The clown made me eat the cheeseburger, honest

I’m a little bit fat. It’s no big deal and I’m not sensitive about it. If it really mattered to me, I’d step away from the burrito and start jogging. But it doesn’t, so I won’t.

What I will do is something that is fast becoming an American tradition: find somebody else to blame. In this case, a certain red-haired clown associated with a fast food restaurant found on every other block in every city across the country. For lawsuit-avoidance purposes, let’s call him “Donald.”

Donald has been trying to get me to eat cheeseburgers since I was about four years old. For the most part, he’s been successful. This despite the fact that (in my opinion) his cheeseburgers taste like a cross between wallpaper paste and the sawdust elementary school janitors use to clean up the mess created when a third-grader barfs in the cafeteria.

Donald never actually held a .45 to my head and forced me to dine at one of his restaurants. But he did offer a free toy with every (what for legal purposes we will call a) “scrappy meal.” And that, according to Alfred David Klinger—spokesperson for the consumer watchdog group Corporate Accountability International—is just as bad.

By offering that free toy, Donald is to blame for my current, manatee-like physique.

Klinger and his organization want Donald’s head on a platter, though not to eat, presumably, because of the calories and high fat content. Donald, they say, encourages American children to eat the wrong sorts of foods (anything but carrots and Brussels sprouts).

American parents can’t be trusted to look out for the welfare of their own children. We are, Klinger and his group imply, too stupid and lazy.

One can only assume other food mascots also will soon be targeted. I know that stupid bear with a voice faintly reminiscent of Bing Crosby’s got me to eat Sugar Crisp cereal for decades. I still do, from time to time. I was powerless before Sugar Bear’s mellifluous jingle singing!

Likewise, Quisp and Quake (I’m not sure what they were supposed to be) had me eating their cereal as well, even though it tasted like a yellow crayon and stuck to my teeth for hours.

And let’s not forget that freaky-looking plastic-faced guy in a crown and tights who wants me to eat his cheeseburgers. He’s at least as bad as Donald, and twice as ugly, even if he is royalty of some sort.

Then there’s the kindly colonel, who talked me into eating untold hundreds of chickens. What about him? Doesn’t Klinger’s group want to do something about him?

Look, my point is Klinger is stupid. No, wait, that’s not it. My point is, I neither need nor want a consumer watchdog group protecting my delicate eyes from the sight of a clown hawking burgers. I can, believe it or not, decide for myself what I want for dinner. I’m guessing most Americans can say the same.

If I want a watchdog, Mr. Klinger, I’ll buy a pit bull. Meanwhile, have a cheeseburger and a chill pill. In fact, have two. Maybe if your mouth is full, it’ll shut you up for a while.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

Picking the perfect minister for your wedding, one circuit at a time

I've been married several times. This doesn’t make me an expert in marriage (quite the opposite, in fact), but it has made me something of an authority when it comes to weddings. I can arrange a catered affair with a good band, elegant table settings and carefully thought out seating plan—in my head. No need for notes or a “wedding planner” book.

I never do any of this planning, of course, because that’s the bride’s duty. I’m not sure who devised this rule, but it seems to me a good one. The point is I could do the job if I ever needed to.

So far, though, the only job I’ve been allowed to handle is finding the minister.

My first wedding was presided over by a friend from high school who became a minister after graduation. The reverend at my second wedding I don’t remember; all I can recall is that he was too smart to fall for it when I told him—moments before the ceremony began—that my fiancée and I had decided to include the “honor and obey” thing in the vows after all. It’s probably a good thing he omitted these items, since that particular wife never even pretended to do either.

At my last wedding, the minister was some guy I found in the phone book. He looked great; bald with vaguely Catholic ministerial robes and a big Hassidic Rabbi beard. I felt like Rasputin was conducting the ceremony.

Yes, I’ve hired some cool ministers over the years. But none compare to the minister who will be doing my next wedding. This one’s going to cost more than all the others combined, but it’ll be worth it, I think.

