Kolektanto

(In honor of the recently released Mr. Rogers stamp.)

As a young child, I was just like any other rambunctious rapscallion. As the Terror of the Neighborhood, I was ready to get down and dirty with the best of them. There was nary an ant I wouldn’t burn with a magnifying glass, (by the way, who lets kids go around with magnifying lenses? We clearly aren’t looking for clues to solve murders, nothing good can come of it.) Nary a fly whose wings I wouldn’t pull off. Pushing kids into mud was a pastime of mine. Petty arson, light breaking and entering and vandalism? Sign me up!

But of course, all that is par for the course, and I’m sure you knew that stuff about me already. But I bet there’s something about me as a kid you didn’t know…

…I collected stamps!

In my youth I was an avid Philatelist.* My interest has died down over the last few decades, but there was a time when I’d go swimming in pools of stamps like Scrooge in his money bin. Of course, all of the stamps had been previously mailed, so they were absolutely worthless, but I always hoped that I’d get that one upside-down airplane stamp. You know, the one from Brewster’s Millions**. Literally the only stamp anybody thinks of when they think of valuable stamps, (except for that topless Harriet Tubman stamp, but those are really hard to find.)

I grew up at the bottom of a dead-end street. A few houses up from me was a nice old lady named Mrs. Smith. She was called Mrs., but she lived alone; her husband having died years earlier. I’m not sure why, but she had boxes and boxes, (and boxes) of stamps from all over the world. American stamps, French, British. Stamps from Greece, Italy, Oompa Loompa Land. It was a treasure trove of mostly valueless, but still very interesting, little pieces of paper. The interesting part was in imagining where the stamps had traveled, what they’d seen, what kind of letters they’d been involved in. Love letters? Dear John letters? Ransom demands? (I imagine a really dumb kidnapper who sends the note by mail and stupidly puts his*** return address on the envelope, making the entire police force piss themselves laughing.)

I’d go with my friend Alex and my sister. We’d sit on Mrs. Smith’s living room floor for hours, sifting through the boxes, taking whatever caught our little numskull eyes. I only collected American stamps, because I’m a goddamn patriot, through-and through; I bleed red, white and blue! But the other two Philistines took their collecting international. A pox on them, I say! Who needs a stamp of Queen Beatrice of South Hamptonbergshire or wherever, when you can have a Fat Elvis stamp? (he was actually “Young Elvis,” but I would draw his belly to the size I desired.)

I collected a lot of pointless stuff as a kid. I have hundreds of Garbage Pail Kid cards, MacDonald’s toys, Mad Magazines, Pauly Shore movies, morning stars, bellybutton lint. You know, the usual. But by far and away the most pointless thing that I collected was also a pastime for my entire family. The whole Hutcheson Clan got involved in this foolishness: collecting Kool Aid points.

Remember those? On the back of Kool Aid packages and containers were little parts of the label you’d cut out that’d say something like 1 Point, or 5 Points, or what-have-you. And then you could redeem for all types of “prizes” like a beanbag chair, or a Kool Aid Man stirring spoon or other vital sundries. What fun! For years, nay, decades! My family of Kool Aid junkies would collect and horde these points, just waiting for the day Kool aid would finally offer something good, like the Batmobile or (if I had my druthers) a Japanese hooker. Instead, Kool Aid just stopped doing the whole points thing entirely, thereby making our years of collecting incredibly pointless.

And don’t get me started on Pepsi Points and the Harrier Jet.

*Japanese for “He who fornicates with stamps.”

** Classic Richard Pryor!

***Or her. It’s the 21^st century after all!

Forgotten Heroes of Yore: President William “Laffy Taffy” Taft

                                                                                       *

Wow, I haven’t done one of these in many a year. But I can’t help it! Recent activities and words spewed out by our current president (Dr. Evil) have made me curious about past presidents, like President Allstate Insurance and President Pull Pullman. But more importantly, what about non-fictional presidents?

Today I picked to discuss our 27^th, and girthiest president, William “The Incredible Bulk” Taft. A president whose achievements and accomplishments in U.S. politics are so well known that I’ll bet you $10 you can’t name a single damn thing!

Let’s do a brief overview of his life. Join me, won’t you?

