The glib and the easy

Posted on February 27, 2014 by PMcG

I am here today to speak about word abuse. If you’re looking for the nerd abuse talk, that’s over in Dorkmunder Hall.

So. Words, as most of us know, are those odd sticks and circles and bendy-twisty scratchings we see on paper in pencil or ink, on computer screens in some kind of magical electric goop, or just tattooed at 3 a.m. on our biceps, butts and birdbrains.

The first written words came from cavemen who scratched or painted shapes on their cave walls in total darkness. They tried using light from campfires so they could actually see what they were doing. But since boy scouts hadn’t been invented yet, those unventilated campfires got very smoky. Coughing cavewives took up brontosaurus brooms (Gloria Steinem hadn’t been invented yet) and chased the boys out.

Thousands of years later, we see men of science (see Gloria Steinem note, above) in khaki shorts, pith helmets and keychain penlights entering one of those caves. They immediately fall to their knees. They’ve tripped over some dead cavemen asphyxiated by campfires, or in some cases, beaten silly with a dinosaur bone. When the manly scientists in shorts get up they literally see the writing on the wall. One of them gasps “Go get Bob.”

Bob comes in and spends an hour poring over the runes and symbols, his runny nose at times touching the wall. “I can’t be sure,” he says finally, “but it appears to be something about a ham sandwich.”

Skip ahead to the present day. (If you can’t skip, you may jump. If you can’t skip or jump, you really should go over to Dorkmunder Hall.)

Over millions of millennia those first cave words have morphed into a level of sophisticated discourse—most of it using words–unequaled in history. Well, except maybe the super-sonic proliferation of shoe stores.

In present day we find two men in suits and hair announcing a football game. From the booth, we see a player running down the field. One of the hairmen says “He has such wonderful athleticism.” The second hairbag adds “And what amazing physicality.”

Like a spreading virus these words can now be heard from all football booths, they appear in headlines, news stories. They even fall from the mouths of word-loving friends, the kind who keep words as pets. Somewhere dead cavemen are rolling over in their graves. Same with the live ones.

A quick call to Prof. Ken Saturday-Afternoon at the Institute of Ality and Isms confirms that these words are fake and should not be spoken, written or used in parlor charades.

“It would be like describing your college geology professor by saying ‘He has such wonderful geoligism.’ And ‘What amazing teachicality.”

But will his efforts make any difference? With baseball season upon us, I fear that baseball announcers will gravitate toward the glib and the easy. Prepare to be pained by travesties such as:

• That left hander has amazing pitchness.
• What can I say about the fastosity of that guy?
• I tell you podnuh, I’ve never seen a player with that kind of running-into-the-wallism.
• What a grab! Nobody beats him at catchamottaboombaness.
• In today’s game it sure helps if you have that switch-hitterality.
• You talk about your swingism and your strongosity…
• Not many players can advance a runner with such textbook bo-bis-bit-bimus-bitus-buntonian skills.

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2014, all rights reserved.

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Frequently Given Answers

Posted on February 24, 2014 by PMcG

Given the astounding popularity of my award-winning* series of Frequently Asked Questions, I am starting today a revolutionary new service. Most of us don’t need the stupid questions. We need the stupid answers.

