Good evening, ladies and germs

It’s one of those things that can’t be helped: I’m addicted to late-night talk shows. Part of it is my guilty-pleasure affinity for schtick; there’s something about a guy in a suit slinging one-liners that gets my motor hummin’, especially when a live band gives brassy flouish to the cheesy punchlines. Part of me feels that, TV-wise, I should be aspiring to better – PBS documentaries about the history of typewriter ribbons, perhaps, or a History Channel series about the prevalence of burlap underwear in the Roman army. But late-night is cheap, it streams for free over the Internet, and it lets me know what’s going on in the world of entertainment, a sphere of pop culture that consistently flies under my rader. If it wasn’t for tie-straightening yukster comedians, I’d have no idea that Lady Gaga is partial to evening wear fashioned from slabs of dead buffalo. I’d also have no idea who the hell Lady Gaga is.

 

After a while, you start to learn certain things about public personages, especially the ones who make the rounds; there are roughly 137 late-night shows currently airing, and a handful of celebrities will hit them all, usually so they can pitch their latest project. One of them is Howie Mandel, a comedian and “America’s Got Talent” judge who’s shaved his head in a transparent attempt to look more like yours truly. Pathetic, really.

 

But there’s something I’ve noticed about the guy.

 

Mandel never shakes anyone’s hand. Ever. Instead, he does the “fist-bump,” a relatively new hand greeting whereby two people briefly, and informally, graze knuckles. He does this because he’s a self-proclaimed germophobe, apparently petrified that prolonged contact with another human hand will expose him to lethal viruses and pathogens. David Letterman and Conan O’Brien get the fist-bump whenever Mandel is a guest, as if both hosts pre-game their respective shows by taking naked Dumpster baths with stray dogs. 

 

This is taking the germ thing a bit too far. You can take precautions, but if germs are gonna spread, they’re gonna spread.

 

And in fairness, Mandel might know that. Fifty years ago, before certain conditions and ailments were identified by the medical community, people with exagerrated fears of germs were given the highly clinical label of “nuts” and told to suck it up. Nowadays, we know that such fears are indicative of some kind of mental imbalance – related to obsessive compulsive disorder, perhaps, but with less likelihood that the afflicted will blow an afternoon counting and cataloging the hairs on his dachshund’s muzzle. From his talk show appearances, it seems likely that Mandel is fully aware of this abnormality; it’s always the subject of gentle prodding, not that “prod” is a word you’d want to use around this squeamish fellow. But it still defies logic.

 

I’ve got an empty bottle of Germ-X that’s been on my work desk for so long, even 800-year-old Galapagos turtles are like, “Jeez, dude, you’re pushin’ it.” It’s not that I’m a hoarder by nature, although I admittedly have a tough time throwing away box office receipts from movies featuring masked crusaders. There’s just something about the bottle itself that’s comforting; it’s like having a sticker on your front door that reads “Protected by Security System,” when in fact no security system exists, and burglars’ Christmas belongs to those with the strongest crowbars. It’s all about having a sense of security, even though you’re running scared from your own powerful denial. Despite knowing it’s totally batty, there’s a small but vocal section of my brain telling me that airborn viruses will simply see the Germ-X bottle and say, “Crap. Let’s try the next desk.”

 

So in a way, I understand Mandel’s totally nonsensical fixation. Human beings in general are constantly doing things that are illogical, and in some cases borderline insane. We turn creepy-looking clowns into the mascots of burger chains. We punch holes in our flesh so we can decorate them with metal culled from caves filled with precious minerals and ticked-off bears. We burn fossil fuels when we don’t strictly have to. We briefly allowed Pauly Shore to appear in movies. 

 

Running from germs falls somewhere along that spectrum. Not that we should actively be pursuing them – washing hands after using the bathroom is one of our species’ better ideas, right up there with nudie calendars and bubble gum – but over-washing, over-cleansing, and over-insulating ourselves from viruses can have deleterious effects. For an immune system to be strong, it needs viruses for practice; that’s the whole idea behind vaccines, which introduce us to low-grade forms of disease so our bodies can kick the real thing’s butt. By constantly shielding ourselves from communal surfaces and talk-show handshakes, we’re taking the goalie out of the net and yelling, “Fire at will, flu!” Then it does, and we spend a week in bed with an egg-frying fever, watching Dr. Phil scold cheating spouses. Something tells me Howie Mandel’s seen a lot of daytime television.

