The Holiday Season at CVS

     Well, (never start an essay with well unless you are writing about an actual well) the Holiday Season has officially started.  Do you want to know how I know?  By the Christmas music I have been hearing at the local CVS drug stores for the past 11 weeks.  That's how I know.  When I hear Neil Diamond singing about Frosty the Red Nosed Reindeer while I peruse the shoelace selection in aisle 3, I know that October is almost half over and soon it will be Christmas time.  It gives me a real jolly holiday feeling.
      Because when I think of Christmas, the first thing that comes to mind is the great love that emanates from CVS corporate headquarters in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, pouring over me like harsh fluorescent light. And when I am bathed in fluorescent light, surrounded by overpriced Chinese child labor-made stuffed animals, overpriced wax-flavored holiday candy, bland greeting cards, and ten thousand commonplace, yet overpriced big-box drug store items, the first thing that comes to my mind is Christmas.
     The truth is that, quite aside from its being crassly commercial, completely insincere and borderline sinister, this forced holidayesque atmosphere they are attempting to create with the help of Barbra Streisand, the Carpenters, Gene Autry and myriad other musical greats and near greats is totally unnecessary because it is far too early for the true CVS Pharmacy Christmas shopper.
     Because, really, does anybody do their Christmas shopping at CVS or other such mega-pharmacies in the middle of autumn?  No.  The people who shop at CVS for Christmas are the ones who wait until 4PM on December 24th and rush over there and load their shopping carts with whatever they can grab:  book lights and foot massagers, nose hair trimmers and coffee mugs, wind-up flashlights and wart remover.  They then elbow aside all the other procrastinating losers, and make a beeline to the nearly picked-clean wrapping paper department, grabbing a few of the less ugly rolls of holiday paper. It doesn't even matter, at that point, what holiday is indicated on the paper; they'll take birthday paper, Easter paper, Arbor Day paper, whatever's left.  Then it's to the long checkout lines, where they can still pick up a few CVS gift cards for their hard-to-shop-for loved ones, and out the door with their newfound treasure.
    So why don't the good folks at the big building in Woonsocket, RI change their Christmas music policy and hold off playing it until Christmas Eve?  That way, I think, it will be so much more meaningful to their desperate Christmas shoppers.  And in the meantime, when I go in there for my daily flu shot, I won't have to listen to the stuff.

In Defense of the Gentleman

     For years I have been noticing a misuse of the word gentleman, particularly by police department personnel describing crimes and criminals to the news media.  Here is a typical example of what one such spokesman might say in an interview for the local television news:
"The gentleman climbed onto the roof of the building and proceeded to climb down the chimney to try to gain entry.  He got stuck about half way down.  The gentleman proceeded to yell obscenities as loud as he could until passersby heard him and called 911.  After we rescued him we found illegal drugs in his possession.  The gentleman is being booked for possession, drunk and disorderly, attempted breaking and entering, and he has warrants for several prior offenses."
     Now I don't think behavior of this type warrants the use of the term gentleman.  When I think of a gentleman, I picture a well dressed man having dinner in a fine restaurant with his matronly, jewel-bedecked wife. His top hat and evening gloves have been set aside by the subservient wait staff; his monocle glints with the light of the crystal chandelier.  His ivory-handled walking stick leans in the corner behind him; his spats and high-necked collar bespeak class and sophistication.  After dinner, he and his wife stroll to the theater as he smokes his cigar.  She is wearing a sable coat and he a cashmere topcoat to keep out the evening chill.
      Is this really the type of person who would strip down to his acid-washed jeans and shimmy down a chimney with a pocket full of meth and liquor on his breath?  Would he so quickly cast aside his social standing and his prestige in the business world to boost a few car stereos at 3AM?  Are we to believe that upon leaving the theater he made an excuse to his wife, sent her home in a hansom cab and went across town to wallow in an underworld of petty crime and criminal mischief, like a cut-rate Mr Hyde?  No, I think we can safely assume that our gentleman would do no such thing.  He is no reverse Santa Claus.  He didn't build his empire by going down chimneys and stealing other people's property.
     But, just as sure I am that the man inside the chimney is not wearing a shirt, I am equally sure that the next police spokesman I see on TV will refer to him as a gentleman.  They do it all the time. Just watch the news and pay attention to the first police spokesman you hear describing the latest criminal incident.  He will invariably mischaracterize the culprit as a gentleman.   It bothers me because it not just imprecise, but incorrect.  The correct term in the case above would be a word like individual or perpetrator, or suspect or fellow, or guy or dirtbag, sleazeball, dim bulb, criminal, lowlife, genius, ignoramus, or any of 20 other words.  The shirtless guy stuck in the chimney is anything in the world but a gentleman.
      Any time a police spokesman refers to a perpetrator as a gentleman, he should have to personally apologize to all the esteemed gentlemen in cashmere overcoats and top hats who have earned the appellation of gentleman by their hard work, gracious bearing, generosity, and clean, white spats.

