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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Love and law enforcement go hand in hand

People who know me these days will be surprised to learn this: I once had a promising career in law enforcement.

That’s right; I carried a badge, baby! And I wasn’t afraid to whip it out if some perp failed to respect my duly appointed authority. Actually, I didn’t have to whip it out; it was pinned to my safety belt.

I was in fifth grade and bore the heady responsibility of making sure my fellow students were able to cross Fountain Street without getting squished by a car. It was a job I took seriously.

My motives for going into law enforcement were not altruistic, however. Sure, I enjoyed the prestige and respect the uniform (a white belt with a pin-on badge) brought me. I liked the hot chocolate we safeties got after our “shift” on cold mornings. And I REALLY liked being able to yell at kindergarden babies to “step on it, already!”

I liked pretty much everything about being a cop.

But after all these years, I guess I can admit this; I joined the force not out of any love for the law, but for a dame, a goil, a skirt — pick the 1930s detective novel euphemism of your choice.

Marietta Bartilotti — who five days a week sat directly in front of me in Mrs. Lewandowski’s class — had as much in common with the rest of the knocked-kneed, brace-toothed fifth grade female rabble as a swan has with a hedgehog. Marietta … even her name was beautiful.

Long hair, so black it was almost blue, flowed like India ink over shoulders both fragile and strong. Any errant breeze brought about by the opening of the classroom door carried her scent to me; Wrigley’s gum and strawberry shampoo.

Her laugh was the tinkling of glass wind chimes, musical, delicate, ineffably precious.

To say I was in love is a gross understatement. What I felt for Marietta was all-consuming, potent, life altering. I would have climbed mountains for her, swum oceans, crossed deserts.

So when she volunteered to be a safety, I signed up as well. It gave me another 15 minutes with her every day.

Marietta impressed me as a woman who would appreciate a man in uniform. I’d seen enough World War II movies to know the beautiful Italian girl always falls in love with the rugged G.I. I figured it was just a matter of time.

Standing together on our cold corner post, I told her knock-knock jokes, I recited poetry (a dirty limerick I’d learned from my Uncle Ed), I punched her in the shoulder — basically, every trick in the fourth-grade boy’s lexicon of love.

And miracle of miracles, after a couple weeks, it worked! One blustery Friday morning, on the walk from our corner back to school, Marietta shyly took my hand. And held it. Buddha receiving universal enlightenment beneath the banyan tree couldn’t match the sublime transcendence I felt at that moment.

Nirvana! Valhalla! Heaven! 

It was the singular, most perfect moment of my life. Even viewed through the dark tunnel of all these years, that morning still shines like gold.

I have loved a few women since I last saw Marietta — her parents transferred her to a Catholic school a week after the hand-holding incident that consummated our devotion — but I’ve never again loved like that; never like I loved Marietta.

And I’ve never again felt the urge to wear a badge.

More Reality Check online at mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com. Contact Mike at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

If America is to remain number one, we must take fork in hand and work together

Patriotism runs through my veins like fire through dry tinder, not just around the Fourth of July, but all year long. I’m one of those people who get choked up singing the National Anthem at a White Caps baseball game. Despite its problems, I believe with all my heart in the U.S. of A., mom, and apple pie.

That’s why I get worried when I hear we’re falling behind other countries.

A friend recently sent me a link to an article that originally appeared on the website, Salon.com. That article noted several areas in which the U.S. is number one in the world.

Among those “number ones” is obesity. Yup, we’re fatter, overall, than anybody else on the entire planet. We’re number one! We’re number one!

Here’s the problem; Mexico is gaining on us, and fast.

And when I say “gaining,” I mean that in all permutations of the word. In a way, it’s not surprising. They do have Mexican food on their side, after all. I know I can gain six pounds just being in the same room with a bean and beef burrito or deep-fried chimichanga; imagine what would happen if I were surrounded by a whole country filled with that sort of food? 

Sure, we probably have more McRestaurants than anyone else in the world and that can only help us maintain the walrus-like physiques we need to prevent Mexico from out-blubbering us. But it’s not enough. We must try harder.

Yeah, it’s easy to say we should eat more and exercise less. Everyone’s heard this advice. But it can be so hard to follow. Even with television to while away the sedentary hours, most people eventually feel the urge to get up off the couch and walk somewhere, even if it’s just to the kitchen to fetch more donuts.

All this walking burns waaaay too many calories! My advice: If you must walk, do so only slowly and remember to take frequent breaks, even naps, along the way.

Granted, Mexico is far ahead of us in “siesta technology.” They’ve been doing the afternoon nap deal for generations and have it down to a science.

Another factor that’s working against us — which also was mentioned in the Salon.com article — is cocaine use. When it comes to nose candy, we’re in a dead heat with Spain for most users per capita.

This must stop. I don’t advocate drug use, or use anything stronger than vitamins myself, but it’s never mattered much to me what others do. That’s all changing now, now that I know the Peruvian Marching Powder is keeping America from that cherished Obesity Gold Medal.

It’s a known fact (or, maybe it’s not; I make a lot of this stuff up) that coke heads don’t get fat, because they never eat. So I’m advising now, just say no to blow and yes to extra helpings of Moo Goo Gai Pan. 

We can do this if we work together, people. But don’t work TOO hard. Work burns calories we just can’t afford to lose.

More Reality Check online at mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com. Contact Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

I once was lost, but now … I’m still lost

I got lost coming home from the bar last Saturday night. I hadn’t been drinking, no, I’d been working with my little weekend band, The Guinness Brothers (which, admittedly, is named for the beer; but no, again, I swear, I hadn’t had any beer myself).

The club was one we’ve played dozens of times over the years, less than an hour’s drive from my house. I’m almost sure I know how to get there without the GPS, but after all this time, I still don’t quite trust myself to do so.

