I’d hate for this column to bring about the end of life on Earth

I’ve finally made the big time. Yup. My column is so famous that someone is stealing from me. Or trying to.

They’re not plagiarizing me, nothing like that. They (and I have no idea who “they” are at this point) have high jacked my website.

I found out about it yesterday when a reader alerted me to the problem. The website is a blog containing several year’s worth of this “Reality Check” column.

The site was slow to grow when I first set it up way back when. Actually, my daughter, Aubreii, who is far more computer literate than am I, set it up. All I’ve had to do for the past half-dozen years is plug my column into it each week. So easy even a geezer can handle it (which may be my motto for an invention to be named later; maybe an electric back hair shaver or advanced Life Alert pendant).

Online traffic picked up, though, despite the fact the blog contains nothing but this column. Apparently, that increased traffic is what attracted the hackers, who turned my site into an advertisement for some sort of phone app, one that makes memes, I think.

This is sort of ironic, because as a rule, I hate memes. I swear, if I see one more unicorn in a foggy field trying to give me personal relationship advice, I’m going to go out with  my shotgun and return home with a nice, one-horn trophy. But that’s a gripe for another time.

Point is, the meme app people have taken over my blog. It loads up alright, but as soon as the page is complete, it disappears and the meme app ad pops up in its place. I’ve emailed the Blogspot people to alert them to the problem and I’m hoping they fix it quick, before readers  start thinking I’m trying to sell them something (which I’m not, not since I unloaded the last copy of my book).

I may never know who is behind this nefarious high jacking scheme, but I’m gonna go ahead and blame it on the Russians. They seem to be doing this sort of thing a lot lately.

Also, my column still runs in several English-speaking Russian newspapers. I agreed to that years ago, when I was also writing a horoscope column for those same newspapers. The publisher, Vladimir (not Putin, at least I don’t think it’s Putin) liked my work and asked if he could run “Reality Check” as well as the horoscope.

Since I’m an incredibly savvy businessman I said “Sure!” without ever discussing remuneration. Since then, Vlad has been snagging the column from my blog every week and printing it in his Moscow-area publications. I’ve never received a dime (or a ruble) for this. Frankly, I was just so jazzed to think of my humble little scribblings going out to thousands of Russian readers that the cash seemed unimportant.

There’s a reason I’m perpetually broke.

The downside, obviously, is that all that attention attracted the (allegedly) Russian hackers. And I think we all know what sort of damage they can do when they set down their vodka and really start coding.

I was mildly upset earlier this year when I, along with the rest of the country, learned the Rooskies had messed with the presidential election. That was bad enough, but  now they’re really starting to tick me off. This is my column, man! Keep your borscht-smelling fingers off it!

Still, maybe it’s not the Russians. I hope it’s not. I’ve always liked Russians, at least the few I’ve met. Every now and then I get an email from a Russian reader, generally complimentary and filled with Glasnost era sentiments.

Even if those emails  weren’t complimentary, it would seem a good idea to me to stay as chummy as possible with a country that has a gazillion nuclear warheads, some of which are probably still pointed in our general direction.

I’d hate for the hacking of my blog to be the cause of  all-out nuclear Armageddon.

So maybe I shouldn’t be too quick to accuse the Russians. Maybe it was the French.

Do the French have nukes?

Mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 730-1414

                                                               

Parting with a best friend is sometimes more than we can bear

My grandson, Ari, is in love with a bear. He’s two. The bear’s been his friend since birth and the two are inseparable.

He sleeps with Bear, he eats with Bear, when he bathes, Bear is there beside the tub, waiting patiently.

It’s hard to say how long the relationship will last. A dark truth of parenthood (and grandparenthood) is this: children grow up. Stuffed bears do not. And as anyone who’s ever heard the song, “Puff the Magic Dragon” already knows, little boys move on to other toys and stuffed friends are left behind.

But the transient nature of the relationship in no way diminishes the love there. Neither does the fact one of the participants is still wearing diapers and the other is made of cotton and polyester.

It’s real.

I know this for a fact. Because the best friend I ever had was made of cotton. He was a dog. Or, to grant him proper noun status, he was “Doggie.” I don’t remember when I got him, but Doggie is there in my earliest, gauzy memories.

Doggie was my confidante, my friend, my co-conspirator, my ally when there were no other allies. He shared my joys and tears, never judging, never unengaged.

His long, flappy ears were fuzzy on one side and red flannel on the other. His ice blue eyes were deep marbles of understanding that seemed to grasp my myriad preschool  miseries better than anyone else in my life at the time. He didn’t mind if I occasionally chewed on his plastic nose as I fell asleep.

His wind-up music box, cleverly secreted away in his stomach, lulled me to the land of dreams every night.

When my guinea pig died, Doggie didn’t say, “He’s only a rodent.” He knew my heart was breaking and offered nothing but unconditional support.