She’s only four-foot tall and so far she’s performed only one other ceremony, but I’m hiring her anyway.

She’s a robot. A Japanese robot.

She’s the “I-Fairy” (yep, that’s what her Japanese creators, still reeling and confused from Godzilla’s last attack, apparently, have named her). She sports flashing eyes and plastic pigtails, and she’s licensed to perform weddings, at least in Tokyo.

She recently wed Satoko Inouye and Tomohiro Shibata. The bride praised Japan’s state-of-the-art robotics industry, saying people want robots that “serve some kind of purpose.” Coincidentally, Inouye is employed by Kokoro, the company that manufactures the I-Fairy as well as the “Hello Kitty” line of children’s toys.

Since the first time the bubble-headed automaton from “Lost in Space” warned Will Robinson there was danger nearby, I’ve wanted a robot of my own. Thanks to the Japanese, the only excuse I now need to get one is to get married again.

For 6.3 million yen (about $68,000) I can buy my next minister outright rather than pay the usual rental fee. I figure, judging from my previous marital track record, that I’ll get at least six or seven ceremonies out of the I-Fairy before I die. This results in some significant overall savings, based on the per marriage fee most ministers charge.

Despite the coolness factor of robotic minister, the technology really is still in its infancy. Maybe if I wait a while to get hitched again, the good folks at Kokoro will come up with a robotic bride as well.

I wonder if she could be programmed to honor and obey?

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

How I missed becoming the Taco King of the Midwest

The business that gave me my first job celebrated its 43^rd anniversary recently. Taco Boy had only been serving up Mexican food a couple years when they hired me on. I landed the job on the recommendation of my buddy Mick; he’d been working there three months without missing a shift.

I arrived at work, filled with sugar-plum visions of the many wonderful things I would buy with my first real paycheck. A new Corvette, maybe, or a house in the Hamptons.

I was a little vague on that whole “minimum wage” thing.

The manager appeared to be of genuine Mexican descent, which seemed to me exotic, and leant an air of authenticity to the place. I no longer remember her name, but it might have been Maria.

Maria patiently showed me how to operate the tortilla steamer, the lettuce chopper, the cheese grater…if you’re not responsible for payroll and taxes, there’s really not a lot to working at a Mexican fast food restaurant. I paid close attention anyway; this was my first job and I planned to work my way up to manager within a year, buy my own franchise, and eventually become a household name to rival Ronald McDonald. Mike Taylor, Taco-King of the Midwest.

Fifteen minutes into my first job, but I had big dreams.

After showing me the basics of taco building, Maria turned me loose on a couple customers. It soon became apparent that my math skills were such that I was never going to be able to make correct change or simultaneously carry two orders in my head without screwing up at least one of them.

Maria decided my skills might best be utilized in the kitchen steaming tortilla shells and chopping lettuce.

Now, this was my first job and I had never heard the word “hazing” before. Mick hadn’t warned me that Maria often played little jokes on new employees as a way of helping them “settle in” to the Taco Boy family.

So I was taken aback when she set an enormous bowl of pinto beans in front of me along with a spray bottle and kitchen towel and instructed me to clean each bean individually, making sure to keep an accurate count of each bean for “inventory purposes.”

This seemed a pretty humdrum job to lay on the future Taco-King of the Midwest, but I’m nothing if not a team player.

I removed the first bean from the bowl, sprayed it with water, rubbed it dry, and dropped it into a waiting container. One down, countless hundreds to go.

An hour later I had cleaned and counted 1,423 beans. The bowl was still half-full. Maria stuck her head around the corner.

“Hey Mike,” she said. “When did you say your birthday was again? I need it for the paperwork.”

“Um, November 26,” I said.

“And what’s your Social Security number?”

I told her; she made a notation on a clipboard.

“OK, thanks,” she said. “How many beans so far?”

“Uh…” I had lost count. “I don’t know exactly. Over a thousand.”

Sighing, Maria took the container of cleaned beans and dumped them back into the bowl of unclean beans.

