It could be it’s time to update the image a bit

It may be time to get a new photo taken to run with this column. The current mugshot, though devastatingly handsome (I think we can all agree on that much, right?), just doesn’t look much like me.

That pic is nearly 10 years old, for one thing. Also, it was heavily “massaged” in Photoshop to remove eye bags, wrinkles and the cowlick that pops up, Alfalfa-like, from the top of my head no matter how much product I use in my ongoing and fruitless attempts to beat it down.

But mostly, the problem stems from time, and its inexorable passage. When that picture was taken, I was still reasonably young and possessed all the best physical characteristics of Brad Pitt and Tom Selleck, with maybe a little David Bowie thrown in, just to keep in touch with my feminine side.

The point is, I was drop dead gorgeous. And incredibly humble, to boot.

These days, however, if they were to make a movie of my life, Jack Nicholson could play the “current me,” but only if he were willing to pack on an additional 20 pounds for the role. Whatever fleeting good looks I may once have possessed have fled indeed and show no signs of returning anytime soon.

In fact, if I understand this “aging” thing at all, odds are I’m only going to get UGLIER from here on out! And despite my earlier comments (the unkind might call them “lies”) about resembling Brad and Tom, I was never really all that attractive to begin with.

The way I have it figured, if I live as long as I plan to — 127 — at my current rate of decay, I will look a lot like Quasimodo by the time I celebrate my final birthday.

But I’m getting off topic here, which is my column photo. I know it’s time for a new one, because of something that happened last weekend.

I was playing with my little weekend band, The Guinness Brothers, at a bar up in Newaygo. The Driftwood is a nice joint and we play there a lot, especially during the summer months.

Following our second set, a fella introduced himself and commented on how much he liked the band. He asked for a card, since he knew of a club in Spring Lake that was looking for new bands to play there. I gave him one.

“Thanks,” he said, glancing at the card. “Oh, Mike Taylor. Like the guy who writes that column.”

“Almost exactly like him,” I said.

He looked at me intently. “It’s you!” he said. “I read your column every week. I even have some stuck up on the refrigerator.”

Now, believe me, in the world of newspaper columnists, getting stuck beneath someone’s refrigerator magnet is high praise indeed and no, I am not kidding. I’d take that over an Associated Press award any day of the week.

I was flattered. But then the guy ruined it by saying, “I’ve seen your band a dozen times. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you.” He gazed at me piercingly again, trying to reconcile the reasonably presentable column photo with the ruined Troglodyte monstrosity hunching before him.

“It’s an old photo,” I said, finally. He nodded. I could tell he was mentally trying to assess how many decades had elapsed since the pic was taken. I’m glad I’m not a mind reader; I don’t think I would have been happy knowing his final tally.

At any rate, I’m planning to get another mugshot taken the next time I’m wearing a dark jacket and having a good hair day at the same time. Could be months from now.

Meanwhile, if you want to get some idea of what I really look like, all you need is some Silly Putty. Make a Silly Putty transfer of my mugshot from the newspaper (if you don’t know how to do this, you were never a child), then stretch it horizontally. Using a Magic Marker, add dark circles under the eyes and a cowlick to the hair, maybe a few wrinkles.

Voila! A preview of my new column photo! Coming soon.

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Diplomacy happens one noodle at a time

Ramen figures prominently in my diet. I’m a single guy, so this is in keeping with the established order of things.

It’s not that I’m particularly poor (though I am) or uncreative in the kitchen. I was raised in the restaurant business and have been cooking for decades. I can make a quiche that’s lighter than air, stir fry Szechuan that’ll bring tears to your eyes, create an awesome venison stew, all without cracking a cook book.

But I don’t.

Because I’m single, the kids are grown and moved out, and ramen noodles are ready in three minutes. I usually toss in whatever leftover bits of vegetables and/or meat products I have in the refrigerator — the ones that have yet to sprout green hair — and voila! Dinner is served and I can go fishing.

I assume the nutritional value of ramen is roughly the same as the packaging it comes in, but I don’t care. I take a vitamin every day (purchased from the same dollar store at which I buy the ramen) so I’m all set with regard to health issues.

The taste of Ramen is OK; nothing to write home about, but I never wrote home about food anyway, or anything else, now that I think about it. 

The different flavors concern me, though. I mean, the chicken flavor is (supposedly) flavored with real chicken; the beef and shrimp flavors with real beef or shrimp. Which leaves one to wonder what they use to season the Chinese flavor. Real Chinese? I hope not, but things are different there; there is no FDA and China’s population tops 1.350 billion. Who really knows what sort of Soylent Green stratagem noodle manufacturers have come up with to turn a buck?

Most Americans think ramen tastes pretty much the same from brand to brand, from flavor to flavor. This is because it does. The Asian palate, however, is far more discriminating, at least when it comes to noodles.

