB for insights to this question:
"Why do kids LOVE Ripley's Believe It or Not and The Guiness Book of World Records so much?"
Here's my response:
When I was in the 6th grade, I won a trip to Washington, D.C., and while I was there, picked up my first paperback copy of the GUINNESS WORLD BOOK OF RECORDS. I was hooked. I used to pick up a copy every year. Then I got a life. But anyway, while I was still a fat, nerdy kid, I loved GUINNESS because, I think, there's something hardwired into human nature that makes us love anything that's EXTREME...the fattest guy (I can still see the pix in my book of this 3,000 pound dude and the piano case they had to bury him in) to the world's worst miser (Henrietta Green, turn of the Century, Victoria era type lady who was worth millions but saved soap scraps in a tin and had her son lose his leg because she spent too much time trying to find a free clinic). Besides, kids love things that are goopy and weird and odd (just watch 10 minutes of NICKELODEON, seems every other program involves kids being dumped in green glop) and I think that comes from the fact that kids are particularly intune with what is DIFFERENT. This is why kids who wear glasses or don't wear the "right clothes" get picked on. GUINNESS and RIPLEY's take differences to the extreme so it's a veritable kids' playground.
"Why do kids LOVE Ripley's Believe It or Not and The Guiness Book of World Records so much?"
Here's my response:
When I was in the 6th grade, I won a trip to Washington, D.C., and while I was there, picked up my first paperback copy of the GUINNESS WORLD BOOK OF RECORDS. I was hooked. I used to pick up a copy every year. Then I got a life. But anyway, while I was still a fat, nerdy kid, I loved GUINNESS because, I think, there's something hardwired into human nature that makes us love anything that's EXTREME...the fattest guy (I can still see the pix in my book of this 3,000 pound dude and the piano case they had to bury him in) to the world's worst miser (Henrietta Green, turn of the Century, Victoria era type lady who was worth millions but saved soap scraps in a tin and had her son lose his leg because she spent too much time trying to find a free clinic). Besides, kids love things that are goopy and weird and odd (just watch 10 minutes of NICKELODEON, seems every other program involves kids being dumped in green glop) and I think that comes from the fact that kids are particularly intune with what is DIFFERENT. This is why kids who wear glasses or don't wear the "right clothes" get picked on. GUINNESS and RIPLEY's take differences to the extreme so it's a veritable kids' playground.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Not Remotely Understanding the Remote
This week, the lost Lenore of the New York Sun is working on a column about her befuddlement when it comes to navigating her TV remote. So, here's what I got to say about all that...
Personally, I'm not much of a Jay Leno fan and my interest in Letterman waned after the 80s (they're all DINOSAURS now, have you noticed?), but anyway, I do recall Leno telling a good story about his parents (whom he often mined for some of his best material) and the TV remote. Seems they were still bothering to change channels by hand, which totally mystified Jay. "Why don't you use the remote?" he asked. "Well," his mother replied, "We wouldn't want to wear down the batteries." "Wear down the batteries? In a remote? Here, here's $10, you'll have working batteries til the Rapture," or something to that effect, but Momma Leno was undaunted. "Oh, I don't like to use a remote. It might...might cause a fire." "MA," Leno lamented, "it's not a PHASER. If you miss the TV you're not going to blowup the vase," he said.
I found this humorous. That's as far as me and Leno go.
Beyond that, well, my pet peeve is universal remotes. You see these things ensconsced in plastic at the checkout line of every Target, Giant, Rite Aid and I have never divined just how any of them work. You bring them home and they universally don't work on anything. Maybe that's what is meant by universal remote. Universally ineffective. Personally, I think people (well, us old school dinosaurs who owned Texas Instruments calculators and played PONG when it first came out, and thought both were the zenith of COOL) approach their multi-functional remotes the same way they approach their multi-function cell phones. With the phone, you know you can program in people's numbers, but you can't figure it out, so you just punch in the numbers. You might be bright enough to text message. That's about it. You keep hitting the PHOTO button accidently and have now managed to fill up your phone with 4,239 weird angle shots of your office desk, car dashboard and assorted floors. Same thing with the remote. You know about the power switch and the button that maybe turns on your TV's DVD player, but you've given up trying to figure which combination of buttons always you to set up the TIMER RECORD so you don't have to stay up til midnight Sunday night watching ROBOT CHICKEN when you really need your 8 hours sleep. I know sometimes I hit a button and suddenly my TV screen has all this, this STUFF up on it, with strange symbols and markings that are either ancient hieroglyphics or have something to do with setting my picture color tone. Since I don't know what combination of buttons clears the screen and watching Sam Waterson berate some sleazeball defendant on LAW AND ORDER through all the orange and green glyphs gets annoying, I just turn the TV off (that button I can find) and read a book and that generally takes care of it.