“Sorry,” she kindly said. “You’ll have to start over. Management needs an exact count.”

I made it to bean number 2,012 before giving up. I threw my apron on the floor and stomped out the back exit. My career as Taco-King of the Midwest had lasted exactly 93 minutes.

Later that day, Mick explained the whole hazing thing to me. I felt too much a fool to ever go back for my paycheck. But I figure Taco Boy still owes me for that 93 minutes of bean counting.

Based on the minimum wage at the time, Taco Boy owes me nearly two bucks! Pay up, Maria.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

The little old lady that dreamed of a career in the news biz

Editing a small town newspaper was a real eye-opener. For years, I had made my living as a reporter or photographer for one paper or another, but my job at the Lakeview Enterprise represented my first full-time managing editor gig.

For the first time, I was the Big Kahuna, the man in charge, and the sucker who got to deal with all the crazies. And brother, lemme tell ya, small towns do have their share of crazies.

As editor of a community newspaper, you’re expected to cover the Lion’s Club breakfasts and Garden Society soirées. That’s the beauty of small-town newspapers, in fact; you report the stuff the “big guys” would never be interested in, the news that matters most to the locals. Your product is a vital link in keeping the community connected.

It’s a role I loved and one I’d still be doing if declining ad revenues hadn’t prompted the paper’s parent company to close it down.

During my tenure there, I learned a little about the newspaper business, a little about writing and editing, and a lot about dealing with crazies.

I call them crazy, though most were technically sane. Probably. A lot of folks, I guess, are crazy about one thing or another. Beauty pageant moms, for instance, simply cannot understand why you won’t run a photo of their seven-year-old daughter on the front page more than three weeks in a row. (“She came in second in the Little Miss Muffit Pageant in Kalamazoo, you idiot! Do you have any idea what a big deal that is?)

Women who own dance studios—the sort where elementary school kids stumble around a gym in sequined tights to the soundtrack of “Saturday Night Fever”—also demand front-page coverage for each of their weekly recitals.

Also worth noting are soccer moms, Little League moms, Rocket Football moms, band moms…basically, moms. I’m a parent too, and can certainly understand what it’s like to be proud of your kid and to want to share that pride with the community. But a paper has only so many pages and sometimes hard choices must be made.

That’s one reason I found it so difficult to pass over the stories Eunice brought in. In addition to being a self-proclaimed octogenarian with a “nose for news,” Eunice was also my neighbor. As a neighbor, she felt comfortable delivering “scoops” not just to my office, but to my home, day or night, seven days a week.

Among Eunice’s hot news tips were the following:

1) A prehistoric creature of some sort was spotted (by Eunice) living in the town’s lake. It looked something like the Loch Ness Monster, only smaller.

2) Bill, from down the block, had murdered his wife, Lillith, and Eunice had seen him burying her dismembered body in the back yard. (I saw Lillith at the grocery later that same day. She seemed to have all her parts intact. I am nothing if not a fact checker.)

3) Several young women were spotted, by Eunice, strolling casually around the neighborhood buck naked in the middle of the night after skinny dipping at the lake. (This story I checked out for myself, just in case. My late night front porch vigil failed to produce any solid evidence. Dammit.)

There were dozens of others over the years, and I think Eunice honestly believed in the veracity of each and every one of her reports. And honestly, most of Eunice’s stories were far more interesting than the village council minutes I was running each week.

In fact, it’s a shame I wasn’t able to put Eunice’s stories on the front page accompanied by lurid, heavily-Photoshopped pics. If I had, that paper might still be in business today.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

We all knew how to sing in Kindergarten and we still do

I did Karaoke last night and enjoyed it. There, I said it and I’m not ashamed. Not too ashamed. OK, maybe a little ashamed.

Longtime readers of this column (Hi Dad!) already know my feelings about Karaoke; that it is, in fact, the work of the Devil and one of the signs of the Apocalypse. That’s how I felt about it before last night.