F.G.A.
A. I don’t have it.
A. I need more time.
A. Oh, four or five years.
A. Four or five days?
A. What if I can’t get it by then?
A. Um, I really need that kneecap.
A. Yeah, I need that one too. Both of them. They’re kind of a matched set. Been in the family quite a while.
A. Look, do you play golf? I’ve got some nice golf clubs. I got them at a pretty steep discount, but on the street I’m sure you could get…I mean unless you want to use them to play golf.
A. No, I don’t think these clubs would bend like that. Not over a guy’s head. I mean, if someone even wanted to try that.
A. The big guy in the corner over there? Yeah I see him. That’s Hugo? He’d like to try it?
A. My face? Oh, no thanks. I like the nose right where it is. I’m not a big fan of change.
A. Um, I don’t think Hugo and I would get along. Just something about him. Maybe it’s the suit, with the horizontal stripes. Or the “Born to Die” tattoo. Yes, on his teeth. Here’s a thought: I’d say he’s an excellent candidate for a make-over.
A. No, I’m sure he’d love the pedicure part. But they could skip that. And the wax job. Sure.
A. No, I meant Hugo. Not me. I don’t need a wax job.
A. By Hugo? Has he ever done one?
A. With his bolo knife? Wouldn’t that hurt?
A. What? This thing? It’s just a tie clip.
A. No, no, no. No, of course it isn’t. Just a tie clip. My wife gave it to me for my birthday.
A. What’s in my underwear? Besides the…Hey that’s really none of your beeswax
A. Anything made by bees that isn’t honey
A. That would be wasp’s wax of which there is no such thing
A. I just know.
A. Try saying wasp’s wax five times real fast
A. Look I have to get going. I have an appointment for a HAIRCUT.
A. No, I wasn’t saying HAIRCUT really loud into the tie clip.
A. You think HAIRCUT is a code word?
A. Um, just wait a sec, Hugo. Look, did I mention I need a HAIRCUT?
A. Usually just a little off the top and trim the sides. That’s how I like my HAIRCUT.
A. With the Bolo knife? HAIRCUT! HAIRCUT! HAIRCUT! Uh oh. Wrong tie clip. Look, there’s been a little…
A.

*Winner of the 2014 Patrick A. McGuire Prize for best F.A.Q. on F.A.Q.’s.

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2014, all rights reserved.

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Loudly silently.

Posted on February 20, 2014 by PMcG

Profound thought: whether brown of skin, agility of limb or invisibility of hair, we humans are all basically the same. I have drawn this stunning conclusion based on a careful review of my regular habits and exquisite moves and I pronounce them as universal as lint.

Go ahead, tell me this isn’t you:

• Someone calls in the middle of the night and asks if they woke you up. Being true to yourself, you say “Of course you did, you inconsiderate boob. It’s 3 a.m. Do you think I’m just hanging around at 3 a.m. waiting for you to call?” You hear a gasp, a sniffle, a trembling, tearful voice of shame begging your pardon. Begging! Being true to the universal practice of feeling guilty for being true to your undeserving self, you say “Hey, just joking. In fact I was hanging around wishing you’d call. So how’s your enormous ass?”

• After pulling on your jammy pants at bedtime, you scoop your shorts up from the floor with your foot, you kick-toss them over your head and you catch them one handed as they float down behind your back. You can do this solo or while conducting a serious conversation with someone else in the house about Radon or the Teapot Dome scandal or why they don’t make dishes out of Melmac anymore.

• In the morning, you step into the shower. In that momentary shock of hot water you squeal “Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo,” like Curly of the Three Stooges. Shemp, a poor substitute for Curly, did the same, but his woos always felt forced.

• Out driving, you come upon a road sign, a billboard, a building name, a protester holding up a “Stop Leaving The Seat Up!” sign. You announce the words aloud with the gravity of an announcer on a truck commercial. Someone else in the car eventually says “Knock it off.” You do, but impishly you announce the next set of roadside words silently. Loudly silently. Someone else in the car knows exactly what you’re doing. When she repeats “Knock it off!” you say “What?” with the gravity of an announcer on a truck commercial.

• You finally decide to clip your toenails, not because of the four-inch blade restriction of the TSA, but because you realize you’ve marginalized your toes by ignoring them. Consequently, you’ve left them with feelings of worthlessness, while ironically living on the cutting edge. When you’ve finished clipping the last toe, you whisper “Sorry dudes. Let’s stay in touch.”

• When someone else in the house asks over supper “What’s new in your world today?” you can’t resist saying “All quiet on the planet Melmac.” The same someone else in the house shoots a withering stare your way and says “Just once, I’d like to have an adult conversation.” You respond “Very well. I was hoping to keep this from you, but the planet Melmac got too close to the sun today and melted.” To which the same someone else person in the house says “Wait, I thought that happened yesterday.”

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2014, all rights reserved.

Posted in News You Can Use (Sort of), The human comedy | Tagged , | 6 Comments

A hole in the shrink rap

Posted on February 18, 2014 by PMcG

A writer creates realistic fictional characters by asking “What do they want? What are they willing to do to get it?”

