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THE JUNK FILE:
BURGERS, BIRTHDAYS, AND MICHAEL JACKSON’S FACE
An upscale New York steakhouse has launched what it
calls the world’s
most expensive hamburger, at $41. For that you get a special
roll with a 20-ounce patty of Kobe beef, imported from Japan and
made from cattle grown tender on a diet of beer and a regimen of
daily massages. Heck, I know guys who would let themselves become
hamburgers for a couple of years like that. You could keep the $41.
*****
We had my stepfather over for dinner to celebrate his 81st
birthday this month. Noticing the sorry state of my deck, he
casually observed that the two of us could bang out a new one in
about three days. That’s easy for him, but I wouldn’t start a
project like that without making sure my chiropractor is in town.
He’d have been ordering lumber before dessert if it hadn’t been
Sunday evening. If I start training now, maybe I’ll be able to keep
up with him by my 81st.
*****
Why hasn’t the Pentagon thought of this? Miramax will soon film
Rambo IV, in which Sylvester Stallone will bring to justice none
other than Osama bin Laden. No word on who might play the world’s
most wanted man, though typecasting would suggest another notorious
criminal fiend. Maybe Pee Wee Herman is available. Anyway, not
sure what they’ll do if bin Laden turns up, dead or alive, whichever
he is, before the movie’s 2004 release. Miramax is taking a pretty
big gamble he won’t. Let’s hope they lose.
*****
Paul McCartney, whom baby boomers will recall used to be
dead himself, has been bashed by fellow rock geezer Keith Richards
of the Rolling Stones for
nixing an Australian tour following recent bombings in Bali.
Richards, who only looks deceased, told The Daily Telegraph “I
say to Osama and the boys bring it on, evaporate me … I can’t wait
to tour Australia, even if they take out my plane on the way
there.” Tough talk, but it’s beginning to look like Richards and
bin Laden will both beat the odds and die of old age.
*****
Days after Girl-Child’s 17th birthday, my
wife and I gave in to weeks of pleading and surrendered our car for
the hour-and-a-half drive to Grandma’s and a three-day visit. We
know it’s time to loosen the reins, but that didn’t stop my wife
from personally filling the tank and insisting I check the radiator
fluid, which, to my knowledge, has never leaked. A visit with
Grandma is considerably more benign than a thousand other
wing-stretching exercises I can think of, and the day does come when
a man must surrender “Daddy” to “Dad.” It can be hard to tell when,
but I think I’ve just been told.
*****
All writers need certain indispensable tools: a
reliable word processor, an unabridged dictionary, a quiet place to
work, a good soda straw. When Goober, our formerly feral orchard
cat, isn’t batting at the computer monitor he’s sticking his nose in
my face, presumably to check what I had for breakfast. A stiff
blast through a straw is the only thing this side of the Geneva
Convention that seems to deter him, but there’s always more than one
way to skin a cat. I plan to look into them if the little pest ever
learns to blow off my miniature tornados.
*****
Are there no desperate singles? No rat-eating
greed-heads? Is not one person willing to redecorate a neighbor’s
living room? Honest to Pete, NBC’s “Dateline” will join the reality
television genre in February with “Michael
Jackson Unmasked,” a one-hour special on the singer’s
changing face. Of all the TV schlock to imitate, why “Extreme
Makeover?” |
