All I want to do is help, Kanye

I’m worried about Kanye, I really am. A couple months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you anything about the guy. But since being confined to the sofa 24/7 with a broken leg, I’ve had a lot of time to catch up on pop culture.

Whereas my previous television schedule consisted of two hours a week, the tube now blats non-stop. It’s garbage. The pain meds make it seem less so. I know the pharmacist is giving me the good stuff when I can watch a complete episode of “Real Housewives” without losing my lunch.

Back to Kanye. Turns out he’s a hip-hop artist who appeared on a recent episode of “Saturday Night Live” to promote his new album. The tunes he performed were like something a couple kids going nuts with the auto-tune function on ProTools might crank out in a New Jersey garage.

His music is boring, over-processed, utterly forgettable, computer generated audio pabulum. My opinion. I’m guessing Kanye doesn’t care about my opinion since old, broken-legged white guys are not exactly his target audience. 

Maybe if I were younger and hipper I would appreciate his stuff, but I doubt it. I prefer music made by human beings playing actual instruments, you know, the kind that require talent. If everyone on stage with you is “performing” on a MacBook, it’s not music, it’s programming. You’re doing karaoke, dude.

Now, if you’re worried Kanye might read this and develop hurt feelings, you shouldn’t be. Kanye recently described himself as “the greatest living artist and the greatest artist of all time." He says stuff like that all the time. I think his ego will survive whatever mean old Mike Taylor has to say about him.

Besides, it’s not my intention here to dis Kanye. Like I said, I’m worried about the guy. All I want to do is help. Apparently, Kanye’s got money troubles. In a recent “tweet” (something else I suddenly have time for) Kanye announced he’s $54 million in debt. 

He’s hoping Mark Zuckerberg (the Facebook guy) will invest $1 billion in “Kanye West ideas.” I swear I’m not making this up, folks. I don’t know about Kanye, but a cool billion would certainly help solve my own financial woes and might even be enough to pay down some of my recently incurred medical bills.

Sadly, my guess is Zuckerberg’s not going to fork over the cash. Why? Well, he’s smart, for one thing. I can’t imagine a smart guy paying $1 billion for a Kanye West idea. 

That’s where I come in. Unlike Zuckerberg, I’m not particularly smart. I give money to United Way and a couple other charities. I figure, why not send a few bucks Kanye’s way as well?

Once he’s back on his feet, maybe he could return the favor, perform at my granddaughter’s birthday party or something, I dunno. There’s got to be something he’s good at. Something besides telling people how wonderful he is, I mean.

Now, before you get all excited, Kanye, I should admit I probably won’t be able to come up with the full billion dollars you’re hoping for. I’ve been laid up with this busted leg for a while now and my usual revenue streams are running low, if not dry.

But I still have $543.67 in checking, another couple hundred in savings. I could afford to part with half that, if you think it will help. 

And eventually, I’m sure things will improve for you. Hang in there, pal! I won’t buy your new record, but a lot of younger, hipper people undoubtedly will. You’ll be back on your feet in no time!

Meanwhile, my granddaughter’s birthday party is coming up in May, so you’ve got that to look forward to.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 548-8273

It’s hard to feel cool behind the wheel of a nerd-mobile

I’m feeling a little iffy about my new car. It’s an OK car, better than a lot of the heaps in which I’ve risked my life over the years. But I’m just not sure it’s me.

I won’t be taking delivery for a couple weeks yet; it’s my sweetie’s old car and I have to wait for her to buy a new one. She needs something bigger for her retail business, so I’m stuck with her Beetle.

A Bug, man! Next to a hot pink, Malibu Barbie Corvette, the girliest car to ever roll off an assembly line.

Worse still, it’s white, my least favorite car color (number one, black; red, number two; white, somewhere below chartreuse and taupe). Lori’s even decorated the thing with cute, girly decals. Decals! Girly ones!

If I were in fourth grade, this car would get me beat up daily.

Frankly, I’m not sure I’m man enough to drive the thing without first putting on dark glasses and a hoodie. It’s just not a car I want to be seen in.

My Ford truck was. It was big, black, beautiful and had tires the size of a roller rink. When I drove that truck I felt like the illegitimate love child of John Wayne and Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was the kind of vehicle that makes a man want to crush beer cans on his forehead!

I’ve also driven a few red, mid-life crises sports cars over the years. Behind the wheel of one of these, I feel like Steve McQueen. Cool. A chick magnet. (Although, in my case, the kind of magnet that repels rather than attracts.)

During poor years — pretty much any time I’m between wives — I tend to drive wrecks of questionable legal lineage. My last really dangerous vehicle, the Death Van, was, believe me, aptly named. But even that had a certain lowlife Cheech-and-Chong-I-just-don’t-give-a-damn hippie charm to it.