William “Baba-Booey” Taft was born in Cincinnati, Oh, in 1857. Growing up, he invented Skyline chili, thereby making him popular and zaftig at the same time. Taft was born to Louis Torrey and Alphonso Taft. William was a twin, but his brother was eaten in utero.

Taft wasn’t a necessarily bright child; he once spent an entire day having a one-sided (but by all accounts, very productive) conversation with a scarecrow. But he was known for being hard-working and was able to graduate from high school and go to Yale, where he studied law under the famous professor Judge Dredd.

Taft also became a member of the secret society “Skull and Bones,” which meant that he was instrumental in having an effect on global markets, keeping the water-fueled car under wraps, making sure Reparations never happened, and lying about the existence of Squid Men from Beyond Venus.

Post-graduation, William “Big Willy Style” Taft, decided to run a bar down in Cancun. That’s where he met his future wife Helen Herron. After a lovely first date, where Taft woke up in the morning in a bathtub full of ice and no kidneys (man that guy has bad luck with bathtubs!) Taft an Herron were married in Vegas, by an anachronistic Elvis impersonator.

Anyway, after all this, Taft when on to work as a lawyer and judge in various capacities around Ohio, (making sure to stay away from Toledo.) His tenacity and anti-svelte build caught the eye of many prominent political figures, including Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland (who wasn’t even from Ohio, the big faker!) And Teddy Roosevelt.

In 1904, Roosevelt made Taft the Secretary of War, which was a pretty cushy gig, considering there wasn’t any war to secretarize. Which reminds me, vote Josh for Ambassador to Oz. Together we can build yellow-brick roads between our two great nations!

Over the next few decades a bunch of really boring stuff happened to this guy, which would only make historians wet. It’s all so boring that I can’t even properly make fun of him. Let’s just say we all have that friend or acquaintance who is so boring that you feel sorry for them and can’t even insult them to their boring, bland face, right? I know I do. I’m looking at you Bob.

Anywho, with Roosevelt’s backing, Taft won the 1908 presidential election as a Conservative Republican. During his four-year tenure as Mr. Potato Head-in-Chief, Taft Was pro-unions organizing, but not boycotting, maintaining the privatization railroads in the hands of Robber Barons, appointing various staff positions, setting up future interaction between our country and Latin American countries, did some shit with tariffs (good or bad, who cares?) something called the Ballinger-Pinchot Affair and…

…Ahhhh! Who cares? It’s so boring my brain just ran away. Damn it! I should have picked a more interesting president. Like that dude who got sick and died after five months. What was his name? I bet he did more stuff.

And you wanna know the worst part? Fool never got stuck in a bathtub. Sure he was 350 pounds, but he always made sure he had big ass bathtubs everywhere he went: on ships, various White House bathrooms (I guess he liked to switch up bathrooms to keep things interesting?) his vacation house, even his brother’s house. Next somebody will tell me that the story about Abraham Lincoln going to San Dimas High never happened!

I will leave you with this one true fact, make of it what you will. I don’t know who tracks this stuff or why, but it seems that William “I can’t feel my left arm” Taft was the last president to have facial hair.

Never let it be known that I don’t teach you guys stuff. And now, I haiku.

Our president Taft
Probably did a good job
Or not, I don’t care.

*By the way, that's his actual tub. Seven feet long and 41 inches wide. Even Wilson Fik couldn't get stuck in that!

The Zombie Wave Has Broken

(This is gonna be a short one, I’m just flexing my writing muscles after a long hiatus. I’m a wee bit rusty in the old joke factory.)

I was lounging around my apartment the other day, doing my regular activities (watching cartoons in my underwear and scratching my balls) when my EUREKA! moment happened.

I really hate zombie movies and tv shows.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of zombies. I’m all for shuffling hordes of flesh-eating ghouls who are an allegory for the Communist menace. I delight in imagining scenarios wherein I kick in doors, waving various four-fours, rescuing damsels and killing the undead in imaginative ways, (I’m trying to figure out what I can do with a loaf of bread and a jar of chunky peanut butter. Zombies have allergies too, right?)

No, my problem is with zombie movies. Why? I’m glad you asked.

