Sarasota Magazine

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Invasion of the Cranes

Today, it's my yard. Tomorrow, the world?

By David Grimes

I have written before about how nature is conspiring to kill us all, but I had not anticipated this latest threat: sandhill cranes.

Now, crane-huggers may disagree with me on several of the points that I will raise in this rant, but it is clear to me, if to no one else, that sandhill cranes represent one of the direst threats to humankind since stimulus packages and the McRib sandwich.

Four sandhill cranes are currently trespassing on my front yard, which is the only view of the world that I have given my reclusive life. I am not a certified naturalist per se, but two of the beasts appear to be adults and two appear to be juvenile delinquents. They are pecking holes in my yard, which thanks to watering restrictions is as dry as a James Bond martini. I fully expect them to open up a giant sinkhole that will swallow my house and force me to initiate negotiations with the state-run property-insurance agency, which will no doubt collapse like a house of baseball cards at the first mild squall.

(If you sense a certain cynicism on my part at the government’s ability to solve all of my woes, you are more perceptive than the average Congressperson.)

I realize that a certain myopic faction of the citizenry believes that sandhill cranes are “cute,” or “noble” or “unworthy of being hunted down with large-bore automatic weapons.” This is still a free country, the last I read, and people are entitled to their opinions, no matter how scatterbrained they may be. But from where I sit, sandhill cranes appear to be on a mission to take over the state of Florida, or, at the very least, my neighborhood.

There are signs on my street warning drivers about the proximity of sandhill cranes. This alone should be enough to give people pause and perhaps check the locks on their sliding-glass doors and their fireplace dampers. While I have not yet read any news stories about sandhill cranes invading homes through chimneys and pecking infants and little old ladies to death, it is just a matter of time, and I believe in instigating panic sooner rather than later.

In my neighborhood, sandhill cranes are treated with the kind of respect one might accord a sheik offering free oil. Drivers slow down to let them pass. Homeowners set out bowls of rancid grubs. Armadillos roll into balls and quake in their presence.

This is pathetic, and it must stop immediately. Sandhill cranes have clearly teamed with chickens to achieve world domination. The fact that there is little or no meat on their drumsticks only improves their odds. Sandhill cranes are noisy and arrogant. They strut around with a sense of entitlement second only to AIG. They disobey traffic laws more than a cell-phone-wielding teenager. They poop on my driveway.

I do not mean to imply that sandhill cranes are more evil than squirrels. Yet. But things are changing fast in America, and it may only be a (short) matter of time before sandhill cranes, with their pointy beaks and beady eyes, get elected to national office and hand over huge sums of cash to people who have wrecked our economy.

Come to think of it, it may be too late …

Monday, March 23, 2009

Saluting Captain Kirk

Going boldly where no haiku has gone before.

By David Grimes

Sunday, March 22, was William Shatner’s 78^th birthday, and we could think of no better way to celebrate than coming up with an assortment of lame haikus.

For example:

More power, Scotty!

She cannot take anymore!

Dirty Romulans!

Mister Spock, your thoughts?

A core inversion, at once!

What the heck is that?

I wouldn’t be here

Were it not for the hot chicks.

For me, green is best.

I am not a pig,

Though people think otherwise.

I just dig space babes.

McCoy can annoy.

What is with the country drawl?

Spock should pinch his neck.

The acting was lame.

The special effects were, too.

Why are we still cool?

How many movies

Spun off of this goofy show?

Can you say “lucky”?

Sure, I over-act.

That is the core of my charm.

Spock! Give me answers!

Bweep! Bweep! Red alert!

All hands: Phasers on stun!

A.I.G. ahead!

A Vulcan mind-meld

Of the brain of George Bush

Revealed a vacuum.

Chief engineer Scott

Is once again swilling the

Saurian brandy.

We get power from

Our Dilithium crystals.

I like to smoke them.

Helm! Engage warp drive!

Mr. Sulu is in charge.

Steer course for bimbos!

Jumbled molecules.

Faulty Chinese transporter.

I am a hamster.

Attention, Chekov!

Your accent is atrocious!

Good luck finding work!

I get these urges

Like an itch that can’t be scratched

Nurse Chapel, report.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Recipe for Disaster

Apron's at Publix actually let me handle sharp knives.

By David Grimes

My wife, who is always looking for opportunities to embarrass me, recently signed us up for a cooking class.

The class was held at the Publix on University Parkway, a grocery store so large that it could easily house most of the laid-off journalists in Sarasota County and still have room for a substantial beer aisle.

To give you an idea of how large this grocery store is, assuming you haven’t been there already, the class was held on the second floor. I don’t do stairs well, and the advance knowledge that we would all be wielding extremely sharp knives made me nervous from the outset.

Fortunately, our two instructors, chefs Jim Hendry and Holley Nash, were quite nice and relaxed, and I felt better almost immediately after they announced that wine and beer would be served at the end of the class.

If you go to a Publix cooking class, which goes by the name of Apron’s, be advised that you will have to stand for at least two hours before you are rewarded with a glass of merlot. You will also be called upon to chop, dice, fry and shape things—in this case dim sum—with your hands.

Dim sum, for those of you who were not raised Chinese, are little canapés that could contain meat, seafood, vegetables or whatever else your evil mind could imagine. The offerings are small but the work that goes into them is considerable. I was OK until it came time to make dumplings, which involve the folding of wonton skins. The end product is supposed to resemble a little teepee, but mine ended up flat and smushed, as if they had been run over by a gravel truck. My wife, who can make attractive crafts out of lawn debris, found the basic teepee shape to be woefully unchallenging, so she decided to make her dumplings in the shape of a valentine. Everybody in the class quickly gathered around to watch her technique while I worked in solitude, trying to avoid dropping my wonton on the floor or flipping it onto my shirt. (For the record, a second career in origami is probably not in the cards.)

For all my ineptitude, the cooking class was a lot of fun if for no other reason than no tourniquets were required, nor any fishtailing rides to the emergency room.

My wife has signed us up for a sushi-making class next.

I think I’ll hit the wine first.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Play Ball!

My thoughts on spring training.

By David Grimes

Over the years I have shared with readers my secrets for getting in shape for spring training.

Because my suggestions have been intended for fans, rather than players, I have never advocated the ingestion of large doses of steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs, though recent events have made me rethink my position.

Attending numerous spring training games can be brutal both physically and financially. When you add in the very real possibility of sunburn or the slippage of a mustard/’kraut dog down one’s shirt, the risks become formidable.

I’m not sure that a good healthy shot of anabolic steroids would help you navigate the steps of a spring training stadium while balancing a plate of nachos in one hand and a watery beer in the other, but science is all about experimentation, or so I’ve been told.

Spring training tickets used to be cheap and easily available, but that is no longer the case. I blame this on the Bush administration simply because I think I deserve one last cheap shot. The truth is that spring training has lost a lot of its charm due to corporate greed and the ever-increasing price of grilled pork. Peanuts no longer sell for peanuts and parking spaces go for what you used to pay for a malleable Congressman. As Kurt Vonnegut once wrote: So it goes.

Still, I think it is important for fans to prepare for spring training as assiduously as do the nameless players they are paying to watch. (I do not get into the whole contract thing. That, to me, is between the players, their agents and team management. If I could hit .225 as a semi-employed blogger, I would take my $3 million annual salary in a minute, regardless of injuries, visa confusions or off-the-field misunderstandings involving hookers, handguns and glass pipes. That is, after all, part of the game.)