Not so the Bug. It is cute. It is sensible. It is good on gas and mechanically sound.

Every time I climb behind the wheel of the Bug I feel I should be cruising to a Trader Joe’s to pick up tofu and raw goat’s milk cheese. Like I should be doing yoga, reading self-help books, writing bad poetry.

It just ain’t me.

But I’ll buy it from my sweetie so she can buy an SUV or pickup or whatever she needs to move her art from studio to shoppe. I just hope driving it doesn’t get me beat up by a group of fourth-graders.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 548-8273

Greatness is at last within my grasp

This could be it! I think the art world finally is ready for me. After long years searching for a medium which might adequately express the artistic wonderfulness bottled up within my angst-ridden soul, I believe I have at last found it.

See, years ago, I really believed I was going to be an artist. I tried watercolors, oils, acrylics. At my best, I was lousy, but I tried. Then I took a stab at sculpting. No one ever mistook my work for, say, Michelangelo’s. Even wood carving left me with nothing but slices put in and chunks taken out of my hands.

Despite my best efforts, all my paintings looked like they started life as a series of numbers on a dollar store canvas.

Honestly, I no longer remember what so attracted me to the art world. I probably thought it would help me find a girl. This is likely, since, for many years the hope of finding a girl was the only reason I got out of bed each morning. 

Whatever the reason, I worked hard at developing any nascent talent I might possess. Over time I managed to work my way up from lousy to mediocre. Considering where I’d started, mediocre seemed acceptable.

Eventually, I even managed to land a real “art” job creating book covers and album jackets for a religious book publisher. (If you’ve ever wondered why the cover art on so many religious books is terrible, now you know.)

I gave up the artistic life the day the religious book house fired me. A few years later they went out of business, but I refuse to accept responsibility for that.

So it has been decades since I tried creating any art beyond mowing my lawn in a criss-cross pattern. However, it now looks like my hour may be coming ‘round at last. 

There’s a new art movement afoot, one dedicated to a medium with which I am imminently familiar, one that could at last allow me to tap into the deep, meaningful emotions churning within me. Both of them.

I’m speaking, of course, of back hair.

I promise I’m not making this up. There are as we speak artists carving portraits and landscapes into the backs of furry guys. They even have a calendar for sale.

Now, it’s true I’ve never actually crafted in back fur. That said, I walk around each day with a canvas to die for! Within the furry forest sprouting on my back (shoulders, chest — pretty much any area unfamiliar with a razor’s touch) lies an untapped Mona Lisa, Starry Night, Whistler’s Mother.

All I need to get started is an electric clipper, a stick to duct tape it to, and a mirror in which to monitor my progress. It’ll take practice, sure, but at the rate my body hair grows I’ll have an entirely new canvas every couple weeks.

Also, there are five cats living here, or as I now think of them, sketch pads.

It’s only a matter of time before my name stands alongside Picasso and Van Gogh in the annals of art! Mike “Fuzzy” Taylor. Innovator. Artist. Barber.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 548-8273

Let’s be real, some things just don’t mix

No. Just no no no no no. And furthermore, no.

Pickles and ice cream? No. Bean burritos and first dates? No. Intricate plot twists and the movies of Adam Sandler? No.

Some things are simply not meant to go together. Yeah, I know, we live in an age of constant flux, a time when social mores change oftener than a ninth-grader’s socks (which is to say, once every couple weeks).

But we must have SOME standards, man, some few constants upon which we can rely!

I rarely find my BVD’s in a twist over the actions of others, mostly because I don’t care what other people do so long as they keep it out of my yard and show me the same consideration. I don’t like being the boss of anyone and I don’t like anyone being the boss of me. This, in part, explains my marital and employment history.

Sometimes, though, like now, some chowder-head will come up with an idea so heinous, so reprehensible, so flat-out against human nature that I feel I must speak up. I suppose you’ve already guessed what I’m talking about.

The FloTrack Beer Mile.

For those readers who don’t follow beer news as carefully as I do, the FloTrack Beer Mile is a foot race held in Austin, Texas. It works like this: each contestant drinks a beer. So far, so good! Finally, a sport at which I might excel. 

Then things turn ugly.

After that first beer, the contestant must RUN one-quarter mile. Then drink another beer. Were that the end of it, I might still say, “Well, that’s weird, but OK.”

Sadly, that is not the end of it. Each contestant must then run another quarter-mile, drink another beer, and then run yet ANOTHER quarter-mile and drink yet ANOTHER beer! And then — get this — he or she must run a FINAL quarter mile.

Let’s see, is that a mile yet? Yes, it is. Mr. Paepke was right; fractions are important.