 

When I was younger, I used to fantasize about being a guest on one of the late-night programs. It would’ve meant I’d done something cool. The band would play me onstage with a sax-adapted rendition of Rush’s “I Think I’m Going Bald” (I swear that’s an actual song), and then I’d take my seat and start talking about the pants I invented that neutralize the smell of Heineken farts. None of this is likely to happen, but if it does, I’ve got a plan. When they announce my name, I’ll step out from behind the curtain, raise a hand to the audience to thank them for their undoubtedly rapturous applause – and then I’ll reach out with my right hand and give the host a firm, germ-smooshing grip. We’re crawling with bacteria and microorganisms at all times; adding a little more to the stew is just one more part of the dance, and if I can fortify myself heading into cold season, all the better.

 

So long as it’s not Craig Ferguson. The Scottish-born host is probably rife with exotic European germs that smoke long cigarettes and have hairy armpits. Sorry, Craig. As a precaution, you get the fist-bump.

 

Body shop

A human body is a pretty ridiculous thing, when you get right down to it.

 

It’s the design that gets me. The mouth and stomach are really far away from each other, which seems inefficient; it’s like having a computer monitor set up in Virginia while you’re typing away at a keyboard in Russia, hoping that your keystrokes are translating – and that you don’t get stampeded by a shirtless Putin riding bareback on a unicorn. The eyes are all backwards, with the optic nerves in the back and the behind-the-scenes infrastructure loaded onto the front. And it’s no mean trick to injure us, with all our soft, vulnerable spots easily violated by predators and rabid Japanese samurais. That last bit can be avoided by steering clear of the 17th Century, but it still leaves us trapped in these poorly-engineered fleshbags, an impressionist mess straight out of the playbooks of mead-swilling Italian painters.

 

When we exercise, the absurdity of the body comes straight to the fore. Watching someone work out is akin to eyeing a Slinky’s madcap descent down a flight of stairs. You get how it works, but that makes it no less weird.

 

All this occurs to me as my body is slowly revolting – and not in the usual aesthetic sense, which not even steroids or funhouse mirrors can resolve. No, this revolution is being fought by my back, which is kind of being an arse at the moment. Doctors, chiropractors, and physical therapists have no idea what’s going on, which isn’t exactly comforting when it feels as though you’ve been mangled in a roller coaster accident. It’s like my body senses my disdain for it and is staging an elaborate prank; I picture it laughing maniacally while I sleep, a mischievous jokester in the vein of silent movie villains, the kind with ferret-sized handlebar mustaches and evil-looking monocles. Not that all monocles don’t look evil. Does anybody still wear monocles?

 

Anyway.

 

They’ve got me in this physical therapy program with the goal of strengthening the muscles that support my spine. Early results have been encouraging, but this is where being uncontrollably self-conscious can be a burden. In order to fortify these muscles, I have to contort myself into positions that, while comfortable, have got to be the silliest-looking bodily configurations this side of Cirque de Soleil. When I’m back to a hundred percent, I imagine I’ll be able to pretzel-fold myself inside a clothes dryer, should I ever need to be smuggled out of the country in a household appliance. Could come in handy. You never know.

 

Some of the workouts they have me doing involve an exercise ball, to which I’m no stranger. I used to sit on one at work, until it became evident that I’d never be able to recline against anything other than musty walls or lost mountain sherpas. You’ve probably seen an exercise ball. It’s a big, inflatable balloon-like structure that looks like the kind of bubble they use to quarantine malaria patients. To target my upper back and neck, I’ve been instructed to stomach-straddle this plastic oddity with a dumbbell in each hand; so positioned, I lift the weights straight out to my sides, my arms at 90-degree angles to my body, my weeping ab muscles keeping me balanced atop the wobbling orb. From my vantage point, all I see is the floor and a partial curve of ball. Viewed from a distance, I likely resemble an amorous buzzard, frantically flapping its wings while getting a little too familiar with a giant snow globe. It’s not an image I’d use on an online dating profile.

