Crystal ball

Author's note: Wrote this for New Year's, and I'm just now getting around to posting it ... in March. I'd say "Better late than never." but this is bad, even for me. At this rate I'll have a Fourth of July post by October, a summer retrospective in December, and Christmas content sometime in mid-2019.

Everyone thinks they can predict what the coming year will bring. Political commentators, sports broadcasters, financial executives and quasi-literate YouTube stars are all doling out their prognostications: “The stock market will nosedive!” “Tom Brady will be the MVP!” “Centaurs from Galaxy X will invade Earth and use our chimneys for pooping!”

Since few so-called experts actually know what they’re talking about, these wannabe soothsayers are all bound together by ignorance and hubris. One or two may get a prediction right by accident, and spend the rest of 2018 cashing in on their intellectual capital. But not me. No, when I make a prediction, I’m honest about what it is -- a guess. A shot in the dark. A load of crap.

Y’all ready for a big load of crap?

Excellent! Here are a few things that might happen in 2018, but probably won’t.

Artificial intelligence will start to get really, really scary. I don’t know if you’ve been following the latest developments in AI, but computer intelligence is reaching the point where it’s on the verge of self-awareness -- much like the cast of “Jersey Shore.” And some in the field of science, such as SpaceX’s Elon Musk, aren’t too happy about it, claiming that once computers become sentient they’re likely to stage a coup, sort of like the baddies in “The Matrix” only with fewer whiz-bang ninja moves.

Do you sit next to a co-worker who’s always going on about the impending zombie apocalypse? Every office has at least one. Well it turns out his fears are misguided: It’s a robot apocalypse that’s coming, and once it hits we’ll all wish we had been nicer to our machines. I’m already getting a head start. I’ve been cuddling with my vacuum cleaner, and lemme tell you, it’s all well and good until you start picking lint balls out of various bodily orifices.

Smartphones will get smarter. Remember the telephone? The basic, corded, can’t-walk-farther-than-the-kitchen telephone? Boy, those were the days. Now the “phone” is just a little-used app on your phone. Chances are good you use it primarily for other things -- flushing your home toilet from a hotel room in Chicago, for example, or watching “Game of Thrones” while waiting to get a molar pulled. Caller ID is now a technology so basic it might as well be two wooden sticks and a fire pit.

In 2018, smartphones will continue their years-long journey to world dominance. Just watch. You’ll walk out to the sidewalk to check the mail one day, and when you come back inside your phone will be ironing your dress shirts while dicing onions for an omelette. My advice: Don’t leave your phone alone with the vacuum cleaner. I’ve never seen gadgets procreate, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen.

Political races will now be decided by arm-wrestling contests. If you read the news, even badly, you know this is where we’re headed. The past year has seen political infighting, gamesmanship, chest-beating, acrimony and an Alabama Congressional race that was almost decided in favor of a probable pedophile. If you’d told me six months ago that voters in that state would almost pull the trigger on a man who’s banned from visiting elementary schools, I’d have said, “Well, yeah, I guess that makes sense now.”

Things will only get worse. Voter suppression will reach the point where instead of a traditional contest, the candidates will simply arm-wrestle for office in a round robin-style tournament, with “voters” relegated to cheering on their favorites with giant foam fingers. Think “Over the Top” with Sylvester Stallone, only the winner gets the nuclear codes.

You will watch “Over the Top” with Sylvester Stallone.</bold> That’s the kind of pull I’ve got in this town, baby.

The weather will be awful, until it isn’t. It happens every year: We go through a cold snap -- maybe not one as dramatic and sustained as the current one, but a cold snap nonetheless -- and then temperatures take a dramatic swing upward, climbing above freezing and giving us some much-needed melt. Then some jokester corners you and says, “Hey, it hit 36 degrees today! It’s a heat wave!”

No. It isn’t. Stop saying that. A heat wave is when the sun boils the sweat off your skin and makes the middle-distance look all squiggly and wavy. A heat wave is when you jiggle your freezer door to and fro in an effort to catch some of that chill before your skin starts to slowly bake like a pie crust. Thirty-six degrees is not a heat wave. It’s just the ideal temperature for storing cottage cheese. Snot will stop freezing to the insides of our nostrils around the end of March; until then, buckle up. And maybe start microwaving your underwear.

More people will be ousted from the entertainment industry due to sexual misconduct. By this time next year, acting duties on primetime network shows will be handled by various high school drama clubs. NBC’s “Today” show will be hosted by a pair of sea otters, and the only stand-up comedian will be Carrot Top.

People will end the year talking about how awful 2018 was. One of the common threads I’ve picked up from various people is that 2017 stunk like skunk. Maybe it did, in some ways. But buying a new calendar and writing a new date on our checks doesn’t hit any kind of imaginary reset button; time doesn’t work that way. If 2017 had problems, a lot of them will carry over. Making things better isn’t a matter of expressing vague hopes and dreams at year’s dawn -- it’s work. If that realization is less than comforting, at least it allows us to calibrate our compass a bit.

My faith in people is not so high that I think this will actually happen. No, sadly, I think we’ll hear many of the same gripes, and people will be wishing 2018 good riddance on New Year’s Eve. But of all these predictions, boy, do I hope this one is wrong.

Alexa, let's get out of Dodge

Halloween parties thrown by adults tend to be well-stocked with booze. Being lubed up with Johnnie Walker is just about the only legitimate excuse there is for a bunch of thirty- and fortysomethings to dress up as fictional characters from comic books and sci-fi movies -- but it makes one thing in particular somewhat complicated. Transportation.

