My 25th MADiversary: A Memoir of Idiocy

Me posing with MAD paraphernalia at the 1994 MAD holiday party

June 4, 1990 was a defining moment in my life. On that Monday, exactly 25 years ago today, I traveled from Brooklyn to 485 MADison Avenue (midtown Manhattan), took an elevator up to the thirteenth floor, and stepped into the offices of MAD Magazine as a summer intern. I would be getting paid $150 per week, but would have gladly paid that amount myself for the privilege of working in the hallowed halls of the humor magazine that I revered from the time I was a small, wide-eyed child. Now, as a small, wide-eyed college student, I could barely contain my excitement as I sat down in the dingy office that would be my home for the next six weeks and sifted through a box of fan mail while I waited for the editors to arrive.

While this was my first time at MAD in an official capacity, it was not the first time I had set foot in their offices. A couple of months earlier I had gotten the phone call (which increased my heartrate by a magnitude of several thousand) from then Associate Editor, now Senior Editor, Charlie Kadau, letting me know that I was chosen as one of the magazine’s two summer interns. Charlie asked me if I wanted the June to July slot or July to August slot, and I spat out some incoherent babble that he correctly took to mean I wanted the first slot. He then invited me to stop by the offices sometime in May to meet everyone and see where I’d be working. So it was, a couple of weeks before my official start date, I went to the MAD offices to meet the Usual Gang of Idiots. I was never more nervous about anything up until that point in my life.

You have to understand that my personal connection to MAD ran long and deep. I was born in 1969 and I have brothers who are eleven years and seven years older than me, so they were prime MAD-reader age at the height of the magazine’s popularity, just as I was being potty trained. And if ever there was a magazine that was appropriate to look at while peeing in your pants, MAD was the one. But it was not only my brothers who indoctrinated me into the ways of MAD. During my grade school years I came to learn that my cousin David had one of the most impressive collections of MADs east of the Mississippi. Every time we went to my cousin’s house I would spend hours poring over old issues of the magazine from the 50s and 60s. By the time I reached junior high I could tell you the name of every writer and artist and could recite the masthead verbatim, the way a cultured person might be able to recite a Shakespearian sonnet. I idolized the MAD men, but none held a loftier place in my mind’s eye than William M. Gaines, founder, publisher, lord of the idiots!

So, on that day in May, when I was given the MAD tour by the other then Associate Editor, now Senior Editor, Joe Raiola, and the very first stop on the tour was the office of William M. Gaines (who I was told to call Bill) I was shaking so hard that I’m sure Bill and his wife Annie must have thought that I had some sort of medical condition. They were both quite gracious and welcoming toward me, despite the fact that I couldn’t get a coherent word out. As we left Bill’s office, Joe looked at me as one might look at someone muttering to themselves on the subway, and gently said, “It’s okay. Calm down, man.” I did calm down—in part because of Joe’s soothing tones, but mostly because now that I’d met Bill I knew that nothing else would be as daunting.

Bill and Annie Gaines in Bill’s office at 485 MADison Avenue

I don’t remember who else I met during that first visit, because in my faded memory, the rest blends in with the internship itself, but over the course of the next two months I did get to meet many of my childhood idols. Al Jaffee, Dick DeBartolo, Angelo Torres, George Woodbridge, Paul Peter Porges, and Stan Hart were all regular visitors to the office. One of the things that surprised me most when I started working at MAD, was that all of the writers and artists were freelancers, meaning none of them worked in the actual office. They only stopped by from time to time to drop off their work or tell dirty jokes. The creative staff at that time only consisted of seven people—five in the editorial department and two in the art department. And then there was me—thrown into the mix for six weeks, constantly doubting my comic worthiness as the rest of the staff threw pointed barbs around at 100 miles per hour.

Although I doubted myself, I was having a blast reviewing writers’ submissions, looking at artist’s rough sketches, and watching the constant comedy show provided by my coworkers. I shared a small office with Charlie Kadau, Joe Raiola, and the third Associate Editor, Sara Friedman; but a large portion of my time was spent in the office of then Editor, now Senior VP and Executive Editor, John Ficarra, whose office is pictured below. John is the one seated, while Charlie is the one holding the Easter Island head.

Charlie Kadau and John Ficarra, sometime in the early 1990s

Take careful note of the snare drum next to John’s desk. That was there so he could do rim shots whenever someone delivered a particularly effective zinger. Every Wednesday we would gather in John’s office for editorial meetings and I would long for the moment when I might say something to earn a rim shot. My moment finally came one day when we were coming up with department titles for the articles in issue number 299. For the uninitiated, department titles are puns used on the table of contents page on top of each article. For example, the standard department title for Spy vs. Spy is “Joke and Dagger Department.”  The department titles for ongoing features were set in stone, but new articles needed new department titles, so we sat around the office throwing out puns. We were trying to come up with a department title for an article written by Mike Snider and illustrated by John Pound called “World Communism Close-Out Sale,” and I spat out, “What about ‘Attention K. Marx Shoppers?’” Instantly the rim shot came and Nick Meglin, a 30-year plus MAD staffer who shared the editor title with John, turned to me with a broad smile and said, “Whoa! Good one, Eel!”