In vampire movies, people are aware of the existence of vampires. In werewolf movies, people have heard of werewolves before. Same goes for ghosts, Creatures from Black Lagoons and even Hellraisers. Even if the people in those movies don’t believe in those things, they at least have some passing knowledge on the subject.

In 99.5% of zombie movies, nobody has ever heard of zombies before. Nobody has any knowledge of how to deal with them. Hell, In The Walking Dead, they don’t even say “zombie,” they’re “Walkers.” What kind of bullshit is that? Some of them are missing legs and gotta crawl to get around. What are they called? Ankle-biters?

That means, practically every zombie movie or show has to always include the origin, and I’m tired of it. Each time, we have to follow a new set of dopes as they slowly discover the rules to dealing with zombies that we, as the audience, have known since we were in the womb. It’s the same damn tropes all the time. For example:

1. Somebody has to ask a friend or loved one what’s wrong at the very beginning. Which leads to said loved one turning around dramatically.

2. People eventually discover that zombies have to be killed by brain trauma.

3. They eventually discover that being bitten leads to infection. Which leads to…

4. …Somebody being bitten and hiding it from the rest of the group.

5. Somebody tearfully having to kill a loved one and refusing. Tearfully.

6. A character valiantly sacrificing themselves for the good of the group. Valiantly.

7. At least one joke about a zombie “losing their head.”

8. Decaying zombie bewbs.

I’m sick of it! Why are we subjected to seeing this mobius strip of stupidity? Why can’t more movies be like Zombieland? That movie starts after the zombie apocalypse and the story picks up with survivors who already know the rules. Or, if they insist on doing a generic zombie movie, throw in a zombie expert. Let’s get a Van Helsing in that piece! Somebody who knows something and can save us the trouble of the first 45 minutes of people stumbling around going “duh.”

I dunno. Maybe I’m thinking about this too much. Perhaps I should pursue more enlightened endeavors, such as finally getting those hoverboards invented, or solving world itchiness.

Nah…  

Pizza for One

                I’m an American, (it says so right on my birth certificate*) and therefore, it is my obligation, nay, HONOR to eat as much pizza as often as I can, day or night, rain or fog, awake or asleep, for better or for worse, till death do us part. Amen.

                America has had a long, sensuous, passionate, intimate, debauched, decadent, degenerate, perverted, raucous and tender (today’s Eighty-Four Glyde is sponsored by Thesaurus.com. Motto: Why use one word people do understand when you can use three that people don’t?**) love affair with pizza that goes way back in the annals of history. Let’s reminisce, shall we? History can be quite interesting, and…historically accurate.

                Star date: December 8, 16.15, during the first Thanksgiving, Squanto, the famed time-traveling Patuxet warrior from beyond the 8^th Dimension, arrived at the feast with what many believe to be the first pizza known to the white man in America. He would not tell the Pilgrims from whence the pizza originated, but did tell them to “Always avoid the Noid”. This proto-za was different from the pizza we know and devour today. Firstly, it was in the shape of a double helix, instead of the more modern “circular” shape, or its disgraceful younger cousin the “rectangular” shape. Instead of tomato sauce, it used moose blood, the cheese was camembert, the sausage was rabbit pellets and the basil was poison ivy. It was not well-received.

                Fast forward to the 1980s, (okay, I’m sure some other pizza-related stuff happened in those centuries I’m glossing over, but come on gang, we all took ‘Pizza History and Appreciation’ in college, right? That shit has been covered to death!) the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came along and rekindled this country’s love-affair with the flattest of foods. This decade also saw the emergence of pizza “restaurants***” that will deliver pizza to domestic dwellings! Imagine a world before pizza delivery. You probably can’t, because you’re not old and most old people don’t read the nonsense I spew anyway and even if they did, the Alzheimer’s will take care of that pesky memory thing.  

                Besides home-delivery, other forms of pizza businesses came into being. From companies that sell pizza-making kits for customers to personalize at home, to companies selling frozen pizzas for customers to cook at home. There is also the option of having pizzas delivered to the homes of unsuspecting chumps. Truly, these are the salad days we live in.

