A Good Vomit

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 12, Verse 25

"Anxious hearts are very heavy, 

but a word of encouragement does wonders!"

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

Scott Stossel, already the editor of "The Atlantic", and the nephew of the mustachioed TV journalist John Stossel (not sure which of those two distinctions is more meretricious, depending upon the quality of John's uncle-tude) is on the road to getting appreciably more famous.  He just wrote a book about his anxiety, his innumerable therapeutic and psychopharmacological interventions, and his significant phobias, the most severe, according to Stossel, is emetophobia: a fear of vomiting.  

Stossel hasn't vomited since 1977 (he knows the exact month, day, date, and time-- I don't) and he also knows that he hasn't vomited since then, and he also knows that the fear of this thing he hasn't done since Gerry Ford was in office is irrational.  He knows all that.  He's a pretty smart guy.  Funny, that the editor of "The Atlantic" is a smart guy.

Isn't it?

My former best friend was, and, I'm assuming still is, an emetophobe.  I lived with him for a few years and, as far as I can recall, it didn't impact our friendship too much.  It's interesting, looking back on it, that, for someone with a deathly fear of rauwlfing, he sure ate Papa John's pizza a lot which, just thinking about it, makes me want to throw up every inch of my intestines.  

As I was listening to the interview with Stossel on "Fresh Air" today, I, of course, thought about my former best friend.  My ex.  Whatever he is.  And I was intensely annoyed that I couldn't enjoy a simple radio interview with this intelligent, very talented, not altogether funny freak without that enjoyment being intruded upon by memories of my former best friend.  I can picture him, standing in our dorm room, grinning, the same way he used to when he was in fourth grade, when we first met.  He has big teeth, and big, black hair.  I wonder if any of it's gray now.  I can see him in his black jeans, white t-shirt and white socks.  He wasn't exactly a fashion plate.  Black sneakers.  Black Tague watch. 

I remember.

I guess he won't ever get his chance to write his book about emetophobia.  Of course, I'll never get to write my book about anxiety, about obsessive compulsive bullshit, about dysthymia, about worrying I'll be found out as a fraud and a phony and a bastard and a mean, yucky meanie man.  

Stinky butt.  

I don't want you to know the truth about me, and yet, it seems like all I do is graffiti it all over your face.  And mine.  There's graffiti over the map of Israel and it's telling my terrible story and I hope it diminishes my glory so you will finally know and stop reading this blog and leave me alone and think to yourself, "Jesus, he really was right."

Maybe that's the only thing that would make me truly happy: for you to go away.

Please, don't go.

I wasn't just annoyed, of course, about being forced to think about my old best friend, but because Scott Stossel's bankrolling his mental illness, and, gee: I'd like to do that.  That'd be swell!  Sign me up.  I want.  He's smarter than me, but I'm funnier.  I'll even pull down my pants to prove the point.

Christ, he's not even really Jewish.  Where does he get off anyway, pretending to be anxious?  Come on, man.  

I want to show him.  I want to teach him a lesson.  I want to go to his book signing in my neighborhood.  I'll sit in my car in the Barnes & Noble parking lot with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken (dark meat) and eat that shit in under two minutes flat, wait in line with his book clutched to my chest and then, when I get up to him, I'll fucking throw the hell up all over him.  Then we will see what's what.

Then I'll have something to write about.  You know, for money.

A grand adventure.  A good vomit.  A tall tale.  That's what my life's missing.  It has all the typical stuff, the peaks and the valleys, but there's nothing there that's really ZING-KA-ZOING, you know what I mean?  Nothing that really grabs you by the lapels or the taint and pulls you closer and says, "Now, listen here, my darling; this is a tale that ought be told for approximately a $250,000 advance."  

And maybe that moment will come and maybe it won't.  Maybe I won't need a Colonel's Original Recipe bucket to make it all come true for me and for my family, and, if it doesn't happen to me, for me, for us, well, I will have to be okay with that, like I've had to be okay with so much.  Like we all do.  We can't all have John Stossel for an uncle, and we can't all hide our stinky butts from the world or hang onto our best friends like our childhood dollies forever.  All we can do is what we can do, and that will just have to be enough.  It will have to be enough for you, and, I guess, for me, too.  I suppose, as long as I have you, I'm good.

Anxious, but good.       

My Grillrection

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 18, Verse 20

"Ability to give wise advice satisfies like a good meal!"

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

On my commute home from work, NPR is typically what prevents me from killing at least seven people.  Many would say that's a pretty compelling reason to donate during their fund drives, but I don't.  I did just donate $100 to the psych hospital I work for, but that's because I do development, and haven't netted us a single cent yet, so I figured I should be putting some money in the old coffers.  

Guilt, paranoia, and fear are amazing elixirs, and that's spoken from one who drinks of each.  Heavily.