Now—after experiencing what I can only describe as a pop music-induced epiphany—I’m having second thoughts. Maybe Karaoke is not so bad after all.

Oh sure, there are the singers—I estimate about 50 percent of ‘em—who sound pretty much like a coyote tangled up in barbed wire; and those that take the whole thing way too seriously (the vocalists dressed up in sequined cowboy shirts and Ray-Ban sunglasses); and those that don’t approach the stage until they’ve gone several martinis over the line.

Then there are also the singers that are truly good; those that would be at home onstage with Ella Fitzgerald or Aretha Franklin. Granted, the good singers make up an amazingly small percentage of the overall “talent,” but they are out there.

However, it’s the bad singers I want to talk about today, the really bad singers. No sense of pitch, meter or dynamics. A complete disregard for timing. An inability to count to four (as in 4/4 time). These are the singers that make Karaoke great in my opinion.

Now, there are no doubt some of you who assume I’m going to veer off into sarcasm here, but I’m not. I mean it when I say the bad vocalists are the very heart of Karaoke.

Maybe everyone but me already knows this and I’m coming late to the party. Wouldn’t be the first time. I’m not especially quick to grasp sociological trends. Like I said, last night was an epiphany.

It happened at Cascade Roadhouse, where Karaoke-meister Donna plies her trade three or four nights a week. I was in the joint to grab a burger and Bud Lite before heading home for the night; the last thing I wanted was to spend the evening listening to a bunch of CPAs and Wal-Mart greeters massacring off-key versions of “Feelings” and “Achy Breaky Heart.”

But as each nervous American Idol wannabe paraded up to the stage for his or her moment in the spotlight it occurred to me—this isn’t supposed to be great music, or even great entertainment. What it is is a chance for regular Janes and Joes to let out a little bit of that music that lives inside us all, that fragile, ephemeral joy we all knew back in Kindergarten as we belted out “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round” with wild abandon.

We were kids and it never occurred to any of us that we might not be budding opera stars. The music was in our hearts and it found expression through our singing, godawful though it may have been.

Karaoke, I figured out last night, is nothing more than an extension of Kindergarten music class. It’s a chance for even the most musically-challenged songster to reconnect with that uninhibited five-year-old he or she once was.

If the end result sounds like train wheels grinding over gravel, well, that’s why so many places that feature Karaoke also offer beer. So grab that microphone, throw caution to the wind, and let what’s in your heart back out into the world where we can all enjoy it!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to rehearse. I’m going back tonight with a killer version of “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.” Cher, eat your heart out.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

How do you say goodbye to the woman who gave you life?

My mother died.

Those are the three hardest words I’ve ever written. She suffered from Alzheimer’s the past several years and we all knew this was coming. But somehow, despite all those months of preparation, I still wasn’t ready when my sister Carol phoned yesterday with the news.

In her life, my mother was a homemaker, a business owner, a telephone operator, a computer programmer, a student, a dancer, and a hair stylist. But if you asked her what she “did,” she would say she was a mom.

For her, that was the job that mattered.

When she was young, my mother had potential; she was intelligent, beautiful, witty, talented. She had it all. And then she had me.

From that point on all her hopes, dreams and aspirations took a back seat to my needs and my wants. Two more boys and two girls followed in quick succession, and her love and protection encompassed each of them in turn, like a goose down comforter.

My mom always saw the best in her children, though that must sometimes have been hard, at least in my case. No accomplishment, however insignificant, escaped my mother’s notice. No failure was beyond redemption.

She was proud if I brought home an A. Or a B, or a C. She would have been proud had I brought home a note from the principal saying I’d been suspended for carrying a knife to class. (Which actually happened once, in seventh grade. It was a linoleum cutter; I’d been helping my dad with a project that morning before school and had stuck it in my pocket without thinking when the bus arrived.)

At any rate, my mom loved us no matter how badly we screwed up. For the life of me, I can’t remember her ever saying anything bad about me or my siblings, even when there were plenty of bad things just begging to be said.