In reality–much like fiction, but not as real–one already knows this. Example: you want happiness, and to get it you’re willing to whine all the livelong day and night and month and decade until somebody comes along and either drops you down an empty missile silo or gives you a million dollars to go away.

Maybe happiness isn’t your only want. Some want happiness and gluten-free donuts. Or underwear that doesn’t shrink, etc. Can you have your donut and eat it or your shorts and wear them? A topic best left for another day.

Meanwhile, here’s a short list of the most common things besides happiness or world peace that so many people (not me) want:

• Money
• More money
• Hey, a lot more money than that.
• Look, I want a truck-load, understand?
• What part of understand don’t you understand?
• Sex
• Wilder
• Wetter
• A threesome
• A threesome squared.
• No, not with three square dopes. Didn’t you ever take algebra?
• An automatic weapon
• Make that two automatic weapons
• Um, the green one and the blue one.
• A truck-load of ammo.
• What have you got in a missile launcher?

To get this stuff, some people (not me) are willing to:

• Beg: Please, I really need your money. A lot of it. Please, oh puhleez? We could be friends.

• Borrow: Can I borrow your truckload of money for a sec? I’ll be right back.

• Steal: By the way dude, I’m not coming right back. BUWAHAHAHA.

• Buy: Yes, I’d like to buy that truckload of money, please. The red one, yes. The double-semi. Right. Can I write you a check?

• Cheat: It bounced? That high? That’s so sad about my account being totally empty. But as Moses said, after dropping a ten commandment stone tablet on his bare piggies–without breaking anything: “Tough toenail.”

• Lie: I didn’t do that. Not me. Nosireebob. I was an altar boy. Ask me anything in Latin.

• Kill: I groveled. I told you I really, really wanted your money. But you gave me squat. Now this automatic weapon is going to shred your cabbage. What? No, that’s just a saying. I could have said it’s going to turn you into Swiss cheese. No, no, no. I’m not a cheese maker. You’re so literal. That’s just another saying on a whole list of them in the instruction manual. Where it shows you how to load the ammo. The ammo! Crap! Can you wait right there for a sec?

• Pawn: How much for my missile launcher? Still in the shrink-wrap. Yup, the missile is still there. The pointy thing. It’s punched a little hole in the plastic. Take a whiff. Still got that new missile-launcher smell. What? That’s all? My lawyer is charging a fortune for the attempted murder rap. How about I throw in a couple of automatic weapons? Got a green one here in the bag and there’s also a blue one. Never been used. Well, the green one I sort of used. A long story. The blue one is mint-in-box. Right, it’s actually in a bag. Ammo? In the semi-trailer out front. Look, I’ll even throw in the truck. Deal?

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2014, all rights reserved.

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Blurred boundaries

Posted on February 13, 2014 by PMcG

Tompkins said “We’re gonna be late for the meeting.”

Lulu, behind the wheel and behind schedule, swung the car sharply to the left, away from the long line of backed up traffic. Riding shotgun, Tubby Tompkins threw her a questioning look. It morphed quickly into a look of “You wouldn’t!”

She would. Just like the car on that ridiculous commercial. She cranked a hard right onto some sort of construction embankment adjacent to the railroad overpass. The car shot up a worn dirt trail leading to the rails above. From the backseat I could hear the rumble of the 8:03 express racing smoothly past the stalled traffic below.

“Lulu,” shouted Tubby, “what are you doing?”

“We’re not gonna miss that meeting,” she said.

She gunned it past 75 at the very top of the embankment. The car flew through the morning like Shaun White on any day not in Russia. I could see the top of the train stretched out below like an aluminum runway. Not a familiar sight. Nor a calming one.

In the memory bank a filmstrip clicked on, running quickly through my life to date: achievements, disappointments, loves, likes, dislikes, seething dislikes, those too brief ice cream moments of joy and those unending parsnip hours of Cicero and Cataline in Latin II.

The car ultimately obeyed the law of gravity and, with only a slight bump, dropped onto the back of the speeding train. Had Lulu done this before?