Although I skip work every chance I get to catch a spring training game, that does not mean I am totally enamored with the institution. For starters, I do not enjoy being frisked before entry, as if I were a terrorist with a lit match in my shoe. If anyone’s on the other side of the law, it’s the people who are charging $6 for a cup of Miller Lite.

Also, I am tired of ushers who have this anal thing about people sitting in their right seats. If I spend $4 for a bleacher ticket, it seems to me that, after the third inning, I have the right, if not the obligation, to move down to a better seat. Ushers see this differently, which could account for the economic crisis we are facing today.(Arguing the finer points of macro-economics holds little sway with the police as you are being escorted from the stadium, by the way, so I wouldn’t even bother.)

Still, for all its drawbacks, spring training is a wonderful experience. For one thing, it occurs in spring, before the temperature rises to the point that you can broil a pig on the hood of your Lexus. (Not that that is not a tempting treat, but we will save that for a later recipe in the Food/Wine section.) It also gives you the opportunity to mingle with people of other cultures, such as Michiganders, who sort of speak our language, only with a severe inflection.

When you combine all of this with the fact that you may be hit in the forehead with a foul ball, you begin to understand what the spring training experience is all about and why you should divert your unemployment checks to support it.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

His Old Kentucky Home

I may be a Sarasota columnist, but I know lots about the birthplace of our 16^th president.

By David Grimes

I am as excited as you are about Abraham Lincoln’s 200^th birthday, and I’m glad to see that the old man has held up as well as he has, owing to the fact that he’s dead and all that.

Abe (we refer to each other informally, in case you were wondering) was our 16^th president, which is really of no importance unless you have, or had, a teacher who quizzes you on such things. What made Abe special was the fact that he was president during the Civil War and he saved the Union and he freed the slaves and he was erroneously credited with Einstein’s Theory of Relativity because people had never heard of Einstein and they thought Lincoln was a great guy and deserving of whatever praise came his way.

An Abraham Lincoln memorial in Hodgenville, Kentucky (his birthplace).

I have no quarrel with any of this, and not just because my wife happens to be from Lincoln’s birthplace, which, for all you trivia fans out there, was not in Illinois but rather in Hodgenville, Kentucky. Hodgenville is a small, rural town and would easily be overlooked were it not for the fact that America’s greatest president was born there, which is something of considerable consequence to hang your hat on. (It should be noted that Hodgenville is also the home of Paula’s Hot Biscuit, quite possibly America’s best breakfast joint, assuming you have arteries the diameter of a garden hose. A mere whiff of the sausage gravy will put you into cardiac arrest, which I think is the highest compliment you can pay to sausage gravy. For the record, Paula’s is located at 311 West Water Street, near the propane distributor. The phone number is (270) 358-2237. And, yes, this space is for rent.)

The town center of Hodgenville is basically a traffic circle dominated by a glorious statue of Herbert Hoover. No, wait. I mean Abraham Lincoln. He is sculpted in a seated position, and his eyes look longingly across the circle in the direction of Laha’s Red Castle, which may serve the most deliciously over-onionated hamburgers in the hemisphere. How little Hodgenville managed to land these two great restaurants is a mystery to me. My guess is that it has something to do with the Lincoln aura of godliness. Either that or the man had a cast-iron stomach.

(Laha’s is located at 21 Public Square. The phone number is (270) 358-9201. I can’t believe I’m giving this information away for free.)

My brother-in-law, a retired forest ranger, introduced me to both of these Hodgenville hot spots. (He has, so far, declined to contribute to my gastroenterology bills.) Years ago, for the annual Lincoln Days celebration, he dressed up in a Smokey the Bear outfit. My son, who was about four at the time, rode with his uncle on the Smokey float. I thought it was quite a privilege until my son started pointing and hollering, “That’s not Smokey! That’s somebody’s dad!”

Needless to say, we have not been invited back much since then, but if the wind is right, I can still get a whiff of Laha’s famous onion burger.

Or maybe it’s just indigestion.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Brothers in Retirement

Dwayne and I have a lot in common now that we’re experiencing life after work.

By David Grimes

My brother-in- law, Dwayne, retired recently after serving 34 years as a Kentucky forest ranger.

I used to joke with him that he had the cushiest job in the world in that all he had to do was start fires, put them out and then bask in all the public adulation, not that there was all that much public adulation going around in that part of central Kentucky in which he lived.

The local newspaper did a story about his retirement, and Dwayne was not exactly thrilled with the result. I told him that this is what happens when you live long enough to see your name in print. Most people have to die in order to get their name mentioned in the newspaper, and even then there is no guarantee that the spelling will be correct. Few people care about such things at that point, which is why the obituary section has endured as long as it has.

Dwayne’s retirement story was accompanied by a photograph that made him look like he had just returned from a rather undistinguished stint in Iraq. He was wearing a camo jacket and his hands were stuffed in his pockets as if he had smuggled in some gold bullion or other spoils of war. It was the kind of photo you would expect to accompany a crime report, but the word “arson” was never mentioned.

I was surprised that Dwayne retired from the Kentucky Division of Forestry because he loved the land so much. His house was built on a tree farm, and at his daughter’s wedding, he handed out sprigs of white pine to be planted in her honor. (I think ours is still alive, but it’s possible that the squirrels have eaten it, as they have everything else.) He was either the world’s greatest liar or the world’s greatest naturalist because he was never stumped when I asked him the name of some obscure tree, shrub or critter.

But the thing that amazed me most about Dwayne was that everybody knew him. And not just in Hodgenville, where he lived. We’d go to Louisville or Indiana or Frankfort or to places that aren’t even on the map and he’d run into someone he knew. It was uncanny and not a little bit irritating. We’d pop in for a cup of coffee in Moonshine, Ky., and sure enough, five or six of the good old boys hanging out in the convenience store would know Dwayne and/or some member of his family. I understand that small towns are like this but I got the distinct impression that Dwayne could go to Cambodia and run into somebody he had hunted or fished with.

I called Dwayne recently to see how he was coping with retirement. Being a five-month veteran, I figured I could help him over the rough spots. Surprisingly, he had picked up on many of the nuances all by himself. For example, he said he had discovered that beer tastes just as good at 10 o’clock in the morning as it does at 5 p.m. He also said that sitting by the fire and staring out the window for long periods of time came more naturally than he had expected.

It wasn’t until Dwayne said he was thinking of taking up birdhouse-making as a hobby that it occurred to me that his retirement may be heading in an unhealthy direction. I warned him that a person of his age should not be using sharp tools and that the presence of all that virgin, uncharred wood may rekindle memories of his work years.

We kind of left it at that since it was already 9 o’clock and past our bedtime. I read two pages of “Silas Marner” and immediately fell asleep, just like I did in high-school English class.

Dwayne probably took a call from someone in Auckland who wanted information on arrowheads. They may or may not have been related, but I’m sure they knew each other somehow.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Managing Expectations

President Obama has a lot to fix—tell me about it.

I am very happy for Mr. Obama’s election and I hope to memorize the spelling of both of his names in short order.

President Obama has lots of stuff on his plate, and I sympathize with him for that. It would be nice if the new president could just wander around the White House for a few days, learning where all the bathrooms are and maybe grabbing a nap or two in the Lincoln Bedroom.

But President Obama does not have that luxury because there are lots of problems in the world today, and many people expect the president to fix them all by the weekend.

I know what it’s like to feel the pressure of people’s expectations. and believe me. it’s no fun.