In the year or two before her Alzheimer’s stole away the last of her, I called her almost daily, just to check in. By then, she was easily confused, had a hard time finding the words she wanted to say. It frustrated her greatly, but she faced her pitiless decline the way she faced every adversity life threw her way: with a sense of humor.

Even as her mind slipped away a piece at a time, she never stopped loving life, never stopped being proud of the children she had brought into this world.

One day before things got too bad we were conversing on the phone and—as she so often did—she shifted the subject to her kids.

“Your brother is doing so well,” she said. “He’s writing for the papers now and working on a book. Michael’s really making something of himself. He’s such a hard worker.”

“Mom, I’m Michael,” I said. “You’re talking to Michael.”

There was a beat while she sorted this out.

“Oh,” she said. Then: “Your brother William has a new nursing position. He’s supervisor of his whole floor and Julie’s managing a blood bank. How’s the book coming?”

“It’s coming,” I said. That’s what I always said. Five years later, it’s still coming, because writing a book is hard work and I’m not a hard worker, despite what my mom thought.

But if I ever do finish it and see it published, I know whose name will appear on the dedication page. Even if the book sells a million copies and my mother’s name is read by a million readers, it won’t be enough.

The hard truth is, no matter what I do, it will never be enough to thank the woman who gave me life.

I miss you mom.

More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com

Passing the torch of sophisticated humor to my grandson

It’s comforting to know my sophisticated, urbane, cultured, refined sense of humor will not die when I pass from this mortal coil; I’ve passed it along to my grandson, Edison.

Named for the famous inventor who in actuality probably stole as many inventions as he created himself, nine-year-old Edison has inherited my sense of humor. Last night while rooting through some of my boxes in the basement, he also inherited the device which best exemplifies this particular brand of humor: my fart machine.

Oh, the cognoscenti among us might refer to it as a “flatulence generator” or “electronic rude noise apparatus,” but it’s a fart machine. Says so right on the box.

Essentially, it’s nothing more than an updated version of that staple of yesterday’s sophisticated humorist–the whoopee cushion. It consists of two parts; the transmitter and the noise-making receiver.

When Edison found the fart machine at the bottom of the box, it was love at first sight. He didn’t come right out and ask that I gift it to him, he didn’t have to. I saw the look in his eye. Being a grandparent, there was no way I was going to get between him and that fart machine.

“It’s yours,” I said.

Five minutes later he was across the street spending his own allowance on the batteries needed to resurrect the electronic whoopee cushion to flatulent life. That was three days ago. Since then, no one in the house has stood up, sat down or bent over without experiencing Edison’s judicious application of pooting sounds.

He and I think it’s pretty funny. Everyone else in the house responds to the joke with a weary sigh, for some reason.

I don’t know who invented the fart machine, but I’m glad he or she did (almost certainly he—humor as sophisticated as a fart machine seems to elude most women; not sure why).

At any rate, Eddie is having a great time with the device and I’m happy to see it getting some use again. It had been in that box for about ten years, since I had to hide it from the Former Lovely Mrs. Taylor in order to keep her from selling it at a garage sale.

Before that, though, I had a pretty good time with it myself. One of the best days of my life was the day I duct taped the receiver to the underside of the chair of the sales manager at my old office in Lakeview. She was a nice enough lady, though pushy, like all sales people have to be if they’re going to be any good at their jobs.

Every time she stood up or resettled in her chair, I would depress the button on the transmitter. The office secretary and I thought it was hilarious, the sales manager somewhat less so.

In the week or two I actually used the fart machine, it found its way beneath sofa cushions, into the bathroom (of course!), under the dinner table, and even into my bed. (That, I thought, was especially hilarious, though there was some contention on this point, as I recall.)

And now the torch has been passed to my grandson. No matter what, sophisticated humor finds a way to live on.

By the way, I’ve heard—and I don’t know if this is true—that the original Edison (Thomas, I mean) invented the whoopee cushion. Of course, it’s possible he just stole the idea from someone else.

More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com