Personally, I'm not much of a Jay Leno fan and my interest in Letterman waned after the 80s (they're all DINOSAURS now, have you noticed?), but anyway, I do recall Leno telling a good story about his parents (whom he often mined for some of his best material) and the TV remote. Seems they were still bothering to change channels by hand, which totally mystified Jay. "Why don't you use the remote?" he asked. "Well," his mother replied, "We wouldn't want to wear down the batteries." "Wear down the batteries? In a remote? Here, here's $10, you'll have working batteries til the Rapture," or something to that effect, but Momma Leno was undaunted. "Oh, I don't like to use a remote. It might...might cause a fire." "MA," Leno lamented, "it's not a PHASER. If you miss the TV you're not going to blowup the vase," he said.
I found this humorous. That's as far as me and Leno go.
Beyond that, well, my pet peeve is universal remotes. You see these things ensconsced in plastic at the checkout line of every Target, Giant, Rite Aid and I have never divined just how any of them work. You bring them home and they universally don't work on anything. Maybe that's what is meant by universal remote. Universally ineffective. Personally, I think people (well, us old school dinosaurs who owned Texas Instruments calculators and played PONG when it first came out, and thought both were the zenith of COOL) approach their multi-functional remotes the same way they approach their multi-function cell phones. With the phone, you know you can program in people's numbers, but you can't figure it out, so you just punch in the numbers. You might be bright enough to text message. That's about it. You keep hitting the PHOTO button accidently and have now managed to fill up your phone with 4,239 weird angle shots of your office desk, car dashboard and assorted floors. Same thing with the remote. You know about the power switch and the button that maybe turns on your TV's DVD player, but you've given up trying to figure which combination of buttons always you to set up the TIMER RECORD so you don't have to stay up til midnight Sunday night watching ROBOT CHICKEN when you really need your 8 hours sleep. I know sometimes I hit a button and suddenly my TV screen has all this, this STUFF up on it, with strange symbols and markings that are either ancient hieroglyphics or have something to do with setting my picture color tone. Since I don't know what combination of buttons clears the screen and watching Sam Waterson berate some sleazeball defendant on LAW AND ORDER through all the orange and green glyphs gets annoying, I just turn the TV off (that button I can find) and read a book and that generally takes care of it.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
This week, Lenore is cooking up a Super Bowl oriented column for the New York Sun, this time looking at typical Super Bowl party foods--in this case, chili, dip, and buffalo wings. Why these items? And are there new foods on the horizon? So here's what I sez, I sez...
Football is a sport that's typically reaching its zenith about the time the thermometer is reaching its nadir, which means its cooollllllllllldddddddddd outside and even if we are in our nice, temperature controlled 72 degree homes, we feel the chill in our Super Bowl spirit, and thus partake in foods that are hearty, stick to your coronary arteries, like chili and assorted cheese dips. Plus, chili is rugged. There's nothing foo-foo (or is it frou-frou? who knew?) about clumps of cooked cow meat, tongue searing sauces and beans. Yes, that's right, BEANS. We've all seen that scene in BLAZING SADDLES, you can't get more testoteroni than that. Buffalo wings were conceived in dark recesses of a sports bar so people are used to eating them while watching Keith JACK-son talk about them "big hosses" of the CRIMSON TIDE, so football is part of buffalo wings BBQ-DNA. Is there another food or drink on the rise? Yes. The Chili-Cheese Casserole, served with tortilla chips. Yes, it's the incredible twoheaded transplant, where CHILI and DIP become ONE. Ohhh, Nelly, I tellya, it's a BARNBURNER!
P.S. Be sure to visit www.examiner.com and click on BALTIMORE edition this Super Bowl weekend to check out my Super Bowl "SINGLE IN THE CITY" column!