My wife, for example, has expected me to fix the window in the den for at least the last five years. The fact that I have trouble opening and closing a window, let alone repairing one, has not fazed her in the slightest. A man’s mind can wander during his wedding vows and he’s likely to agree to anything, up to and including window repair.

The problem with the window – or at least the problem that seems to vex my wife the most – is that it falls out every time you attempt to open it. It can be awkward wrestling a window back into position, and I can tell you from experience that adult language does not facilitate the process.

When it became clear that the window was not going to fix itself and operate in a normal fashion. I suggested to my wife that we simply leave the window closed. I pointed out that there were plenty of other windows in the house, many of which can be opened and closed without tumbling into the hibiscus. The air-tightness of this logic not only failed to mollify her, it reminded her of several other home-repair projects that I had failed to complete or, more likely, made worse.

I do not know if President Obama can fix a window that seems determined to fall into the Rose Garden. My guess is that he has people to do that sort of stuff for him. Or Congress can simply write out a $200 billion bailout check, which may or may not cover the cost of a new window, but should give Wall Street at least a temporary uptick.

The point I’m trying to make here is that people have placed a lot of expectations on President Obama’s shoulders. He might succeed in turning the economy around, saving the auto industry and bringing peace to the Middle East.

But at some point he’s going to run into a problem that’s just too much for him. His wife won’t be understanding. and she’ll give him a look that calls his very manhood into question.

When that day comes, I just want the president to know that he is free to borrow my vise grips and duct tape, the two most useful tools a man can own.

Heck, don’t even bother returning them.

It’s not like I’m going to be using them anytime soon.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Off to a Bad Start

I meant to keep all my resolutions. I really did.

By David Grimes

We are only two weeks into the new year, and I have, as usual, blown to smithereens all of my well-thought-out resolutions.

Here is a short list of my recent failings:

I will become comfortable bandying about the word “blog” in casual conversation.

I will stop saying disparaging things about the local newspaper that let me go after 32 years of service.

I will familiarize myself with all the intricacies of my health plan before agreeing to major surgery.

I will not cuss at the woman who ran into me in the Hess station parking lot because she was yakking on her &*#@ cell phone.

Nor will I hold a grudge against her because she carried no insurance.

Nor will I hold a grudge against my insurance agent who advised me to pay for the damage out of my own pocket rather than risk having my policy cancelled

I will be patient with contractors who promise to show up and then don’t.

While taking a powerful laxative, I will think twice before attempting to pass gas.

I will come to love the squirrels that throw acorns at me while I fetch the morning paper.

I will help my wife take down the Christmas decorations

I will let nothing shake my faith in an early and well-financed retirement.

I will stop viewing Powerball as an investment strategy

I will come to terms with the fact that a 2 percent tip, given daily over the course of 10 days, does not equal a 20 percent tip.

I will not watch sports on TV because I’m too lazy to do anything more productive.

I will throw away my Tampa Bay Rays cowbell in deference to the delicate sensibilities of Yankees/Red Sox fans.

I will stop asking my wife how to spell “occurred.

I will be more admiring of people with fancy cell phones.

I will begin removing the dirty clothes that I have draped over the handlebars of my stationary bicycle.

I will give “Silas Marner” a second chance. I will not leave wet laundry in the drier for more than a week.

When I walk into a room, I’ll instantly remember what I’m there for.

I will not back out of the garage without opening the garage door first.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Grimes' Anatomy

More than you ever wanted to know about my bowel operation.

By David Grimes

I recently spent a few days in the hospital after a CAT scan revealed a martini glass lodged in my large intestine.

The surgery was a success and I am feeling much better now, thank you. (The stemware, after a thorough boiling, will be available soon on eBay. The blue-cheese-stuffed olive, I’m afraid, was unrecoverable.

I spent five nights and six days on the top floor of Sarasota Memorial Hospital, which I was told used to be the women’s wing of the hospital. I had a great view overlooking U.S. 41 to the east and saw the sun rise every morning—not so much because I wanted to but because the nurses seemed to feel that was a good time to take my blood pressure and poke my abdomen

I should take a moment now to praise the doctors and nursing staff of SMH before the bills start rolling in. They were attentive and helpful, almost to the point of irritation. You would just be drifting off to sleep at 3 a.m. when an attentive and helpful nurse would prod you awake and ask if you would like any more ice chips. (Ice chips, by the way, are manna to recovering bowel-surgery patients. I must have gone through 50 cups of the things. When they finally gave me a bowl of Jell-O, I felt like I was cheating.)

Many of you are probably wondering how I dealt with the pain of major surgery, given my history of whining piteously about over-heated steering wheels. Fortunately, the staff at SMH is geared up to deal with people like me. Before I was thoroughly situated in my hospital bed, a kindly woman was hovering over me explaining the use and function of the Narco-Pump, which hangs from the tree of meds next to your bed. The Narco-Pump does not operate automatically; you decide when to squirt a dose of Happy Juice into your vein according to how your pain feels on a scale of 1 to 10. Even in my addled state, I could appreciate what an advancement this was in medical technology and I could not wait to try it out.

Grimes test Narco-Pump at Sarasota Memorial Hospital.

After next learning how to operate the TV, I figured I knew all I needed to know about recovery from surgery, so I made myself comfortable. It’s good to keep things as simple as possible when you’re in a strange environment like a hospital room, so I made up a rule involving my TV-viewing and Narco-squirting. The rule was that I would press the Narco-Squirt button as many times as the number of the channel I was watching, so I wouldn’t get confused. It just so happened that most of the interesting programming was on ESPN, channel 29. It could have just have easily been on channel 3, but it wasn’t. I don’t make the rules, people.

The good news was that my pain level seldom exceeded negative 7; the bad news was that the nurses often caught me sliding off the bed with a cupful of ice chips clutched in my mitt.

I don’t want to go through any of this again, Narco-Squirt notwithstanding. You feel like a prisoner with all those tubes stuck in you, you’re confined to bed and you can seldom sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time.

When I was finally released, on the sixth day, I felt like rejoicing, an emotion I seldom feel when I know my destination is Bradenton.

Still, home is home and if I can just keep the dogs away from the incision, everyone should be happy, with the possible exception of my wife who made it clear that she rather enjoyed the vacation.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

The First Joke

Looking back at the beginning of my humor career.

By David Grimes

For all you kids out there who dream of a glamorous and lucrative career in humor writing, allow me to suggest that you get an early start.

I began to hone my craft in high school, usually during math class when the subject turned to quadratic equations. To me, there’s nothing like a question involving polynomials to send me into a humorous reverie, though you may use Mesopotamian history if you prefer.

Before I reveal my first personally generated joke to you, let me give you some background.

There was a kid in my class named Richard Tasoni. The boy could solve a quadratic equation in less time than it took me to remember the combination to my locker, but that is neither here nor there. For some reason that I cannot remember now and was probably unsure of then, I believed that Richard Tasoni was of Hungarian descent. I have no idea why this would have mattered to me even if it were true, which it probably wasn’t. Polish jokes were all the rage back then, but you very seldom heard a joke involving Hungarians, which could possibly explain why I felt challenged to come up with one.

The Polish-joke connection is important here, I think. At the time, it was considered the height of levity to come up with derogatory names for people of different nationalities or ethnic persuasions. One of my more progressive chums told me that “hunky” was a less-than-flattering term for a Hungarian.

It is from such grist that great jokes are formed, especially if you are 15 and not interested in majoring in math in college.