Now, anyone who reads this column regularly already knows I’m fond of beer. I like my beer the way I like my women: cheap and domestic. (Kidding, sweetie, kidding! Put down the knife and let me get you some chocolate!) But seriously, I do kind of like beer.

I don’t drink a lot, despite frequent claims to the contrary, but when I crave a beer with a burger, nothing else really cuts it.

Also, there was a time — though you’d never know it to look at me now — when I enjoyed running. It’s true! I was cross country in high school and even did a couple marathons as an adult.

So I like beer and running.

But not together. Like pickles and ice cream, these two activities were never meant to dance a pas de deux. It’s unnatural and it’s got to be hard on the digestive system. Frankly, if I’m in the mood to attend midnight services at the porcelain altar, I can think of far easier ways to gain admittance.

People are crazy, though. There’s at least a chance this thing could catch on and even … expand. How long before we see Tour de France cyclists stopping every mile to suck back a pack of Camel unfiltered’s? Will rappers be forced to perform the first 30 minutes of every concert without once referencing cops and/or booty? Will we someday witness a cosmetics-free Miss America pageant?

Pickles and ice cream, brothers and sisters. Pickles and ice cream.

Get more of Mike Taylor’s Reality Check online at mtrealitycheck.blogger.com.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 548-8273

Pete Rose is trying to get into the wrong hall

Saw Pete Rose on television the other day. It wasn’t by choice. Bruce and Chip, the guys in our newspaper’s sports department, had commandeered the TV.

I’m not really a sports guy and don’t apologize for it, but even I had heard of Pete Rose; heard of the big scandal, anyway. For those few readers even less in tune with the wide world of sports than am I, Rose was busted for betting on his own team. I’m not sure which team it was, but I think it was a baseball one. (Like I said, my ignorance of sports, while not complete, is darn close.)

According to Bruce — who knows about this stuff — Rose was banned for life from induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. They didn’t like the fact he was betting on games at the same time he was in a position to influence their outcome. 

This is an emotional issue for some folks; I base this on the fact Bruce and Chip were ready to take hostages and detonate WMD’s over the possibility Hall of Fame bigwigs might reconsider their ban.

Rose admitted he’s still got a gambling problem, but said, “Hey, forgive me anyway.” Hard to argue with that kind of sincerity.

My own personal take on the matter is I care even less about this than I did about Bruce Jenner putting on a dress. I figure it’s none of my business and fully believe the world would be a better place if more people shared my philosophy.

Still, the controversy got me thinking about the disparity between The Baseball Hall of Fame and the hall I actually care about: The Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

Frankly, if the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame’s rules were as stringent as are baseball’s equivalent, that hall would be empty except for Karen Carpenter and maybe one or two of the less-offensive Monkees. Davy and Peter, I’m thinking.

I mean, baseball’s hall won’t let you in if you’ve done drugs, had inappropriate relations with passed-out teenage girls, used steroids, run naked through a luxury hotel or committed any one of a number of grievously heinous crimes.

At the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame, these atrocities are part of the entrance checklist.

It doesn’t seem fair. Sports celebrities are every bit as coddled, overpaid and lawyered-up as are rock ’n’ roll icons, yet they’re expected to behave themselves and be good role models for spoiled yuppie children.

Rockers, meanwhile, are considered more trustworthy than Mother Theresa if they stay two nights in a hotel room without trashing it and somehow manage to live into their mid-30s without dying of a heroin overdose.

I don’t see an easy answer to Mr. Rose’s dilemma. But maybe it’s not too late for him to buy an old Stratocaster, learn a few chords and put out a hit record.

He may never find acceptance in Cooperstown, but I’m betting they’d welcome him with open arms in Cleveland.

It’s the things my new machine can’t do that make it great

My birthday was a couple weeks ago; it was a big one, a “decade” birthday. My family never made a big deal over the birthday of anyone old enough to shave. This is as it should be.

So when I got only one present, I was in no way disappointed, particularly since it’s quite possibly the coolest gift I’ve ever received. I’m writing on it now.

Unlike my old laptop, it runs forever on a single charge. It completely filters out junk emails, instant messages, annoying Facebook memes and even bothersome text notifications. All of these things used to slow down my productivity, but not any more.

Also, the resolution is as close to real life as you can get. I don’t know how many pixels-per-inch there are in real life, but whatever that number is, my new machine has got ‘em.

Even better, it comes with a built-in printer that is 100 percent compatible with all the software the machine runs. Speaking of which, there’s no software to install and nothing to set up. Boot-up time is zero seconds; it’s ready to go right out of the box and even a novice user can figure out its entire feature set in less than a minute without cracking the manual.

I know, I know, you’re wondering where you can find one of these miracle machines for yourself, right? Well, that’s the downside, they’re rarer than hen’s teeth and often prohibitively expensive. My sweetie, Lori, tracked mine down at an antique store.

