Blunt Wit

So life’s been swamping me of late. Don’t you hate it when your real space encroaches on your blogging.

Today a little updating of Shakespeare “All the World’s a Stage” soliloquy similar to my last attempt (“To Blog or Not to Blog”) for your reading and commenting pleasure …

All the world’s a blog,
And all the men and women merely writers:
They have their posts and their reposts;
And one blogger in the Blogosphere writes of many farts,
His acts being seven ages.
Like a kid in fact, he spews and pukes on other’s blogs.
And then like the wine-drinking schoolboy, blogging with his Gallo
And red morning face, creeping like a drunk snail
Unwillingly to school.
And then the lover, signing the girl’s privates guestbook, with a sad blog dedicated to T and A.
Then a soldier, full of Iraq angst and bearded like the bard, jealous of Petraeus’s seat, secret and quick in quarrel, seeking no trouble or reputation.
Even there be a sharp comment near Bush’s mouth.
Ah the justice, on a fat tummy, a capon (castrated cock),
With a tough guy visage and a bikers beard,
Full of shit and modern contrivances;
And so he writes in his blog. The next,
Old man, thin in fuzzy bunny slippers,
With spectacles on nose and paunch of belly,
His unyouthful member, Viagra driven, a world too long
For his shrunk shank; and his manly blog,
Turning toward kid again, music players
Crank out the songs. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful blog,
Is second childishness and the internet down,
Sans readers, sans comments, sans blogs, sans everything!

The question for today is which of the Bard’s seven parts (kid, schoolboy, lover, etc.) are you playing these days?

Oh yeah, here’s the original passage from “As you Like It” so you can see for yourself how badly I butchered it …

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Clark and I had been friends since our youth back in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It was there that Clark and I began our epic rivalry. It revolves around hot, spicy, ethnic food. You see in Tennessee we grew up thinking that kind of fiery food only came from Taco Bell.

When we left those sylvan environs we had lots of lost meals (and burrito supremes) to make up for so we both became ravenous foodheads. This particular misadventure takes place years later in Samezu, (literal translation: Shark Country) a working class Tokyo suburb that sits on the inland waterways off Tokyo Bay.

So flash cut a few years after Tennessee but a few years before Shark Country to a small apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Clark was in grad school on his way to being a world famous biologist and I was on a fast train to nowhere. So one fateful evening we decided to home cook a Thai meal. We procured the necessary ingredients and set about making our curries. So if you’ve ever cooked Thai curry you know to add a small spoonful of curry paste from one of those distinctive small Maesri cans.

Well, we started drinking and cooking (a practice i highly recommend you not engage in) and bragging about how manly we were and one thing led to another and we ended up adding the entire can!

Youch. Neither of us would admit it as we forced down the oh too spicy and not really fit for human consumption curry. At that moment our macho ‘hotter than thou’ rivalry was born!

Ok, so a little about Clark. His real name is not Clark. I’m using that pseudonym to protect his identity as he as currently teaches biology at UC Berkeley and I figure there’s a high probability that one of his students might be reading this blog.

Why Clark you ask? Like the eponymous Clark Kent, he too wears glasses and has a folksy down to earth mild manner. But underneath that slide-rule-pocket-protector-aw-shucks exterior lies is a man of steel. A fierce competitor. A worthy opponent!

So now to our story. He came to visit Tokyo for some worldwide biological save the kelp meeting and we decided to get together since I was then living (in Shark Country) and working (in a salt mine of sorts) in Tokyo. I suggested a little Thai restaurant some 15 minutes from my apartment next to a Sony factory (where many Thais worked).

It was a little late when we walked up and I was afraid they were closed. As we stepped in we saw a bulky Japanese man with a big smile and a white bandana wrapped around his head standing next to a petite woman with an evil glare. There was no one in the restaurant. He said in Japanese they had had a long day and that they were planning to close but since we were there, what the heck, he’d whip us up some dinner.

We sat and death-beam-lasers-for-eyes dropped our menus on the table. I said something to her in Japanese but it only seemed to incense her. The man walked over to take our order. Clark had already started trash talking:

“I’ll bet their curry’s not even hot. If you were a spice girl your name would be ‘wimpy spice.’” I drowned him out to concentrate on what the man was saying.

Apparently there had been a TV crew in not but a few minutes before we arrived filming one of those inane shows you so often see on Japanese TV. In this case they had been taking five contestants around Tokyo to various restaurants to eat ‘the hottest foods’. His restaurant had been chosen and his Thai wife had made a Tom Yum Kung (soup) that, in his own words, would make a Thai blush.

I immediately said we’d like some. He glanced nervously back at his wife. “Well, we do have some left, but I would not recommend it. Really.” I explained in Japanese that my partner was afflicted by a rare disease and his suffering could only be lessened by spicy foods. The spicier the better. That’s why we had come to his restaurant in the first place.