Masthead showing my summer internship with the department title that earned me my first rim shot below. (Note: While my internship was in June and July, the magazine had a six month lead time, which is why the date of the issue is December 1990.)

I should probably pause here for a moment to explain why Nick Meglin called me Eel. I’m a small guy and generally a quiet one, so my comings and goings can sometimes go unnoticed. One day I stepped into John’s office while Nick and several other staff members were there. Nick didn’t hear me come in and I guess I was standing in his blind spot, because when he turned and saw me right next to him he got startled and shouted, “When did you get here? You slithered in like a f***ing eel!” The staff roared with laughter, one thing lead to another, and suddenly John coined me “The Brooklyn Eel.” I wasn’t thrilled with the nickname at first, but somehow it stuck, and soon almost everyone on the staff and all the freelancers were calling me The Brooklyn Eel, which mostly got shortened to Eel. (A few years later when I moved to Manhattan’s Upper Eastside, my moniker was changed to The Eastside Eel.)

Another highlight of my time as an intern was being asked to appear on the magazine’s back cover. While the majority of the magazine’s articles are illustrated, every once in a while an article calls for a photo shoot. In an instant I went from editorial intern to male model. Clearly, the magazine does not have high standards.

Back cover of MAD #301, March 1991

When my internship ended I was thoroughly depressed. While I was new to the work world, I recognized that rarely does one find a job where they get paid to sit around and make wisecracks all day long. Indeed, what I had gotten paid to do for the previous six weeks would get 99.9% of people fired. But my depression was tempered by a flicker of optimism. During my internship I was encouraged to submit article ideas, and at the time that I left, one was on the verge of becoming my first freelance sale. I had always dreamed of becoming a professional writer and had submitted dozens of short stories (mostly humorous sci-fi and horror tales) to magazines from the time I was 15 years old, without any luck. But in the fall of 1990 my lifetime drought finally ended when I was handed a $1,200 check for my satire of the television show “Unsolved Mysteries.” My spoof was called “Unsolved Miseries.” Genius, I know.

But even though the check was larger than any I had ever been handed to that point in my young life, the thing I was even more excited about was that my article was going to be illustrated by Jack Davis, whose work had been appearing in MAD since the very first issue in October 1952. I had admired Jack’s work since my diaper days and now his art was going to be paired with my words. The wow factor for me was probably heightened by the fact that I had still not met Jack in person, as he lived in Atlanta and would send his work via FedEx. I had heard his stately southern drawl on speaker phone in John’s office, but because I had never met him face to face, there remained a mythic quality about him in my mind. It was like my article was being illustrated by Zeus.

First page of my first MAD article – Issue #304, July 1991

Once I made my first MAD sale I was hooked. I began spending a large portion of my spare time trying to come up with article ideas. Many of my ideas were rejected, but having been on the editorial side of the fence this didn’t faze me, because I knew that most ideas that writers sent in did not end up making it to the pages of the magazine. Sometimes an idea wouldn’t be outright rejected, but the editors would ask me to try it from a different angle. I would craft, I would hone. I would still usually be rejected, but every once in a while I would make a sale.

While all of this was going on in the beginning of my senior of college, I started contemplating what I might do once I graduated. I was at a loss. The skills I learned at MAD were really not transferable to any other office on the planet and there seemed no hope of getting a permanent job at MAD given the very small staff size. The freelance checks, while large in my eyes, were few and far between, so I knew that supporting myself that way was not realistic. I started buying lots of lottery tickets. That was much more realistic.

Then, in September 1991, something amazing and wholly unexpected happened. The editors asked me if I’d like to work at the offices part-time on a contract basis, two days per week. I’m pretty sure Guinness doesn’t have a world record for the amount of time it takes to say “yes” once a question has been posed, but I’m relatively certain if such a record existed I broke it at that moment. Two months after my internship ended, I was now an Editorial Assistant. This part-time, contract gig came with no promise that it would evolve into a full-time staff position and yet somehow, miraculously, it did.

A couple of months before my graduation, Sara Friedman let the editors know that she would be moving to Russia to be with her husband who was an Associated Press reporter there. Suddenly, a full-time position was available and Nick and John, perhaps too lazy to look for a more qualified candidate, offered the slot to me. My fancy degree in English Literature from NYU was going to be put to good use.

The timing of my coming to work full-time at MAD in June 1991 could not have been better. Every two years Bill Gaines took the entire staff, all of the regular freelance contributors, and all of their significant others on an all-expense paid trip. The next trip was coming up in September 1991 and I was suddenly on the list to go on a cruise to Bermuda. What, me excited?

