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This Is Where I Live (1)

14 Aug

August 14, 2012

As backwards as this will sound, I interrupt the summer series of Tuesday reruns to post a new blog. This is the first of a trio of blogs that describe the typically atypical things that I have experienced recently right here in my own neighborhood. Today, Dyker Heights.

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Just last week, Saarah and I (and don’t all these stories involve her? She’s the best) decided to go out for ices. It was around 10:00 on a weeknight. Now where I live, there are plenty of places to go for ices, from pizzerias to bakeries, but we wanted to go a store that specialized in ices and had a great selection of flavors.

We had been there before. The last time there were three girls in small shop, all around 18 or so, and while we were getting our ices Saarah and I got to listen to their amazing discussion, mostly about one of them who lives almost in another borough and commutes by public transportation to work in the ices shop. Why did she come so far to work for minimum wage in a seasonal job? That was never explained and before I got a chance to get all nosey and ask they gave us our ices and we left.

The place is on the edge of a residential area on a major street so it was pretty quiet that night. We parked about two blocks away and, bearing in mind that I had just torn a muscle in my leg a couple of days earlier, we had a very slow walk to the shop. But we were making our way there when we saw some flashing lights down the street and heard some recorded announcement that we couldn’t really make out.

I turned back to look and it seemed to me that maybe it was some election and the announcement was screaming to vote for someone or other in whatever local election was soon to come.

That wasn’t it. As the vehicles drew closer, we saw that the lights and sound were coming from a police car. There was some sort of large truck immediately behind it. And the announcement?

“The City of New York is spraying pesticides to kill mosquitoes to stop the spread of West Nile Virus. Get inside IMMEDIATELY.”

Saarah looked at me.
I looked at her.
We looked at the approaching truck.
We looked around at all the private homes with their locked doors and no lights and no place we could possibly get inside.

Then the truck came and sprayed a huge and smelly cloud of pesticides in the air not six feet above our heads.

What could we do? We resumed walking to the ices shop, convinced that we were dosed with a fatal amount of pesticides. Saarah has stopped eating McDonald’s French fries because of the pesticides they use on the potatoes, so the irony is obvious.

She immediately got a headache.

Thanks to the City of New York, who gave us about 30 seconds warning to get to cover, I may now have an army of poisonous chemicals working its way through my system.

But on the plus side, I do not have West Nile Virus.

30 seconds. Didn’t the British get more warning during the Blitz when an air raid was on the way?

Thanks New York.

Luckily, Vulcans are immune to both Terran pesticides and West Nile Virus.

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Spotlight: A Response To Allan Keyes

4 Aug

August 4, 2012

“No Mr. Keyes, You Are Not Funny”

Dear Sirs-

It has come to my attention that you have been getting quite the mileage out of an unfortunate photo that was taken of me and posted on the internet without my knowledge or consent.

You see Mr. Keyes, I am indeed the gentleman that you and your cohort “Mr. Blog” (such a pathetic nom de plume) have repeatedly and cruelly labeled as “fat guy eating cheeseburger.”  For the record – not that you and your publisher care – my real name is Norman Snackmunch, and I do not appreciate having that out of-context photo being constantly used to deride and degrade me.

Sir, in my day I have played to great praise in many of Shakespeare’s plays.  Enclosed is a photo of me in my acclaimed role of Falstaff, a role that I played on the stage of the Old Vic itself!  Would that you print that instead of the humiliating picture snapped of me in my weakest moment!  I have several doctorates, am an ordained minister, and have been the recipient of the Elks Lodge Humanitarian of the Year award multiple times. But to you and your few uninformed readers, I am merely an overweight gentleman stuffing myself that is appropriate to be made sport of. How dare you!

I wish to educate you Mr. Keyes, as to just how that picture came to be.  I was naturally disheveled at the time, as I had just spent the previous three and a half days in a creative frenzy finishing my 15th sonata (seven of my previous 14 had been performed on stage, accompanied by no less a personage than Pavarotti himself!) As is my custom, when I create, I am so single-minded that I forego eating and sleeping.  So naturally, when I finished the final glissando, I realized how ravenously hungry I was. My problem was compounded because my wife Beatrix, deeply involved in a project of her own (she edits the New England Journal of Medicine) had neglected the shopping.

I ventured from my townhouse to find sustenance, but at that hour of the night, the only establishment open was the local Fuddruckers. And unfortunately, a hamburger eating contest was about to start. I was walking to the counter, fully intending to make my order and leave, when the emcee of the event noticed my advanced poundage, and cruelly goaded me into participating.

Mr. Keyes, it was not my intent to compete. But the emcee called me out in some of the vilest manners! One particular barb that rankled was his assessment of me as being “all hat, no cattle” when I repeatedly refused to join in– well dammit, I have my pride sir!  I entered, resolved to teach that blaggard a lesson, when at that fateful and unfortunate moment, some person unknown to me snapped that now infamous photo of me and posted it on Google.  Needless to say, the fact that I triumphed in the contest has turned into quite the pyric victory for me, even despite the stylish championship belt that was my prize.

The aftermath has been both personally and professionally awful for me. When Beatrix travels to conferences, jokers plaster her room with pictures of me. In one of them someone photoshopped  a porkpie hat onto my head! As if I would ever wear such a silly article of clothing! Had I ever donned one, even in jest, my haberdasher Mr. Detwiler would discontinue accepting my trade. Mr. Keyes sir, you may meddle with me if you so choose, but mark my words sir, you dare not interfere with my continued access to Mr. Detweiler’s homburgs!

Everywhere I go, the public taunts me, thanks to you. Even on campus, on my way to lecture my advanced calculus students, people yell things at me such as “Hey fat guy, way to go!” and “Hey fat guy, how did that burger taste?”  And most often of all “Hey, fat guy! That Allen Keyes sure is funny!”

No Mr. Keyes, you are not funny.  You are most definitely unfunny (Beatrix concurs, though for some unfathomable reason she did enjoy something called “Hollywood Russell” that she saw on this web site).  It is my fervent hope that now I have enlightened you as to your error, that you and your supervisor “Mr. Blog” refrain from using that photograph in the future.

Thank you for your time.

Signed,

 Norman Snackmunch, Ph.D. 

PS- I find the grammar and spelling content of your weblog – your entries in particular – to be appalling. The only thing worse than your grammar is the quality of your Photoshop work.

 

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By way of apology, Mr. BTR presents:  Fat Guy Eating Hamburger Wearing Homburger:

 

In case you were wondering, this has been

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