I traded Doggie away once. I must have been six or seven; I don’t remember exactly. Chuck, the kid who lived next door, had found a wounded baby robin. Chuck was a jerk; he and a couple other kids were tossing the bird back and forth, laughing,  trying to get it to fly.

The bird wasn’t going to survive the experiment. So I offered to trade Doggie for the wounded bird. In my kid mind, I hadn’t quite figured out that trading something meant it would be gone from my life from that moment onward.

But I understood that night, when it was time for bed. My mom tucked me in, as usual. I snuggled under the covers, as usual. But something was missing. I couldn’t sleep.

I missed my friend.

An hour or two later, my folks checked in on me, as parents do. I was still awake, sobbing quietly. Over a stuffed dog.

My old man, to his eternal credit, went next door and offered Chuck five bucks for Doggie’s return. Five bucks was a lot of money back then.

I never again considered trading Doggie away. Ever. He stayed with me through my childhood, though I’ll admit he was eventually relegated less esteemed status and moved from my pillow to the foot of the bed. In time, he was tossed into a toy box with the other flotsam and jetsam of early childhood.

But somehow, as childhood gave way to my teen years, as the GI Joes and Tonka trucks slowly vanished from my life, Doggie remained. He moved with me into my first apartment, a Detroit hovel in which a killer pit bull would have made a more practical pet.

He followed me to several other apartments. A dozen different girlfriends thought it was “cute” that I still had my special stuffed childhood toy. I never thought of him as cute. Doggie, even after all those years, was not a toy; he remained my friend.

My buddies teased me about it from time to time. I didn’t care. I was one of the lucky few who never allocated peer pressure more weight than it deserves (which, generally, is none).

I finally lost Doggie when I lost my first wife. He was in a box in a closet somewhere and when I left (under a hail of automatic weapons fire) I forgot to take him with me. By the time I remembered, my ex had moved twice and at some point thrown him away.

It broke my heart to think of him moldering away in a landfill. But nothing lasts forever. Which, as my grandson could tell us, is the reason we need friends like Doggie and Bear in the first place.

Mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 745-9530

Staying cool defeats my weight loss program

I get a kick out of articles detailing supposedly new and innovative ways to “beat the heat.” They’ve been popping up on my social media feeds and in newspapers for a month now, ever since Earth slipped its orbit and began its headlong plunge into the sun. (That’s what I assume has happened.)

It’s 93 degrees outside as I write this. And a few degrees cooler inside, thanks to The Lovely Mrs. Taylor’s new air conditioner and several strategically-placed fans. Still, miserable for anyone who isn’t from the planet Mercury.

Those articles offer all sorts of advice for keeping cool as you go about your day. Splashing water on your face, running cool water over your wrists, fanning yourself in a shady spot beneath a willow tree while a Polynesian girl feeds you peeled grapes. All sound great in print, yet somehow seem too much bother when you’re trying to conduct your work routine.

Also, Polynesian girls are hard to come by in these parts.

As a rule, my own “work” consists of sitting on my expansive backside in front of one of those aforementioned fans with a laptop open in front of me. But every so often, I’m forced (by Mrs. Taylor) to work beneath the open skies.

And by work, I don’t mean typing away while thinking deep thoughts. I mean real work. Man work. The kind of work that ruins your hands and gets your khakis dirty, that leaves you with cuts, bruises, slivers and an aching back.

Yesterday was such a day. It was “only” 90, so it could have been worse. Not much worse – not without the atmosphere bursting into a ball of flame – but still, worse.

Mrs. T wanted another raised planting bed. I’ve built her two already this spring, but she’s decided we’re going to be farmers and real farmers, apparently, have at least three. So hi-ho, hi-ho, it was off to work I go. (Not grammatically correct, but so what, it’s hot. Leave me alone.)

I’ve been trying to use up an enormous stack of scrap lumber left behind the garage by our home’s previous owner. It consists of the remnants of old porch swings, picket fences, a couple doors and other miscellaneous boards and planks. To go through it all, I’d have to build a full scale scrap wood model of the Coliseum, but I figured the garden beds was a start.

I started in the early morning (which for me, in my semi-retirement, means 10 o’clock). I was wearing my already ruined garden pants and an old, button-down shirt over a t-shirt. My lucky fishing hat – which smells like a pail of week-old trout – was perched jauntily on my head.

By noon the button-down was hanging on my band saw, dripping sweat and sawdust onto the lawn. As the temps climbed to 88, then 89, I soaked my hat with the garden hose and returned it to my head, hoping the evaporative process would keep me from melting. It didn’t work, despite what I’d read in a Facebook post.

By 3 p.m., I broke one of my cardinal rules and stripped off the t-shirt. Outside. Something I’ve promised my neighbors I would never do again, not since the case of Mrs. Labowski’s hysterical blindness last summer. I swear it wasn’t my fault; I hadn’t realized things had progressed that far during the winter.