Big changes at Fishbrick.

I just added some widgets or gidgets or wadgets to the blog to make it blend in more with other modern blogs.  I now have a list of my followers (shout out to Monica); there is a place for enthusiastic readers to click now if they want to share my glittering insights with their Twitter followers or Facebook friends.  I have added a poll question for Monica to answer.  I've also slightly changed the title font and size and darkened the background color of the blog..  All of these changes were easy to do.  What I cannot do is fix the white block around my fishbrick such that it doesn't block the right hand side of the border.  It looks stupid.  But I cannot change it.  Maybe next week's poll question can be about stupid design flaws in my blog's layout.  I will think of a way to phrase it meanwhile.  In the meantime, here are some interesting links:

Monkeys in hats
Remove gum from your hair
Giants
Amazing octopus video

Suggested Olympic Events

The Vancouver Winter Olympiad continues in the tropical climes of British Columbia.  We all have our favorite moments at these olympics.  I personally enjoy watching the hair dye on Al Michaels' head, and also the downhill skating is great.  But most of the sports exhibited at the olympics are events that most Americans do not or cannot participate in.  I mean, when was the last time you and your so-called friends went out for a night of curling or ski jumping.  In fact, have you ever met a person or met a person who met a person who knew somebody who curls?  Such people are as plentiful as leftover beers at one of my one-man parties.  I think the Winter Olympics (am I right to use capital letters?) should include winter sports that the average joe (should I use a small letter?) can relate to.  Consequently, I have made a short list of events that I think ought to be included in the next Winter Olympics. 

• The windshield scrape.  Participants are timed while they scrape thick ice off their windshields using a cheap, five inch long, Chinese-made ice scraper that they purchased at a drugstore.
• The fall on ice and nonchalant recovery.  Participants are judged in how quickly they can get up from a nasty slip on the ice and act like they never fell.  Extra points are awarded for convincing the judges that there is no severe pain..
• The driveway shovel race.  Participants are made to shovel heavy, wet snow sufficiently to allow their cars to back out of the driveway.  The object is to shovel the least amount of snow that will allow the car to be dislodged from the driveway.
• Icicle dodge.  Participants stand under five foot icicles and must dive out the way of certain death as random icicles are thrown down upon them.
• Gas bill cursing.  Participants are judged on how they react to astronomically high cold weather gas bills.  Points are awarded for decibel level and creativity. 
• The jogger slalom.  Participants drive their cars down a simulated snow-covered city street and avoid  joggers who feel they must run in sub-zero weather on narrow snow-covered streets.
• The snow shovel fling.  Participants must shovel a 50 yard driveway in their pajamas.  When they have finished, an Olympic snow plow proceeds down the street and deposits an eight foot high pile of snow at the base of the driveway.  Participants are judged on how far they can throw their shovels toward the retreating snow plow.  Style points can be earned for creative curse words, guttural wails of agony, and for sobbing.  Genuine tears are a plus.

The Year in Fishbrick

It's time for the annual year-end review of Fishbrick. It has, of course, been a hectic year here at Fishbrick, filled with highs and lows, controversy, laughs, information and hubris. I must say it was probably the most interesting year in the history of Fishbrick, and, as difficult as it was, I'd probably do it again (although it would probably kill me). So, without further McGoo, let us relive some of the highlights in this year of Fishbrick.

January
The new year started out with a bang in typical Fishbrick fashion with my ten-thousand word attack on pears, the upshot being that I hate pears. I'm still getting hate emails from the zealots at the National Pear Board. They'll never change my mind.