 

Not that I mind, naturally. It’s all in the name of recovery, and I knew upon entering the program that I was going to have to check my vanity at the door. What I find fascinating is that a huge number of people with no ailments whatsoever, owners of perfectly tip-top musculoskeletal systems, willingly and voluntarily make themselves look like ninnies in the name of physical fitness. I saw Richard Simmons’ “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” once and thought a troupe of Broadway dancers had been hypnotized by the Three Stooges.

 

A few years back, I had a membership to a local gym. I mostly stuck to the treadmills and stationary bikes, and they were great vantage points for people-watching. (I don’t mean that in a creepy way. Much.) There was this one guy, always there at the same time I was, who was obsessed with his jump rope. I mean, obsessed. He’d find an open space, and while sweating lifters and runners were toiling all around him, he’d spend half an hour trying to get a good rhythm going; I’ve got to admire his persistence, because in the months I was there I don’t think I ever saw him go more than two consecutive jumps before tripping on the rope and starting over again. He probably burned more calories bending over to re-tie his shoes than he ever did during his brief fits of cardio. On some level, he must have known what an odd spectale he was. But in the name of fitness, he was willing to go through with the public indignity – never mind that he displayed all the motor skills of an intoxicated pelican. 

 

It’s the modern lifestyle that necessitates such strange behavior. Physically fit humans have existed for centuries; Michaelangelo’s “David” has a pretty rippin’ six-pack, even though it was apparently a little chilly the day he was sculpted. But before such a thing as an “office job” was a concept, people came by their bodies naturally. They lifted heavy baskets onto the backs of donkeys and ran five miles to deliver news to nearby villages. They chopped trees to build their homes and trained with armies to invade exotic empires. We don’t do that stuff anymore. We sit in one spot for hours at a time and get carpal tunnel syndrome deleting LinkedIn requests. 

 

It’s a design flaw in the human physique that we crumble under the strain of inaction; we get around this flaw by squeezing activity into hour-long windows on our elliptical machines, or flailing around on exercise balls. It may work, but it’s not normal – not in the grand scope.

Still, it’s what we have. In some cases, it’s how we heal. I can only hope it does the trick. 

 

Ultimately, I’d still like my mouth and stomach to be closer together. But hey, one thing at a time.

 

And now the pitch

Samuel L. Jackson does commercials for Capital One now, in which he struts and glares and acts all Samuel L. Jackson-y. Talk about your mixed feelings. On the one hand, the “Pulp Fiction” and “Snakes on a Plane” star is likable in an abrasive, in-your-face kind of way that’s hard to put a finger on; yeah, he yells and swears a lot, but he also gives the impression that he’d have your back in a dark alley, like some loudmouthed and buffoonish Batman.

 

On the other hand ... it’s a commercial. Shouldn’t he be up on a silver screen somewhere, spit-barking profanities at a frightened sidekick while ninjas are scorched by the fiery breath of a bloated dragon? Dibs on the rights to that one, by the way. I’ll clear some space on the mantle now for that Academy Award.

 

Ten years, ago, it would have been disappointing to see Jackson in a commercial, because it would have denoted a demotion of sorts, a sad and sorry career slide into pitchman status. “Oh jeez,” we’d say, “look at the guy. He was the toast of Hollywood, an acid-tongued time bomb, and now he’s telling us how OxyClean gets the mother-bleeping tough stains out. Poor man. Let’s mail him a nice fan letter and a case of Schlitz.”

 

Except now, commercials are a star-studded affair. Joe Pesci’s done a Snicker’s commercial, for cryin’ out loud, and I’ve seen Drew Barrymore in at least one of those hair-swishing, eyelash-batting spots for anti-aging creams, made from the bone marrow of West Indian manatees. At some point, commercials became chic, a perfectly acceptable moonlighting gig for otherwise employable movie icons.

 

The question is: Why?

 

In the digital era, television ads are like Beyonce’s backup dancers – they’re flashy and in-your-face, but nobody really notices them. We record shows on fancy devices that give us suggestions on what to watch (if you liked “Dancing With the Stars,” you might like “Clog Dancing With Clem Kadiddlehopper!”), and this instantly renders commercials irrelevant. We simply hit fast-forward, zip through Doritos and Budweiser ads with the urgent speed of an Olympic sprinter, and then it’s back to “America’s Funniest Groin Injuries.” That hyper hop through flat beer and priced-to-own Ginsu knives may stick us with a subliminal image or two – a volleyball player chugging Gatorade, a cowboy wiping dust off his Wranglers – but nothing that would really captivate our attentions. If I were an advertiser, I’d have given up by now and commissioned spots that were nothing but a black screen for 30 seconds, with bright yellow letters reading “BUY BEER.” Not exactly glamorous, but at least people would see it.