Describing the Bermuda trip could be a tome unto itself, so I’m not going to go into intricate detail here. Instead, I’ll just share a few photos with captions…

Bill Gaines was a huge Marx Brothers fan, so someone got it in their mind that as a gag we should reenact the famous stateroom scene from “A Night at the Opera,” where tons of people show up and crowd into the small cabin. Bill had no idea this was coming, but one by one people started barging into his cabin uninvited much to his surprise and amusement.  I’m pictured above in the middle wearing a teal shirt and staring down at the ground. Directly behind me on my left is John Caldwell and to his left is Bob Clarke and to his left is Annie Gaines. Holding a tennis racket in the front of the frame is Angelo Torres and right behind him with a camera held high is Dick DeBartolo. Way in the back of the pic with the dark hair and beard is Sam Viviano. I don’t know the guy behind me on my right side. He worked on the ship, as did many who were roped in to help us with this gag.

   

One night on the cruise there was a masquerade ball, but nobody knew to bring costumes. I was bummed because I wanted to participate, when suddenly I had an epiphany. I was on a cruise ship with a dozen of the most talented cartoonists in the world—surely one of them could make me an impromptu gorilla mask. I asked John Caldwell and he happily obliged. Soon after the cruise was over I asked Caldwell if he would sign the mask. If the inscription in the corner is too small for you to read it says, “Eel, we’ll always have Bermuda! Love, John Caldwell ’91.” This pic hangs in my den to this day.

This is a group photo of everyone who attended the Bermuda cruise. In the words of Mike Snider who sent me this photo, “You’re on the far left, either doing your best Mr. Dapper Dude pose, or being John Ficarra’s ventriloquist dummy.” Famous MAD folks in this photo who I have yet to mention at any point in this article include Sergio Aragones, Duck Edwing, and Paul Coker. I’ll let you Google them to figure out who’s who.

While the MAD cruise was a definite highlight of my first year at MAD, the truth is I was having fun at work on a daily basis. It was like I was a cast member of an R-rated Romper Room.  Of course we had to work—there was a magazine to put out every six weeks after all, and the final week of production was often pressure-filled—but we had no discernible dress code, had a Star Wars pinball machine in our storage annex that we could play whenever we were bored, and sat around most of the time talking about and making fun of pop culture, which was of course, our jobs. It was a fine time, but the party came to a screeching halt on June 3, 1992, when Bill Gaines, our beloved, eccentric leader passed away at the age of 70.

Bill was a crazed visionary and a patriarchal figure to the staff and contributors of MAD. It often felt like he and Annie were the parents of a bunch of out of control adolescents, and I was honored to be one of the brood. When he passed away it hit me almost as hard as when my own dad died six years earlier. In the days following Bill’s death I often found myself wandering around our office suite aimlessly and/or just staring into space. It felt like I was suddenly a crewman on a rudderless ship.

But of course, the show went on. Difficult thought it was, we continued to produce the highest quality low-quality rag in America, with John and Nick leading the way. Yes, the idiocy continued as Bill would have wanted it and soon I was asked to model again—this time for the front cover. As a result, I have the unique distinction of being the only person in the history of the world whose photograph has appeared on both the front and back covers of MAD Magazine. Of course, as you’ll notice below, you don’t actually see my face on the cover, but that is, indeed, my body and arms.

Andrew J. Schwartzberg—magazine cover boy…with an Alfred E. Neuman jack-o-lantern superimposed on his head

This was a very odd photo shoot, to say the least. Irving Schild, MAD’s go-to photographer, had me come to his studio at midnight (presumably he didn’t want anyone seeing the questionable quality of talent he had to work with) and we were there until somewhere around 4:00 A.M. There were two possible concepts for this cover—one is the one you see above, and the other was me holding a mirror in my left hand instead of pumpkin rinds. Below is one of hundreds of Polaroid proof shots from the concept that was not used.

Andrew J. Schwartzberg looking like a psychotic killer for the sake of art

Irving took countless pictures of me holding that knife and mirror at slightly different angles and wearing different styles of shirts. After a couple of hours of pictures with the mirror we moved on to pictures with the pumpkin rinds. But first we had to create a mess. Irving had purchased a bunch of pumpkins and cantaloupes and the two of us set about bashing them to pieces to produce as much gooey, orange, sticky stuff to put all over me as we could. Irving’s thought behind the cantaloupe was that it would be juicier than the pumpkins and its slop would help to create more of a visible mess. His theory proved to be correct and by the time the photo shoot was finished I felt as though a produce department had spontaneously combusted in my face.

Besides editing, proofreading, pun-creating, and male modeling, another one of my many duties at MAD was giving tours of the offices to fans. Several times a week someone would show up to the offices and ask if they could look around. Generally the low man or woman on the totem pole was stuck with tour duty. This was me until about mid-way through 1993 when I was promoted to Assistant Editor and a new Editorial Assistant—Amy Vozeolas—was hired on. Usually the fans were well received by us, but sometimes they were a bit too overzealous. I don’t remember the exact circumstances behind the photo below, but apparently neither John nor I were particularly ecstatic about having our picture taken at this moment.

John and I not looking particularly ecstatic about having our picture taken at this moment. This fan was nice enough to send me this photo in the mail, probably hoping it would end up on the World Wide Web two decades later.