At any rate, I finally broke down and went back inside to change into shorts. After an hour’s more work, even the shorts felt uncomfortable.

I considered just going the full Monty, but was worried I might snag some untoward appendage on a splintery board. Also, I’m pretty sure that, even out here in the sticks, there are rules against nude home improvement projects.

Just before sunset I finished the planting bed. I put my tools away, or rather, dragged them into semi-sheltered areas in case of rain, turned on the sprinkler and lay there in its cooling spray.

I tried to imagine we have an Olympic-sized pool with a cool, crystal fountain at one end. Because of my semi-delirious, heat induced brain warp, this actually worked. At least until the ants started biting me.

This morning when I stepped onto the scale, I discovered I’d lost five pounds. Five pounds, man!

I figure if I do a project like that every day for the next month and the temps stay in the 90s, there may come a time I can take my shirt off in public without blinding the neighbor lady.

Mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 730-1414

Why do we work so hard to impress the Lord of the Flies?

I’m glad I’m not a woman. Does that sound sexist? Because that’s not my intent here. I’m glad I’m not a woman because it seems like too much work.

I base this on observations I’ve made of The Lovely Mrs. Taylor. She’s working all the time. From my vantage point in the aptly-named La-Z-Boy, it doesn’t look like a great deal of fun.

Mrs. T works 40 hours a week at a “real” job, doing accounting stuff. This is a good thing, since it’s the only chance she has to relax. The rest of the time she’s slogging away around here like a character from an Alex Haley novel, a character who’s not going to be able to relax until Lincoln wins the Civil War.

She works hard. She gardens. She cleans. She changes the sheets, does most of the cooking, dusts, attends to the cats’ litter box. A lot of stuff. And when she’s done with that, she tries to find time to create art, which is what she really wants to be doing instead of other peoples’ payroll forms.

Sometimes it makes her a little crabby. That’s not a complaint on my part, by the way. If I lived her life, I’d have killed someone by now; probably several someones.

The hardest part, though, is when we have company. Doesn’t matter who. Could be the Pope, the president, or some guy selling life insurance. Visitors, in Mrs. T’s mind, deserve our best. Put another way: she wants to present an entirely fictional version of our lives, one in which our bathroom floor is more sterile than an open heart operating theater.

This is on my mind because last weekend my daughter surprised us with a visit.

This is my daughter. I love her, but the entire time she lived under my roof I felt like a hog farmer. The girl was a pig. She (and all her friends) covered her bedroom walls with Sharpie-inspired “poetry.” Her idea of organizing laundry consisted of kicking like-colored clumps of clothing into mouldering piles. Storing a half-eaten ham sandwich beneath her bed was not unheard of.

Living with my daughter was much like living with a really smart chimpanzee. But not an especially tidy chimpanzee.

I would say she never threw her feces, but there was one time when she was only three or so… But that’s a story for another time.

My point is, she was not exactly Martha Stewart. Unless you want to compare her with my sons. Jordan and James, as teens, made chimpanzees look like Emily Post. (I know that’s a dated metaphor, but hang with me here.) When one of the boys got sick, I didn’t know whether to call a doctor or a vet. They were one pig head short of “The Lord of the Flies” and I promise that’s my last literary reference for this column.

My children were savages. And that’s fine. I was a single, male, parent. Savages were pretty much the best I could hope for and they all turned out to be fine, upstanding adults any parent would be proud of, so there.

Their own homes are relatively tidy. Looking at them now, you’d never guess there was a time they could have passed for extras in “The Island of Doctor Moreau” and apparently I had one literary reference waiting in the wings after all.

So why does Mrs. Taylor act as if they’re visiting royalty whenever they stop by? For the life of me, I do not know.

Aubreii called around noon last Sunday. She was in town visiting one of my ex-wives (the one that is her mother) and wanted to stop by on her way back to Detroit.

“Sure,” I said.

And then I made the mistake of telling Mrs. T about the visit. For the next three hours, my wife performed what she calls “The Flight of the Bumblebee,” cleaning every nook, cranny, and cranny-nook in the house. All this for a girl who once smeared feces (chimp-like) from her diaper (and her brother’s) on a bedroom wall.

By the time Aubreii arrived with my grandmonsters, Rosie, Ari and Juniper, Mrs. T was beat. The house was spotless, but so? We’re still talking feces smearers here, folks. A spotless presentation was not a requirement, in my mind.

I appreciated Mrs. T’s hard work, but I doubt anyone else noticed. It’s the same story when Mrs. Taylor’s kids and grandkids show up. It’s not fair that the woman who works so hard already must work even harder to accommodate company (by which I mean our aforementioned chimp-like progeny).

Fortunately, Mrs. T recently read an article about exactly this thing; working too hard to impress. I don’t know if it totally cured her, but I’m hopeful. Next time a kid visits, we’ll know for sure.

