Chain of Fools

Chain, Chain, Chain ....

"In love all things are possible," heralded the e-mail, "this message has been sent to you for luck.  Just forward the e-mail to 20 of your most trusted friends, and the luck will be sent to you!"

A couple of months ago, somebody actually e-mailed me the electronic version of probably the most classic chain letter of all time. I was flabbergasted. How could anyone think that I, a sophisticated man of the world --- or at least, of Havertown PA --- would fall for such simple-minded superstitious claptrap?

"On the other hand," said a little voice inside me, "if there's a buck or two to be made, what's a little salt over the shoulder between friends?"

You've probably received this letter yourself a half dozen times in your life.  You remember:

"While in the Philippines, George Welch broke the chain.  51 days later, he lost his wife.  David Fairchild received the letter, and not believing, threw it away; nine days later he died. A young woman in California received the letter but put it aside.  She was plagued with various problems, including expensive car repairs."

I'd forgotten what an old pro the chain letter was at dishing out hard luck.  Its capacity for striking mortal blows was impressive, but I couldn't work myself into a lather over expensive car repairs.  Even if I were dating Mother Teresa, I'd expect expensive car repairs.

Then there were the chain's true believers: 

"Constantine Dias received the letter and asked his secretary to make 20 copies and sent them. A few days later, he won a lottery of two million dollars .... Carlos Deodity received the letter, forgot about it, and lost his job.  Later, he made 20 copies, and got a better job ..."

Even the hapless car repair lady got back into the act when:

" .... she retyped the letter, sent it on, and got a new car."

"Puerile gibberish,"  I scoffed. If the chain actually possessed the power to dispense automobiles, winning lottery tickets, and cushy sinecures, why couldn't it also learn to operate spell-check and correct its rife misspellings and third-grade grammar?

At that very moment, there welled up inside me an oddly familiar little voice. 

"What if it does work?" the voice scolded. "What's to lose?"

 "But how can it possibly work, oddly familiar little voice?"  I shot back.  And what did the chain mean "the luck has been sent to you?" 

It figures that the kind of luck I'd get would be coming third class mail through the U.S. Postal Service.  What if an unscrupulous postal worker intercepted my luck and made off with it? I could just imagine some jerk down in St. Tropez clutching onto my luck while performing prodigious sexual acts with an dizzying array of the world's top super models while I'm waiting like an idiot in Havertown PA for Tony, the mailman who picks his teeth with my K-Mart bill.

The chain was originally written, so the e-mail claimed, by:

 " ... Saul Anthony De Grou, a missionary from Venezuela," and "has been around the world 9 times." 

"If this thing actually works, I said aloud, "why isn't Father De Grou more well known?  By now he ought to at least be the Pope."

"Go ahead and let that stop you,"  chided the little voice. "Next thing you know you'll be reading that De Grou's the big winner on the premiere season of  'The Voice!'"

The chain's prayer to one St. Jude Thaddeus also bothered me. Though the prayer was marked 'Optional,' I had my doubts that St. Jude --- nice a fellow as I'm sure he is --- would come through for one of the Jewish persuasion. Constantine Dias and Carlos Diodity, the chain's most glowing success stories, didn't exactly sound like a couple of guys you'd meet over corned beef at Murray's.

But the voice was insistent.  "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio," it counseled, "that are dreamed of in your philosophy." If there's anything I'm a sucker for it's a little voice from my duodenum that quotes Shakespeare, even though I've never been partial to being called 'Horatio.'

So it was that I found myself later that day sitting in front of my PC, resolved to forward the chain to 20 of my most gullible friends and acquaintances, then sit back to reap my great good fortune.  I queued up the chain letter and began to type the list of intended recipients when suddenly something happened!  

Microsoft Windows froze.

"AHHHH, it's a sign!" the voice shrieked.  "The chain's already broken and your transmission and pan gasket will blow tomorrow!  Not to mention you and I will be dropping dead soon!"

And with that, my pint-sized alter-ego was gone.

Maybe the voice was right.  Maybe it was a sign.  A sign from far above and up on high.  A sign from Father De Grou himself!  Or Bill Gates!

A sign that chain letters really are nothing but simple-minded superstitious claptrap!