Although Bill was gone, he and Annie had already put plans for the 1993 MAD trip into motion. This trip, which would be the last MAD trip, was to the Principality of Monaco, the tiny but eminently picturesque mountain country on the border of France and Italy. Somewhere I have photos from that trip that show the amazing scenery, stunning views, and breathtaking landscape of Monaco and the surrounding parts of France and Italy. Somewhere…but I have no idea where. Fortunately, MAD artist, Rick Tulka, was nice enough to send me a few photos from that trip, as you can see below.

John and I not looking particularly ecstatic about having our picture taken by Rick Tulka, while eating lunch in San Remo, Italy

Me and artist, Tom Bunk, on a rainy day in Monaco

A blurry photo of a bunch of us having dinner at a pizzeria in Monaco. I have no idea who’s sitting to my right, but to my left is Paul Peter Porges. The guy waving with the glasses and goatee is Rick Tulka. The person whose head is barely sticking out behind Rick’s waving hand is Mike Snider. The guy in the denim jacket in front of Rick is Desmond Devlin. The woman seated next to Desmond is Joyce Robbins, wife of MAD Production guru, Thomas Nozkowski, who is seated across from Joyce. Between Nozkowski and Porges is Brenda Torney, wife of Rick Tulka. And finally, the bearded man in the lower left hand side of the picture is Lenny Brenner, who was the Art Director at the time. Lenny loved garlic more than any other person I ever met before or since, which is why the art department was often a very quiet place. Oh, and the guy standing up is a waiter whose name I don’t recollect.

Me and a fake sleeping Rick Tulka in the world’s first selfie somewhere in Europe

I consider myself beyond lucky that I got to go on the last two MAD trips. Of course the final trip was bittersweet, because Bill’s absence was keenly felt by all of us. Still, nothing beats traveling internationally with dozens of professional idiots. But the MAD trips were not the only times that the Usual Gang of Idiots assembled en masse.  The annual holiday party was another large gathering of the MAD crew.

Me at the 1994 MAD holiday party with George Woodbridge and Al Jaffee. (My wife thinks I look like a bearded Scott Baio in this picture.)

While the MAD holiday parties were mostly attended by the contributors who lived in the tristate area, every once in a while someone would travel from more far-flung places to attend the party.

John Ficarra pointing to famed MAD artist and writer, Dave Berg, at the 1994 holiday party.

For whatever reason, Dave Berg, legendary creator of “The Lighter Side of…” did not go on the MAD trips. (At least not the MAD trips I went on.) He lived in Marina del Rey, California, so I had never met him in person, although I spoke to him on the phone countless times. So I was ecstatic when “Uncle Dave” as we all called him, decided to come to New York in December 1994 to attend the MAD holiday party. I was thrilled to finally meet him in person and found him to be the perfect combination of lovable and unhinged.

Dave’s “The Lighter Side of…” may have been the most well-known ongoing feature in the magazine, other than Al Jaffee’s fold-in. The feature, which ran from 1961 until Dave’s death in 2002, was basically a series of light-hearted comic strips on everyday life. One of the very cool perks of being on the MAD staff was that Dave often incorporated illustrations of the staffers in his strips. Dave drew me dozens of times while I worked at MAD and I was always jazzed when I saw myself turn up in his work, even though likenesses weren’t his forte and I often looked like some strangely distorted version of myself.

Me and Nick Meglin as depicted by Dave Berg in MAD #336, June 1995

While the gag above is not much of a gag at all, the thing that I found hysterical about it when I first saw it was the preposterous notion that I might be able to beat Nick Meglin in straight sets. Despite the fact that I was in my mid-20s and Nick was in his late 50s at the time this was drawn, Nick was a tennis junky who was in excellent shape and I was just a schlub who bought a racket on a whim. Indeed, the couple of times we played, Nick schooled me good.

Sometime in late 1994 or early 1995 I began experiencing wanderlust. I loved my job at MAD, but I felt like I was done with New York and I wanted to see new places and experience new things. Besides the two MAD trips, I had done a lot of other traveling with friends in the early 90s, so I knew this wasn’t just a desire to travel—this was a desire to live in a completely different place, to test my mettle and see if I could flourish. It was like I decided to thrust myself into my own reality show before reality shows were a thing.

So, in May of 1995 I said goodbye to MAD and New York, bought a car, packed my bags, spent almost two months living on the road, and wound up in Arizona. The picture below was taken in my office at MAD a couple of months before I left.

Me at 485 MADison Avenue in the spring of 1995. Notice the vintage word processor on my desk.

Although my career as a MAD staffer was officially over, my association with the magazine did not end. While I tried to figure out what to do with my life, I needed to somehow make ends meet, so I began freelance writing for the magazine I had just ceased editing for. Suddenly, I was back on the other side of the fence, sending article ideas to my former coworkers. From 1996 to 1999 I sold 26 articles to MAD and managed to make that my primary source of income, but the very sporadic nature of freelance sales began to make me an undesirable combination of paranoid and frugal. (Hmm…not sure there’s actually a desirable combination of those two things.)  Eventually I decided to get fulltime work in an unrelated field and my MAD submissions tapered down to a trickle.