                But for me, the weirdest pizza-selling concept comes straight out of Colorado (if they do this other places, please keep that info to yourself, this is not a thing to be proud of). There are pizza places, in the vein of a Dominos, or Pizza Hutt, or a Panuchi’s, or what-have-you, but instead of delivering hot, gooey deliciousness, at these places you go in, (Or to the drive-up window? I have no clue, the whole thing is so confounding to me that my brain shuts down.) and you purchase a frozen pizza, to go home and cook yourself.

                “But Josh,” says the straw man replier I’m crafting, “what’s wrong with that? They sell frozen pizzas at grocery stores. What’s the difference? Maybe this is more convenient for the customer. Ever thought of that smart guy?! Huh? Have you?! God you make me sick!”

                Good question.  

                It’s true, grocery stores do sell frozen pizzas. But they don’t just sell frozen pizzas. They sell all types of crap, like Karo syrup and dog food (that’s basically it though). The point is that they diversify the products because just focusing on frozen pizzas is a bad business model. But that’s not even my main beef with a frozen pizza drive thru. It’s that people keep trying to explain that it is very convenient for people who are short on time. This logic really makes me wonder what’s in they put in the water in that state. You know what’s even more convenient then buying a frozen pizza? Buying one that’s already been cooked! Witchcraft, I know, but we have the technology. Hell, we’re practically a step away from putting ovens in the delivery cars so they can cook the pizza on the way over to your crib, thereby making the process even faster.

                Great, now that we’ve covered the history and the many eclectic ways a person can go about purchasing a pizza, let’s get into the real reason I wrote this thing: toppings.

                I couldn’t even try to list all possible topping options and combinations. Nobody can. Get me Stephen Hawking, Deep Blue and a couple of Super Crays, and it’d still take longer than Betty White running a marathon to even cover a quarter of the variations of things you can put on a pizza. (Speaking of which, hey Canada! They’re called TOPPINGS for a reason. Stop hiding them under the cheese!) My personal favs are pepperoni, green peppers, onions, sausage, and…that’s it, I’m a simple man of humble desires, (also, I don’t need all those things on a pizza at once, they’re my go-to for different combinations.) There are many other things you can put on a pizza, but I’d judge you harshly if you did.

                I mention that to mention this. If there is one single, steadfast rule of ordering toppings on pizzas, it’s that you must please the masses. I can’t tell you how many parties, orgies, lacrosse games, cotillions, bar mitzvahs and funerals I’ve been to where the selection of pizzas always include a few with weird shit on them, like pineapple and prosciutto, or asparagus and durian, or peas and potatoes. When I see layouts like that, I know that the person who ordered the pizzas wasn’t trying to altruistically open up our minds with new flavor combinations, they were just ordering the kind of pizzas they like so they get a whole pizza to themselves. I see through your shit anonymous pizza orderer! And it both disgusts and frustrates me. It’s a simple problem, with a simple solution. Depending on the number of diners, the ratio remains the same, but the amount of pizzas purchased changes. It’s a simple 1 x 1 x 1. 1 meat pizza, 1 cheese pizza and 1 veggie pizza. There’s no need to get any more complicated or fancy than that. Pizza is a simple comfort food, it’s not a food where you order weird ass toppings to show how cultured and hip you are.

Save that for hot dogs.

*Made In China.

** Fun Fact: there is no synonym for pizza.

***No tables, no chairs, is it even possible to “dine-in” at a Papa Johns? I’m going to walk into one of them one day and place an order for here, then sit on the bench and eat an entire damn pizza in front of their greasy teenage faces.

Toodles

They say there are no words, but that’s a lie. A fucking lie. See? “Fuck” There’s a word right there. A word I rarely (if ever) used in print, but my dad’s dead now, so what’s he going to do, haunt me with a ghostly bar of soap to wash my mouth out? I’d say his name five times in front of a mirror if I thought it’d bring him back.

I actually meant to write this a year ago, back when he was still alive and it would have meant something to him. Now it’s a pointless gesture I’m doing to maybe make myself feel better. Maybe because he was a fan of my work in life, maybe he’ll be one in death too.