Mrs. T was raised thinking she had to compete with June Cleaver. But the Beav’s mother never had to work 40 hours a week doing other peoples’ books. I’m really hoping she’ll be able to relax a little next time one of our chimps want to stop by for barbecue.

Mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 730-1414

I’ll take bacon grease over coconut oil anytime

I recently read that coconut oil is good for me. Or maybe it’s bad for me. To be honest, I don’t remember which it was, but the article definitely had something to do with coconut oil and robust health.

My memory is vague on the topic, since I read about 30 articles a day dealing with that whole “good for you bad for you” issue. It’s hard to keep them straight in my head, especially since I’ve usually had a couple beers by the time I settle in for the evening’s reading.

Yes, beer. Historically, bad for you. Recent research, however, says otherwise. A couple beers, scientists who study this sort of thing say, are actually good for the heart. This is why I love science.

Coffee’s another one. Used to be bad for you, then it was good for you. I’m not sure where the matter stands currently, but even if they reported it might cause me to grow gills and flippers, I’d drink it anyway. Cocaine’s illegal, so I need coffee; it’s a simple as that.

And of course you can open any magazine in America and read stories purporting the health benefits and/or assured lethality of red meat, whole grains, butter, avocados, hot dogs, salt, pumpkin pie, ice cream, asparagus and certain brands of cat food.

Americans love to read about food, though – based on my observations at the beach last summer and my own reflection in the mirror – we don’t often take the proffered advice. For the most part, we eat what we want.

Health experts spend a lot of time gnashing their teeth and wailing over this phenomenon, but not me. I think it’s a good thing.

Why? Well, because I love ice cream and bacon, sometimes together; that’s one reason. Also, I think stressing overmuch about your food intake is more likely to cause health problems than might anything you put in your mouth.

For the most part, I follow the culinary philosophy of my Great Grandmother Kelly. She lived through the Depression and if you believed her stories, there were days when her family of 13 children and two parents had to eat boiled dirt. Not the good dirt, either, but the dusty stuff that blew off the road when the milk wagon passed.

When, as a young child sharing Sunday dinner at her place, I would inquire as to the identity of a food item – “What is this great-gramma?” – she would reply, “Shut up and eat it.”

When you’ve lived on boiled dirt, your patience can grow thin.

Whether the dish was chicken, beef, lamb or – who knows? – boiled dirt, great-gramma’s cuisine was to die for. Everything always tasted great and nobody left the table hungry.

Great gramma never gave a thought to the potential health benefits of a dish. If it provided enough calories to keep you alive, it was healthy. If not, she fed it to the chickens and then ate them when they grew large enough.

She didn’t need the latest issue of Cosmopolitan to tell her that steamed okra would put the sparkle back in her love life. If she could grow it in her backyard garden, it went on the table.

As far as I know, great gramma never exercised, either. Unless you count running a small farm, maintaining a home, raising kids, grandkids, chickens and goats exercise. But she wasn’t fat. I would guess she weighed in at about 90 pounds.

And yet, everything she cooked was fried in the same medium: bacon grease. She kept a coffee can on the back of her stove. Every day, she would take the bacon grease left over from breakfast and pour it from the cast iron skillet into that coffee can. Once cooled, she’d place a lid over the can to keep it “fresh.”

To the best of my knowledge, that same can of grease had been sitting there since 1936. Nobody ever died from eating food cooked in it. Great gramma herself lived to be 98 and was reasonably healthy right up until a few months before she passed through this veil of tears and went to her everlasting reward.

Her daughter, my grandmother, likewise lived into her late 90s, eating the same diet she’d learned as a kid.

So now the experts are telling me I’ve got to eat like a bunny if I want to see 70? No. Sorry, dude, that ain’t gonna happen. I’m over 60 and can still ride my bicycle as far as most people ever drive a car, though probably not as fast. I’ll take my chances and live by the ethos shared by great gramma’s generation: if it tastes good, I’ll eat it.

If it’s fried in bacon grease instead of coconut oil, I’ll have seconds.

Mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 730-1414

I’ll have a side of guilt with that chicken, please

It was a tough day for my eldest son when he found out the grim truth about chickens. He was five or six. But he was a sensitive kid and the news hit him pretty hard.

I was a single parent and a man, so take-out food figured prominently in our diet. We were sitting down to a dinner in which the image of a southern colonel figured prominently. That’s when I made the mistake of saying, “Oh, boy! Chickee buck buck!”

Now, chickee buck buck is what Jordan called all live chickens. Being a city boy, like his old man, he’d only seen a few.

“Chickee buck buck?” he said. “Like the bird?”

“Sure,” I said, not really understanding the note of horror in his voice.

“This cooked chicken is, like, from a chicken?” he said.

“Well, yeah,” I said. “Where’d you think chicken comes from?”