See, it was manufactured in 1923 in New York City by the Underwood Typewriter Company. For all its amazing features, it — like me — is old. But I like that.

It means there’s at least a chance I’m currently writing this column on the same machine used by F. Scott Fitzgerald to hammer out “The Great Gatsby.” Probably not, but there’s a chance and that’s more than you can say about my MacBook. 

Or maybe Hemingway used it to write “A Farewell to Arms” while sitting in the Spanish sun and drinking absinthe on some cheap hotel terraza. Did Papa flesh out the fictional lives of Jake Barnes and Lady Bret Ashley on my Underwood #5? Maybe, maybe.

It’s even possible I’m writing on the very same Underwood #5 my mother purchased for me at a yard sale for my 11th birthday, not long after I informed her of my intent to be a famous writer. (I’m still working on the “famous” part; there are those, in fact, who would argue I’m still working on the “writer” part.) 

I would love for this to be the typewriter from my childhood; it certainly looks exactly the same. And I’m a huge fan of cosmic symmetry. 

It’s impossible to know for sure. But regardless of its origin or history, I feel a real sense of “rightness” about writing on the thing. The clackety-clack of the mechanical keys, the pinging of the little bell reminding me to operate the carriage return (I was surprised how fast this habit came back!), the smell of machine oil and time, time, time.

My Underwood #5 is only a handful of years shy of 100, after all, and works as well as the day it left that New York factory. Built like a tank (and almost as attractive) it was crafted by the hands of people that cried the day Lincoln was shot, read with open wonder the accounts of Orville and Wilbur’s miracle at Kittyhawk; people who were still maybe reeling over the sinking of the Titanic.

This old typewriter has seen things I can only imagine. And at 93, it’s still going strong. Somehow, this inspires me and gives me hope in a way no super-fast-quad-seven processor or flashy bit of software out of Silicon Valley ever will.

Sure, the auto-correct feature doesn’t work worth a damn. But it turns out you can purchase an accessory item known as “dictionary.” 

What will they think of next?

It’s time to put the earthquake rumors to rest

If you live within 200 miles of town, you’re probably still reeling over the events of Sunday afternoon. Like so many, you’re no doubt wondering what caused the earthquake-like tremors that  shattered windows, startled small children and caused cows to stop producing milk.

Local news networks speculated the quake was caused by a meteor impact. This prompted at least one presidential candidate to propose a temporary ban on all undocumented meteors entering U.S. airspace. This in turn lead to strident protests on the part of the M-DAC (Meteor Diversity Action Committee), which pointed out that banning meteors based on their previous location in the solar system was not only unconstitutional, but just plain stupid.

Environmental groups, meanwhile, suggested fracking caused the tremors. Spokespersons for FY-WDA (Forget You, We’re Drilling Anyway) countered that earthquakes are a common occurrence in Michigan and Sunday’s event had nothing to do with fracking. They then added, “Yes, we do always keep our fingers crossed — just for luck. It’s got nothing to do with lying or anything.”

Several farmers reported seeing UFOs in the area around the time of the incident. Homeland Security established a perimeter and declared the area under “maroon alert.”

At any rate, before all this gets completely out of hand, I figured I’d better come clean: it was me. I caused the quake.

I didn’t mean to and I’ll happily pay for damages caused by my actions, which again, were entirely unintentional. If you simply must lay blame, blame the holiday.

It happened, after all, while I was putting up Christmas lights.

I’ve written in the past about my abject cowardice when it comes to heights. It sounds funny in print, but in real life, lemme tell ya, it’s a drag. I can’t wear boots with tall heels without getting all light in the head.

I once actually fainted in one of those glass elevators that run up the side of a tall building in Detroit. I can’t watch movies featuring mountain climbers, tightrope walkers or gymnasts on a balance beam without spilling my beer.

(If you’d like to insert a “plucka-plucka” chicken sound into this narrative, now would be the time.)

And yet, every December I get up on that blasted ladder to hang Christmas lights. It’s only 10 steps up, but it was from Number Nine that I toppled. 

That was several days ago, as I write this. It’s raining today and water is filling the impact crater left by my fall. A few late season ducks have gathered there for a last swim before heading south for the winter.

I’m typing with my arm in a sling, not the easiest task in the world. The urgent care doc says I may need surgery to get my humerus settled back into its rotator cuff, whatever that is.

On the bright side, my Christmas lights look nice and cheery, with the exception of that last string on the west end of the house; that one’s hanging askew, one end stapled to the roof, the other curled forlornly beside the impact crater.

So if you happen to drive by my house next August and see a guy paddling a floaty around his front lawn lake while Christmas lights blaze away on his roofline, you’ll know why.