In most years, that would be enough for one month, but I felt particularly energized after the pear piece and posted a short satire on the mentally ill. I was, to say the least, surprised at how many people seemed to take umbrage with my ridicule of so-called 'defenseless' people. Come on folks. Get serious. Are there really no computers or typewriters in the loony bins?

Like all of America, I got caught up in the euphoria of the Barack Obama inuaguration. So, naturally I contributed to the media frenzy with my article about the number of fat people I saw in the Inauguration crowd. If memory serves me correctly, the percentage of fat people in the crowd was about normal. I think that says a lot about Obama supporters.

February
The shortest month of the year was a slow month here at Fishbrick, due primarily to the injuries I sustained in a vicious attack by a crazed, pear-wielding Obama supporter. I never did figure out just what his beef was, but he's got to be one of my least favorite brothers-in-law.

At the end of the month, sufficiently recovered from my injuries to sit down again, I posted an ode to the egg, nature's perfect egg-shaped food. This hard-hitting expose was recognized by the Egg Board of Canada with one of their coveted Yolkee Awards. They partially paid my airfare to Saskatoon, where they hold their awards banquet. The Yolkee Award is quite a heavy little trophy for its size, and owing to that fact, and the fact that I had eaten the egg-themed dinner without the benefit of a napkin, which somebody stole from me, the trophy slipped from my buttery fingers as I accepted the award and it broke the foot of the emcee. His subsequent shrieks of pain drowned out the first ten minutes of my acceptance speech. But it's all good.

March
March was supposed to be the month wherein I ate nothing except canned chili for 31 days and give daily updates on my condition for the blog. The experiment did not go well, for by day four I had to do all my blogging from the toilet. It turned out to be a big waste of time anyway because, as loyal Fishbrick readers already know, due to technical issues none of my updates made it to the blog. Four weeks of violent gastrointestinal turmoil for nothing.

April
I couldn't actually move any of my limbs for the first three weeks of April, owing to the previous month's experiment. I did post one blog entry at the end of the month about bed sores. I don't think anybody read it.

May
By May Day I felt on top of the world again. I posted a well-received article about how cute kittens are, which I followed up with a less well-received article poking fun at stutterers. People are hard to figure sometimes.

May's Fishbrick output was cut short abruptly when the gosh-darned Yolkee Award fell off the mantel while I was taking down the Christmas stockings, hitting me on the back of my head and, ironically, raising a bump about the size of an egg. The subsequent double vision and nausea prevented my posting anything on the blog for the next few weeks.

June
June is a-bustin' out all over, and unfortunately, so was my front tooth after a particularly violent sneeze. It was a freak occurence, not likely to happen again in this lifetime.

After getting that taken care of, and listening to a stern lecture about gum disease from my stuttering dentist (tee-hee), I was ready for blogging again. My first and most controversial article of the month concerned Barack Obama's propensity to whistle the letter s at the end of words. The controversy had to do with my adamant support of that whistled s and the desire to see more of our political figures employ that particular speech enhancement.

I also that month wrote about my abortive attempt to obtain a part in a local community theater play. I still feel a pang of guilt every time I drive by the smoldering ruins of that place. But once they rebuild, I fully intend to audition there again, of course this time without the pyrotechnics.

July
Fishbrick's highlight for the month of July has got to be the posting about not wearing flannel during the summer. People loved the insights and fresh perspectives of that blog post. I rode the crest of that wave for a while.

July was also the month for me to take the old laptop to the baseball game, to try my hand at amateur sportswriting. Unfortunately an errant fly ball in one fell swoop took out both the laptop and my new front tooth, so the sportswriting experiment had to be put on hold for a while.
The worst of that was having to see my stuttering dentist again and not laugh while he has his hands in my mouth.

August
This was going to be the month I wrote about how eager I was for the return of NFL football and the possible resurgence of the Cleveland Browns as contenders in the AFC North. However, the Fishbrick football preview never happened because the stupid Yolkee Award rolled off the mantel, simultaneously smashing to smithereens both my new laptop and my glass-top coffee table. If I never see Saskatoon again, it'll be too soon.