I never forgot his reply: “I thought it came from a factory,” he said. “Like pizza.”

The notion that he was eating a cute, little (previously) feathered idiot put a large dent in Jordan’s appetite that night. My daughter, Aubreii – considerably more pragmatic than her brother and immune to the plight of domesticated fowl – was happy to partake of his seconds.

At the time it seemed just another amusing anecdote, one more episode in the ongoing weirdness that is parenthood. But lately, 30-odd years later, it has again been on my mind.

I’m sure it’s because of the birds now living in my back yard and – if I turn my back for ten seconds and leave a door open – in my garage, living room, kitchen and so on. There are eight of them. Because The Lovely Mrs. Taylor decided we should raise chickens.

They’re not laying eggs yet, but they almost certainly will at some point. And I’ll admit it’s fun to be a chicken farmer. Or rancher. Whatever chicken people are called.

The problem is, I was – as previously mentioned – raised in the city. I don’t have a farmer’s mentality. Farm kids grow up thinking of chickens (and bunnies, goats, cows, etc.) as food, rather than pets. I know this because I recently bought a couple rabbits from the kids down the dirt road and they offered to give me the name of a guy who would “process” them for me.

I wasn’t aware rabbits needed to apply for citizenship or a driver’s license and said so, which the kids found amusing. But I’m not going to eat them. I’m going to pet them and squeeze them and call them George. They will never be processed.

That goes for the chickens as well. They’re egg factories, period. When, in the fullness of time they depart this mortal coil, they’ll be buried with all the honors afforded our dead cats and dogs up on Pet Cemetery Hill on the east side of the property. It will be a solemn occasion marked by bagpipe music and that verse from Ecclesiastes about ashes and dust.

I sure as hell won’t be eating them.

But see, that’s the problem. When Mrs. T first brought the chicks home, they were just mindless, little bundles of fluff. It took a few weeks, but they grew into ugly bundles of feathers and gawky beaks. Now, at last, they’re starting to look like proper chickens.

But they’re also developing personalities. This is the part I didn’t expect. I mean, they’re like cats or dogs, man! Some are friendly, some are stand-offish. Some walk up to me and peck my sneakers until I pick them up and pet them. They’re … aware.

I’ve begun to see them not only as a food source, but – like my son of 30 years past – as individuals, with minds of their own. Granted, those minds are the size of a walnut and for the most part almost as smart, but still, they think.

Problem is, I love chicken. Deep fried, I mean. Add some ‘taters and coleslaw, baby, and I am in gastronomical heaven!

Ditto steak, seafood, and bacon. Or, as they’re known prior to the abattoir, cows, fish and pigs. There’s just no way I’m going to become a vegetarian over some city boy crises of conscience here.

In the future, I won’t be eating my chickens, but I will be eating chicken. I guess I’ll just have to find a way to choke down a heapin’ helping of guilt with every meal.

After 30 years, I think I finally understand my son’s horror.

Mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 730-1414

Out here on the farm, I’m living the wild life

OK, this animal business is getting out of hand. I’m beginning to feel like Eva Gabor on “Green Acres.” I was raised in the city man! Detroit! Phoenix! Chicago!

I get allergic smelling hay!

But The Lovely Mrs. Taylor has decided we’re going to be farmers. Small-scale, petting zoo type farmers, but still. Farmers.

First it was the cats, which was OK. Lots of what I think of as “normal” folks have cats. We started with two. We’re up to seven, which is where it’s going to stay. Probably.

Then this spring came the chickens. Eight of them. Against all odds, they all survived chickhood and are now big, clucking morons racing around my back yard eating bugs and copiously fertilizing the lawn.

Maybe it’s because I feed them treats more often than I should, but the birds love me. If I’m outside, they follow me around like Indians trailing Gandhi to the Arabian Sea to make salt. If I could get them to hold still for my sermons, I might set myself up as an avian prophet of some sort.

Then last week we added bunnies. Just two of them. But they’re bunnies, and you know what bunnies do.

I’m pretty sure the addition of the rabbits has slaked Mrs. Taylor’s thirst for wildlife, at least for the moment. She’s mentioned the possibility of goats, but she can’t follow through on that until I build a shelter and corral of some sort and I plan to drag my feet on that one until hell freezes over, if necessary.

Still, despite my nauseating whining, I’ll admit I’m actually kind of digging the whole farm thing. The critters are for the most part fun, amusing and easily cared for.

But every once in a while…

I went out this morning to perform my perfunctory farm chores: letting the chickens out of their coop, feeding and watering the bunnies, muttering at the cats underfoot to get the hell out of my way, already. The usual stuff.

The morning was warm and sunny, so I didn’t bother to close the sliding door that leads out to the deck. The chickens exploded from their coop, anxious to be about their business of pooping everywhere imaginable but mostly on my lawn furniture. The bunnies gratefully accepted my ear scratching and treats of dried Timothy grass.