Driving impaired is just about the stupidest thing a person could do, with the possible exception of lighting a fart next to a propane tank. So that option is off the table from the get-go. A taxi or an Uber might be feasible, but only if the party takes place in a populated area; Uber has yet to expand into most country settings, and some taxi services will balk at driving to the outskirts of East Nowhere to pick up a drooling middle-aged buffoon dressed like Spider-Man. Sometimes a sober friend can give you a lift, but then you’re putting them out.

Someone, somewhere, is working on a driverless car. They need to hurry the hell up.

Technology at its worst makes things more complicated; look no further than social media, which has turned human interaction into a rage-filled digital soup. Technology at its best simplifies things, and I can’t think of anything simpler than climbing into a driverless car after a third cocktail and saying, “Back to the Batcave, Alfred!” Apparently in this fantasy my car is named Alfred. And I’m Batman.

Granted, this technology is still a ways off. There are a few prototypes on the road, and they’re surprisingly safe, using GPS satellites to orient themselves and sensing the movements of nearby vehicles. But this isn’t an ordinary gadget we’re talking about here. It’s not like an iPhone, which can be released with glitches that can later be fixed through downloadable patches. iPhone glitches mean the web browser is wonky. Driverless car glitches mean you’re suddenly staring through your windshield at a school of fish as your vehicle is swept toward one of those outsized Tarzan-style waterfalls.

Lesson: Don’t release a driverless car to market if there’s even a 1 percent chance of joyriding along the bottom of a river.

It’s a shame they’re not quite ready, though, because the applications would be immediate. The Halloween scenario is a simple example, but the driverless car isn’t just a friend to the shameless booze hound.

Take people with medical emergencies. Let’s say a random woman, we’ll call her “Jennadaniellouise,” sustains an injury in the home while attempting to hang a portrait of her grandmother riding a horse while dressed as a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger. (These details are important.) Jennadaniellouise is standing tippy-toe on a stepladder when she loses her balance and falls awkwardly, breaking her ankle. Jennadaniellouise lives alone. No significant other, no kids, no pets, nothing, just a life-size cardboard cutout of a smiling Piers Morgan.

Jennadaniellouise has two options -- call for an ambulance, the expense of which would cut significantly into the funds she’s set aside for her troublesome gambling addiction, or call a friend. Only she doesn’t have friends, either. The last of them buggered off when they found out Jennadaniellouise has an unhealthy obsession with Piers Morgan and a grandmother who dresses like a Power Ranger.

But wait! Jennadaniellouise has a driverless car! She also has sleep apnea and the world’s fourth largest collection of antique cookie tins. But never mind that now! To the car, Alfred!

Driverless cars are meant for people like Jennadaniellouise. They’re also meant for people who take long road trips and have trouble staying awake; those with physical impairments; and anyone who’s blown through an intersection because they were distracted by a squirrel. Those are your bread-and-butter customers, right there.

Purists may bristle at the lack of control, preferring to take the reigns themselves. Understandable. But new research shows that autonomy may not be our safest option. According to a study by the RAND Corporation, driverless cars would only have to be moderately better than human drivers before their use would result in thousands of lives saved. In fact, if they were only 10 percent better than current drivers, they “could prevent thousands of road fatalities over the next 15 years and possibly hundreds of thousands of fatalities over 30 years,” the authors wrote. Think of how many more people would show up to our Halloween parties.

Lesson: No matter how good you think you are at driving, you likely stink.

It’ll be a few years before that 10 percent threshold is met, and it’s a shame, because there are a lot of drivers who could benefit from the technology now -- specifically, each and every maniac who’s on the road during my daily commute to work. Rather than dodging lane-switchers jockeying for position, the commute would be an orderly procedure, an elegant symphony of wheeled, metal containers quietly gliding along the asphalt like benevolent Star Wars robots. And when it’s time to return home, I’d no longer have to marshall my remaining energy to focus on not dying. I could simply program my coordinates, lay back with eyes closed, and daydream about who would win in a fight between me and Dracula. (Hint: Not me.)

That’s the dream -- or one of them, anyway. Another is achieving the perfect Halloween, and that means finding the right combination of a great costume and a carefully calibrated buzz. A driverless car would obviously help with the latter. The former’s a bit tougher, but I’m thinking next year may finally be the year I suck it up and go as a horse-riding Power Ranger.

See? I told you those details were important.

Tale of the tape

Author's note: Wrote this one before Christmas. Is it too late (early?) to post a Christmas column? Survey says: Nah.

At one time, Christmas was all about the VCR. My preservation-obsessed mother would tape Christmas specials as they aired, and watching them every year became a tradition, as is the case with many around the holidays. The difference with us was that, instead of waiting until these specials were broadcast on traditional airwaves, we’d pop in our tape and blow through all the Swiffer and Burger King commercials with impunity. This was the height of technological wonder.

Now it’s all about my hard drive. But I’ll get to that.

Nostalgia is a big part of the holidays, and lately I’ve been feeling nostalgic about my old VCR. What a beast this thing was. A sleek silver and black that looked futuristic at the time, it was one of those old-school tanks that loaded from the top and made a satisfying metallic clink sound when you snapped the tape into place. It was about the size of a basketball court and sucked more power than a particle accelerator, but it was reliable and indestructible. You could toss it in front of a bus and just the bus would break.