Which is why it’s odd I left the club without programming my return route into the directional gadget. I guess for once I was feeling fairly confident I could find my way home on my own.

I couldn’t. Two hours later, I realized I was in Cadillac. Somewhere along the line, I’d started daydreaming and had gone the exact opposite direction from where I wanted to be. I pulled to the side of the road and punched my own address into the GPS.

Thus guided, I finally rolled in to my driveway around 5 a.m.

I wish I could say this was an unusual occurrence. It’s not. I’ve been directionally handicapped since birth.

As a kid, I would get lost walking the six blocks home from school. It was so common my mother stopped worrying about me when I was late. If I still wasn’t home an hour after school let out, she’d stop what she was doing and drive around the neighborhood until she found me. More often than not, I wasn’t even aware I was lost.

This problem followed me into my teen years, where I spent a couple summers hitch-hiking around the country. Never knowing for sure just where you are or where you’re going can make for some interesting travels. Phoenix, Independence, Chicago and Tulsa are all cities I’ve seen by accident, because I turned left when I meant to turn right, or vice-versa.

At 17, accompanied by my girlfriend Dianne, I left a church camp near Kalamazoo and drove all the way to Indianapolis before I realized I was not headed toward Grand Rapids, where Dianne (and her father, the grim-eyed pastor) lived. The old man was neither amused, nor inclined to believe my stuttering explanation when his daughter and I pulled into his driveway around sunup the following morning.

As an adult, most of my geographical miscalculations have resulted in only minor inconveniences. Sometimes, especially when I’m out late at night, I’ll accidentally drive “home” to a house I’ve not lived at in years. That’s happened a couple times.

In recent years, I guess my worst directional faux pas happened after I’d gone to Lansing, where I interviewed then-Governor Jennifer Granholm. As a rule, I dislike covering politics, but there was a free lunch involved.

Miraculously, I found my way there just fine, despite the fact driving in Lansing provides an experience almost identical to that of being a blind mouse in a particularly complex maze, one with no cheese at the other end.

It wasn’t until the drive home that things got dicey. It was a beautiful, autumn afternoon; the sun was shining, the sugar maples ablaze with color, the roads clear of heavy traffic. The perfect day for a quiet drive back to Big Rapids.

I didn’t realize I’d gone off course until I began seeing signs informing me that the Mackinac Bridge was coming up in a mile or so.

My editor, who was almost as used to me getting lost as my mom had been decades earlier, let me file the story from a McDonald’s in Mackinaw City, rather than try to make it back to the paper before deadline.

I’m pretty sure I had a point for this column when I started writing it, or some punch-line … something. But somehow, it has gotten lost along the way.

Mike Taylor’s book, “Looking at the Pint Half Full,” is available in eBook format at Amazon and in paperback from Robbins Book List in Greenville. mtaylor325@gmail.com

Recent polls of 11-year-old boys show: I’m cool

I look like a complete dork. When I’m riding my little motorbike, I mean. It’s not even a real moped, which are nerdy enough; it’s an old, black mountain bike onto which the previous owner slapped a 50cc motor manufactured in some Hangzhou sweat shop.

I traded an old laptop for it a year ago. Since then — even though I look like a dork when I do so — I drive it to work every day.

Part of the reason for this is that I hate driving cars. Or trucks. I hate being cooped up inside a vehicle; any vehicle.

On the other end of that spectrum is the fact I’m too chicken to ride a real motorcycle. They go too fast and there’s something in the water around here that makes deer suicidal. I do not want to provide some buck with his two-wheeled ticket to the afterlife.

The motorbike is a great middle ground solution. It goes fast enough to get me around town almost as quickly as my car, but if I smack into a deer I will (probably) get off with just a scrape or two and maybe get some venison steaks in the bargain.

Also, the motorbike is WAY fun to drive! It zips along at a comfortable 25 mph, burns through less than a gallon of gas PER MONTH, and if it breaks down or blows up, I can buy a new one for under $500.

Granted, the build quality of the thing is less than one might find on, say, a Rolls-Royce. Or a Yugo. It requires regular adjustment of the cabling system, the clutch, the carb … but it’s all minor stuff that takes just a few minutes once you know what you’re doing.

When I’m riding it I feel like Steve McQueen racing across the French countryside in an old WWII movie, the Nazis in hot pursuit.

Of course, I don’t LOOK like Steve McQueen. I look like a dork. Or thought I did, until the other day.

I was buzzing the periphery of the lake, up through the cemetery, down to the grocery store; just putzing around with no particular destination. When you’re getting 150 miles per gallon, you can afford to putz around.

Three young boys, who had been fishing in the lake, came running over when I sputtered to a halt beside my mailbox.

“Whoa,” said the oldest, maybe 11. “What is that?”

“Just a mountain bike with a motor on it,” I said.

“How fast does it go?”

“About 25, maybe 30.” It doesn’t really go 30, but I was trying to impress the kid. I have security issues.

“Awesome!” enthused one of the other kids.

“Yeah!” agreed another.

The boys unselfconsciously inspected the bike from stem to stern as I sorted my mail, ooh-ing and ah-ing the way a Cessna pilot might ooh and ah over a Bombardier Learjet 85.

“That is SO cool,” said the 11-year-old. “How old do you have to be to ride one?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. When you’re old enough to get a senior discount at McDonald’s, you no longer bother checking that sort of thing.

I rode away, wishing I was wearing a leather jacket with the collar turned up. I may look like a dork to the rest of the world, but to 11-year-old boys? I’m Steve McQueen, baby.

Mike Taylor’s book, “Looking at the Pint Half Full,” is available at Robbins Book List in Greenville and in eBook format from Amazon.