The cats somehow managed to simultaneously ignore me and get in my way, as always.

A typical morning here on the farm.

It wasn’t until I was back inside, sitting down to write this column (which was originally going to be about something else until this happened) that I noticed something was amiss.

I heard rustlings and bangings and whirrings and hissings, all coming from Mrs. T’s studio on the other end of the house. Cats working out their elaborate feline hierarchy, I figured. I ignored it. Until I heard the crash. Something big falling over.

I didn’t want to deal with it, but Mrs. T was at the office, so it fell to me.

Walking through the kitchen, I was nearly trampled by two cats – and a chicken – racing through the house at top speed. Let me repeat that: there was a chicken in my house!

The cats, apparently upset the birds were invading what they consider “their” turf, had decided to roust the already panicked fowl.

Remember that scene in “Rocky,” the one in which he has to catch a freaked out chicken as part of his training regimen? Yeah, it’s exactly like that, only with plenty of furniture, appliances and Mrs. T’s objets d’art-in-progress to provide avian cover. Also, the cats weren’t helping nearly as much as they thought they were.

The chicken (I think it was Henrietta, but I can’t be sure) eventually found the open deck door and rejoined her sisters in the back yard, at which point the cats lost all interest in the chase.

Now the excitement is over. I’m no longer winded, but I can’t get Eva Gabor’s voice out of my head: “New Yawk is where I’d rawther stay…”

Mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 745-9530

I’m going to let my son develop my brilliant marketing plan

My daughter recently suggested I start promoting my book again. Seeing as how this suggestion came shortly on the heels of an email from an area library requesting I do an author “meet & greet,” her comments seemed like kismet.

Well, Fate can try to shove me around all it wants, but I’m not gonna do it.

For one thing, the book was published over four years ago; for another, I have only about 20 copies of the paperback left. Not enough to bother hawking them to an unsuspecting library ladies’ reading group.

I did some book signings back when the thing was first published, but my heart was never really in it. I get nervous speaking in front of crowds. Not that there were often groups large enough to be called “crowds” at my signings. Stephen King may generate crowds; I generate gatherings that could ride comfortably en masse in the backseat of a Yugo.

But even small, Yugo-sized groups give me the heebie-jeebies if I’m expected to speak to them. It’s a psychological block of some sort and I’m too old to bother sorting it all out now.

These days, when a reader expresses an interest in obtaining a copy of the paperback, I just send them a free one. At one time, I had some sort of system set up on PayPal where folks could purchase the book, but over time, I’ve forgotten how it works. Ditto the listing on Amazon.

I’ve actually sold quite a few copies of the eBook version on Amazon and the money’s just waiting for me there. But I don’t know how to get at it. It involves passwords I’ve long since forgotten, along with whatever user name I used to set up the account.

I think you can still buy the eBook there (wait a minute, lemme check) … yup, it’s still available there, at Apple iTunes and a few other online eBook retailers. I’m not trying to promo the book here, really. Because even if you do buy a copy, I’ll never see that money.

I could probably contact these retailers and try to get a live human being to set me up with new passwords and all that malarky, but frankly, I’d rather spend that time mowing my yard, grilling a steak or drinking a cold domestic beer. So I never seem to get around to it.

If you’re beginning to think I’m a lousy business person, well, duh. What tipped you off?

The Lovely Mrs. Taylor gets on me once in a while about trying to up the marketing efforts a little bit, but I think she knows she’s fighting a losing battle. I just can’t seem to get excited about self-promotion. I know some folks love that stuff, but for me? Yawn City.

That doesn’t mean, however, that I can’t still make a few bucks with the book. My oldest son, Jordan, has gone through several copies over the years. So far, I’ve given him the books for free. But if I start charging him, I could sit back and let the cash roll in.

I don’t know if he’s ever actually read the book, but he always takes a copy with him when he knows he’s going to be hanging out at the beach or a pool. He sits there in a chaise lounge pretending to read and when a girl asks him what he’s reading, he replies, “Oh, my dad’s book. He’s a writer.”

He counts heavily on the girl in question not knowing that I am, in reality, a nobody. The girl then says, “Oh, your dad’s a writer? What’s he written?”

And so the conversation begins, Jordan works his dubious charms – no doubt lying liberally about my fame and popularity – and in no time, he has a date for the evening. I can’t believe it works, but apparently, it does. According to the kid.

He usually winds up giving the girl my book, at which point he needs another copy. If I only had more amorous sons, I could rake in some serious scratch here. All without having to do any promotional stuff or remember any passwords.

OK, it’s not much of a marketing plan. But it’s a start.

Mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 745-9530

Not a log cabin on a dark and stormy night, but not a bad start

It was the first day of summer vacation when my parents dragged me inside to tell me the news: I was adopted, by my father, anyway. I was 11 years old.