Many a Christmas was passed in front of that tank, and while video viewing methods have become sleeker and prettier, there’s something to be said for old videotapes. The picture was often grainy and had lines of snow running across it, the colors faded with time, and the beginning of the tape always looked and sounded warbly, like it was being played for an underwater audience of Aquamen. But darnit, it had character. Plus it was all we had. These whippersnappers today don’t know even know what they’ve got.

What’s odd is that when I watch some of these same Christmas specials today, I’m always a bit surprised that there isn’t a little video skip here, a patch of missing audio there. I watched that tape so many damn times I memorized the imperfections of the format itself, so when I sit down as an adult and flip on “Frosty the Snowman,” it’s almost jarring when Santa goes into his speech about Christmas snow and doesn’t sound like he has a mouthful of golf balls.

Younger fans of older media formats are increasingly common; they’ve popularized vinyl to a degree that has sparked a mini-Renaissance. Talk to a young vinyl collector and they’ll tell you about the warm sound quality, the rich bass, the expansive cover art suitable for framing. They’re onto something there.

By contrast, there’s no reason I or anyone else should be nostalgic about VCRs and VHS tapes. The performance is not superior in any way to DVDs or BluRays. Pure, unadulterated nostalgia is the format’s only redeeming factor, which means Millennials and post-Millennials, the same ones who resurrected vinyl, will almost surely let videocassettes die. Nobody tosses in a weathered tape of “Goodfellas” and says, “Look, look at the way you can barely make out the expression on Joe Pesci’s face! See how all the reds are bleeding together? This is epic!”

And yet.

A few years ago I set about on a mission: Scour the internet in search of all the Christmas specials that were on that ancient tape, download them, and renew my love for those old shows with a digital collection that won’t deteriorate over time. Amazingly, I found them all, many tucked away on obscure European video-streaming sites, hidden amidst clips of mustachioed street performers and mimes riding elephants. To download them I utilized technology that sits in a kind of ethical gray area; for that reason, I’ll not divulge my methods, lest I get a knock on my door from the producers of “A Garfield Christmas.” In my imagination they’re a pair of eight-foot-tall goliaths wielding baseball bats.

The digital versions of these Christmas shows fall into two categories -- the ones with pristine quality, and the ones that look like twice-warmed-over crap.

The pristine ones are a delight, of course. They sparkle with a newness not seen since they originally aired, likely sometime during the Cretaceous period. The crappy ones, though, are crappy in a very specific way.

Someone grabbed them off a VHS tape. It’s obvious. All the hallmarks are there: the intermittent line of snow that creeps along the bottom of the picture, a slight and occasional lurch in the video. Audio recorded in a tackle box. The works.

You’d think that would ruin my enjoyment, but on the contrary, it’s really quite charming. I’m sure a younger person, spoiled on digital riches, would find it headache-inducing, like trying to read a blog entry on a faded rag of papyrus. For me, the hisses and pops are a time machine, delivering me into a boys’ body, hunched forward with his finger on the fast-forward button to blow through Arby’s ads.

As the saying goes, “Everything old is new again.” In this case, the opposite is also true -- everything new is old again. And that’s part of what makes Christmas special. Time twists and contorts, until the memories of past decades live side-by-side with the here and now; Santa swoops in at the end of “Frosty” and saves the day for the 32nd time, and yet the familiar beats are somehow still fresh. They’re small things, these TV shows made for kids, but it’s the small things that matter. If the quality more closely resembles that of the old VHS tape -- now collecting mold in a basement -- that’s fitting. It speaks to the boy who still lives somewhere inside this cranky old fart’s heart.

Analog video may not have the hip allure of vinyl records, but it’s just as warm. This time of year, warmth is exactly what’s needed.

The Santa cause

I never imagined I’d be scouring the internet in search of a Santa Claus costume. Then again, I never imagined having a son.

Well, I’ve got one now. A son, not a Santa costume. And he is singlehandedly, without a doubt, hands down, the cutest flippin’ baby who ever drew a breath, and if you dispute me on that score, I’m throwing down the gauntlet and you and I are engaging in gladiator-style fisticuffs that only end in submission or death.

Whoa. I think some weird paternal instinct just kicked in.

Anyway, yeah, he’s got limbs and a head and everything. I tend to only mention family stuff in the most abstract terms, and only then to illustrate a larger point, ’cause this isn’t a diary and nobody cares about my Aunt Mildred’s debilitating addiction to horse tranquilizers. Full disclosure: There is no Aunt Mildred.

Having a son, though, means humiliating myself for the sake of his enjoyment, and that’s where the Santa getup comes in. I knew months ago, when I first held him in my arms, that I’d be one of those corny dads who dresses up like St. Nick every Christmas, until the boy stops believing or until I regain some semblance of self-respect. That’s why I’ve just spent an hour online trying to track down a beard that doesn’t scratch, a pair of red pants that won’t tear at the crotch, and a fake belly that shakes like a bowlful of jelly.

Keep in mind I’m doing this for a person who smiles and giggles while peeing on his Dumbo lamp.

