Twenty-Ten, Be Our Friend

                                          

We end the year with ThirdGarage's (3G) Honoree List for 2009:

"As If" Award: To French Ministre De La Justice, Michele Alliot-Marie, for notifying 3G that it is illegal for non-French citizens to create French holidays. We received a "ceasement et desiste" order from Paris regarding our invention of CentJours, a celebration of the year's first hundred days on April 10 or 9 each year. Alliot-Marie states that, " TroisGarages must first hire a French citizen, who must do the inventing." Also, this worker must be perpetually employed. Despite this note, France will forge ahead and celebrate CentJours "as if a French person had invented it."

Perpetual Employment Award: To the New York State Senate and Assembly. This special award is for always being there when we needed them and the fact that, as weird as it may seem, they always will be. On some days, when we were stuck for funny ideas, they were there for us.

Get Working Trophy: To the Hallmark Card Co. for its zealous offer of a contract for 3G to develop 20 new holidays per year for 5 years. This was based on our inventing Arrival Day, as recently reported by RecessionWire and MSN Money. We declined, believing that 100 new holidays is hardly the way to get the economy going and reduce deficits. 3G did, however, refer Hallmark to France, where they can find plenty of idle and inventive citoyens.

Annual Retraction Award: To Governor Dave Paterson, formerly known as David (changed due to unflattering Biblical references to height). Although 3G made a simple human typo error when it wrote, " the legally dumb Governor," we formally retract it anyway. Obviously, we meant that GovDave was "legally bland." We're sorry.

Forceps Manufacturers' Lobby Award: To Baucus, Pelosi, Reid and Co, President O, and "Rahm It" Emanuel. Remember the Seinfeld "Ugly Baby" episode? Wow, that was some ugly baby. But, the parents thought it was an "unprecedentedly beautiful" new earthling. We can't help thinking that there will be some very long feeding nights and a troubled adolescence ahead for the adoring midwives and parents of our new baby, known as The Bill.

"Twenty-Ten, Twenty-Ten
  Please, be
  Our friend,
  Twenty-Ten"


Happy New Year

Toast

1

Santa delivered a new toaster to our house this Christmas. It's a Proctor Silex, made in China. It came with a 24  page instruction booklet, most of which described really bad things that might happen, if you made toast the wrong way.

The booklet may have been written by the same lawyers who write those TV drug ads that warn certain people: "ProToastEx may cause headache, nausea, lack of breath, immediate death." This is the simplest toaster that Santa could find: all white, two slots, one push button and one control knob.

  The 24-page booklet did not mention an obvious design flaw, as shown above:  the electrical plug-wire enters the toaster at the front, where the controls are. In order to plug it in easily, the controls need to face the wall. This glitch may have occurred  because they do not make much toast in China.

2

While making toast in the new gadget the day after Christmas, I read the story about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up a plane landing in Detroit. Umar's name had been entered in something called the  Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment or Tide. There are about 550.000 names there. I didn't know that, did you?

That is one Tide we'd all like to see go out and never come back.  There is a "sub-Tide" called Terrorist Screening Data Base with 400,000 names on it.  Then comes a sub-sub-Tide "no-fly list." There are only 4,000 names on that, which did not seem like a lot.

As a result of this incident, I'm betting that many Americans  will now have their  own "no fly" lists with their own names featured prominently on top of them. They'll never fly again, which is too bad. It's hard to compete globally, when you won't get on an airplane. (Note to self: Buy Trailways Bus stock).

3

Here's an idea: maybe airlines should have to publish a list of people who are on each flight for all passengers to see. If you are on a flight with someone named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, coming from Nigeria, paying cash and not checking any bags, you can make up your own mind about taking that flight.

Some people might think this idea is undemocratic, uncivil and prejudicial. Umar's own father would not be one of them; a well-known financier, he notified authorities himself about the danger his son posed.

4

Santa also gave me a book called "When China Rules The World." It says that the US is decadent and China is strong, getting stronger. If Mr. Umar Farouk Abdulmutalab was caught in China, he would already be toast.

5

Even though our new toaster had a plug that came out of the wrong end, it made really good toast on the first try.  I continued reading the news, while eating the near-perfect toast about a new "reality" TV show. This show is about an obese family, in which everyone weighs over 300 pounds. It's all about when, how, how much they all eat and whether they can stop doing that. I'm not making this up.

Reading about this obese family show, got me thinking about China again. I've been to China six times.Whenever I went there, I ate like an emperor and still came back home lighter than before I left.

    I never saw any fat Chinese people; my colleague Joe and I were the fat people there.              

      It might make some sense for that obese family to live in China for a couple of years. Maybe reality TV is part of that decadence that the 'China Rules" author kept mentioning.

                                                                                6   

 The book's basic  premise is that Americans are debt-obese. If we keep consuming with money borrowed from China, their economy will surpass ours by 2027. By 2050,  our whole country will have been Made In China.

     At that point, we really will be you know what.

                                                                            

Seasons' Greetings

                                                    Our Founding Editor





Holy Obama and Peacenik Joe!
The Season's upon us in all its glow.
Tiger's making Birdies, marked with X's,
While Lindsay may soon be running out of sexes.

Citi-Boys can't raise enough money,
Goldie-Lloyd makes it as bees do honey.
Greenwich mommies, freed at last,
to shop and shop 'til there's no SUV gas.

That Graydon, still tops in Vanity,
Other mag moguls just plead insanity.
Paper and print are so Ghosts of the Past.
Twitter, Google are really cheap and fast.