Thank you, Good Father De Grou, for reminding me of that.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like Sex for Chocolate

What’s the big deal about sex?

Why has it built and toppled empires, ruined the lives and careers of world figures from Eliot Spitzer to Adam and Eve, and dominated the thoughts and actions of people throughout all of recorded time?

After all, it’s nothing more than a transitory pleasurable experience in a relatively small part of the body.

Eating chocolate, on the other hand, produces a much more sustained period of pleasure which extends from your mouth and taste buds all the way down to your tummy!

Sometimes I wish rather than sex chocolate were our primary motivating drive.  

 “Hey, Brad,” I said to my buddy the other day. “How was your date last night? You eat chocolate with her?”

“What do you think, dude?  Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, you name it.  She even.…umm....truffled me!”

“Wow!” Not every woman will do that.

“Seems like you’re eating chocolate with a lot of different women these days,” I said. “What’s your secret?”

“Once you get ‘em into your apartment, you put on the soft music, pour on the charm, then bring out the Godiva! Before you know it you’re both headed up the Hershey Highway, and she's loving those nuts!’’

I had to admit I was jealous. 

I hadn’t eaten chocolate with a woman in years. Frankly, I’d been spending a lot of time at home on a website featuring this super hot redhead taking on an entire Whitman’s Sampler!  

Naturally the whole time I’m frantically pounding down M&Ms.

Come on, don’t act so shocked!  Like you haven't done that too!

Just about every guy on the planet wants to eat chocolate with as many attractive women as he can as often as he can. Kinsey and Masters & Johnson tell us that women love chocolate just as much as men do, but most women want to be in love with a guy before they’ll hop on his Mounds or eat his Almond Joy!

Oh, fudge it all!

Even in the chocolate world, men are from Mars and women are from Hershey's.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aquaman: Pull Out The Plug

Broadway Beat

 by Nels Noodleman  

It’s been quite an amazing spring on Broadway, folks!

South Park iconoclasts Trey Parker and Matt Stone have scored the season’s biggest hit with a musical called The Book of Mormon, and the much bally-hooed Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark continues to languish with multiple creative changes, reviews worse than your Aunt Matilda's breath, and a price tag that refers to the National Debt as “Squirt.”

Famed Broadway impresario and notary public Perry Block leaned back in his chair and smiled. “When my new musical opens,” he told me on the QT, “we’ll run them all out of town …. or at least into the lobby where they can enjoy an orange drink and a 35 minute wait for the Ladies Room!" 

That new musical is Aquaman: Pull Out the Plug, based on the superhero comic book Mr. Block used to get beaten up regularly for reading in grade school.

“My musical will shatter the myth that Aquaman is the superhero so boring you’d rather spend an evening with Alan Greenspan,” Mr. Block told this reporter. “Let’s say the late Jacques Yves Cousteau had become deranged and sought to destroy the entire universe! Who else you gonna call in? True, we’ve slightly beefed up Aquaman's powers for his Broadway debut. In addition to talking to fish, he can now also talk to vegetables, such as some parsley!”

I asked about the intriguing new villain the play refers to as "the brilliant but demonically fiendish" Dr. Moriarty.

“Yeah, we snaked him from the Sherlock Holmes books and movies,” readily offered the sly Mr. Block, "since the most exciting villain in the original Aquaman comic books was a mackerel.  Frankly we're also considering swapping out AquaLad for Dr. Watson since they're so busy retooling the franchise with Robert Downy Jr. they'd hardly notice that  Holmes’ sidekick suddenly spends the better part of his time gill breathing at the bottom of the Thames.”

Mr. Block is no stranger to Broadway audiences. In recent years he has produced such classics as Jesus Christ Superstar performed entirely by Hassidic Jews; Enter Slapping, a musical based on the life of Three Stooges centerman Larry Fine; and last season’s musical comedy smash Once, Twice, Three Times A Lady starring Newt Gingrich.

“We have a wonderful musical score with music and lyrics written by the legendary Rogers and Hammerhead (Ouch, folks!)," Mr. Block beamed.  "Among the ‘sure to be a hit’ numbers are If I were a Fishman, the haunting ballad High Tide, Low Tide, and the rousing show-stopper Hello Dolphins!”