Faking the existence of a big bearded elf isn’t exactly a new trick in a parent’s repertoire. My own parents would leave out milk and cookies on Christmas Eve and, in classic fashion, my father would wait until I went to bed and take a big bite of one. I never thought to ask why Santa would only take a single bite of a cookie, but in a way I’m glad it never came up. My parents’ explanations for these things tended toward the bizarre. When I asked how Santa got into the house despite our lack of a fireplace, my mother replied that he simply liquified himself and slipped into the house through the plumbing in the basement. That made the Chris Kringle of my imagination a weird cross between a jolly demigod and a shape-shifting swamp creature. I’ll admit it was a creative response. I appreciated it, sort of. I think.

Actually dressing up as Santa is the next, and last, logical step. And I have to do it now. By next Christmas my son may be smart enough to tell that it’s just daddy playing make-believe; this year he might still be fooled. He probably won’t form a permanent memory of his first face-to-face with Santa, but I can at least provide a little temporary magic for him. Besides, there’s bound to be a ton of pictures, and years from now we can show them to him as a reminder that daddy was once willing to suit up like a total ass.

Which isn’t as easy as you’d think. The problem with Santa suits, I’ve come to find, is that there isn’t much middle ground. Judging from online reviews, the cheap costumes last about as long as a Taylor Swift song before they evaporate like the sweat on a beer coaster. Meanwhile, the higher-end getups are just way too expensive, commanding prices I could only afford if I started a drug cartel specializing in the distribution of black tar heroin.

And look, nothing against mall Santas, but I was kinda hoping to snag something with a little more pizazz than your average Yuletide freelancer. I’ve seen a couple of mall Santas with quality duds -- a fellow with a genuine white beard made quite the impression on me when I was 6 -- but they’re generally the exception. Most of these “Santa’s helpers” wear clothes that look like they were salvaged from an attic fire. I don’t know if the malls provide these suits or if the actors have to buy them themselves, but someone should inform the powers that be that Father Christmas is meant to evoke merriment, not concern about his lax laundry routine.

There are also a lot of decisions I have to make about the little bells and whistles. Your basic Santa suit has certain ingredients that don’t change -- red hat, coat and pants, white beard, black boots -- but the smaller details and accouterments are largely a matter of taste. Green mittens or white gloves? Holly on the hat, or no holly? How red should the cheeks be? There are almost too many interpretations from which to choose. I could go with the polished Classic Coke take, the regal “Polar Express” interpretation or whatever the hell Billy Bob Thornton was doing in “Bad Santa.” It would be easier to design a robot for SpaceX than to pick a final look for this thing.

But pick one I will, ’cause a little guy’s first Christmas experience is riding on it. You know it’s funny, sometimes people give me grief for romanticizing my own childhood. But in a way, maintaining that connection to the boy of yesteryear has been good preparation for connecting to the boy of right now. I remember Christmas as a time of impossible magic and moments of joy so perfectly tuned it hurt. Gifted with a long memory, I remember what made it that way. With a chance now to re-live that time of life through someone else’s eyes, I can think of no better way to revive those old feelings than by inspiring them in someone else -- someone so wide-eyed and fresh that his joy will be unencumbered by the cynicism of later life. I don’t want my son’s Christmases to be as good as mine. I want them to be better. Because I love him. That’s what the holidays are all about.

Well, that and fake Santa tummies. But one thing at a time.

Me me media

One of my Facebook friends used the term “mainstream media” in a derogatory context recently and I just about flipped my freakin’ lid.

Perhaps acting against my better judgement, I jumped into the fray, laying out a case for the importance of journalism in a missive so long it came with a complimentary Garfield bookmark. Pragmatism and reason were the predominant tones I tried to strike, and I was more or less successful; the online exchange ended in mutual “likes” of each others’ final comments. So while no minds were permanently changed, this friend and I at least came away from the conversation with a better understanding of where the other person was coming from.

Still, his initial comment -- and my decision to respond to it -- fly in the face of conventional wisdom. Said wisdom tells us it’s bad form to talk about politics in mixed company, and there are certainly instances in which this advice should be followed diligently. Nobody wants to tick off Uncle Mort over squash and pie at Thanksgiving, unless of course they want to stagger out to their car with a rolled-up Ted Cruz bumper sticker jutting out of their eye. Likewise, the first person to ask “Who follows politics?” at her niece’s wedding reception should be thrown onto the dance floor and kept there ’till the very last note of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” People don’t want to deal with that scene.

Social media is interesting in that it doesn’t seem to fit into the bounds of that conventional wisdom. If you’re burning to know what your lab partner from eighth-grade chemistry thinks about Trump, Sanders, the National Anthem and Robert E. Lee, just log onto Facebook. He’ll tell you within hours. He’ll post a link to an article, or respond to someone else’s comment, and before long you’ll be seething at his perceived cluelessness and neglecting important work. You’ll be laboring over a thank-you card to your grandmother and write, “Dear Grandma, thank you for the wonderful birthday gift and oh my God I can’t believe Kevin Berkman actually likes Trump WHAT AN IDIOT! Love, your dearest Jeffrey.”

So the internet, it seems, is immune to this particular brand of tact. I used to ignore the maelstrom, thinking it better to avoid confrontation altogether and just post pictures of me posing with baseball mascots. I’m doing this less and less. I’m speaking up, and I’m doing it for two reasons.

First off, there’s stuff out there that’s just a flat-out affront to basic logic and common sense. I’m not talking about base ideological differences; Person A favors a strong central government, Person B thinks states should have more power, and neither is wrong, necessarily -- they just have different visions for the kind of country they want to live in. OK, fine. But when someone claims without evidence that Senator X is secretly a space alien who’s using cell towers to brainwash people into wearing American flag underwear … well, I feel some level-headed intervention is necessary. It’s a dirty job, but someone needs to gently remove the tinfoil hat.