Max, Nancy, Harry still madly wrapping
Year end health with all its tricky trappings.
What the hey, Yes! Nothing could be finer,
Virginia, there is a Santa, and he lives in China.

Yankee Matsui, Johnny Damon too,
Please take Joba along with you.
Those Knicks are what rhymes with Bricks:
Giants' opponents now never need to kick!

"President" Karzai, coal in your sock, Sir!
Ahmajinedad, for you, a radium rocker.
Iraqistan, we've already given many billions,
We're pretty sure it's into the trillions.

Fox-Boys: O'Righty, Sean Enmity, His Beckness,
Take a chill this Yule, or Ex-Lax.
You're rich media guys playing tin soldiers,
While others bravely carry our world upon their shoulders.

Even say a Hoorah for that Hill and Bill,
a whole year taking that Quiet Pill!
Diplo-Hillary aloft in her comfy sleigh,
Passing Santa's Reindeer along her constant way.

"O," what a year it's been, since Inaugural,
A spending race and to top it, a Nobel.
It's hard to think what you'll do for an encore,
no telling, as long as the solvent will lend us more.

But, Dear Readers, compared to 2009,
We think '10 may seem quite sublime.
We wish you all a Happy, Wealthy Year,
With Divine Blessings and far fewer tears.

My Guardian Angel, Clarissa

No matter how hard you try this Christmas Season, you're pretty much going to have to watch It's A Wonderful Life, whether you want to or not. In flush times, we find the strength to pass on it, but, in times we'd like to flush, like these, you are forgiven for watching it as many times as you like.

George Bailey, as played by Jimmy Stewart, is still standing on his bridge, frightened and staring down into the churning river below. He's an S + L guy: an honest provider of mortgages. If that sounds like a  science fiction character, it wasn't meant to be. Bailey is about as close to our banker boys as Beetle Bailey is to Transformers. He's standing on that bridge, life insurance policy in his coat pocket, because he believes, through logic twisted by pain,  that he is worth more to his family drowned than alive.

Millions of people are standing on that bridge with Bailey this year. They have been caught in a downward spiral of lost jobs, threatened health insurance, burned savings, stock market losses, lost home equity. And those are the solid citizens, who played by the rules!  Many may have suffered the added indignity of being totally ignored by HR assistants and recruiters, as they look for rare new jobs or clients, perhaps at half their old pay. They are on that bridge waiting for their emails, letters, calls and texts to be returned. They may be waiting for a celluloid while.

Okay, our story gets cheerier:  enter Clarence, George Bailey's hapless guardian angel, who dives into the river forcing Bailey to dive in to save him. Then, Clarence gives Bailey a tour of "Pottersville," as if he had never been born, in order to prove George's true value to friends and family. Mr. Potter represents some very bad things the world has to offer; he's Banker Bernie with a turban and a black suit, played by Lionel Barrymore.

Heaven must be a pretty busy place these days mustering up a surge-worth of guardian angels to help millions of people by stimulating their self-worth. Imagine long lines of angels being outfitted and parachuted (like Clarence, they have not yet earned wings) to earth.

And so we come to my own guardian angel, Clarissa. Unlike ragged Clarence, she speaks with a very posh Brit accent (Gordonstoun), wears tall heels and dark-rimmed glasses (whom did you think I would get?). Rather than tour the town to prove my true worth, she has helped me re-visit people and events I may have "misunderstood." We'd like to share:

• HR: they have 1,000 apps for 5 spots. Those have been promised to friends of senior management. Most of their time, they are worried about their own jobs. We should love them.
• Health Insurance: Max, Nancy, Harry and O mean well. Your butcher would like to sell prime at sausage prices too, but he can't. Neither can Congress and our CE-O. They need a hug.
• Albany: Have I mentioned how spectacularly smart Clarissa is? Even Clarissa didn't understand Albany, but it must have a purpose, she said, even if we cannot see it. Ah, faith of angels.
• The Deficit: According to Clarissa, her papa never had a dime, nor his papa, nor her mama's papa. It's normal not to pay clothing, wine, school or tax bills in her old culture. Cheers to that!
• Banks: Where Clarissa came from, only the dimmest, dullest boys got sent to run the banks. The smarties, whom girls loved best, became traders. Naturally, the dim boys couldn't keep up. This is simply Natural Selection. Learn to love nature's winners, even if they are smarmadukes.

I'm feeling better already, aren't you? It is a wonderful life after all.

Morning Prayer

Thanks again for the 7:42,

Grand Central bound,

with its grumpy engines

and proper wake-up bells.

Some mornings, sitting before

the blank page, screen, desk,

I wonder:

Did You ever consider

giving up?

I mean, after two

or three days of Creation,

while nobody was looking,

you must have considered it.

After light. After oceans.

After fishes, trees.

After birds, vineyards, the

creepy-crawlies.

After thunder and asparagus.

Did You ever think?

Nobody will care.

Nobody will buy it.

Nobody will ever return my calls,

messages, texts!

I, for one,

would completely understand,

if you had.

What if You really did give up?

What if seven days was really just the middle?

That might explain a few things, actually:

Reality TV, for example. Albany.

Plastic packaging that cuts our fingers.

Congress. Those crazies with eight kids.

But, I do not think You quit.

I think You said:

“Don’t let perfect ruin good.”

And so, here we are,

at another Beginning.

Amen.


Dedicated to Twyla Tharp and Tim Brown, whose books about the creative process have been so helpful and encouraging; and to Harry Beckwith, business writer/speaker extraordinaire for the "perfect" line.