So I stopped Richard Tasoni as we were leaving class and I said, “Richard! What’s the name of a Hungarian fishing boat?” He said that he did not know. “A hunky dory!” I said, delighted not only with my joke, but with my flawless delivery.

Richard, by all rights, should have punched me. The fact that he did not is explainable in one of three ways. 1) He was not of Hungarian descent. 2) He did not realize that “hunky” was a derogatory term for a Hungarian, or 3) He did not want to bruise his knuckles on the face of a hopeless dweeb such as me.

Strangely, as the years passed, I never heard a stand-up comic use this joke. Perhaps they felt that today’s jaded audiences would not understand the subtle play on words. Or maybe it simply lacked the requisite number of expletives.

Anyway, kids, this is how I got started in the humor business and you see where it’s taken me now.

Monday, December 08, 2008

Tough Times for Mr. Claus

Why Santa might be the next one asking for a government bailout.

By David Grimes

Christmas is approaching, which means that your children will soon be asking you a bunch of annoying questions up to and including how Santa manages to surreptitiously enter homes via the cable-TV wire.

The fact that today’s children routinely bandy about words like “surreptitiously” makes the task of explaining Christmas all the more difficult. Some parents, the ones who have simply given up, flip their children a copy of Stephen Hawking’s book, “A Brief History of Time,” and let them sort it out from there. While this tactic may (or may not; Hawking’s book was not quite brief enough for me) explain how Santa, his sled, his load of toys and eight tiny reindeer can visit millions of homes in the course of one evening without suffering fatal reentry burns, it does little if anything to explain the magical elements of Christmas, such as fruitcake and toys that arrive without batteries.

Modern science complicates matters further. Santa, as everyone knows, lives at the North Pole. (Though I understand some very good real-estate deals are available in North Port right now if Santa doesn’t mind the possible name confusion and a rather dreary nightlife.) But you don’t need to be whacked upside the head by a National Geographic to know that the North Pole is melting and shrinking due to Global Warming, a worldwide menace that makes The Grinch seem like Burl Ives.

Children are unlikely to drift off into a blissful sleep Christmas Eve if their minds are troubled by images of Santa’s Workshop caving off into the sea or Santa himself stranded on an ice floe with two or the world’s remaining polar bears.

And, like everyone else, Santa’s cost of doing business has been steadily going up. The price of reindeer feed has doubled in the past few years as silage farmers pursue bigger profits in the alternative-energy markets. Santa Inc. has lost billions over the past three quarters and stockholders are now wondering publicly, for the first time, if Santa is too old and too inflexible to successfully lead such a vast enterprise. (Some say Santa will ask for bailout money from the federal government, raising the question of whether Santa will fly to Washington, D.C., aboard his magic sleigh or simply tootle down in a Chevy Cobalt.)

All of these issues are a far departure from the good old days when the main question was what kind of cookies to leave out for Santa.

(The answer today is “sugar-free” because Santa’s doctor has him on a very strict diet.)

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Silver Bullets

Our Sarasota humorist selects special gifts for a special wedding anniversary.

By David Grimes

My wife and I recently celebrated our 25^th wedding anniversary, a milestone that might be significant in some parts of the country but not Sarasota, where couples who don’t make it to their 75^th anniversary are considered slackers.

We don’t have high hopes that we’ll make it to our 75^th anniversary. I would be 106 years old and probably bagging groceries at Publix to help make ends meet. My wife, the English teacher, would still be trying to whip her students through “Beowulf” and “Silas Marner” with the usual dispiriting results.

(On a more positive note, Florida, in 2058, will be at the apex of a fantastic real-estate boom. Well-maintained lawn-mower sheds will be selling for $650,000, no down payment necessary. Enterprising 10-year-olds will be taking out sub-prime loans for attractive lots that are only under water at high tide. Thanks to the miracle of cryogenics, John McCain will decide to run again for president. His campaign motto: “What could go wrong?” Sarah Palin celebrates by killing the world’s last remaining polar bear with a sharpened tube of lipstick.)

According to my sources, the 25^th is the Silver Anniversary, meaning that I should give my wife something made of silver. This gives me way too much leeway to the point that I am paralyzed with indecision. Should I give her a silver dollar? A silver belt-buckle? A silver pickle fork? Who knows?

When it comes to gift-giving, guys like the range of choices to be as narrow as possible. For example, instead of the Silver Anniversary, I would prefer that it be the Anniversary Where You Give Your Spouse an Assortment of Medium-Large Stone-Crab Claws Priced at $15 A Pound or Less. This is something I could handle. (Though if I am also expected to provide melted butter, that too should be specified.)

To ensure that nothing goes wrong on this important anniversary, I turned to the Internet for help. Almost immediately I discovered some great gift ideas. For example, I could buy her an authentic Confederate flag silver ingot for only $19.99. The Stars and Bars really pop on this 99.9-percent-pure beauty. I imagine my wife being rendered speechless by my thoughtfulness as I hand her this gift.

I also found a sterling silver pillbox for $45. Women of a certain age are always looking for a spiffy way to haul around their meds. Or so I’ve been told.

Probably the most practical 25^th anniversary gift for my wife would be the Silver Polishing Care Kit, on sale for only $49.99. In these dire economic times, it’s important to take care of those things you have, and what better way to do that than a bottle of R-22, the “world famous Hagerty tarnish preventive ingredient that miraculously locks out tarnish for months.”

Every time my wife dons a pair of rubber gloves and a respirator to cope with the fumes, she will remember this special milestone in our marriage and be thankful that she and I will be long dead before we reach our 75^th.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Thanksgiving My Way

Don't forget the bourbon.

By David Grimes

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and, as usual, you are totally unprepared.

At least you are totally unprepared if you take seriously the helpful step-by-step instructions provided in the food section of your daily newspaper. (Note to young people: If you do not know what a daily newspaper is, ask your parents or, better yet, look up the subject at your public library under the heading “Dinosaurs, Extinct.” If you do not know what a public library is … oh, never mind.)

The instructions go something like this:

July 1 – Begin thawing turkey in your refrigerator.

July 2 – Purchase second refrigerator due to fact that the turkey has taken up all the space in your old one.

July 30 – Organize search party to locate dining-room table.

Aug. 7 – Discover dining-room table under stacks of magazines, unpaid bills, dirty laundry and skeletal remains of missing hamster.

Aug. 8 – Explain to children that hamster is not theirs but simply a vagabond hamster that wandered in off the street.

Aug. 9 – Enter therapy to deal with pet-abandonment issues.

Sept. 1 – Begin wrapping mind around concept of “cranberry sauce.”

Sept. 15 – Establish relationship with neighbors you have not spoken to in 15 years in case you need to borrow tablecloths, silverware or emergency bourbon.

Sept. 20 – After watching her program about homemade organic napkin rings, come to conclusion that Martha Stewart is an alien life-form.

Oct. 1 – Prod turkey tentatively with butt-end of 5-iron. Determine that it (the turkey) should be thawed about the time that Mt. Rushmore takes on the consistency of aspic.

Oct. 7 – Purchase blow torch for emergency browning.

Oct. 14 – First guest responds to invitations. Learn that she will attend only if dinner is catered by White Castle.

Oct. 15 – Cram 10 boxes of White Castle cheeseburgers into freezer section of new refrigerator.

Nov. 1 – Order house to clean itself. Results inconclusive due to four restorative bourbons.