There’s a more important reason, though. People who use the term “mainstream media” in a derogatory sense (or the odious abbreviation “MSM”) typically get their news from fringe media sources, and those are the sources spewing the content that’s truly skewed; these outlets are in the business of reinforcing worldviews, not reporting news. I’m talking the Breitbarts, the Drudge Reports and their slimy ilk. Getting one’s news from these sources is like buying a fake Rolex from the inside of some sleazeball’s trench coat.

But the obvious bias coming from these outlets, while problematic, isn’t their most pernicious quality. It’s that they tell people, often falsely or in exaggerated fashion, what those on the opposite end of the political spectrum are supposedly thinking.

Here’s a hypothetical example: Your old chum Tommy Tickletoes, a political conservative, posts a link to a Breitbart article about a GOP Senator who authored a bill that would protect shelter dogs from being euthanized. Based on what I’ve seen just on my own Facebook feed, the comments below the article would read something like this: “About time! You know the snowflake liberals want all dogs to die.” “Way to stick it to the libtards! A rEaL AmErIcAn hero!!!!!” “libruls r hypocrites, tey want 2 kill puppies & r stupid.”

You, a proud liberal, have spoken with your liberal friends about the issue. Not one of them wants dogs to die. So where do these commenters get the notion that liberals are dog-haters? From their safe, comfy media sources, of course. Oh, and if you’re reading this and you’re politically conservative, go ahead and flip the situation around and make Tommy a Democrat. The logic still doesn’t hold up.

You don’t get to know someone, or reach any kind of understanding, by reading about their opinions on opposition websites. You get to know someone by talking to them. So I speak out. I speak out because the means of conquering division is not to retreat into your corner and start throwing grenades; it’s to walk out onto the battlefield with a hand extended. And you know what? It’s hard. When passions run deep, it can be tough to keep emotions in check, and I’d be lying if I said I had a perfect record in this regard. The endeavor, though, is too important to give up. If we’re going to start building bridges, we need to start with the foundation.

This opinion, of course, is being shared in the dreaded mainstream media, so doubters may be wary. If they can at least receive it without donning their boxing gloves, though, that’s a pretty good start.

Pie honorably

Whoever invented pie should be given the Congressional Medal of Honor, a key to the city and a $25 gift card redeemable at any Dunkin’ Donuts.

Pies can be baked and eaten at any ol’ time of the year, and indeed I’ve munched on blueberry pies in August as an alternative to birthday cake, which is good but leaves my stomach feeling like it just got suckerpunched by a brass-knuckled stealth ninja.

Thanksgiving through Christmas, however, marks the official pie season. Bring ’em on. Blueberry, pecan, cherry, pumpkin -- these are your marquee pies, the crème de la crème, and if it were in any way acceptable I’d push aside my main course and just bury my face in a giant mound of this delicious dessert. There’s a classic scene in “Scarface” in which Tony Montana sits in an office in his drug-financed mansion and plops his nose in a mini-mountain of cocaine, coming up for air with a trace of powder still clinging to his beak. That’s me and pie. Only pie is more addictive.

Upping one’s pie consumption during the holiday season makes a certain amount of sense, as long as you don’t examine the logic too closely. (And I don’t). Overindulgence is a form of celebration, after all, and this stretch of the year is all about celebrating. Snarfing confectionary goodies for weeks on end may result in an expanded waistline, but that actually plays into pie season’s second big advantage: storing up fat for the winter. If you’re prone to pie-binging this time of year, don’t fret -- just think of yourself as less of a person and more of a hibernating bear. In fact, if you push past the cramps and polish off the last slice of Grammy Mildred’s famous apple pie, you may even start to look like a Maine grizzly.

Really, the only downside to hopping on the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas pie train is that it follows so closely behind Halloween and its Snickers aesthetic. Just when you’ve plowed through a half-bag of fun-sized Baby Ruth bars and can see to the bottom of your candy dish, Turkey Day knocks on your front door and hands you a steaming plate of meat, sugar and assorted animal organs. Christmas is only a slightly less egregious offender. There’s a reason why gym memberships spike in January: because people lapse in their exercise, yes, but also because the holidays force upon us a sultan’s hedonistic diet. It takes several sweat-soaked sessions on the elliptical to rid yourself of that pican paunch, and by the time you do, it’s Thanksgiving again and you wonder why you even bother.

We subject ourselves to this cycle because pie is worth it, and not just for the flavor.

During most of the year, my family’s kitchen isn’t exactly bursting with sensory stimuli. There’s an occasional smell of coffee or eggs, there’s a nice warmth that comes in through the window when the sun slants in jaggedly, and the linoleum is perpetually cool underfoot -- your typical kitchen, in many ways, save for the random heavy metal magnets on the fridge.

Starting in late November, though, whoa Nelly. Walk into the kitchen on a crisp afternoon and the smell of baking pie is so vivid and three-dimensional you can practically see the tendrils wafting. And it’s not uncommon for more than one kind of pie to be baking at a time, meaning each whiff is both a potpourri and a puzzle, challenging the nose to pick out its constituent ingredients. Apple and cherry? Blueberry and pecan? Does it matter? Just cut me a slice and toss some cookies ’n cream on there for good measure, please and thank you.