Today, on my drive home, I was listening to that Terry Gross show and she had on two delightful pedants from "America's Test Kitchen".  They were delightfully droll, answering culinary questions culled from "Fresh Air's" production staff.  

What's the safe amount of time to keep potato salad outside at a picnic.

Two hours!  Except in extreme heat!  And it's really the POTATOES that are the problem, the mayonnaise is just the vehicle for the bacteria-- the carrier, if you will!  WHO KNEW?!!!!

Got too much zucchini from your hipster CSA?  

WELL.

Did you know a cold zucchini salad, using just olive oil, herbs and Parmesan is the PERFECT way to get rid of two pounds of zucchini as long as you're ready to serve it to a party of six as a first course and you're able to slice it very thin with a mandoline that you can get from ANY HOME GOODS STORE!!!!

POOF!  There's the solution to your zucchini problem!

My.  Word.

My attention was piqued, I must say, when the subject came to grilling hamburgers.  There was a very in-depth discussion of thickness, and how one should make a divot in the top of a burger, because it expands when cooked and if you don't make a divot then the burger becomes quite round and NEAR IMPOSSIBLE to put toppings on top of or put on a bun

#areyoufuckingkiddingmealreadywiththisshit?

and to be perfectly honest I sort of tuned out at that point even though, as I just said, my interest was piqued, but it really wasn't my interest, per say, it was more my jealousy factor.  

My ineptitude factor.

My dunce factor.

IDIOT.

See, I don't grill.  

Grille?

Get outta my grill, MOKAY?!

I would, I think, maybe enjoy grilling.  But I don't.  I don't do it.

Why?

I don't know how.

Maybe it's not a Jewish thing.  I don't know.  When you imagine cookouts, or at least, when I do, there's a good looking guy (Jews, by the way, aren't good looking-- at least the guys aren't-- sorry, Etan), at the grill in a KISS ME, I'M GOYISH apron and maybe he's got a highball in one hand or the latest edition of Whale Shorts Quarterly in the other and in the other (yeah, he's got three fucking hands-- so what?) he's got the sterling silver spatula engraved with his ancestors' escutcheon and he's flipping the most delectable, divot-embossed burgers you've ever seen, lovingly coated in Worscheschestichercheshire sauce or Bearnaise or Hollandaise or HappyDays sauce and his ex-field hockey star princess trophy wife with the impossible curvatures and the Jackie O sunglasses is bending over to inspect the Kentucky Bluegrass and, well, you get the idea.

My uncle grilled when we were kids but he never showed me the ropes.  And the chicken was always dry anyway.  

Maybe I just wasn't interested as an eight year old.  That's probably it.  I was into three piece suits and bagpipes-- what the hell did I want to know from burning the shit out of meat on some contraption that looked like a crematorium?

Well, now, of course, I wish someone had shown me the ropes.  Because, when I see people grilling, I feel incompetent, inept, impotent.  I have no grill potency.  

Where is my grillrection?

My wife, a couple years ago, bought some dumb tiny charcoal grill for eight bucks or something-- it looks like a huge bowling bowl on tiny stilts-- you've seen the type.  It's what Christian kids use to play grillmeister when they're four.  Anyway, I was terrified of this thing, because I don't know what to do. Nobody taught me.  There was no handsome non-Jew to give me advice.  To take me under his slightly powerful arm, hold me close and say, 

"Now, see here, son-- these, these are the tongs.  Can you say 'to-n-gs'?"

"Thhhuhnges."

"Good!" he'd beam, the stem of his pipe jutting out from betwixt his gleaming, jail bar-straight teeth, "and this, this is roast pork.  Can you say 'roast pork'?"

"Challah!"

"Good!"

But, no.  It was not that way.  Not for me.  For me, there is only mystery, and anxiety.  A bad marriage.

I mean...

Charcoal?  Bricks.  They look like dog turds.  What do you do with them?  I know, the bag has instructions.  I can't read.  

Do you pour gasoline on it?  

Do you spray it with hairspray and light it?

How long does it burn?  Is it safe to do on the porch?  Are there laws governing what you can do with these things?  How long does meat cook for?  Bacteria.  Salmonella.  E-coli.  Lysterium.  Listerine.  I've Got a Little List.

I'm scared.

Hold me.

I don't want to be scared of food and food preparation mechanisms that seem backward and counter-intuitive, but I am.  Like I'm scared of, you know, everything-- from getting fired to getting Typhus to getting a bill I can't pay to getting insulted or assaulted or attacked or loved or denied or spit on or shit on or eating raw or undercooked food that may increase your chances of turning into a learning disabled tuna.  

If "American's Test Kitchen" has an on-staff fucking psychiatrist, I want a turn.  When's my turn?

Tag.  I'm it.  