Nov. 7 – Drive 500 miles with turkey on manifold in hopes that it (the turkey) will be thawed by Thanksgiving.

Nov. 8 – Pay $1,800 for engine overhaul.

Nov. 15 – Begin roasting turkey.

Nov. 16 – Toxic fumes emanating from kitchen suggest that someone forgot to remove turkey’s plastic wrap.

Nov. 22 – Complete last-minute Thanksgiving preparations by downing fifth of bourbon.

Nov. 27 – Early tension of Thanksgiving dinner breaks into hilarity (and later severe gastroenteritis) when missing Chihuahua emerges from cavity of lukewarm turkey. Everybody adjourns for pumpkin pie and more bourbon.

Friday, November 21, 2008

The Worst Noel

Christmas shopping takes on a whole new meaning this year.

By David Grimes

If you’re the kind of person who dreads the holidays, have we got an economy for you!

For years I have joined the cadres of hopeless mopes dragging themselves through the malls in search of inappropriate gifts for unappreciative people. My shopping was always confined to stores that offered free gift wrapping. It did not matter if the parent company abused child-labor laws, sold crack out the back door or lied about the lead content of its pacifiers; if it offered free gift wrapping, I was there.

But this year, even that is not inducement enough for me to leave the sagging contours of my living room couch. These days, you cannot throw a beer can out your car window without hitting someone who has just lost his or her job. The stock market is falling so fast that Busch Gardens has considered naming a ride after it. People are losing their homes faster than I misplace my car keys.

All of which means that this year’s holiday season has taken on a more desultory air than usual. I was in a Wal-Mart just before Halloween (Wal-Mart, by the way, is where all the cool people hang out these days. Think of it as the new Macy’s, only with more surveillance cameras). Then, to my horror, I heard Christmas music wafting down from one of the invisible overhead speakers. (They make them hard to spot so customers don’t hurl their Tinker Bell DVDs at them.) I can’t remember what the tune was – the mind tends to erect a protective shield during times of severe stress – but I’m guessing some monaural version of “White Christmas” or, perhaps, “Little Drummer Boy.”

Suddenly, the garish fluorescent lighting and the labyrinthine aisles lost their festive appeal. Where, minutes before, we had been stocking up on cases of canned luncheon meet and sacks of freeze-dried turnips in anticipation of the long, cold winter ahead, we were now forced, against our will, to consider the fact that the holidays were just around the corner and that we were constitutionally bound to buy presents, regardless of the fact that we have no money.

If there is a positive side to all of this – and believe me, it took me a long time to dream one up – it is that Santa Claus will bear a lighter load this Christmas Eve, which will come as good news to his aging fleet of reindeer and also to Santa’s back, which is not as flexible as it used to be.

As for the rest of us, try and be creative. Give your kids your maxed-out credit cards and tell them they’re building blocks. Make them think of macaroni and Spam as a special holiday “treat.” Convince them that Daddy sits around the house all day in his underwear only because he feels sure he’ll get a job in the Obama administration.

Who knows? They may even buy it.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Redistribute, Baby, Redistribute

Finally, an economic policy that will benefit me.

By David Grimes

I can’t wait for President-elect Barack Obama to take office so he can begin redistributing wealth.

I wish this even though my last experience with wealth redistribution was not all that pleasant. That happened in August when the newspaper I worked for for 32 years laid me off and sent my wealth redistributing in a spiral fashion down the commode. Combine that with the hits my 401(k) has taken and we’re talking about a future financial picture that looks about as rosy as an imploded coal mine.

But I feel confident that Obama can fix all of this during his first week on the job and still have time left over to get us out of Iraq, stitch together a health-care plan and save the polar bears, many of whom are drifting nervously on ice floes off the coast of Florida without adequate sun protection.

Some people are opposed to wealth redistribution in the sense that they fear their wealth will be taken from them and redistributed to bums like me. This is an understandable concern. No one likes the government meddling in this sort of thing unless you are, like me, someone who has something to gain. My solution to this is voluntary redistribution of wealth. Rich people should select a needy person of their choosing and write him or her a generous check. Doing this would not only cut bureaucratic red tape but would expedite the flow of money downhill into the pockets of disadvantaged magazine bloggers like me.

You knew rich people were getting nervous when they started decrying Obama’s plan as “socialism.” Joe McCarthy got great traction with this charge in the 1950s to the point that that famous Fellow Traveler, Ronald Reagan, had trouble getting work in Hollywood. (He was, however, offered many acting jobs in Vladivostok, a bit of historical trivia that few people know.)

I am not a big student of Karl Marx’, nor have I read “Das Kapital,” possibly because I quickly became annoyed at the Russian tendency to substitute K’s for C’s. But I think dredging up an old and largely discredited political philosophy will do little to buttress rich people’s contention that they should not be shaken by their ankles until their wallets drop to the floor.

This is, after all, America, and we should all be allowed to compete on a level playing field, especially if it means I will get that Mercedes that I always coveted.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Alien!

Election Day voting, my way.

By David Grimes

I don’t understand why people insist on voting early when going to the polls on Election Day is so much fun.

Possibly because I have no life, I have always voted at my precinct house, which happens to be a semi-rural elementary school, on Election Day. The lines are never long and, owing to the fact that my precinct is predominantly (99.8 %) Republican, I can always count on the following reception:

Me: “I would like a Democratic ballot, please.”

(What the poll worker hears) “I am an alien squid on a mission to harvest human organs. Are you busy?”

(Poll worker dons Haz-Mat suit and reaches into musty vault with three-foot tongs, removing mildewed Democratic ballot.)

Poll worker: “Mr. Grimes, we have a special voting booth set up for you out by the Dumpster, away from the children.”

Me: “Uh, thanks.”

(What poll worker hears): “Your kidneys look very tender today. Mind if I take a bite?”

Me: “Am I supposed to vote both sides of the ballot?”

(What poll worker hears): “I would like to relocate you and your family to a collective farm out in the provinces where you can work 18 hours a day growing rice. Please do not bring along any intellectuals.”

Me: “You don’t seem very busy today.”

(What poll worker hears): “If my candidate is elected, we will ban heterosexual marriage and all Bibles will be burned in the public square.”

Me: “I’m really glad this campaign is over. It seemed to last forever.”

(What poll worker hears): “As part of my candidate’s wealth redistribution plan, I am taking your 2008 Mercedes and giving you my 2001 Ford Taurus. Be careful; she likes to stall.”

Me: “Thank you for being so helpful today. Voting was a snap.”

(What poll worker hears): “Please accompany me on my space flight back to the planet Obama. I might need a snack.”

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Trick or Treat

My, how Halloween times have changed.

By David Grimes

Halloween, in my opinion, is not as scary as it used to be, even though this year there’s a very real possibility that a Sarah Palin lookalike will appear at your front door.

When the economy’s plunging like a barrel over Niagara Falls and your retirement savings are shrinking faster than Dick Cheney’s heart, Frankenstein could pop out from under your bed and you wouldn’t bat an eye. (If you really want to scare people, you could come to the party dressed as a gas pump.)

Monsters were a big part of Halloween fun back when I was a kid, but the event was mostly about unalloyed greed. Trick-or-treaters are always accompanied by their parents today. They either stand with their kids at the front door, or they lurk a few feet back, in the shadows, making sure you’re not dipping their kid’s Butterfinger into a tub of anthrax.