 

Then there’s the Internet. Being a cheap, cable-less bastard, I figured out that if you have a laptop computer with an HDMI connection, you can just hook it up to your television and view streaming content as if it were an actual broadcast – a nice end-around that allows me to bypass expensive cable packages loaded with channels I’d never watch, like the Guys Staring at Lawns Channel, which is pretty much where TV is headed these days. There’s a surprisingly large number of current shows that are available for free on these sites; streaming providers try to monetize them by shoe-horning advertisements into where the normal commercial breaks would be, but these are easily avoided by downloading programs that eliminate ads completely. This means you don’t even have to fast-forward. Watching your favorite programs has now become as lazy as doing absolutely nothing, since, you know, you’re kinda doing absolutely nothing.

 

Yet there’s Alec Baldwin, beboppin’ about credit cards while being bull rushed by a hoard of angry Vikings. (’Cause historical figures and zero percent APR are a natural fit. Like peanut butter and walruses.)

 

It takes beaucoup dough to nail down top-shelf talent, and the only time it’s really worth it is during the Super Bowl, which draws gajillions of viewers on a global scale; there are probably stick-hut village settlements on the banks of obscure African rivers that get quarterly updates by carrier pigeon. One of the reasons so many non-football fans watch the game is because of the advertising, which, for one evening, is transformed from banal time-killer to big-budget jamboree. In this annual scenario, it makes sense for corporate product shillers to pony up bucks for glittery names, since much of the following day’s water cooler talk focuses on Tostitos, not touchdowns. So if I’m a big-wig ad man trying to get people gabbing about Nasty Zit Acne Cream, sure, I’ll open the company wallet and lock down a star. And if I’m tops in Tinseltown and I’m offered that gig, I’ll think, “Well, it is the Super Bowl. Beats whatever Nicholas Cage is doing.”

 

(This random swipe at a successful celebrity brought to you by State Farm. Like a good neighbor, etc., etc.)

 

Once the confetti’s been cleared off the field, commercials slip back into minor nuisance status, the television equivalent of a stray fruit fly. Perhaps the reason ad agencies have gotten more Hollywood is precisely because we’ve found ways around them; it’s hard to get noticed when you aren’t even seen. It’s just odd to see Stephen Colbert hawking chips, or Sally Field peddling Ensure. Usually those jobs would go to fresh-faced, vaguely generic-looking actors with medium-scale acting chops and teeth the impossible white of baby polar bears.

 

I guess there’ll always be a place for them in the middle-tier commercials, the AARPs and Cash For Golds. Unless of course Samuel L. Jackson feels like branching out, in which case only a Navy SEAL team and a swarm of tanks could stop him. Time to solidify your bleepin’ assets, fool.

 

Clear your plates

Eighth grade. Science class. My teacher, one of those delightful educators who’d happily go off-topic at the slightest provocation, was telling us about vanity license plates he’d seen that he considered more clever than most. On the chalkboard, in big loopy letters, he wrote “MDMD” – one of his favorites – and tasked us with teasing out its meaning.

 

We were in middle school, so most of us hadn’t yet developed the kind of boldness required to jump in with a guess. Mostly we looked around at each other helplessly and shrugged; one student wore the puzzled expression of a kid who’s just been yelled at in a foreign language.

 

One brave girl raised her hand. “An M.D. is a medical doctor...” she offered timidly.

 

“Right,” our teacher said. “And what would you call two doctors?”

 

Silence.

 

“A pair o’ docs,” he said. “Get it? Paradox.”

 

We got it. Only somehow, the answer wasn’t very satisfying. Apparently there’s only so much wit you can cram onto a license plate.