This was a big deal for my folks. They had speeches prepared; they still loved me, my dad was still my dad, nothing was going to change.

I didn’t care. All I could think about was how much fun my friends, Joey and Doug, were having outside in the summer sun while I was stuck in here listening to grownups drone on about stuff that didn’t matter. My folks’ entire presentation probably lasted only ten minutes or so, but it seemed to go on forever.

All I cared about was whether they were going to keep feeding me and whether I could continue living under their roof. Once I’d been assured both of these conditions  would endure, I was ready to boogie back to the great outdoors.

I was not a particularly introspective kid. It never occurred to me to ask who my “real” father was. I knew my mom had been married before, for a few weeks when she was only 17, to a guy named Bud. I assumed this  Bud fella was my biological father.

But honestly, I didn’t care. I just wanted to return to my game of kick the can. Eventually, no doubt wondering how any kid could be so incurious about his origin story, my folks turned me loose.

It was 20 years before the topic came up again. And that was only when my grandmother mentioned to my wife, a nurse, that Bud had had epilepsy. As a nurse, my wife knew that disease is often passed from father to son and – appropriately, I think – she freaked out.

It was only then that I began to hear the real story regarding the conditions surrounding my own inception. I relate the facts to you now only because all the principals involved in the story (save myself) have long ago departed this mortal coil.

Bud, my grandma said, was not my real father after all. My mother knew I believed this and never bothered to correct me. The reasons for this omission, I was to learn, were numerous.

It took some coaxing, but my grandmother slowly and reluctantly shared the true story.

My mother had married Bud on a dare. They were on their first date at the time.

Bud, only a year older than his new child bride, worked as a nurse; my mother was a beautician. Not surprisingly, the marriage was something less than a resounding success. It was also of very short duration.

A few weeks after taking her wedding vows, my mom skipped town. Bud filed for divorce. No one knew where my mother had hitchhiked off to until nearly a year later.

Turns out she had run away to sunny California, where she had landed a job as a “dancer” at a night club in the city of angels. (My grandmother was rather vague on this part of the story, but I’m assuming my mom wasn’t dancing with the Bolshoi Ballet and that tassels were likely a component in her work uniform.)

While living in an efficiency apartment above the night club, my mom met a young, Greek merchant marine. A customer at the club.

Mom and her Greek sailor lived together for a few months. Then he went back to sea and my mother came back to Detroit.

A week later she learned of my impending arrival.

So.

It took me a month or so to work up the courage to ask my mom for additional details. Some she gave up, some she never would, no matter how much I bugged her.

She claimed she couldn’t remember my biological father’s name, which is obviously baloney. I mean, she lived with the guy for months. She remembered his name. But I never learned it.

He was handsome, college educated and a good dancer. That’s about all I ever got out of her. In truth, it’s all I ever really needed.

Until recently, when my doctor wanted a detailed family medical history.  I could give him only half. I’d like that info, sure, but not as much as I like having an interesting origin story.

Mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 745-9530

Nothing says working class like chicken poo

I’m not a cheapskate. Quite the opposite. Money flows through me like sand through an hourglass. It enters my wallet through PayPal, the newspaper’s payroll department, a bar owner’s cash register and a half-dozen other sources. When you make your living as a musician/freelance writer that’s just the way it works.

The money never seems to stay in my wallet, however. Most of it I waste on frivolous stuff like food, the mortgage, gas for my Beetle. And every so often, I treat myself to something fun.

When I do, I try to make sure I get the most fun for the least amount of money. Not because I’m cheap, but because it makes sense. (Or “cents,” if you want to insert a lame pun here, which, apparently, I do.)

Some of the fun stuff I’ve purchased during the past couple years include 1) a ridiculously expensive photography drone, 2) an electric piano, 3) repairs to an antique typewriter The Lovely Mrs. Taylor bought me for my birthday, 4) some red, fuzzy dice for my car’s rear-view mirror, and most recently, 5) eight chickens.

That’s about it. May not sound like a lot to some folks, but it’s enough to keep me happy and entertained, and frankly, “happy and entertained” has been my life’s goal for the past 60 years. So far, so good, despite that annoying children’s story about the ant and the grasshopper.

At any rate, I try to make sure the “fun stuff” I buy has real value, at least to me. This will never change, not even if I won 30-million bucks in the lottery. I’d still shop at the dollar store, I’d still buy my T-shirts at Wally World, and I’d still stay in hotels that offer a senior discount. It’s just how I’m built.

Which is why I’ll never understand “luxury” products tailored to those with more money than brains. I’m thinking of junk like solid gold iPhones and jewel-encrusted contact lenses (there really is such a thing!).

Just how unsure of your own self-worth do you have to be before stuff like this makes it to your “must-have” list?

Yesterday, a Facebook friend posted a link to a luxury item that had to be seen to be believed. Since this was one of the four Facebook “friends” I actually know as a real, living, breathing human being, I clicked the link.