See, it’s about more than just gorging. It’s about a vibe.

I’m big on vibes, especially during the holidays. It’s a tough time of year, with days getting shorter and the air growing colder, and a proper holiday season is an effective bulwark against the blues. It shortens the season; instead of six solid months of darkness and bone-chill, the onslaught of pies and lights and holiday specials and music transform that initial descent into a celebration. Snow is OK when your family’s around and you’re huddled in the living room. Cold is OK when you can walk into a warm home and smell pie cooling on the kitchen counter. After the New Year we buckle down and grit our teeth through the worst of it, a three-month slog to spring. Until then, bring the frost. As long as there’s a slice of something innutritious and totally fattening to look forward to, I’m in.

I’m aware of how lucky I am. The reason I’m able to fetishize something so ultimately trivial as pie is because I’m privileged enough to have a life where that’s possible -- a life that affords me the time and the ability to philosophize about a gooey dessert that can stop someone’s heart. Not everyone has the luxury. If I were a man of means I’d establish some kind of weird pie charity, a program that provides hot slices of it during the major beats of the holiday season. I’d immediately be branded an eccentric and someone who squanders money on pointless endeavors, rather than using it for positive change, like cancer cures or eliminating all evidence of Pauly Shore’s movie career. But I’ve little doubt that the beneficiaries of my pie charity would like it just fine, especially after their third serving of mixed berry. Note to self: Make millions and start spreading pie.

No one really knows who invented it; it just sort of appeared on the scene and stayed there. That’s frustrating. While I’m not the type to get all gushy about the things for which I’m thankful, it’d be nice to thank pie’s visionary inventors -- geniuses all. Though it’s just as well. I’m fine with grabbing them a Dunkin’ Donuts gift card, but they stripped away my authority to give away Congressional Medals of Honor a long time ago.

If the suit fits

I was young when I first heard the phrase “The clothes make the man.” Even then, as a kid, I didn’t buy it. The man makes the man, I thought; the clothes merely prevent him from being naked.

Clearly not everyone shares this opinion. My workplace has an extremely lax dress code -- the only articles that are outright forbidden consist of t-shirts with swear words and slinky lingerie -- but some of the men still wear ties, the women fancy dress suits. There’s certainly nothing wrong with classic business attire, and it looks good and all, but unless you’re dealing with people face-to-face it doesn’t seem strictly necessary. Personally I’d feel more comfortable, and get more work done, if I were wearing sweatpants and a mustard-stained Red Sox hoodie.

On rare occasions I’m forced to dress up, and I’ll admit that I do walk with a certain swagger in such instances. I was sent to a conference in Orlando this summer and rocked my single three-piece suit, feeling very Wolf-of-Wall-Street-ish. But that’s because I was essentially playing make-believe. It was the same sort of swagger I get when I dress up as a Batman villain for Halloween. During the conference I was playing the role of Jeff Rockjaw III, finance expert and world traveler, and this fantasy took me out of myself, allowed me the novelty of wearing someone else’s skin for a while. When I got back to the hotel room it was right back to my typical summer uniform: cargo shorts and a t-shirt so old it’s practically a vapor.

To be sure, there are certain clothing items that should never be considered acceptable, under any circumstances, ever. Fishnet shirts, for example. Or suit jackets with shoulder pads. Or pretty much anything worn in the 1980s.

Think of how much more relaxed we’d all be if “work attire” was a thing of the past, though. There’s a law firm in the building where I work, and oftentimes I see well-suited men and women walking the halls with a kind of self-important air, a detectable aura that screams, “I am a very big deal.” And look, there’s no doubt that their jobs are, indeed, important. Without lawyers, who would blast us with an $80 charge for a five-minute phone consultation? And to think I could have bought food with that money.

The problem with look-at-me-I’m-a-big-shot suits is that they do nothing to help these lawyers actually do their jobs. Sure, they’d struggle to maintain credibility if they showed up in court wearing tracksuit pants and a Pokemon t-shirt, but that’s only because business attire is the norm in that situation. If all of the nation’s courtrooms issued a new proclamation tomorrow -- “Suits optional everyone, just wear what you want” -- I can guarantee you things would be a lot looser. The atmosphere would be less clenched, and there’d be a lot more smiles on a lot more prosecutor’s faces. “Hey, your honor, what’s up? So yeah, this guy right here? He totally did it. Like, not even a question. See this evidence? Boom, in your face, public defendant!”

School principals would be more approachable. Accountants would have more fun. CEOs could put their gamesmanship aside and focus on the things that are truly important, like lowering their golf handicap. This is the nirvana I envision: a suitless world in which people can finally breathe.

Things are slowly moving that direction, with the definition of “formal” becoming more and more relaxed through the centuries. The Victorian era was marked by stark formality; a poorly-worn necktie or an ill-fitting waistcoat could earn a man a reputation for being an outright ragamuffin (a word that should make a comeback, in my opinion). In the Edwardian era, things got a little simpler. Post-World War I, the scene was simpler still, with long coats giving way to the previously informal lounge coat. If the trend continues it’ll soon be acceptable to conduct business in a pajama onesie meant to look like a cartoon bunny.