These days, I’ll still send in an idea every once in a very rare while, but it has been a couple of years since I made a sale. But that’s okay, because the truth is that with a fulltime job, volunteer commitments, and two young sons at home, I simply don’t have the time to think in a MAD way anymore…except, of course, for the past six days, while writing this 5,000 word tome. Maybe for my 30^th MADiversary I’ll just send myself a card.

Beatles Haters: They Walk Among Us

I personally know several people who will hate this blog post. I apologize in advance to those people, but sometimes certain things need to be written, even if it means some people may feel affronted. I am sure there were some folks who were very upset when the Manga Carta was written in 1215, but that didn’t stop the Archbishop of Canterbury from writing it, because he knew that it was necessary. Now, 800 years later, this blog post needs to be written, and so I have written it.

About four years ago, I was having a conversation with a coworker about music and she mentioned that she hates the Beatles. At 41 years old, I had gone my whole life to that point without ever coming across someone who said that and I was dumbfounded. Before I could edit what was coming out of my mouth I said, “Do you also hate food and people?” Fortunately she laughed, even though I wasn’t necessarily joking. “I know, I know,” she said. “I get that reaction a lot.” She went on to explain that she grew up during the height of the Beatles popularity (she’s about ten years older than me) and everyone loved the Beatles so much that due to her inherently rebellious nature, her reaction was to despise them, if for no other reason than she was expected to love them. I get that to some extent, as I sometimes have that reaction to enormously popular movies. For example, I felt that way about Avatar, but the difference is that whereas Avatar was mediocre, the Beatles were amazing.

That night when I came home from work I told my wife this seemingly unbelievable news about my coworker and she revealed to me that someone on her side of the family (who shall remain nameless) also hates the Beatles. “What!?! You mean there are two people on this planet who feel this way???” I was flabbergasted. Were these people delusional? In denial? Living with an as yet unidentified genetic disorder? I had a hard time wrapping my mind around it.

In the four years since that inauspicious day I have stumbled across a couple of other anti-Beatles people in a rock music chat room I created on Facebook. Every time I learn of someone new who hates on the Beatles I feel a little twinge of pain somewhere down in the core of my being. It’s not like I’m some closed-minded idiot who feels like everyone should like the exact same music I like (indeed, my favorite band is actually Rush, and I’m completely fine with the fact that there is a very large contingent of people who can’t stand them), but rather that the Beatles’ music: a) seems inherently likeable; b) contains such a wide variety of styles that there’s something there for everyone; and c) laid the foundation for all rock and pop music that came after it. To me, saying “I like rock music, but I hate the Beatles,” is akin to saying “I like beds, but I hate mattresses.” It simply doesn’t make sense.

Originally I was going to spend the rest of this post explaining to those who hate the Beatles why they should, in fact, love them, by describing the joy and/or brilliance of specific albums and songs in minute detail. But unfortunately, I believe this would be like trying to explain advanced calculus to a canary (or to me for that matter).  Instead, I’ll just leave off with an appropriate lyric from each one of the Fab Four.

“Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.” –John Lennon, Strawberry Field Forever

“Take these broken wings and learn to fly.” –Paul McCartney, Blackbird

“And the people, who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion, never glimpse the truth.” – George Harrison, Within You Without You

“Resting our head, on the sea bed, in an octopus's garden near a cave.” – Ringo Starr, Octopus’s Garden 

Alright, so maybe Ringo wasn’t the world’s most profound lyricist, but that doesn’t mean you should hate the Beatles.

My Presidential Platform

As various politicians on both sides of the aisle have begun to announce their candidacy for president, it occurs to me that if I’m going to take a run at the White House in 2016, I better say something sooner rather than later. I mean, I don’t want to be left in Hillary Clinton’s and Rand Paul’s dust, if for no other reason than it would wreak havoc on my sinuses.

The truth is that at 45, I feel I have finally reached the age at which a presidential run is realistic. (Yes, I know that technically one can run for president at 35, but that would mean in about four months Macaulay Culkin could file his paperwork to run for president, and does that seem in any way prudent?) If I were to run for president, I would be sworn in when I was 47 years and 126 days old, which would make me the fifth youngest president of all time. And of the four elected at a younger age, two (John F. Kennedy and Ulysses S. Grant) ended up having their faces put on money, one (Theodore Roosevelt) ended up having his face put on Mount Rushmore, and one (Bill Clinton) ended up having his face put on the cover of the National Enquirer. So…um…my point is that for the most part, younger presidents seem to be revered once they leave office.

But perhaps it’s too soon to ponder my post-presidential legacy when I haven’t even gotten my party’s nomination yet. Of course this begs the question of which party’s nomination I’m hoping to obtain. I have to be realistic here and concede that I have little chance of becoming the nominee for the major (or even minor) political parties, considering that the front-runners for those tickets have millions of supporters and I have less than 400 Facebook friends. It seems that my best chance of being nominated is to start my own political party, which will be called the Ampersand Party. This party is so named because we believe that the ampersand (&) should always be used instead of the word “and” in order to save space in written documents. It is estimated that just by using that simple substitution, more than 500,000 milligrams of ink will be saved over the next ten decades. Indeed, from this point forward I & all of my constituents will employ this tactic.