Football is a sport that's typically reaching its zenith about the time the thermometer is reaching its nadir, which means its cooollllllllllldddddddddd outside and even if we are in our nice, temperature controlled 72 degree homes, we feel the chill in our Super Bowl spirit, and thus partake in foods that are hearty, stick to your coronary arteries, like chili and assorted cheese dips. Plus, chili is rugged. There's nothing foo-foo (or is it frou-frou? who knew?) about clumps of cooked cow meat, tongue searing sauces and beans. Yes, that's right, BEANS. We've all seen that scene in BLAZING SADDLES, you can't get more testoteroni than that. Buffalo wings were conceived in dark recesses of a sports bar so people are used to eating them while watching Keith JACK-son talk about them "big hosses" of the CRIMSON TIDE, so football is part of buffalo wings BBQ-DNA. Is there another food or drink on the rise? Yes. The Chili-Cheese Casserole, served with tortilla chips. Yes, it's the incredible twoheaded transplant, where CHILI and DIP become ONE. Ohhh, Nelly, I tellya, it's a BARNBURNER!
P.S. Be sure to visit www.examiner.com and click on BALTIMORE edition this Super Bowl weekend to check out my Super Bowl "SINGLE IN THE CITY" column!
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Mets, Jets, and Giants, Oh My
Dear friend Lenore is writing a column this week for the NEW YORK SUN about what people think about the Jets, the Jets vs. the Giants, the Jets/Mets connection, and other things that New Yorkers want to read about since their team is inexplicably in the Super Bowl this year. So even though the sports scene in New York is about as important to me as the intracacies of insurance law (i.e. NOT AT ALL), I had to reply...
As a native of Baltimore, I hold within my genetic makeup a dark, unrelenting hatred of the Jets, given what Broadway Joe and his team did to our beloved Colts and all-but-elected-to-sainthood JohnnyU, aka Johnny Unitas in that famed Super Bowl of January 12, 1969...Super Bowl III...when Joe Namath, appearing at the Miami Touchdown Club, guaranteed a victory for New York.
Yuck. Ouch. Shudder.
Now how a playboy who would be remembered by more people for appearing in a pantyhose commercial IN PANTYHOSE than for his exploits on the gridiron, how this pot-sparkler (just invented that term...substitute "flash in the pan") beat the Great Unitas, well, it's beyond human comprehension.
So, I could give a rat's intercourse about the Jets. I like the Giants a lot more. One, they had the good manners to lose to our Baltimore Ravens (YEAAA, RAVENS, GO BALTIMORE, GOD BLESS CHARM CITY AND EVERYBODY ELSE CAN GO TO HELL!) in Super Bowl XXXV, many thanks Giants. Second, because I like this Eli Manning. Nice kid. Class act. Having had an older brother myself, I know about the whole sibling rivalry thing and it would be neat if Eli could out do brother Peyton and bring home that shiny trophy this Sunday. Two Super Bowls in the same family, a neat trick. Of course, that would spoil the first ever perfect season in the NFL, 19-0 with a Super Bowl for the Patriots, that would be neat too. So I wouldn't mind if the Patriots won. Either way I'm happy on Sunday.
The Mets/Jets connection? Easy. The names rhyme. That makes New Yorkers smile and laugh alot. You can get the same reaction by dangling keys in front of most New Yorkers. You can have your typical Yankee fan laughing for weeks with the whole "gotchya nose" bit.
Hint: Baltimoreans don't like New Yorkers. It's more baseball-oriented hatred though. If I need to explain it, you'll never understand. I mean, who can be a YANKEE fan? It's like cheering Goliath or the Germans when they invaded Poland. I mean, COME ON...
I know this probably doesn't help you, but I thought I'd share. We do that in Baltimore. More often we're sharing STDS or gunfire, but that's Bawlmer, hon...
As a native of Baltimore, I hold within my genetic makeup a dark, unrelenting hatred of the Jets, given what Broadway Joe and his team did to our beloved Colts and all-but-elected-to-sainthood JohnnyU, aka Johnny Unitas in that famed Super Bowl of January 12, 1969...Super Bowl III...when Joe Namath, appearing at the Miami Touchdown Club, guaranteed a victory for New York.
Yuck. Ouch. Shudder.
Now how a playboy who would be remembered by more people for appearing in a pantyhose commercial IN PANTYHOSE than for his exploits on the gridiron, how this pot-sparkler (just invented that term...substitute "flash in the pan") beat the Great Unitas, well, it's beyond human comprehension.