It connected me with an article about Nordstrom, the department store for people who can’t spend their money fast enough and need help. It’s the place to go if you need a $300 pair of sweat socks or $600 sneakers made by a Chinese kid earning 24-cents a day.

I was in a Nordstrom once and all I can say is the people shopping there must have inherited their millions; nobody that stupid could have earned the money themselves. Seriously, management should just place a big burn barrel at the entrance and let customers throw their money into it. It would save them from having to walk around the place and risking a possible coronary event brought on by sticker shock.

You think I’m being cynical? Then consider Nordstrom’s latest offering: $450, mud-covered jeans. According to Nordstrom’s sales department, the jeans are “inspired” by the working-class. They’re being marketed toward guys and gals who want to look as if they earn their money getting their hands dirty.

Yes, for real.

Stupid, right? But that doesn’t mean I can’t make a buck off this trend. So: attention Nordstrom shoppers! For only $763.99, I’ll sell you some of my old gardening pants. One size fits all, assuming you’re a lard-butt like me. I rarely wash them, so they’re filthy already. Also, for a limited time, I’ll let you wear them to clean out my chicken coop. It’s kinda cramped in there, so the experience offers plenty of opportunities to roll around in chicken poop.

Nothing says “working class” like chicken-poop covered gardening pants! (I may even make that my new business’ catch-phrase.)

I expect the cash to start rolling in any day now. By appointment only.

Mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 745-9530

Love in the age of dinosaurs

Let’s start out with the parental warning – this week’s column deals with issues of an adult nature. In fact, it’s all about sex. But since this is a family newspaper, we won’t be using that word.

Instead, let’s call if falafel. Because like the word we’re not using, falafels are wonderful and I don’t have them near as often as I’d like. Though I could, if I really set my mind to it.

As with so many things in life, when it comes to falafel, it’s all about timing.

Now, I’m not complaining about my falafel life; Mrs. Taylor (we’re officially dropping the “formerly Lori Frankforter” thing, at her request; she’s always hated her last name and doesn’t like being reminded of it in this column) is wonderful.

It’s just that we’re not having falafel as often as we used to. Sure, sure, I’ve been around long enough to know that when you first start sharing falafel with someone new, you just can’t seem to get enough. Falafel, I mean.

At first, you want falafel most every day, sometimes twice a day. Falafel seems like the most amazing thing in the world and you’re convinced your falafel is better than anyone else’s in the history of the world.

You may even find yourselves promising each other that you’ll never let 24 hours pass without at least a little quickie falafel.

But time passes and the day finally comes. You or your beloved decide you’d rather watch the season premiere of “Law & Order” than enjoy yet another falafel. Eventually, you’re having falafel once a week, maybe every other week.

And then a lot of time passes. You’re not kids anymore. You’re in your forties, your fifties and even – like me – your sixties. You never expected to live this long. Falafel, while still wonderful and one of your favorite things, is no longer something you can’t live without.

To make matters worse, there’s that timing thing I mentioned earlier. The problem, it seems to me, is that men and women – even geezers like Mrs. Taylor and me – while we still love falafel, rarely love it at the same time. See, different things put us in the mood for falafel.

For instance, nothing puts Mrs. Taylor in the mood for falafel more than me working in the yard all day. Apparently, seeing me out there in my baggy gardening pants, the sweat soaking through my smelly T-shirt to highlight my rippling triceps (look this is MY column, lemme tell the story my way) really gives her a craving for falafel.

Likewise, when she comes to hear my weekend rock band play a show, she’s likely to start thinking about falafel. I’m not a great musician, but apparently there’s something about seeing me holding a guitar and singing really loud that makes her forget what a nerd I am in real life.

Unfortunately, real life won’t let me forget I’m 61 and have a gimpy foot, a present from a botched surgery. By the time I’m done playing four sets or working six hours in the back yard, I am beat! Falafel is the LAST thing I want. I want my pills. I want a beer. I want my recliner and a couple episodes of “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”

I don’t want falafel.

When DO I want falafel? Well, on “date night” (if you’re a couple, you should have one of these!) Mrs. Taylor spends an hour or two getting dolled up. She puts on one of her slinky little dresses, curls her hair, works whatever other magic it is women perform behind closed bathroom doors.

When she walks out, ready for our evening, whoo boy, let me tell ya, I want falafel and how. But Mrs. T doesn’t want to put all that work into getting beautiful, then ruin it with a heaping helping of impromptu falafel. She wants to go out!

So.

That’s the problem with married falafel. It’s not insurmountable, at least not yet. And I understand that if it ever becomes so, there’s a pill for that. One that’ll help a guy remember why he was so crazy about falafel in the first place.

With any luck, that’s still a decade off, but I am open to the idea when the time comes.

After all, falafel with someone you love should be just as good the last time as it was the first.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 730-1414