Everybody’s suspicious. A few years ago, a little boy came to our front door Halloween night. He didn’t even get out the “trick-or-treat” part before saying, “Mister, can I use your bathroom? I gotta go real bad.” Having been in that predicament before, I said, “Sure. Down the hall, first door on your right.” As the kid rushed to do his business, I could hear his mother lamenting in the night: “Billy! No-o-o-o!”

No self-respecting kid of my generation would have allowed his parents to accompany him during his trick-or-treating rounds. Even infants in strollers were expected to roll themselves from door to door. Parents had no interest in walking around for hours in the cold, and, besides, they knew they couldn’t keep up. Oh, we cast a wide net for our Halloween candy. We ventured off of our blocks, out of our neighborhoods and possibly across state lines. We barged into an apartment building that was rumored to house a serial killer. Didn’t matter to us, as long as he had candy corn.

My greed was like a living thing gnawing inside me. I remember one Halloween in particular. It was about 40 degrees, windy and pouring rain. My parents wondered if it was a good idea for me to be out in that kind of weather. Before they finished their thought, I was gone. It was miserable and cold, sure, but I had the place to myself. It was like being locked inside a candy store, only with the sprinklers on. My marks (otherwise known as neighbors) knew they’d never get rid of all their candy on this dismal night, so they gave me great handfuls of Milky Ways, Snickers and Sky Bars. Within half an hour, I had accumulated $5,000 in dental bills.

It was a beautiful thing, I tell you.

And I say that even in light of the fact that I suffered a serious head cold for two weeks after.

It’s Halloween, kids. Time to suck it up.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Beware the Cowbell

Baseball fever yes, cowbell finger no.

Thanks to the fact that the Tampa Bay Rays won the American League Championship Series, there is a new ailment to bring to Dr. Donohue’s attention: cowbell finger.

A woman who did not want me to use her real name (let’s call her “Gail”) showed me an ugly abrasion on her right middle finger that she sustained while clanging her cowbell incessantly in support of the Rays in Game 7 of the AL series.

Being the sympathetic caregiver that I am, I immediately suggested that she soak her finger in a tumbler of vodka to stave off any infection she might have picked up from the cowbell, the seats at Tropicana Field or from Red Sox fans, who are not known for their steadfast commitment to personal hygiene. Germs are everywhere, as you know, and it’s really a miracle that we’re not all dead.

Anyway, she rejected my idea, electing instead to drink the vodka and daub her wound with an over-the-counter antibiotic cream. (Hey, I offer sound medical advice. It’s not my fault when people reject it and wind up in the back of an ambulance, answering a bunch of confusing questions about their health insurance and getting needles stuck in their veins.)

Still, the fact that cowbells could cause personal injury is troubling. I keep a cowbell on my desk in my office just in case Evan Longoria drops by for a spot of tea. I am thinking now of encasing the bell in a lead box and burying it in my back yard where it can do no harm.

If someone had told me that a Rays fan had gotten hurt clanging a cowbell, I would have assumed that the person had been beaten senseless by fans of the opposing team who can’t abide the infernal racket. (These fans prefer to motivate their team by throwing batteries at them, which, you’ve got to admit, is easier on the ears.)

It would probably be irresponsible of me to suggest that cowbells will soon be the third leading cause of death in the Tampa Bay area, right behind car crashes and bad grouper. The sad thing is that all of this suffering could be so easily averted. The medical professionals I interviewed suggested these remedies:

Wrap the middle finger of your cowbell-ringing hand with duct tape. This will prevent abrasion and the possibility of a slow, horrible death.

When you feel your middle finger starting to chafe, move your cowbell to your other hand. It is the constant repetition that causes the problem.

Leave your cowbell at home and support the Rays by clapping and cheering like fans in normal parts of the country do. It might not be as much fun, true, but it’s better than blood poisoning.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Stop the Presses!

My life in journalism, more or less.

By David Grimes

Many people (theoretically) have asked me to distill my 32-year career at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and give them the inside poop.

I will begin by saying that the SHT specifically, and journalism in general, were much more fun 30 years ago than they are today. Colorful, if sometimes incompetent, people abounded. Smoking was permitted in the newsroom. The mayor of Bradenton often invited us onto his front porch for beer and gossip.

Today, about the most fun you can have at the SHT is filling out your quarterly performance-review report.

I came to the paper unintentionally. I was working for a summer-only publication in Ocean City, Maryland, and decided it would be a wise thing to spend the winter months with my parents in warm, sunny Bradenton. (I didn’t discuss this with them ahead of time, of course, which could account for the shocked, and rather chilly, reception I received when I arrived on their doorstep.)

My needs were few: Beer and the occasional record album. (I brought my high-powered stereo system with me, which also delighted my parents.) Unfortunately, to cover even these modest expenses I needed money, so I applied for unemployment. (I was ashamed, yes, but I managed to get over it.)

Doubly unfortunate was the fact that in order to receive your weekly unemployment check you had to prove that you had looked for a job. Trouble was, I didn’t want a job. My plan was to mooch off my parents for five months and then return to Ocean City. I believed, in my naïve heart, that I could repeat this pattern as often as necessary. (Again, I didn’t consult with my parents, who seemed increasingly distant.) I applied first to the Bradenton Herald for a photographer’s position, which I knew I wouldn’t get owing to the fact that I was a lousy photographer. I didn’t get the job, which resulted in my first, and only, unemployment check.

The following week, I applied to the Herald-Tribune’s Bradenton bureau. To my horror, a reporter had left the paper days before and they wanted me to work for them! The pay was lousy -- $250 a week, as I recall – but it was no worse than what I was making in Ocean City and it was a daily newspaper and it published year-‘round, so I reluctantly took the job.

Thirty-two years later, I’m standing in line for an unemployment check again.

I think I’ll apply for a job as a photographer.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Afternoon Delight

My visit to Sarasota’s Cheetah Club.

By David Grimes

You know your afternoon at the Cheetah Club is not starting well when your waitress delivers your first beer in a candleholder.

I didn’t complain because I actually hadn’t noticed. The place was so dark they could have served me my beer in a hollowed-out monkey skull and I probably would have left my customary $1 tip.

My server noticed her mistake quickly, however, and, after apologizing, brought me a proper glass. The sad fact is that waxy undertones actually improve the flavor of Budweiser.

My mission was to do a full-bore feature story on Cheetahs but Sarah Palin’s weird Minnesota accent and a wobbly European stock market derailed my plans. After hours of heated negotiations, upper management at Sarasota Magazine said that they would spring for one Pink Squirrel, but everything else was on me. I hate the current economic situation, and I don’t see it improving anytime soon.

No G-strings: The magnificent cheetah in all its naked glory.

But back to the naked dancers. I don’t read the paper that much since they cancelled my subscription for non-payment but I seem to remember something about Cheetah’s entertainers having to now wear pasties and G-strings and possibly chastity belts before they would be allowed to perform in our county, which, to many people’s surprise, is actually predominantly Muslim.

Well, my eyesight is not what it used to be, but from a distance of three feet, none of these rules seemed to be in force. I detected jiggle and I detected bump and grind and I observed interpersonal relationships that I will not detail because I know this magazine is popular with schoolchildren.

Suffice it to say that I was so shocked and dismayed by these shenanigans that I couldn’t leave my seat for almost two hours except for the few seconds it took me to stuff a Washington into Bambi’s G-string. (She said she was behind in her rent. What are you going to do?)