Symbolic of JUNK!

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 29, Verse 23

"Pride ends in a fall, while humility brings honor."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

PBS gets white, Jewish people talking.  

Recently, PBS aired "American Masters: Mel Brooks", and this really got white, Jewish people talking.  More specifically, it got white, Jewish people talking to me.  The first conversation, to be fair, that I had about Mel Brooks that was inspired by this American Masters profile was with a friend of mine who isn't Jewish, but he might as well be.  We got into a disagreement (maybe) about the fact that I don't like Mel Brooks.  He was surprised.  I guess when you're white, Jewish, and reasonably funny, you're supposed to like Mel Brooks.

Last night, another friend of mine, who is definitely Jewish, remarked via text that he wished I was in New York with him so we could watch "American Masters: Mel Brooks" together.

Me: "Watching that with me wouldn't be very much fun.  Why?  Because he lacks the deep, vexing insecurities we both possess.  Or, at least, he hides it well."

Friend: "You don't even like 'The Producers'?  Fuck you!"

Friend (after some apparent consideration): "And I will fully admit that Mel's ego and personality can be extremely irritating, but even just by virtue of gathering such brilliant artists around him for his films, he deserves immense credit."

I struggle with my dislike of Mel Brooks and, when I struggle with things, I turn to my wife for answers.  As usual, she shot, and she scored.

"You don't like Mel Brooks," she said definitively, "because he's Jewish-- not only is he Jewish, he's exactly the kind of Jew you hate: he's loud, he's brash, he brags, he's in your face.  Just listening to him probably makes you want to run away screaming."

And she's right.  I heard maybe a minute, though probably less, of him doing an NPR interview and I shut it off, hitting the Power button on the radio as if a fly had just landed on it and was about to take a shit.  

"I revived the musical comedy."

"Spamalot" and "Book of Mormon" owe something to him and "The Producers".  

And maybe they do, but you saying it makes me want to vomit.  Do you have to say it?  

I'm not able, I suppose, to separate the man's personality from his work, the way I am with, say, Woody Allen.  Somehow, I can excuse the fact that Woody Allen has sexual intercourse with his adopted daughter, but I can't forgive Mel Brooks for being the sort of obnoxious Jewish stereotype that I despise-- the guy at the country club loudly talking about how his son is "DOING PRETTY WELL FOR HIMSELF" as bits of corned beef are flying out of his mouth, windjamming on cccchoffing spittle projectiles.

(That's pronounced "CCCCCCCCHHHOFFFFFING" for you fucking goyim out there.)  

I need my funny men to be insecure-- not just insecure, wracked with insecurity.  When Woody Allen gets interviewed or goes out in public, he is almost always wincing, as if a steel spike covered in peanut butter and red ants is being driven into his colon and being twisted around.  That's what I want to see.  Not Mel Brooks, who, when he's in front of a microphone and a camera looks like a kid on a Ferris wheel being inducted into the Shiteating Hall of Fame.

He sparkles, he glows, he's-- cute.

You're 86 years old, man.  Don't give me fucking cute.

OH!  SO HAPPY TO SEE YOU TAKING MY PICTURE!  CAN I HAVE A COPY?

IT MIGHT BE BLACK-AND-WHITE, BUT I'M A COLORFUL GUY!

AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD?  DON'T STOP THERE!

ARE YOU FUCKING LAUGHING YET, YOU SCHMUCK?

You get the idea.  

Mel Brooks once said, "If you're quiet, you're not living.  You've got to be noisy, and colorful and lively".  He is certainly all of those things, and he knows it.  And, yeah, he's funny, too, and he knows that, too.  And he doesn't just know it, he'll tell you all about it.  And I don't know about you, but I kind of don't want to hear that, and I don't have time for someone who thinks they're funnier than I do.  And I suppose I've always been someone who admires quiet.  Conservative.  Reserved.  Maybe that's why I'm drawn to the comedy of the English.  

Not the Russell Brand kind.

I wonder what the English make of Mel Brooks.  Obviously, I'm sure there are some English people who think he's shit, and others who think he's champagne, but culturally, I mean.  I'd be willing to bet that he's not so hot over there, although I don't quite know how you'd find that out.  First of all, the English aren't big on Jews anyway, so that's one strike against him, but the over the top personality I'm sure would rub at least a certain kind of Brit the wrong way.

It doesn't matter anyway, in the end.  It probably all just boils down to jealousy in the end.  He's funny looking and Jewish and famous as hell, and I'm that other stuff, and not that other thing.  Or maybe I just don't like anyone or anything that has broad appeal, because I'm contrary and a bit of a bitch.  Or maybe it's really because, deep down, I'm a raging anti-Semite, far worse than any Englishman or sheet-wearing shithead from Tuscaloosa.  

  

Maybe.