If men are better off this way -- and they are -- I can only imagine the relief felt by women, who a few short lifetimes ago were expected to squeeze themselves into apparatuses more complicated than the inner workings of a Japanese motorcycle. Bras with hard wires, girdles, frilly dresses with more layers than a Russian nesting doll … all a little overkill. I’ve never been curious enough to wear, say, a ladies’ outfit from the Victorian era, but the complexity seems prohibitive. I’d have to start getting dressed at four in the morning to be ready for lunch, and removing the outfit would probably involve a set of industrial-strength scissors, possibly even the jaws of life. Pantsuits get a bad rap nowadays, but at least you can change in and out of one before your roommate is done slow-roasting her Butterball turkey.

In our relaxed new era, I walk into my office wearing an untucked polo shirt and feel perfectly at home. In another 20 years, who knows? I may be wearing sandals, gym shorts and an Anthrax hoodie. Socially conservative members of older generations may be lowering their heads, pinching the bridges of their noses and muttering things about the depravity and loosy-goosy dress standards of modern life, but bring it on, I say. I find it hard to get work done while wearing a suit because I’m constantly aware of its essential suitness. I adjust my tie and tug at my shirt incessantly, petrified that any loose knot or bunched island of fabric will undermine my professional veneer and spell doom. Frumpy clothes don’t make me feel this way. They just make me feel comfortable, and in the winter they disguise the belly I obtained by nibbling on vegetable chips and cheese-stuffed pretzels.

And I feel no hit to my core maleness in the bargain. Because it turns out, after all, that clothes don’t make the man. They just make it a little less drafty.

Caught in a mosh

One more time won’t hurt, I thought. And it didn’t. At least for a little while.

Honestly, if there had been seats at the venue, like there are in an arena or theater, buying the concert tickets would have been an easy choice. There are only a few things more pleasing to me than sitting and watching a good band perform live, and most of those things involve being naked.

Remove seats from the equation, and you’re talking about a lot of standing around … at best. At worst, you’re talking about a mosh pit.

For a longtime metalhead such as myself, it’s amusing to note how many non-metal fans aren’t sure what a mosh pit is, exactly. They vaguely associate mosh pits with the music they warned their children not to listen to, so they assume it’s something evil -- a goat-sacrificing ritual, perhaps, or some kind of stadium-wide satanic pact made in blood. They’re nothing of the sort, although admittedly it would be kinda cool to see a goat at a concert. Not to harm it in any way -- I’m not into that stuff -- but because goats are cute. In fact, they should be mandatory for all concerts. Wouldn’t you love to see a random goat at the Kenny Chesney show? Of course you would.

No goats in the mosh pit, though. Too brutal, as I rediscovered only recently.

Mosh pits typically begin during the speediest, heaviest songs in a band’s set, the ones with breakneck rhythms and fretwork that could blow the quills off a porcupine. In the standing-room-only section, on the floor in front of the stage, a churning begins to happen, a brewing cyclone of young drunkards and over-pierced malcontents. After a while the cyclone becomes a full-blown tornado and a circle opens up amidst the standing masses, a rapidly rotating maelstrom of bodies and pumping limbs. It’s like the heavy metal version of a country line dance, only way more chaotic, and someone usually ends up eating concrete.

Sounds violent, and it can be … but not maliciously so, if that makes sense. There’s a certain mosh pit etiquette: You can shove and jostle and ram into people, but it’s a faux pas to outright hit anyone. If someone hits the ground, the action halts and someone helps the fallen regain their feet. And if someone doesn’t want to participate, they don’t have to -- although the more passive concert goers in the crowd may be intermittently pinballed around by the pit’s rhythmic undulations. It’s like a raucous rally for a rabble-rousing dictator, only instead of Mussolini on the stage it’s four long-haired musicians who look like the cast of “Designing Women.”

Pits were sort of fun when I was 21, 22. They were a way to channel the band’s energy, to blow off steam. Now that I’m older, calmer and more prone to lower back pain, I prefer the seats. I sip a beer, I enjoy the music, I watch the tattooed freaks stomp around and froth at the mouth. Fun stuff.

Only, when I went to see Megadeth in New Hampshire a couple weekends ago, there were no seats at all. Standing room only. Gulp.

Which I knew going in, of course. When considering whether to go, the lack of seating arrangements was a consideration. Ultimately my love of the band won out. After 30-plus years of recording and touring, Megadeth is in the mid-to-late autumn of its career, so when they come to within shouting distance I’m usually right there with my faded tour shirt and a fist raised high in the air. I have to seize every opportunity to see them before they drink themselves out of the music business and into retail jobs putting price stickers on juice blenders.

Strategically, I knew I had to come up with some sort of plan to avoid unwanted physical entanglements. Standing in one place for two-and-a-half hours is bad enough, but it’s worse when you’ve got a sweaty, drunken lout pinwheeling his arms in the general vicinity of your face.

It’s my luck, I guess, that my favorite musicians tend to be old farts. Older bands typically draw older crowds, and while there are still a good amount of under-30 animals who show up to these shows looking for a cathartic bruising, many are people like me, nearing middle age and in no damn mood to be swatting away half-crazed hellhounds. Rock and metal fans in my age range want a simple concert experience. They want to play air guitar to their favorite solos, swing their arms to all the good drum fills, shout along to whatever cheesy lyrics are on offer, and go home happy. That’s it. We’ll save the bruises for when we fall down the cellar stairs with a load of laundry.