September
No activity this month for Fishbrick as I could never get access to a computer terminal at the library. And I had some great plans, too. I wanted to post something to commemorate Spittoon Appreciation Day, and I also wanted to post my annual rumination on the arrival of autumn and the return to my house of the bats.

October
Under an assumed name I won a part in a play at another local theater. I thrilled the Fishbrick loyalists with tales of behind the scenes life in the theater. I wrote of how the actor's life is not all glamour and applause and that my having to clean out the bathrooms and take out the trash there is typical stuff we do; of how putting up with the withering criticisms of the director, the smirking and ridicule of fellow cast members and physical and mental torment from the wardrobe lady is par for the course in an actor's experience. It would have been all worth it, of course, to finally appear on stage and dazzle the audiences with my acting prowess, but I never got a chance to get on stage, as one night I fell or was pushed down the stairs while delivering sandwiches and coffee to the cast and crew. Lucky for them they already had a guy doing my part in rehearsal.

November
November was a month to remember for Fishbrick. It started with another article about pears and how awful they are. More hate mail from the National Pear Board.

My next notable posting was about how my surgically repaired front tooth causes me to whistle whenever I say s. People were very sympathetic to my plight. And President Obama himself dropped me a message of commiseration.

Fishbrick's yearly Thanksgiving Day article was about how canned chili is an excellent replacement for turkey for those who are tired of doing the same old thing every year. I was actually able to pour the chili into a mold and thus serve canned chili that was more or less shaped like turkey. I received some enthusiastic comments from some of my readers, who generally tend to be more gustatorily sophisticated than the average Joe.

December
The arrival of winter usually entails the building of fires in my fireplace. And this year was no exception. I always like to post articles on Fishbrick about fire safety and the proper way to build and maintain a nice fire. However, as I was building my first fire of the year in early December the Yolkee Award slipped from its moorings and fell directly onto my left hand, which was at the time reaching for the poker. I know for a fact that I screamed louder and longer than the Yolkee Award presenter did at the banquet. But the upshot is that I am having to type everything with one hand, so I have necessarily cut back on blogging this month.

All in all it has been a splendid year for Fishbrick and me. I hope next year is as varied and interesting as '09 was. And I hope you come and visit this blog just as often as you need to.

Booster Seats!

Alright then, I believe I have come up with a new topic. It took me awhile to decide, but after extensive consultation with my astrologer, I have decided to write about the following subject.


The Ohio General ASSembly has just passed a new law requiring booster seats in vehicles for children under 4 feet 9 inches tall. This is to make up for the deficiencies inherent in the current design of automobile lap and shoulder belts for people of small stature. It's about time! It's hard to believe any Ohioan has survived into adulthood without there being such a law in the past. How different our history would have been if the intrepid pioneers of America's past had had booster seats in their covered wagons and Model T's.
Now, with this long-awaited law, if you are stopped for some reason by an officer of the law and your child is booster seatless, you can be fined from $25 to $75. The added expense and inconvenience of the new mandate for parents and people who occasionally drive kids is offset by the potential gains to be made by those who buy stock in booster seat-producing companies. I'm sure that now in China there is great jubilation among lead miners who will be mining the material which the factories will be using to make the new booster seats.

But is a simple booster seat sufficient humiliation -- er, protection-- for grammar school kids? Can't our wonderful, benevolent, all-wise and underpaid legislators mandate more rigorous measures to ensure our children's well-being and happiness as we drive them to and fro upon Ohio's non-pockmarked roads and highways? I think so. I hope so. I foresee a time when Officer Friendly, in pulling over an Ohio citizen for having a slightly dimmed license plate light or for going 40 in a 35 mph zone, will be able to cite the driver for more than just the lack of a booster seat. I hope to see a time when the irresponsible parent can be penalized for not dressing the child in flame retardant underwear and socks, for failing to equip the child with a Chinese-made crash helmet, for not providing each child under 4 foot 9 with a SafeCitizen Sippy Cup, for the youngster not wearing a hard rubber mouth guard to protect his or her vulnerable teeth, for not encasing the kids in bubble wrap and filling the back seat with styrofoam peanuts to help cushion the jarring of the inevitable traffic mishap. Such a time, unfortunately has not yet arrived in Ohio, but with more hard work by citizen activists and lazy politicians, that time will come.