Kicking Clark underneath the table and I hissed at him to frown glumly. Which he did. The proprietor finally acquiesced and the game was afoot.

When he finally brought the small earthenware pot on a small flame to our table it looked rather innocuous. We each poured some and the carnage began. The moment, nay, the nanosecond the soup touched my lips I knew I was in big trouble. It was soooooo hot. Spicy hot. Temperature hot. Ungodly hot. The pain impulses raced down my backbone such that even my toes hurt. I tried to control the pain but it was all consuming. Tears welled up in my eyes.

Thank god Clark was crying too. The big baby. Yet neither of us would give in. Another spoonful of agony. The woman came over and with a look of raw compassion placed a box of tissues on the table. But neither of us would reach for one. My eyesight blurred. Then Clark blurted out, “Dude, your lips are as big as grapefruits!”

Indeed they had swollen to five times their normal size. I felt like a freakoid. A huge lipped monstrosity. I could eat no more soup. Or dinner for that matter. Even the air began to hurt them. I had to concede defeat. Et tu labia. Betrayed by my own flesh and blood. Damn lips.

So have you ever been engaged in an epic rivalry? Did you win or did you lose? Was it a graceful win (or loss) or was it ugly?

Maybe you’ve heard that old saw, “Laughter is the best medicine?” It’s not that I don’t trust the wisdom of grandmothers and reader’s digest. Let’s just say I’m healthily agnostic about what canards I choose to believe in.

So I decided to investigate this claim in my typical pseudo scientific method for you gentle readers. Herewith are my findings:

The first question we must ask ourselves is what malady is laughter the best medicine for?

I mean, I guess if I had a gangrenous foot that needed lopping off I might get by with a good Saturday Night Live skit or The Onion. But I daresay a good anesthetic might be a tad more efficacious. Then again, the most common anesthetic, is nitrous oxide after all.

So then let’s assume laughter is the best medicine because it remedies the most common illness afflicting the human species. I would have guessed that to be turf toe but according to the internet that would be hypertension.

Previous scientific studies have proven that laughter:
- reduces pain and allows us to tolerate discomfort.
- reduces blood sugar levels.
- improves job performance.
- synchronizes the brains of speaker and listener so that they are emotionally attuned.
- will eventually bring about world peace

And now comes hard new evidence from American College of Cardiology member Michael Miller, M.D., of the University of Maryland that laughter helps your blood vessels function better.

It acts on the inner lining of blood vessels, called the endothelium (I’m not making this word up, I promise), causing vessels to relax and expand, increasing blood flow. In other words, laughter is good for your heart and brain.

Now I know what some of you are thinking. How can laughter compete with the likes of drugs such as Prozac, OxyContin, weed or ecstasy for ‘best medicine’ honors? I guess it boils down to cost performance.

Laughter comes ostensibly for free, whereas both legal and illicit drugs cost a pretty penny. Just try selling laughs on a street corner for a morning and then drugs in the afternoon and you’ll soon understand my point if you’re not gunned down in a senseless act first (and I do mean in the morning).

So in conclusion I guess Laughter IS the best medicine after all. So next time you’re feeling blue, take two (laughs) and call me in the morning.

What do you believe is the best medicine?

If you’ve read my profile or previous blogs you’ll know that I am an ersatz entrepreneur. As previous co-founder of an internet software company, my official title was CBO or Chief Begging Officer. Therefore I had the inglorious task of beseeching potential investors to drop serious coin into our company coffers so we could eventually pay our engineers.

So the other night with that basic premise in mind I attended one of those mandatory meetings for entrepreneurs grubbing for money in the Silicon Valley. Excuse me while I digress. I think I read in a paper recently that every third person in the South Bay area either is in the process of starting a company or dreams of doing so one day. Hell, the other day my Taco Bell cashier was pitching me up for investment in his IC (Integrated Circuit) company idea while I waited for my Burrito Supreme. We couldn’t agree on valuation so I changed my order to ‘to go’ and skedaddled out of there.

Anyway, the meeting took place in what we affectionately call the ‘Death Star’, (Black Hole might be more appropriate as many an entrepreneur goes in but nary a few come out with their shirts on their backs), the most famous Valley law firm at their sprawling Palo Alto campus. After giving my name and confirming my registration I headed upstairs to join the pre-meeting festivities.

Being a veteran of many campaigns, I knew the secret to effective networking was to be strategically seated and well fed and lubricated – and since this event sponsor was particularly cheap – get to the food and alcohol quickly before it disappeared. I dodged a mine field of glad-handers and smile-effers and put my jacket on the first seat in the front row and then made a bee line to the food.