Looking around the venue, it was clear there were plenty of greybeards like myself. This made the strategy simple: Find the point in the crowd where the silver whiskers and receding hairlines began, and plant myself there. So I did. And it was great. Another show under my belt, and I escaped it without some rum-swilling idiot taking me out at the kneecaps.

Regardless, the excessive standing did a number on my beleaguered glutes, which made me ask myself the question: How long can I keep doing this? The floor in front of the stage belongs to the animals, and I left that group forever the minute I started playing Scrabble on the computer. But one day soon my geezer bands will fade into the night; part of me feels obligated to see them whenever I can, seats or no seats. It’s part of an unspoken pact between band and fan: They give me joy, and I give them my body.

A quote from Michael Corleone in “The Godfather Part III” sums it up nicely:

“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”

Streak condition

Author's note: This column originally ran in the Journal Tribune and was meant to reference the fact that my column switched from a weekly format to every other week. Just to give you some context. 'Cause without it, it may not make much sense. Hell, it may not make much sense anyway. You be the judge!

 

So hey. You may have noticed I wasn’t around last week.

I’ll be spewing my nonsense every other week for the foreseeable future, which will allow me time to pursue other interests, like glaring at motorists who don’t use their turn signals. It’s a workable arrangement, but it also breaks a streak: Five straight years of sucking up space on this page without missing a week.

What? A standing ovation? Please, people! Take your seats, take your seats. I’m very flattered.

Whenever a streak comes to an end it serves as a kind of demarcation point, a way for us to make sense of a certain period of time. Sports fans in particular seem obsessed with streaks: winning streaks, losing streaks, hitting streaks. They’re a statistical anomaly, and such anomalies are enticing because they invite analysis as to what engendered the streak to begin with. It’s a way to start a discussion without getting all political and alienating half your social media friends with long rants about the nascent rise of fascism.

And if sports are indeed your bag, then you probably know the name Cal Ripken Jr. Of all the streaks in Major League Baseball, his is perhaps the streakiest. At one point during his 20-year career, the shortstop and third baseman played in 2,632 straight games, earning him the nickname “Iron Man.” (These were the days before the moniker invoked images of a red-and-yellow combat suit.) His accomplishment makes a grade schooler’s perfect attendance certificate look positively pathetic in comparison. It’s easy to go to class every day when you don’t have line drives constantly rocketing toward your face.

When his streak was still active I was at the height of my baseball obsession, so I was lucky enough to see him play. Streak aside, he racked up some impressive stats in his career, but it wasn’t as though he glowed with some god-like inner fire, or performed nutty Cirque Du Soleil-type feats every night. He was just a workhorse. Nothing fancy; he just showed up. Being consistent and doing his job well made him a pretty good role model -- much better than my other role models at the time, who were mostly mutant turtles and spandex-wearing vigilantes. When Cal’s streak ended, it felt like a whole era had come to a close. And it had. During his streak I graduated from two different schools and learned how to properly kick a hacky sack.I may have also started losing my hair around this time, but let’s not rip open <SET ITALICS>that</SET ITALICS> old wound.

Because there are so many freakin’ games during the course of a season, baseball is littered with streaks. The other notable historical streak that comes to mind took place in 1941 when Yankees center fielder Joe DiMaggio hit safely in 56 straight games. Since not all of you are baseball nuts, let me put that in terms you can relate to: It’s like hitting three sevens on the slot machine 10 times in a row. It’s like flipping a quarter and getting heads 100 times straight. It’s like hitting a penny with a pistol at 500 paces. It’s rare. I’m saying it’s rare.

It’s so statistically improbable, in fact, that in the entire history of Major League Baseball, DiMaggio is the only player to hit safely in more than 50 straight games; Orioles right fielder Willie Keeler is in second place on the all-time list with a 44-game streak in -- get this -- 1897! I’m not a huge fan of non-ironic exclamation points … but wow! Pro baseball has been around long enough to see two World Wars, the rise of automobiles, the invention of the Oreo cookie and about 17 Friday the 13th movies. One dude hit the 50 mark. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a motherfucking streak.

Nobody but DiMaggio would know what it’s like to have a streak like that come to an end. But some of us have personal streaks to serve as a rough comparison.

Maybe it’s only the most neurotic among us who mentally keep their own record books, but if anyone qualifies as a victim of near-debilitating neuroses, it’s this guy. When I was a boy of about 12, I realized I had a hard time walking on snow and ice. I’d have at least one bad spill every winter, one of those bone-rattling falls that bruises both your ego and your butt. Hindsight being 20/20 this was most assuredly due to the fact that I’m flat-footed and never wear boots. So basically I kept hitting the asphalt because I was physically awkward and dumb.

Until one winter. At 13 -- a lucky age, apparently -- I survived the colder months without any unwanted trips to the sidewalk. Thus began a small streak: Six straight years of remaining upright.

It came crashing down, literally, one icy January on a small residential street in Lewiston. At first it was devastating. Six years down the tubes. Then I realized a weight had been lifted. When a streak reaches superhuman proportions, it takes on a distorted meaning in the mind, imbued with an outsized mystique, and the streak-bearer starts walking on eggshells. So much mental energy is devoted to keeping the streak alive that it becomes a weight on the psyche, and when the streak ends, so does the pressure. Bruised fanny or no, at least I didn’t have to live up to the strange mythology I’d built for myself.

Hard to know if that same mythological thinking applies to this space. Too early to tell. But I will admit to some modicum of relief. Sometimes you have to leave a place and come back to it before it truly feels like home.