My dad was a complicated man. We discovered the depth of that when we had to clean out his apartment. I clearly get my sense of humor and irony from him. He had a Ralph Nader yard sign in his closet. Not only is Nader not an actual candidate, my father lives (lived) in an apartment. No yard in which to put said sign. It turns out that he also used to collect shiny things on the sides of roads, like some kind of vehicular magpie. I had to throw away a million watches that had no watchbands. Why did he own those? What was his master plan? I’ll never know.

When I say complicated, I mean he had more than one side. He was a high school assistant principal for decades (I made sure I never went to that high school). He loved breaking up fights because he got to shove kids up against lockers Joe Clark-style. But I guess, not being able to always physically discipline other people’s kids kind of built up in him. He used to drink. And he used to beat me. Meh, I take it in stride now, but I still have the scars, physical and in my brain parts. I guess it did kind of help make me the guy I am today. I just haven’t figured out what kind of guy that is yet, (I’d better do it soon, I’m running out of time myself!)

I didn’t just get my sense of humor from my dad, I also got my love of reading. Science fiction and fantasy mostly, but hell, I’ll read anything, (except the dictionary, the characters are so lifeless and the plot is terrible!) and I haven’t put books down since I first learned what letters are. Hell, I’m a writer now too, that’s also thanks to him.

In the house I grew up in, we had our main television in the basement. That place was mostly his domain, especially when the drinking got to be too much and my parents’ separation was eminent. I got to take over at 6 am Saturday mornings, (for obvious reasons, if you know me) I’d just lay there nestled up against his snoring body, kind of sharing my Saturday Morning Cartoons with him. Sometimes I wasn’t so lucky, sometimes he was awake. One time he held me down and forced me to watch the end of Day of the Living Dead. Ever seen it? At the end of the movie a few dozen zombies tear a guy apart while he’s still alive and eat all of his organs and body parts while he’s screaming. I was maybe eight or nine. My dad lived for freaking me out like that. On the bright side, it gave birth to a lifelong hatred/fascination with zombies. Trust me kids, if the Zombie Apocalypse ever goes down, fuck finding guys with sheriff hats with sons named after underwater reefs. I’m your man.

He was a loner too. I certainly get that from him. He lived alone, he died alone. But I guess the difference is that he at least tried out the whole family life thing first. He had a wife and kids and decided to go at it alone anyway. That’s kind of a Siddhartha move, right? You can’t know what you want, until you try different versions of it. I don’t have a family yet. Not entirely sure I want one. That makes everybody worried for me. I kind of get it, but I wish they wouldn’t. I’m not saying I’m fine or anything, just that I’m one of those special cases. Worry about the lady who thinks buying dogs will make her happy and fill holes in her life. I have no holes to fill, so I’m groovy.

Even though he was a loner, my dad influenced more lives than anybody who reads this. Not just because he was an assistant principal who dealt with thousands of kids, (by the way, he confiscated so many water guns, my basement looked like a super villain’s aqua armory*) helping them through adolescence and the various pitfalls therein (in contrast, my mom gave me some Judy Bloom books and told me to knock myself out). But he also played a greater role on the global stage. Ever hear of Bruce Springsteen? My dad discovered him.

In fact, my dad has so far appeared in at least two autobiographies of famous people and was once (kinds) portrayed in a made-for-tv-movie. We had a contest, him and I. To see who could appear in the most autobiographies. Do you know how hard that is? You can’t Forrest Gump that shit and just randomly appear in famous points in history. You have to recognize somebody and what they have to offer the world when they’re young and stick by that person, helping them to achieve the potential you’ve always seen in then (or, if you’re my dad, you manage a coffee shop and you need to hire an act for open mic night). Right now, my dad is winning with the two autos and the tv movie, but I’m in a few books myself (which I don’t really count, because they’re either by fellow Soldiers and I just happened to be in Iraq with them, or they’re self-published by family members) but I am in a couple of comic strips, a car commercial and I’m gonna have that IMDB page before the end of the year, so that’s kinda something?

Anyway, I think that’s all I have to say. I’m not going to read over this or edit it. Any mistakes I made are staying. I don’t think I could read this again without my eyes getting blurry. Sorry if I spoke ill of the dead, but I’m a chip off the old block, and the last thing he would have wanted was some schmaltzy bullshit. Bye Father Person.  

*That’s a thing, right?