So, I could give a rat's intercourse about the Jets. I like the Giants a lot more. One, they had the good manners to lose to our Baltimore Ravens (YEAAA, RAVENS, GO BALTIMORE, GOD BLESS CHARM CITY AND EVERYBODY ELSE CAN GO TO HELL!) in Super Bowl XXXV, many thanks Giants. Second, because I like this Eli Manning. Nice kid. Class act. Having had an older brother myself, I know about the whole sibling rivalry thing and it would be neat if Eli could out do brother Peyton and bring home that shiny trophy this Sunday. Two Super Bowls in the same family, a neat trick. Of course, that would spoil the first ever perfect season in the NFL, 19-0 with a Super Bowl for the Patriots, that would be neat too. So I wouldn't mind if the Patriots won. Either way I'm happy on Sunday.
The Mets/Jets connection? Easy. The names rhyme. That makes New Yorkers smile and laugh alot. You can get the same reaction by dangling keys in front of most New Yorkers. You can have your typical Yankee fan laughing for weeks with the whole "gotchya nose" bit.
Hint: Baltimoreans don't like New Yorkers. It's more baseball-oriented hatred though. If I need to explain it, you'll never understand. I mean, who can be a YANKEE fan? It's like cheering Goliath or the Germans when they invaded Poland. I mean, COME ON...
I know this probably doesn't help you, but I thought I'd share. We do that in Baltimore. More often we're sharing STDS or gunfire, but that's Bawlmer, hon...
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Okay, Lenore is writing a column for Verizonsurround.com's Newsroom (http://dslstart.verizon.net/ about what's the dealydeal with all these celebrities being pregnant and how we're all being inundated with it so that we know more about Britney Spears' life than we do our own. So, here's what I had to say...
My dear misguided Lenore. It is not that WE, if we are defining WE as the general public, that is so fascinated by celebrities' pregnancies, it is why are MAGAZINE EDITORS so fascinated with celebrities' pregnancies? Can't a single issue of US or ALL YOU or ME or ME MYSELF AND IRENE come out without some alcoholic, straggly blonde haired 20something socalledcelebrity stumbling out of or into rehab clutching a baby upside down by the foot, adorning their glossy front cover? Evidently not. Do these magazines and entertainment programs run these stories because they think we care or is it that we care because we're constantly being bombarded with these stories? It's that chicken or the egg thing...which the magazines would cover to let us know that the chicken was unmarried and high when the rooster came calling and will be there when the egg hatches to report that the chick inside was born addicted to crack. Anyway, it's a theory. Otherwise, I think people are just fascinated by the fact that CELEBRITIES CAN BREED TOO. It makes them just a thimbleful more human, and by making them human, we can relate to them. So when Eunice in the trailer park with 57 kids and another 29 on the way tunes in and sees Britney Spears with a baby in one hand and a Budweiser in the other, she can sigh and say, DAMMIT CLETUS, I TOLD YOU TO STOP A'HITTIN' YO SISTER WITH YOUR DADDY'S RIFLE! CAN'T YOU SEE I'M WATCHIN' MY STORIES ON DA TV! Yes, Eunice and Britney share a common bond, and that's why we care.
Again, it's a theory.
My dear misguided Lenore. It is not that WE, if we are defining WE as the general public, that is so fascinated by celebrities' pregnancies, it is why are MAGAZINE EDITORS so fascinated with celebrities' pregnancies? Can't a single issue of US or ALL YOU or ME or ME MYSELF AND IRENE come out without some alcoholic, straggly blonde haired 20something socalledcelebrity stumbling out of or into rehab clutching a baby upside down by the foot, adorning their glossy front cover? Evidently not. Do these magazines and entertainment programs run these stories because they think we care or is it that we care because we're constantly being bombarded with these stories? It's that chicken or the egg thing...which the magazines would cover to let us know that the chicken was unmarried and high when the rooster came calling and will be there when the egg hatches to report that the chick inside was born addicted to crack. Anyway, it's a theory. Otherwise, I think people are just fascinated by the fact that CELEBRITIES CAN BREED TOO. It makes them just a thimbleful more human, and by making them human, we can relate to them. So when Eunice in the trailer park with 57 kids and another 29 on the way tunes in and sees Britney Spears with a baby in one hand and a Budweiser in the other, she can sigh and say, DAMMIT CLETUS, I TOLD YOU TO STOP A'HITTIN' YO SISTER WITH YOUR DADDY'S RIFLE! CAN'T YOU SEE I'M WATCHIN' MY STORIES ON DA TV! Yes, Eunice and Britney share a common bond, and that's why we care.
Again, it's a theory.
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