Because this is a classy magazine, I think I should point out that I am not a frequenter of establishments of this sort. In fact, if they had not offered me a certain sum of money, I probably would have turned them into the Sheriff’s Dept. But these are hard economic times and concessions must be made. I am not proud of the fact; I am just pointing out obvious truths.

If I were a reviewer of strip bars – and thank God I am not because I would starve to death – I would give Cheetah a high ranking. Smoking is permitted – in fact it’s almost mandatory – but the place doesn’t smell like an ashtray and cleanliness-wise, I’d give it an A.

Cheetah is the only strip bar in Sarasota County. It’s been under fire by lawmakers for years but, trust me, they could do a lot worse.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Squirrel Season

The rodents in my yard are driving me nutty.

By David Grimes

It is now autumn, which means that squirrels will soon be invading our houses and sinking their sharp, yellow incisors into our carotid arteries.

If I sound a trifle hysterical it’s because I have had many bad experiences with squirrels. I once had to punch one off of my pool screen because it was eyeing my grilled hot dogs with a little too much enthusiasm. I’m comfortable with squirrels sitting in oak trees and gnawing on acorns; it’s another thing entirely for a squirrel to pirate my tenderly grilled bratwurst. Lines must be drawn.

My community, for some unknown reason, is like a Club Med for squirrels. They come from miles around to eat unripened fruit in my wife’s garden, fling themselves against our windows and generally wreak havoc. You cannot venture outside without body armor and a fully charged Taser set on stun/rodent. Yes, it is inconvenient, but the NRA thus far has taken no interest in this situation, presumably because they are too busy writing checks to their favorite political candidates. Most of the time, gun-nuts scare me. But you finally need some and they’re nowhere to be found. It’s just not right.

Shooting our overzealous squirrels is probably not a good idea, anyway. It would just make the rest of them angry and more inclined to use their cruel, nut-stained teeth to feast on our internal organs.

According to my personal poll, which is accurate to plus or minus 99 percent, there are 10 squirrels for every human being in Florida. As more and more people leave Florida because of the bad economy, the ratio is only going to get worse. (Squirrels seem to be recession-proof. Acorns keep falling no matter how badly Wall Street performs. It’s like the two things are not even connected.)

An America ruled by squirrels would be even grimmer than the one we’ve endured under the Bush administration. No, they might not engage us in a needless and costly foreign war, but they would boost the cost of macadamia nuts by at least $2 a pound. This is just one small example of the kinds of dilemmas we are facing as we hurtle, gropingly, into the future.

I am not an animal-hater. I believe squirrels have a place in the ecosystem, but that place is not a nest in my chimney, a roost atop the bird feeder or an upside-down taunt of my grilling techniques.

I do not climb into the oak trees and steal the squirrels’ acorns.

They can at least have the good manners to leave my kielbasa alone.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Grammar Game

My modifiers are dangling and other shocking revelations.

By David Grimes

One of the risks of being married to an English teacher is that you might be asked to play a grammar game.

No, I didn’t think there was anything like that out there, either. The American entertainment industry is capable of creating many objectionable things – the entire “reality show” movement springs immediately to mind – but the appearance of a “game” that requires players to answer questions about grammar means that it’s time for all of us to take a short leap off a high cliff.

My wife, the English teacher, is, of course, enthralled by “Grammar Play by Play” and plans on inflicting it upon her students as soon as possible. (Note to students of Mrs. Grimes: A high-school education is not necessarily a ticket to success. Many drop-outs have gone on to live happy and productive lives without knowing the difference between a dependent and independent clause.)

You have probably deduced from my tone that I was wretchedly bad at grammar as a student and – surprise! – have not improved much as an adult. On the other hand, my wife, as a child, used to line up her Barbie dolls and teach them syntax.

So, yes, when we played “Grammar Play by Play” (intended for ages 9 through 15), she beat me like a rented mule.

I am not embarrassed by this. To me, it is just another example of why God created those unfortunate creatures known as “editors.” They are paid to know the difference between a direct and indirect object. They can identify a prepositional phrase. You can’t dangle a modifier in front of these people or they will snip it off with a pair of hedge shears.

To quote that great philosopher Mr. T, I pity those fools in Mrs. Grimes’ English class who will be ordered, at swordpoint, to play “Grammar Play by Play.” As if you needed another reason to skip school tomorrow, let me give you a few examples of what’s in store for you:

What is the dependent clause in the following sentence?

“Which player do you think is the best dribbler?”

Tell what “depressed” modifies in this sentence: “My brother is really depressed about breaking up with Cheryl.”

What is the direct object of this sentence? “I’ve put new posters all around my room.”

My answer?

“Cheryl is the best dribbler and all those new posters make me depressed.”

But, like I said, I was never much good at grammar.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Rays of Hope

Believe it or not, it's no longer shameful to root for the Tampa Bay Rays.

By David Grimes

The Tampa Bay Rays are in the playoffs, an omen that suggests that a comet will destroy the Earth within the next 48 hours.

A team that has been so awful for so long cannot top the Red Sox and the Yankees without touching off some sort of cosmic cataclysm. Shelling out $700 billion to bail out the financial markets is nothing compared to what will happen should the Rays go to the World Series.

Even odder than the fact that the Rays are champions of the American League East is the fact that people, without being coerced by even a light waterboarding, openly admit to being fans. In the old days (last year), saying you were a fan of the Rays was like saying you were a fan of the Great Depression. People backed away from you slowly, as if you carried some sort of contagious disease. If you went into a tavern, bartenders donned rubber gloves before serving you a drink. Dogs howled and cats scampered up trees when you walked by.

All that has changed. People around here – normal people – actually root for the Rays and aren’t afraid of being institutionalized because of it. I haven’t told anyone this before because it’s taken me a little time to get comfortable with the fact, but I actually have a Tampa Bay Rays bumper sticker on my car. I’m not a fan of bumper stickers, as a rule, and, in fact, this is the first one I’ve ever displayed. But it was free, so what are you going to do?

I also have a Tampa Bay Rays ballcap, which I wore on the golf course for the first time the other day. The fact that I played the worst round of golf I’ve played since I was 12 years old suggests there is some of the old black magic in the headgear and that the Baltimore Orioles could probably give me five a side and I’d still lose.

But omens aside, I think the Rays have a fair chance of going to, and possibly winning, the World Series. Their team is solid, but I think the thing that works best to their advantage is their home stadium, Tropicana Field. The Trop, as it’s known locally, is so dismal it makes a warehouse look festive. Visiting teams come here and are immediately depressed to the point they barely have the energy to pick up a bat or don a glove. Needless to say, the Rays have a fantastic home record. When the other team is openly weeping because of its grim surroundings, it’s a huge advantage.

Rays fans have also gotten into the habit of clanging cowbells at home games, a practice that is so irritating it’s surprising the visiting team doesn’t throw itself under the wheels of its bus before entering the stadium.

So the Rays have a lot of things in their favor heading into the playoffs.

I just hope my bumper sticker doesn’t jinx them.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Bailout Blues

Why couldn’t I be the one destroying the American economy?

By David Grimes

Right now I’m kicking myself for not having gotten into the investment banking business because $700 billion would be coming my way.

I can make bad financial decisions as well as anybody, which makes me think I would have been a fine candidate for destroying America’s economy.

I have bought cars that stalled whenever you tried to turn at an intersection. (Trust me: the adrenaline rush of seeing a semi bearing down on you while you sit there helplessly is much better than coffee.)

I bought an expensive high-def TV that has so many remote controls you have to be a NASA engineer to operate it. As a result, we usually end up watching the old, low-def TV in the bedroom that operates simply by hitting the “on” switch.