“What about safety problems such as those that have plagued the production of Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark?” I queried Mr. Block. “We have had very, very few such issues,” he informed me. “Two or three actors experienced cramps on one occasion they went into rehearsal less than 45 minutes after eating, and our lead actor briefly came down with a very mild case of wrinkly fingertips.”

“I’m thrilled to be able to present a dynamic hard-swimming, singing and tap-dancing Aquaman to a new generation of fans,” Mr. Block enthused as he graciously excused himself and headed out to a 6 or 7 martini lunch at Sardi’s.

Having been around the Great White Way ever since it was called the Pretty Good White Way, this Broadway vet thinks Aquaman: Pull Out the Plug will make one great big SPLASH at the Box Office!  

Break a Fin, Aquaman!

After all, folks, what other superhero can all at once command an army of sharks, swim faster than Michael Phelps, and taste absolutely scrumptious in a butter sauce?

From your very own Broadway Buddy,


Mr. Nels Noodleman

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One Last Bedtime Story

Last week, my son Brandon turned 16.

It’s an exciting time for him. Driving an automobile is just around the corner that he’ll soon be driving around himself, new friends and experiences beckon on the horizon, and a lifetime of promise and opportunity awaits.

Why the fuck can’t he still be 6?

To rekindle those golden days of  six-year-old yore 'ere they slip away to where I can’t chloroform them and drag them home kicking and screaming, I thought it’d be nice one last time to read Brandon a bed time story.

“Brandon," said I, "I've got an idea.  How about tonight I favor you with a bedtime story?”

“I’m good, Dad.” 

“No, Bran. You see, this is a life experience that shortly we’ll never be able to duplicate. Plus, not to  invoke guilt, I diapered you, took you to Disney World, and bought you an X-Box."  

"Okay. As long as it doesn’t take too long. Got a math test tomorrow.”

“I’ve selected a wonderful book: The Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown.”

“Dad, I believe that’s Goodnight (pause) Moon. The way you read it with the word 'the' and no pause makes it sound like a fraternity prank from Animal House.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me something before we get started?”

"I’m good, Dad.” 

“No, you see, you’re supposed to ask May I have a drink of water, please?"

“I’m not thirsty.”

“No, you’re REQUIRED to ask it! It’s part of the gestalt.” 

“All right, all right! May I have a drink of water, please?”

“We have tap water, Deer Park, and Evian.”

“Dad, read the story.”

“Yeah, sure.  Here goes ... In the great green room, there was a telephone, and a red balloon ... Hey, Bran, I wonder why the characters are bunnies. Do you think Ms. Brown was trying to illustrate the oneness and commonality of all creatures great and small?”

“I think she thought bunnies were cute, Dad.”

“And a comb and a brush and a bowl full of mush …  Say, Bran, did I ever make you my special lump-free Cream of Wheat?” 

“Yeah, Dad. Tasted like a bowl full of mush.”

“And a quiet old lady whispering ‘hush’ ... Hey! Quiet old lady? I don’t like that reference! It ought to be a pensive but still lithe and attractive post-Boomer woman.”

“Dad, this isn’t a politically correct reading of Huck Finn. I think you ought to read it like it is.”

“Now where was I?  Oh yeah ... Goodnight moon. Goodnight cow jumping over the moon... You know, that would be quite a prodigious physical accomplishment for a cow! Do you think Cirque de Soleil could train one to …." 

“I think Cirque de Soleil is doing quite well without a cow , Dad.”

“Goodnight stars ... Why, that sounds like the tag line at the end of the  Hollywood Squares.  Ha, that Charley Weaver!”

"Dad. Math test tomorrow.”

“Goodnight nobody. Goodnight mush … Now why would anybody say Goodnight nobody? Unless it's me at the end of an evening after getting my usual response on Twitter!” 

“Dad, please. Could we just move on?”

“And Goodnight noises everywhere ... The End.

“Very nice, Dad. Goodnight.”

“Uh, Bran?”

“Yeah, Dad?”

“My knees are kind of a little stiff right now.”

“So?”

“May I have a drink of water, please?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~