Toshio Yamamoto, a computer hardware engineer from Japan, recently announced he has spent the past 15 years cataloguing all the Japanese ramen he could find. His noodle database offers information on texture, price, flavor and ingredients for over 4,300 different brands and types of noodles.

From this we may discern that Yamamoto is a) an idiot, b) likely to remain single for life, and c) a man in need of a real hobby.

Because of his diligent work, however, we can now check to see, conclusively, if Chinese people are actually an ingredient in any ramen noodles. Or rather we could, if we could read Japanese, which we cannot. (And when I say “we” I mean “me.”)

To me, Japanese writing looks like beautiful, elegant, squiggly lines. When I hit the Google “translate” button, some of the squiggly lines change shape slightly, but remain unintelligible to my round, western eyes.

I have a couple Japanese friends in Detroit who could probably help me with this, but I haven’t seen them in a while. Besides, asking them if there are Chinese people in their noodles might be perceived as racist. Being a liberal Gaijin (basically, the Japanese word for “honky”), I can’t let that happen.

So for now, I think I’ll just stick with the chicken flavor and avoid an international incident.

Mike Taylor’s book, “Looking at the Pint Half Full,” is available in paperback at Robbins Book List in Greenville and in eBook format from Amazon.com. More Reality Check online at mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com.

How I found Jesus while feeding chickens

It was the summer of 1973; what most folks really mean when they say “the ‘60s.” 

Inflation was rampant, the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade, Nixon told the world — with a straight face — that he was “not a crook.” I wasn’t paying attention to any of it.

I was just a kid, 17, and world events played little part in my daily life. My girlfriend, Dianne, had dumped me a couple months earlier (yes, it was happening even then!) and I was waiting for my broken heart to mend. I had too much time on my hands and too little to do.

Which is why sunrise on the Fourth of July found me sitting on my guitar case by the Leonard Street on-ramp. Two dollars and 39 cents nestled lonely in my pocket, my battered backpack — containing only a box of Rye Crisp crackers and three pieces of beef jerky — leaned against the guard rail. I raised my thumb in the direction I wanted to go: south and west.

The second car to roll past, a Country Squire station wagon just like the one my parents owned and driven by a little old lady, picked me up. She took me most of the way through Indiana.

She was a sweet old gal who said I reminded her of her son, who had died a few years earlier in Vietnam. She slipped twenty bucks in my backpack when she finally dropped me off just outside Terre Haute.

From there, a series of cars and trucks — driven by hippies, gay guys, old couples, cute girls — moved me along as far as Hodgeman County, Kansas. An inebriated guy in a pickup let me out just outside a mid-sized city with the improbable name of Jetmore.

It was there I sat for 18 hours straight without getting a lift. Back then, it seemed everyone was willing to pick up a hitch-hiker, even one as scruffy and (probably) smelly as I was after a week on the road. But not in Jetmore. Eighteen hours, man; that’s a long time to sit by a freeway on-ramp.

When the rain started, I was not surprised.

Eventually, a rusted out Chevy van eased to the shoulder and honked. A girl about my age hopped out the passenger door, lifted the back hatch and loaded in my guitar case while I grabbed my pack.

The first question was always the same: “Where you headed?” 

“Phoenix,” I said.

“Oh, we’re just going 20 miles down the road, but at least that’ll give you a chance to dry off.”

I thanked her and closed the hatch. Twenty miles was 20 miles. Not far, but better than nothing.

Instead of smelling like pot (a lot of Chevy vans did back then) getting into this one I was greeted with the good earth smell of potatoes, though none were in evidence.

“How ya doing, man?” said Jesus, the van’s driver. He wasn’t really Jesus, but he did look exactly like him, assuming the real Jesus looked exactly like the guy who played him in that “Superstar” movie.

“You look like Jesus,” I said.

He laughed. “Yeah, I get that a lot, man.”

The driver’s was Dave, not Jesus, but it turned out he and the girl — I forget her name — were Jesus freaks. That’s what people called them at the time; it wasn’t derogatory.

They were very nice, though they both did their best to redeem my misbegotten soul in the half-hour it took to get to the commune where they lived with a dozen other 20-something hippies.

The rain had not abated and when they asked me to stay the night, I gratefully accepted. The night turned into a week, the week into two weeks, two weeks into three.

My “job” was to feed the chickens, shovel out coops, and gather eggs. In exchange, I received a bed, organic (and lousy) food, and more prayer meetings than Mother Theresa would have been able to handle comfortably. It didn’t take me long to fall into the rhythm of the place.

I got to know Sandy, one of the girls who lived there. We shared a brief romance and when she announced she was moving back to her folk’s house in Los Angeles, I talked her into dropping me in Glendale, near Phoenix, even though it was a couple hours out her way.

I didn’t get back to Michigan until summer was well over and autumn begun. I learned a lot that summer, about chickens, Jesus, and guys who only look like Jesus.

I can’t honestly say I’d like to do it all again. But like almost everything I’ve done in this life, I’m glad I did it once.

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