For a few minutes we rode like the wind on the back of that train. My breakfast donut stood at the edge of my mouth along with last night’s chili and the tuna on wheat from lunch.

“Uh oh,” said Lulu, looking in the rear view. “Cop.”

Indeed, a motorcycle cop, red beacon flashing, siren wailing, pulled up alongside.

Lulu slowed to a stop, although the train kept on keeping on. The cop came to the window. His opening salvo: “You know why I stopped you?”

Lulu shrugged.

“Because,” said the cop in disbelief, “that car commercial specifically said ‘Do not attempt this at home.’”

There followed one of those awkward moments of silence. In it I recognized all around us the blurred boundaries separating unreality from February. The faster the train went, the further behind lay today and tomorrow.

“But I’m not at home,” said Lulu.

A proper answer, I thought. As did the cop, who let us off with a warning. We drove on, Lulu expertly jumping the car onto another fortunately placed embankment. We parked in the company lot, ten minutes early.

“Iggy,” Tubby called to me, “you’re talking to yourself again.”

I looked around and recognized good old frozen February.

“You mumbled something weird.”

“About what?”

“Sounded like Cicero,” said Tubby.

Up ahead a light turned green and the traffic began to move.

“Never been there,” said Tubby. “Never been anywhere in Illinois.”

“We’re gonna be late,” said Lulu.

But she drove very fast and we made March with weeks to spare.

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2014, all rights reserved.

Posted in The human comedy | Tagged | 6 Comments

Out of the suds

Posted on February 11, 2014 by PMcG

If you’re in a bar long enough, minding your own boozness, some guy inevitably sits down next to you and asks what you do for a living.

If you say refrigerator repair, the guy says something like “I tried that once, but I’m appliance dyslectose. I get refrigerators confused with stoves. It’s a real problem at Thanksgiving when you have 28 starving relatives throwing cranberries at you and asking what’s taking so long.”

If you say you’re a seesaw inspector, the guy will say “I used to run one of those when I lived in Texas. But I quit when I almost cut off my C.” If you’re a firefighter he will tell you about the time his brother-in-law’s swimming pool burned down. If you say you’re a brain surgeon he will tell you about the bullet still lodged somewhere in the back of his head. “Wanna feel it?”

Showing any interest at all earns you a non-stop, rambling monologue. You have to wait for him to use the men’s room and then run for your life.

Bad enough, but if you tell him you’re a writer, his eyes will bulge and his mouth will fall open and he will say something like “Oh, dude. That is so ironical. Because…I’m writing a novel! A bestseller.”

He will suggest that you team up. You can split the profits and take turns going on the talk shows, although he has dibs on Jimmy Fallon. This is when you realize he isn’t writing a novel but thinking about writing a novel. And now he’s thinking you can write it for him. He supplies the plot, you supply the words.

If you weaken and ask “What’s your novel about?” you are doomed. This guy will become your best friend forever. He will call at three in the morning and ask if he woke you up. Won’t wait for the answer as he rants about a bizarro new plot twist. He will show up unannounced for dinner, weddings, pet counseling sessions. He will coincidentally bump into you in the airport in Lapland where you’ve gone to escape.

The best way to nip this guy in the buds? Tell him you only write obituaries. His could be next. Otherwise, you get conned into making a dollar out of these flat dimes:

• A guy picks up a hitchhiker escaped from a mental hospital. Locked up for saying he is Captain America. Tells driver “It’s a lie! Do I look like I have super human strength? I don’t even have a Vibranium shield!” The driver asks his real name. “Captain Kangaroo. Isn’t it obvious?” The driver says I thought you were dead. Answer: “I get that a lot.” They bond and the story develops as an offbeat buddy romp, ending with both trampled dead in the running of the Pamplona bulls.

• On flight to New York, a guy sits next to Yoda. Says I thought you were taller. “Smart you are not,” says Yoda. The Star Wars wizard is enroute to Broadway to read for part of King Lear. Is cast instead as a spear carrier and panned by critics. He tries to jump off the Empire State Building, but there is a line. Goes back to Hollywood, stars in remake of “Lassie Come Home.” Cast as Lassie. Brilliant performance. Oscar talk. But moguls shelve movie when focus groups don’t buy green collie.