Of course, using an ampersand to conserve precious ink is not the only component of my presidential platform. It would be ridiculous to run on the strength of only one issue, so let me lay out my five-point plan:

1 – The Proliferation of the Ampersand: I have already discussed this concept above & do not feel the need to waste more vital ink on this topic.

2 – Free Donut Fridays: I & my staff will work diligently with the CEOs of Dunkin’ Donuts, Krispy Kreme, & Winchell’s Donut House to ensure that all Americans can get unlimited free donuts every Friday. This may require subsidizing the donut industry to account for the weekly losses, but this is a hard choice I am willing to make.

3 – No Advertisements before Online Movie Trailers: A movie trailer is essentially an advertisement. When you click on a movie trailer online what you are saying is, “I am willing to watch this advertisement.” It makes no sense that prior to watching an advertisement you are willing to watch, you are forced to sit through one you are not interested in—say for heartburn medication or carpet deodorant. One of the first orders of business of my administration will be to work with the FCC to stop this barbaric practice.

4 – Unification of the Designated Hitter Rule: Let’s face it, the fact that the American League uses a DH & the National League does not is nonsensical. This anomaly has been going on for 42 years now with no end in sight. & the truth is, nobody likes watching a pitcher hit—it’s downright painful. This travesty needs to be rectified posthaste. & since the President has no real jurisdiction over Major League Baseball (MLB), I’m going to be obliged to turn the MLB into an executive branch of the government. Easy-peasy.

5 – Mandatory Life Imprisonment for People Who Spell the Word “Grammar” as “Grammer”: I think this one is pretty self-explanatory.

Now that I have clearly laid out my presidential platform, I can hit the campaign trail & share my views with the American public. After the masses have had to endure countless stump speeches about education, immigration, & foreign policy, I’m sure that my views will be a breath of fresh air & will almost certainly lead to a presidential vicory. Maybe the United States Mint should start working on the template to put my face on the thirteen-cent piece now.

Me standing on the shores of the Potomac River across from the Jefferson Memorial, about 1.2 miles from the White House-- my new home as of January 20, 2017.

Not Sure If I Want My Milk In A Bag

Every time I do our weekly grocery shopping I have a high level of anxiety while checking out, because I know, as I stand there watching items get swept across the scanner, that I will soon be asked that dreaded question by the bagger, “Would you like your milk in a bag?” And I just don’t know the right answer.

The truth is I don’t drink milk myself, and haven’t drunk it for almost 25 years. And back when I was drinking milk, I was living at home and my mom was the one who did the grocery shopping. So it wasn’t really until about seven years ago, when my older son turned one and was given the go ahead to drink milk by his pediatrician, that I purchased milk for the first time. (Yes, it’s strange that someone can go 38 years without ever having to purchase milk, but I’ve led a charmed life.)

So for the past seven years, every time I go to the grocery store, I’m asked the same loaded question, “Would you like your milk in a bag?” To this day I’m not sure why I’m being asked this, because there’s no other item that they ever ask me this about. And really, why wouldn’t I want all of my groceries in a bag? It sure seems convenient.

The first time I was asked this, I thought the kid was just joshing around with me, so I played along and said, “Nooooo. Whatever you do, keep that thing out of a bag.” He looked at me funny and didn’t bag my milk. I thought he was just playing along with the gag.

But the next time I had a different bagger and she asked me the same question. I nervously chuckled and said, “Yes, please. I’d like my milk in a bag.” And she obeyed.

It was at this point that I realized that grocery store workers must think this is a legitimate question. Indeed, there must be some customers who prefer not to have this particular grocery item in a bag, otherwise why would the question be asked? I wondered if there is a right answer to this question. And does it say something about me as a person if I want my milk bagged or not bagged?

But why is this question being asked in the first place? I’ve spent many a night up late wondering about this. It can’t be because of the size and shape, because I’ve purchased things like orange juice in similar containers and don’t get asked this question. It can’t be because it’s dairy, because nobody has ever asked me if I want my sour cream or butter in a bag. I wondered if maybe there’s some sort of deadly chemical reaction that takes place between milk and grocery bags, but then I assumed if that was the case they wouldn’t even give you the option, otherwise they’d lose a lot of customers.

Now, seven years into my milk buying days, I’m still not sure why I’m being asked this question or how I should answer. So I change up my answer on a frequent basis. Sometimes I say, “Yes!” sometimes I say, “No!” and sometimes I say “Surprise me!” just to see the look on the bagger’s face. Once, when I was in a particularly playful mood, I said, “Yes, I’d like my milk in a bag, but not my pickles, toothpaste or instant brown rice.” I got a blank stare and then everything was bagged anyway.