And don’t get me started on the computers I’ve gone through. You could put a gerbil on a wheel and it would operate Windows faster than some of these babies.

Americans are upset because it appears that the same greedy, irresponsible Wall-Street fatcats who got us into this mess are the ones who are going to profit. What, you think because you need a new set of tires and money to fix your kid’s teeth that the government is going to bail you out? No, you’ve got to screw up really badly before the government will send you boxcars of dough.

According to what I read in the paper, it’s going to cost every man, woman and child in America $2,300 to pull off this bailout. Coincidentally, the war in Iraq has cost us about $600 billion so far.

Surely the government doesn’t expect us to pay for that, too, does it?

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Of Moose and Men

Do Sarah Palin’s skinning skills make her White House material?

By David Grimes

Much has been made of the fact that Sarah Palin skinned a moose.

I have never lived in Alaska, but my guess is that people there skin moose (mooses?) all the time. You go out in the morning to fetch the paper and a moose is lying there by the mailbox, waiting to be skinned. I’d imagine that the whole process becomes rather tedious. Perhaps you’d planned on boiling an egg and accompanying it with a slice of rye toast, but, no, you’ve got to skin the stupid moose first.

It’s not clear to me when the art of skinning large herbivores became a prerequisite for running for elected office. Probably Teddy Roosevelt started it all. According to my sources, Teddy spent most of his administration running around the Oval Office with a sharp knife in one hand while pursuing a clutch of terrified bunnies. The fact that Roosevelt is remembered as one of our better presidents seems to suggest that animal skinning may be a better indicator of leadership qualities than, say, a sound economic policy.

I am in no way interested in running for elected office (I simply don’t have the hair for it), but I do have some experience with skinning things. Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration that the Republicans/Democrats would certainly seize upon. I once bought a fish fillet at Publix that had some skin attached to it. I tried to remove the skin with a knife, but the resulting mayhem required tourniquets, a fishtailing drive to the emergency room and a week’s worth of antibiotics. In my defense, I must say that the Caesar salad was excellent.

My point is that there has not been a good woodsman in the White House since Abe Lincoln, and he was probably missing a few fingers due to inattention.

Sarah Palin may look cute with her rectangular eyeglasses and pony-tailed hair, but her moose-skinning expertise will not serve her well when it comes time to bail out Morgan Stanley.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Pug-o-mania

If you work for Sarasota Magazine, you have to love pugs.

By David Grimes

I have written often and many say tediously about our two pug dogs, Satan I and Satan II. Well, I think it’s time that I let you in on a little secret: Those are not their real names. The older dog’s real name is Buster and the younger dog’s name is, believe it or not, Porkchop. (If you met him you would understand how perfectly it fits.) The sad fact is that it really doesn’t matter what you call them because the only word they respond to is Milk-Bone.

Satan II, left, and Satan I share a moment of exuberance.

It is a good thing we have pugs because I think there is a rule at Sarasota Magazine that you can’t work there unless you own at least one. As a result, the magazine’s newsroom and all the people who work in it are covered with dog hair. Walking into the office is like fighting your way through a blizzard of fawn-colored fur. Everybody’s either sneezing, blowing their nose or brushing dog hair off their clothing. It’s really amazing that any work gets done at the place.

As if this were not bad enough, the magazine sponsors an annual event in Lakewood Ranch called the Pug Parade. It is the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen, even weirder than a Sarasota election. Hundreds of pugs from as far away as, I don’t know, Albania, are hauled to this thing. It’s like some sort of alien invasion of snorting, shedding, flat-faced dogs.

If you have any familiarity with pugs, you know the only things they want to do are eat and sleep. For some unknown reason, neither of these qualities has been given the slightest recognition by the Pug Parade’s cruel board of organizers. Instead, the poor beasts are forced to dress up in ridiculous outfits, perform tricks and suffer other indignities. The result is something you might expect to see in a John Waters movie, only without Divine.

I was actually a judge of the Pug Parade for a few years until someone discovered that I didn’t work for SarasotaMagazine. The parting was probably best for all concerned because I often found myself disagreeing with the other judges just to be obnoxious and despite my strenuous protestations, the committee refused to serve us anything stronger than bottled water.

If you’re going to judge a Pug Parade, you certainly don’t want to do it sober.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The bad news: the newspaper laid me off. The good news: I'm blogging for Sarasota Magazine!

By David Grimes

This is my first attempt at a blog so you’ll have to excuse me if it’s a little disjointed.

My new editor and unrelenting taskmaster, Pam Daniel, who looks a little like Catwoman, assures me that it’s nothing more than an e-mail. I send it to her, and she waves her light saber over it and WHOOMPH, it’s all good. We shall see.

That's me.

If my name sounds familiar, it’s not because you’ve seen it in the police docket. (Recently.) I used to write a column for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune but we had a falling out in the sense that they laid me off. Pam offered to buy me lunch at a swank place near Burns Court, and so the rest is history, if not foreclosure.

I will be working with lots of swell people, the names of whom escape me at the moment. The Sarasota Magazine building is quite nice though it lacks the rolling, heaving, stomach-churning quality that made the Herald-Tribune building such a neighborhood standout. Pam seemed very impressed that there are real bricks in her building, which is something I guess I’ll grow to appreciate over time.

My new editor shows off the magazine's real brick walls.

I’d worked at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune for 32 years, which is really not that long if you’re a Galapagos tortoise. I guess I should have gotten a whiff of what was coming when they never assigned me a desk, a telephone or even a pencil sharpener. The door combinations were also changed for unexplained reasons. Despite all of this, I am not bitter and cherish the many friends I made there, the names of whom escape me at the moment.

I wrote a humor column at the SHT for something like 25 years. Many times, upper management wanted me to write the words HUMOR COLUMN at the top of the piece so people would not confuse me with George Will. I thwarted these efforts, which was perhaps my biggest accomplishment.

I have won writing awards and written books, all of which sit in my closet collecting dust. All are available at low, low prices, including my riding lawn mower which may or may not start.

These are, after all, difficult economic times and I will be doing whatever is necessary to please my captors (excuse me, editors), though I draw the line at actually showing up at the office.

“Oh, heavens no! We don’t want you here!” said editor Bob Plunket. (Everybody is an editor here, by the way. I think the guy who delivers the magazines to the convenience stores is the associate editor in charge of distribution.) Somehow I think I’m going to like this place.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Invasion of the Cranes

Monday, March 23, 2009

Saluting Captain Kirk

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Recipe for Disaster

Friday, February 20, 2009

Play Ball!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

His Old Kentucky Home

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Brothers in Retirement

Monday, January 26, 2009

Managing Expectations

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Off to a Bad Start

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Grimes' Anatomy

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

The First Joke

Monday, December 08, 2008

Tough Times for Mr. Claus

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Silver Bullets

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Thanksgiving My Way

Friday, November 21, 2008

The Worst Noel

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Redistribute, Baby, Redistribute

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Alien!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Trick or Treat

Monday, October 27, 2008

Beware the Cowbell

Monday, October 20, 2008

Stop the Presses!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Afternoon Delight

Monday, October 13, 2008

Squirrel Season

Monday, October 06, 2008

Grammar Game

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Rays of Hope

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Bailout Blues

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Of Moose and Men

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Pug-o-mania

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The bad news: the newspaper laid me off. The good news: I'm blogging for Sarasota Magazine!

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