 

We kinda knew that already, though, didn’t we? I mean, vanity plates are a great idea in theory, but they tend to fall far short of their potential. I swell with minor excitement whenever I spot a plate that’s obviously not of the generic, state-issued variety; each one is an opportunity for creativity and individualism, and I think, “All right, let’s see what kind of vibes Ms. Chevy Impala is sending out into the world with the butt-end of her car.”

 

But inevitably, it’s something boring (SOXLVER), something groan-inducing (L8R G8R), or something that teases us with a phrase that’s really the beginning of a larger thought, like “MYKIDS.” On the surface, “MYKIDS” seems like a rather obvious expression of love and dedication for one’s children, but what if it isn’t? The character limit on these plates doesn’t allow for the sentence to finish itself. “MYKIDS” what, exactly? “MYKIDS have been convicted of larceny and are serving time?” “MYKIDS soil their pants every time a ‘C’ note is played on a Bolivian pan flute?” 

 

Too many possible avenues. It’s a shame both the front and back plates have to be the same; otherwise we could put the subject part of the sentence on one and the predicate on the other. “MYKIDS R GREAT.” Or maybe, “MY KIDS DO METH.” Hey, something to be said for a little honesty.

 

While they lack any sort of cleverness, one of the few types of vanity plates that are consistently passable are the ones indicating some kind of nickname, like “SPARKY,” or “BONEHED.” That’s the route I took when I was a college freshman and decided I wanted to make my car stand out – which is a tricky prospect when you’re driving a 1997 Oldsmobile Cutlas, a car which, even then, seemed perfectly suited for an eldery woman driving to the optometrist to pick up prescription bifocals. My reasoning was that a vanity plate would be an ironic  splash of frivolity; a way to advertise, with a wink, that I knew my car was lame and I was totally okay with it. Which I was. Although a Cadillac with hood-mounted laser guns would have been just peachy.

 

Problem was, I had no nickname at the time. To get one, there were two routes available to me. I could have done something to earn it, like eating nothing but steaks (surely someone would have started calling me “T-Bone”), or acquiring a mean-looking facial scar (“Hey Mugsy, what’s happenin’?”). Or I could have invented the nickname myself. So I invented one.

 

I know, I know. You’re not supposed to do that. It’s the mark of the lame, the pathetic. But my excuse was simple: I was both lame and pathetic. I wanted a plate that popped, something that would spark conversation, and this meant reaching deep into the creative well and wresting something out of the sludge. (Eww.) 

 

So I came up with “Gassman.”

 

This had a few things going for it. It’s seven characters long, perfect for a Maine license plate. It’s a play on “Lagasse,” but without being too obvious about it. And – this is a plus – it’s totally weird. It also had the intended effect of initiating conversation, although it quickly became apparent that people were reaching their own conclusions as to its meaning. Most seemed to think that I was flatulent and proud of it. They weren’t wrong, but that was beside the point.

 

The point was to be noticed. Mission accomplished, success achieved, pass the cigars, Bogey.

 

The nickname stuck, surprisingly, and so did the license plate, at least for a few years. When it came time to renew it, though, I let it gently expire like a wilted flower – a ridiculous analogy in light of the fact that we’re talking about a piece of tin covered in road grime, but its retirement, unexpectedly sentimental, was necessary. Because as successful as the plate seemed to be in garnering comment from folks in my general circle, as time went on I began to see it more objectively, the novelty having worn off. I could easily envision people staring at it in confusion. Like most vanity plates, really.

 

Curious to see what was out there, I Googled “funny vanity plates” the other day, hoping that perusal of the search results would cause me to double over with riotous guffaws. Granted, there were some amusing ones; I don’t mean to poo-poo the entire concept. “MMMBACON” was amusing (a New York plate, with an eighth character available, was perfect for this); a white Ford Bronco with the plate “NOT OJ” was a nice standout. My personal top pick is from Iowa. The owner has a plate that simply reads “BLOND,” but they screwed it onto their car upside-down. Well done, Nissan Centra, well done.

 

What bugs me is not the concept of the vanity plate itself – I had one, so of course I dig it on some level – but the many missed opportunities I see zipping around the roadways. The best ones, or at least the most consistent ones, are exercises in pure simplicity. Nothing vague, no overreaching attempts at highbrow yuks. Just a stripped-down statement of individuality, clear and free of artifice.

 

“LUVMYKIDS?”

 

Dang. Too many letters.