Trouble. Silver trays arrayed on tables piled high with deep fried gunk that they tried to pass off as ‘Chinese food’. Unfortunately I had not eaten lunch and was thus famished so against my better judgment I ate a heapin helping of some gelid dumplings of congealed fat. This was California, dammit. Land of bean sprouts and healthy food.

What, were they trying to kill us? Harden our arteries on the spot? Cull the entrepreneur herd? I half expected to open the last tray and find triple nicotine cigarettes and heroin needles.

So I settled into a birds nest corner with a glass of wine in one hand and another two placed at arms length. Up walked a thin wiry man with intelligent eyes and a wispy mustache. He introduced himself as Yuri in a thick Russian accent. As he worked his way through his pitch I felt the warm embrace of the wine come over me. I said “Yuri.”

“Vhat?”
“I once had a girlfriend in Japan named Yuri but you look nothing like her.”
“Ves, people are always mistaking me for Japanese or Brazilian bikini models as Yuri is also popuuular name in Brazil.”

I shuttered as I imagined him in a bikini needing more wine.
So I almost imperceptibly and deftly switched my empty glass for the full one in mid sentence.

He resumed his pitch and droned on about algorithms and saving the world when I became aware of a young Chinese-looking girl standing in front of us obviously intent on joining our conversation. Slightly impaired by the wine, I strained to determine whether it was more impolite to break into Yuri’s pitch yet again or leave the poor girl standing there in the cold.

It’s the Southern in me, I guess. Thinking ’she’s darn cute,’ I extended my hand in introduction. She said her name was Christine and while she tried to hide it, it became apparent to me she was the main squeeze of one of the mega-zillionaire speakers.

Thereupon we were all called into the meeting room to begin. The subject was ‘can you successfully fund your start-up on less than one million dollars’. The panel consisted of two VCs and two entrepreneurs. I won’t bore you with the details of the meeting. In short, the entrepreneurs said the VCs were greedy bastards and the VCs, ever slick, said they were not. The VCs then said “We love you entrepreneurs and want to have your children.” They meant it like ‘lets get it on’ but in reality what they meant was ‘we’ll take your first born as collateral on you company’.

In the middle of the debate my stomach began to growl. Not a polite, little, rumbly-in-my-tumbly growl but a real live cross-between-a-bear-and-a-lion growl. I shushed it like I would a wanton child but much like the child, my stomach would not stop. As queasy as I felt I was equally determined to make it to the end and the ritual exchanging of the cards and the perfunctory ’send me your business plan and we’ll do lunch’ comment.

Now besides queasy, I had become somewhat disoriented. When it ended, being in the front row, I stumbled up and took my rightful place at the head of the line, the room spinning and my stomach yelling at me to run.

“No,” I yelled back in my mind, I have to complete my mission. As I reached out to exchange cards with the alpha VC a wretch in my stomach brought out all of its contents as I projectile vomited congealed fat and red wine on the floor splattering his shoes and pants. The room stopped spinning for an instance of stunned silence.

After feeble attempts to apologize and clean up the fetid mess, I slinked out of the room a mixture of embarrassment and misery. Come to think of it, I did, however, in the end, get his splattered business card.

Have you ever encountered a more embarrassing situation?

Should I email him and request a lunch meeting or not?

Another in the ongoing blog series of household appliances gone awry …

I felt strangish from the moment the first light of morning woke me from a mildly unfitful sleep. I made my way down, bumping somewhat bleary-eyed into the kitchen and straight for the coffee maker. As usual I had set everything up the night before so all it took was a ginger press of a lone button and soon the soothing drip and savory smell of coffee was filling the room.

I took an English muffin out of the package, broke in two and slid the halves into the toaster. You know, one of those silver, rounded faux friendly looking devices that produces oh so heavenly toast when you pull down the manly black lever.

I poured myself a grailful of holy water /coffee and slurped a hot mouthful. I took the knife out the drawer and began cutting an apple to put into my Greek style yogurt to partner with the English muffin. Making it what? A Greeklish breakfast?

I slid on my slippers and headed out to get the morning paper. Upon returning I smelled smoke!

Rushing to the kitchen I found the toaster burning my muffins mercilessly. I tried forcing the black lever up to free my poor, enkindled muffs but it would not lift as if some unnatural force were holding it down. Smoke billowed uncontrollably and flames licked up the sides of the toaster.

Suddenly awakened, the fire alarm began a high pitched squealing. I grabbed a fork and pulled the flaming muffins out and doused them with water while simultaneously trying to cover my ears. Soon thereafter I tossed the cool retro looking silver toaster into the trash and took up eating a safer breakfast … cereal.

Why, I have to ask myself, do these appliances have it out for me?

So my question for today is … Do you have any morning rituals – must have coffee, morning paper, specific breakfast, exercise regimen, or sacrificing a small goat, etc.?