Possible Blogging Topics.

I am giving serious consideration to posting another entry on this blog in the near future. I haven't yet decided what I will blog about though. Here are some possibilities:
* The weather has been fairly unpleasant lately here in Cleveland.
* Christmastime has arrived and the New Year is on its way.
* We will soon have a new President of the United States.
* The NFL season is winding down and the Cleveland Browns are not quite as good as I'd hoped.
* I recently had a birthday and am therefore another year older.
* The economy is going through some bad times.
* I was recently chased through the streets of Prague by a gang of desperate, knife-wielding crossword puzzle enthusiasts and only managed to save myself by climbing down an open manhole whereupon I came upon a hidden civilization of mole people hidden deep under the ancient sewer system of Prague. These people treated me at first with suspicion, but later came to see me as a kind of deity. I lived with them for a few weeks, but grew tired of their constant sycophancy and the fact that pears are the mainstay of their diet. I hate pears. So one night I sneaked out of their hidden city, having left a thank you note, and returned to civilization.
* Air travel is not what it used to be.
* Some people put up their Christmas decorations early, and some people take theirs down the minute Christmas is over.
* I really hate getting up in the morning.
* How about those gas prices?
* Every Christmas it seems that I eat quite a bit of food.

These are all possibilities for blogging, as they are all quite interesting topics. I will in the coming weeks narrow down the possibilities and announce my choice. In the meantime, keep watching Fishbrick. And happy New Year.

The UbiquitousTip Jar

I recall a time when it was common practice that certain service workers would receive tips from grateful customers to augment their low wages. Thus, waiters and baggage handlers, cab drivers, shoe shiners and others have become dependent upon and expectant of the tips proffered by their patrons. Ideally the amount of the tip has been commensurate with the quality of service received. With most of these types of jobs this tipping has been going on for decades, if not centuries. It is tradition. I have no problem with that. However, times have changed. Now we have something known as the "tip jar." This jar is placed on the counter next to the cash registers of ten million newly deserving service workers. Now the kid who hands you the mustard packet or rings up your purchase of breath mints is eligible for a tip. Why? Because there is a jar in front of him that has the word "tips"scrawled on it. I don't like this. What makes the ice cream scoopist or the latte pourista suddenly worthy of the tip where once they were not? Somebody just decides to place a "tip jar" in front of them one day and we must now tip them? No matter what they do?

It's not that I'm cheap (I am), it's just that it seems to me that this is not an organic process here. This is not a tradition forming by the common practice of grateful customers. No, it's a contrived, forced, coerced practice foisted on us by copycats who see a good thing and want a part of it. "They're asking for tips at the Starbuckles across the street, so I'm going to put a tip jar here at my locksmithery." And lo and behold, our locksmith makes a key, and the well-trained customer, seeing the tip jar on the counter, gives him a dollar. Voila, a fake custom is born.

Now, I have nothing against a happy customer giving the locksmith a tip, but I am against the locksmith having a jar there, silently badgering his hapless customers into giving him extra money. If this customer wanted to give the locksmith extra money, he can simply say, "keep the change." That's a real tip. That's how the customer expresses his gratitude at a job well done. Being guilted into throwing money into big fat "tip jar" is not the way to do it. And I happen to know that the workers put seed money into the jar to make it look like everybody else is leaving tips for them, so we will feel obliged to leave ours.

It seems to me that if all one has to do to receive tips is to place a one of these jars in front of himself, then we will start seeing tip jars in places heretofore undreamed of. For instance, I can imagine tip jars being placed in doctors' offices, or in front of bank tellers; held out by umpires at home plate; hanging from cockpit doors; a black-beribboned jar on top of the casket at the funeral home; a jar on the desk of the IRS agent auditing you. Why not have a tip jar for every person you come in contact with throughout the day? Then, when Mildred in Accounting hands you the Hoopnagel file, you put a buck in her tip jar. Of course, you would have your own jar, so maybe you would come out ahead in the end.

But why not forestall this kind of insanity ever coming into vogue by stopping this proliferation of tip jars now, while there is still time. I think next time I come across one of these jars, I am going reach into the jar and grab a few bucks as a reward for taking the trouble to patronize the establishment. That way, the service person won't have to say thank you after taking my order.