And so, this week when I go grocery shopping, the same mystery will play itself out. I’ll get asked if I want my milk in a bag, my heart rate will increase as I desperately wonder how I’m supposed to respond, I’ll mentally flip a coin to make my choice, and life will go on as usual. Or maybe I’ll just turn the tables on the bagger and say, “Do you want my milk in a bag?” Ah-ha! Let’s see what happens when the shoe is on the other foot!

Chandler, Arizona: Too Clean for Cub Scouts

About four months ago my eight-year-old son became a Cub Scout, which means that his calendar (and by extension, mine) has suddenly gotten much fuller. We’re putting together shell collections, building pinewood derby cars, and solving cryptograms. It’s a lot more than I ever remember doing when I was a Cub Scout. Really my only memories of my scouting days are eating cupcakes at the end of den meetings and being chosen to play “the mom” in a skit in which I had to don a wig and a green dress. (I think my son’s got it a little better than I did, because they still get treats at the end of pack meetings, but so far I haven’t seen any of the scouts forced to dress in drag.)

Last week my son had to go on a hike and pick up litter along the trail, so I took him and my younger son to Veterans Oasis Park in southeast Chandler. This park has 4.5 miles of hiking trails featuring desert landscape, so I figured it would give us lots of opportunity to both admire cactus and pick up discarded soda cans.

With a brand new 13-gallon drawstring garbage bag in hand we started our hike figuring by the end it would take all three of us to drag the sack back out. But apparently the good citizens of Chandler are cleaner than we banked on. Ten minutes into our hike looking both on the trail and off, we still hadn’t found any litter. On the one hand, I was glad that I live in a city with such cleanly folks, but on the other hand, I was hoping we’d have at least a few slobs to help out my kid’s project.

I had all but given up hope of finding any trash at all when my younger son shouted, “There!” and pointed to a spot about five feet to our left. The three of us slowly crept over to the spot as though we were stalking prey and then under a bush we saw it—a one-inch by one-inch clear piece of plastic that may or may not have been a food wrapper at one time in its life. While I wasn’t quite sure what it was, it was clear that it was not something that would occur naturally in the dessert and so could only be defined as litter. I had my older son put on his work gloves (the Cub Scout handbook explicitly states that for safety purposes one must always wear gloves when picking up litter) and put the miniscule piece of plastic into the trash bag. 

We all felt a great sense of accomplishment at having removed the offending trash—so much so, that we decided to reward ourselves by eating the granola bars we brought as snacks. Of course once we ate the bars we had to throw the wrappers into our 13-gallon garbage bag, giving us a great sense of accomplishment once again.

And so the morning went, with my eagle-eyed six-year-old spotting a piece of litter smaller than my thumb every ten minutes or so, my meticulous eight-year-old carefully putting on his gloves to throw it out, and all three of us generating more litter between us than we found in our entire two-hour hike.

By the end of our mission we were all exhausted. Two hours of hiking is a lot on the legs and the six times we had to bend down to pick up litter only compounded our bone-weariness. But at least my son got to check off “Requirement 7” in his Cub Scout handbook. Now if only there was a requirement in his handbook that would make him clean up his room.

Amazing Nieces

Long before I was a dad I was an uncle. It’s true. I have two older brothers and between them they popped out seven kids (well, technically their wives did the popping out part) before I had even met my wife. The youngest of their brood is nine years older than the oldest of mine, so I had years of experience as an uncle before I ever became a dad—20 years’ worth, in fact. (Note: Experience as an uncle does not, in any way, shape, or form, prepare you for being a dad. But more on that thought in a future blog post.)

These days, of course, I’m much more focused on the accomplishments of my own kids than I am on my brothers’, and my blog posts reflect that. But this time around I’ve decided it’s high time to give some props to my brothers’ kids—specifically the nieces, of which there are two (one for each brother).

My older niece, Alyssa, is a film major at Brooklyn College, specializing in sound mixing. Apparently sound mixing is distinctly different from sound editing, as my niece explained to me last September when I was in New York. At the time she gave an excellent explanation of those differences, and for about five minutes after that conversation I probably could have articulated those differences to someone else. Now, five months later, I probably have as much chance of explaining the differences between sound mixing and sound editing as I do explaining the ins and outs of particle physics. Yeah, I’m not good with technical information.

Of course, being a film major is not in and of itself an amazing thing. Anyone can major in anything. (I could have even majored in physics…for about four days before I would have flunked out.) But in my niece Alyssa’s case, the thing that verified my biased uncle opinion that she’s amazing at what she does, is that she is one of five people across the country to have been nominated for a student achievement award by the Cinema Audio Society. She has been invited to their 51^st annual award’s ceremony in Hollywood, where they give out awards for motion picture and television sound mixing. This is sort of like the Oscars for sound mixing folks. (Believe it or not, there’s an entirely different awards ceremony for sound editing people. See, I told you there was a difference.)