• Title: Dart of Harkness. A bribed scorekeeper cheats a dart thrower named Harkness out of the world championship. Stunned, he spends life mumbling “The scorer! The scorer!”

• Idea: A guy is taking a bath when the pirate ship he had as a kid suddenly sails out of the suds. The entire crew is missing…

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2014, all rights reserved

Posted in The human comedy | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

The news from Binghamton, 1968

Posted on February 6, 2014 by PMcG

A black morning. Early. Very way too. Black. Muggy. Rainy. Early. Early. Day two of 26-year career. The newspaperman gig. Already looking hard. Very way too.

Muted Hi to some Notre Dame guy doing the early morning cops rounds for the last time. Going on to a bigger paper on Long island. No more cop shops. No more Binghamton Evening Press. First, though, show the new kid the ropes. Introduce him to the cops. Then, for Long Island and all its iced tea.

Kid is nervous. Scared. Green as a goober. Newly graduated from college, newly married, newly thrust into unsheltered landscape of grownup reality. Tall, gangly. Brand new Sears trench coat. Wingtips. Green, three-piece herringbone suit. Green. Rookie get-up. Too heavy for mid-August. Kid’ll learn. Or he won’t.

You start ‘em on cops–on this day the cop shops in western Broome County. West Cops. They step into the Johnson City copper hive. Big men in white shirtsleeves. Guns clipped to belt. Smoking. Laughing. Above, life-sucking fluorescents. Throughout: faux wood paneling. A 1950s clubroom gone bad. Undoubtedly, scene of triple-murder in alternate universe.

Meets his first cop ever. Sour, hardened, mean. The desk sergeant. Hasn’t had a dream in thirty years, but a comb-over just this morning. A classic type. Of human being, not just cop. The first of many. Oh God, yes. Don’t like anything or anyone. Generally unhappy to be alive. Resolved to make the world pay for it.

Notre Dame guy hands him an overnight report. Man found dead. Adjacent to railroad tracks.

“See that?” Points a finger at a line in the report. “Guy had no head.”

“No head?”

“That one’s yours.” Notre Dame guy smirking. He can smell Long Island—which will turn out to be the problem. He’ll learn. Or he won’t.

Goober scribbles notes. Not nearly enough of them. Back to the city room. Writes up story on a Boer War-era typewriter. City editor reads. Not happy. Barrage of questions. Simple questions anyone not wearing wingtips would ask.

The Who: Dead guy–got an ident?

The Where: Railroad tracks. Lots of them out there, in case he hadn’t noticed. Pin it down.

The What: What the hell happened? Foul play? Drunk play? Chekov play?

The When: Last night came with 12 hours, in case he hadn’t noticed. Pin it down. Boss now talking in italics. Not good.

The How: Story says train de-headed the guy. Did cops say that? Or is that an assumption?

The Why: Can wait for second day follow. Meanwhile, find what happened to the guy’s head. Are they looking for it? Have they found it?

Kid gulps. Just one way to get those answers. Call Sergeant Friendly. First, visit the bathroom.

Sergeant not glad to hear goober’s voice. Sharp tongued, barren answers, bitten off like beef jerky. Doesn’t know squat about missing head. Relayed to city editor. Sharp tongued, more italics: “Call him back! Was the guy’s head severed by the train or by some other means?”

He calls. Gets blat of laughter. “Some other means? You mean like a gill-o-teen?”

Nine humiliating call-backs. Each response snottier than the last.

Bright side: Crucial but easy lesson learned on day two of 9,490 day newspaperman career. Dark side: Lesson learned the very hard way: Ask every question you can think of while you’re at the cop shop so you never have to call that undead, picklehead back.

Long time ago. Cop surely/hopefully dead by now. Notre Dame guy, who knows? All that iced tea. Forget it. Long time ago.

But then the trains call in the night. Terror still answers. Whole massacre comes back under only headline he remembers across all 26 years.

“Body Found Headless on Rails.”

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2014, all rights reserved

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