The point is that in less than two weeks my niece will be in Tinsel Town rubbing elbows with the sound mixing greats. Who knows, she might even end up sitting next to Gregg Rudloff. Yes, that Greg Rudloff, who won both an Oscar and a Cinema Audio Society award for The Matrix and is nominated for both awards again this year for American Sniper. (Okay, I never heard of him until now either, but his resume is pretty impressive, including having done the sound on This is Spinal Tap, one of my favorite comedies of all time, so I’m impressed.) In summation, it looks like my niece is on a much better track to realize my dream of winning an Oscar than I am. Good for her! (Seriously, that was said with pride, not jealousy.)

My younger niece, Lauren, is in the first year of a seven-year combined college and medical school program. So clearly she’s got some smarts. Indeed, she must have a few I.Q. points on her dad (my brother) because it took him eight years to finish college and medical school. Slacker!

But not only is my niece incredibly smart, she is incredibly talented as well. This time I will magically remove my uncle bias from the equation by letting you know that she is the reigning National American Miss New York Teen. This is no joke, as the current Miss America—Kira Kazantsev—was the National American Miss New York Teen in 2012. Now I’m not saying this means my niece will be Miss America in three years, because that is a bit of a leap, but four or five years, tops.

Yes, I see lots of red carpet activity in both my nieces’ futures. Oscars. Crowns. Maybe a Nobel Prize for good measure. I’m not ruling anything out with these two. They make me proud to be an uncle.

(Note: I don’t mean to imply that my nephews are slouches—four of them became Eagle Scouts by the time they were 13 and the fifth was the 10^th grade New Jersey State Chess Champion last year.)

(Note 2: Yes, I know this blog was particularly boastful and self-serving, but hey, it’s my blog and I can write whatever the heck I want.)

(Note 3: Sorry to use strong language like “heck” on the internet, I’ll try to refrain from doing it next time.)

(Note 4: There is no Note 4.)

The Price of Guacamole

Growing up in Brooklyn in the 70s and 80s, Mexican food wasn’t really a thing. Well, I guess it was a thing, but not a thing that I had any exposure to other than through an episode of The Odd Couple when Oscar ate tacos and aggravated his ulcer. It wasn’t until the early 90s when I was living in Manhattan that I tried Mexican food for the first time. There was—and according to Google, still is—a restaurant in the Village called Caliente Cab Co. that I ate at with friends a few times. I enjoyed it and thought it was quite exotic, but considered it the kind of place one would only eat at on special occasions. I could probably count on one hand the amount of times I had Mexican food before I moved out to Arizona.

In Arizona, Mexican restaurants are ubiquitous—sort of like pizza joints in Brooklyn. “Exotic” is no longer the word I would use to describe Mexican food. We eat the stuff a couple of times a week, but only at a restaurant every other month or so. This, of course, means that Mexican food is on our regular menu at home. We do burritos, quesadillas, and of course, Oscar Madison’s favorite—tacos. We also do taco salad, which is essentially a taco in salad form. (Note: that last bit of clarification was for my New York readers, many of whom are not wise to the ways of Mexican food. I know that many of my Arizona readers likely rolled their eyes and thought, “We know what a taco salad is, you yutz!” If you’re a reader from another state, I formally apologize for not addressing your level of Mexican food awareness within this parenthetical note.)

On taco salad nights we usually include avocado in the mix. Over the past few years avocados have quietly become one of my favorite foods. I’m not a trained food critic, so I can’t quite describe the flavor of an avocado, but I’ll just put it this way—they’re freakin’ yummy. While there’s no denying that avocados by themselves are delicious, one thing you can do with them to heighten their deliciousness is combine them with salsa and sour cream to make guacamole. Finding the right combination of these three ingredients to make the perfect guacamole is tricky—the kind of thing that mystical elves in an enchanted forest might be skilled at—but somehow my 8-year-old son has a knack for getting the combo just right to make what he now calls his “famous guacamole.” So on taco salad nights my son’s “famous guacamole” has become a hot commodity.

On our most recent taco salad night my son suddenly decided to become entrepreneurial with his guacamole. Once he finished mixing his prized concoction he offered it up to the rest of his family for a penny a serving. My wife and younger son took him up on the offer but I passed at first—not because the price was too rich for my blood, but because by the time he got around to making the guacamole I had already finished my taco salad and was full. When I politely declined my son’s offer, he apparently thought I was balking at the cost, prompting him to say, “Okay, instead of a penny you can dance for your guacamole.” I stifled a laugh and decided to have some guacamole after all, at the original price of one penny, as I didn’t feel much like dancing.

After dinner when it was time for my older son to collect the penny from his brother, I heard the younger tot try to renegotiate the deal. “Can I do a dance for you, instead?” he asked. The older boy agreed and 30 seconds of freeform dancing sans musical accompaniment ensued.

Ultimately, the price of my son’s guacamole is pretty reasonable. At all the local restaurants it costs much more than a penny and I’m pretty sure they won’t let you do a dance rather than pay for the stuff. Of course, I don’t know this for sure, because I’ve never asked. Maybe next time I’m at Rosita’s I’ll see if I can do a rumba in exchange for my guacamole. Probably won’t work, but at least it’s got a better shot than offering to do the tarantella for an order of garlic bread in Brooklyn.