The Columns

  

Dancing With the (local) Stars Update: Every store, gas station, and school I walk into people ask me about Dancing With the Stars so I thought I’d give weekly updates on the disaster as it unfolds. I would describe my relationship with my dancing partner as semi-hostile. It’s been four weeks, we’ve danced less than fifteen minutes. I’m not even sure we’ve decided on a song yet. The first time I met her the first thing she said to me was “I was hoping you’d be taller.” I see no way this is going to be an enriching experience.

 

 

Christmas Trees

By Tracy K. Lorenz

December 13, 2011

I finally got around to buying a Christmas Tree, for some reason I find it difficult to get in the tree buying mood when the ground is void of snow. But I have a six-year-old so I caved to the daily pressure. We went to a tree farm that I’m pretty sure houses nameless bodies in shallow graves. Some places that sell trees are light and cheery and full of holiday spirit. This place is just full of the spirits of hitch-hikers who hopped in the wrong car in 1985.

Have you ever seen the show “American Pickers”? The show where the fat guy and the skinny guy drive up to farms in the middle of nowhere and the guys get all excited about a pile of rusted bicycle rims? Do you ever wonder where the hermits who live on these farms get the money to buy 40 acres of worthless junk? Apparently the answer is selling Christmas trees and the gold teeth extracted from the aforementioned hitch-hikers. But for some reason Q loves the place so going there, buying a tree, and escaping with our lives has become a holiday tradition.

Actually I’ve had pretty good luck with trees over the years. The only real tragedy I remember involved my former dog Ellen. Way back when I was in grade school I made a macaroni angel for a Christmas ornament. I have no idea how I ended up with the macaroni angel or how it stayed in one piece for so long but I’m pretty sure it was the oldest macaroni angel on the planet. It’s not like I took special care of it but every year when I’d pull out the box of broken bulbs the angel would be there intact.

So year after year I’d dutifully hang the angel without much thought to positioning, then one year I hung it on the lowest branch so it dangled like a tea bag. One night I’m sitting there, Ellen dutifully at my feet when without fanfare she got up, walked over, and ate the macaroni angel. I almost had the feeling it had been bothering her for years, like every year I’d put it up and she’d think “Damn it! Just a foot lower…” until finally her wish was granted. I was actually quite surprised she didn’t keel over on the spot.

But that’s nothing compared to what happened to my friend Char. She bought a tree that, unbeknownst to her, contained a Praying Mantis egg. Praying Mantis eggs are about the size of a golf ball and contain the total worlds allotment of Praying Manti. Char brought the tree home and when the egg warmed up the baby mantises figured it was spring and set out to meet the world. In nature roughly 996 of the 1,000 mantises are instantly eaten my predators. That’s not the case in a family room in Grandville.

Then there was my friend Paul who had an experience in one of the rougher neighborhoods in Flint. He was following a car that had a tree on the roof but the tree wasn’t tied down. Paul’s driving along minding his own business when the tree in front of him fell off the roof, bounced once, and became wedged under his car. Since the skinny part was facing the car about three quarters of the tree was under while the fat part stuck out like a cannon. Paul was sure this was a trap to make him pull over so the non-tree-tiers could rob him so when the car that lost the tree pulled over Paul took off like a bat, the tree still under the car. A low speed chase ensued and ended only when the tree eroded enough to slip from below Paul’s car, traveled backwards, and wedged in the front bumper of the original owner.

Paul did not stop.

But my fondest Christmas Tree memories happened long after Christmas was over. When I was much younger my friend The Schaaby and I would walk the late-night streets of Norton Shores and drag as many discarded trees as possible to the front yard of an unsuspecting but centrally located neighbor. In the morning the neighbor would be treated to the wonders of a veritable forest of dead pines, some still containing tinsel, that magically sprouted in his front yard. We were never caught for this brazen act of redistribution, I don’t know if it’s because everyone already knew who did it and didn’t want a similar surprise, or maybe they actually appreciated the effort it took to create a small suburban woodland. What I do know is if the question of guilt ever came up our other friends would have ratted us out in a heartbeat. Luckily no one ever…axed.

 

 

(Dancing with the stars weekly update: Still no song, still no routine, still no hope of this ending well. My partner called me last week and said I was the only person she ever worked with who refused to perform as directed. She did not say this in a complimentary tone. What I didn’t realize going in was every dance is more of a skit. I’m not too big on skits. “That’s the fun part! Stepping outside yourself and letting people see a different you…” Um, no it isn‘t.)

 

Worst TV of 2011

By Tracy K. Lorenz

As another year comes crashing to an end, it’s time for my annual Worst things on TV list.

Worst Voice: There’s a show on the Discovery Channel called “Sons of Guns.” The show is chock full of annoying people but topping the list is office manger (and owners daughter) Stephanie Hayden. Not only is she a horrible actress her voice sounds like someone is running their fingernails down a cat that is holding two forks and dragging them across a blackboard. Her voice could be played over loud speakers to make Third-World Dictators surrender. Adding to the annoyance is her “I’m hot” attitude when, in fact, she’s about as hot as a Kraft Single.

Worst TV Show not involving the Garden State and copious amounts of Aramis Cologne: “2 Broke Girls.” First off, I hate the “2” and the “2” may be the only original part of the show. It’s like someone said “Gee, “Friends” has been gone for a couple years let’s just remake it and we can save a bunch of money by not having any male-leads or comedy writers.” The show centers around a skinny blond whose dad is a millionaire but cut her off so she has to make it as a waitress, and a street wise fat-chick with an attitude like the girls who work the Clinique Counter at Macy‘s. The result is a show about as funny as getting snapped in the eye with a rubber band.

Dakota Fred

Worst TV trend: Discreetly moving objects out of the way as tragedy approaches. It usually happens during fight scenes on comedies, two guys will be wrestling away and as they approach the girl sitting in a chair with a glass on the table she’ll move the glass in a casual manner just before the table is smashed to bits. She’ll then act as if nothing happened.

Worst TV Trend II: Any conversation that ends with someone saying “awkward” in a sing-song manner.

Worst TV Show I watch and I don’t even know why but I can’t stop: “Storage Wars.” UNBELIEVABLY annoying people bidding on and then digging through the storage units of deadbeat renters. The only guy I like on the show is the old Playboy Barry, a guy who seems to enjoy shelling out thousands of dollars for three legged chairs, bladeless lawn mowers, and Hefty bags full of used clothing. I also like to watch to see what nightmare outfit Brandy will wear this week, the girl was born without a fashion chromosome. (But she’s still ten times hotter than Snooki.)

Worst Commercial Character not named Flo: The boss on the Toshiba commercial where the TV is ready to ship if they don’t put Wifi in it. I could never buy anything from a guy with such greasy hair. Seriously dude, buy some Prell.

Worst Kids Show: “Dora the Explorer,” “Go Diego Go,” “The Backyardigans,” or any other show that features childlike characters screaming at me in Spanish.

Biggest Jerk on TV: “Dakota Fred” on the reality show “Gold Rush.” Possibly the most unsympathetic TV character since “Puck.” Usually I have a soft spot for people with Hubble-lensed glasses and one big shoe but not in this case. I hope at some point he is eaten by a Moose.

(Dancing with the Stars update: We now have a song and 1/3 of a dance routine I will struggle to remember. When I walked into the studio the first thing she asked was “What words would your readers use to describe you?” She wrote down my responses, I don’t know why. I fear the future.)

 

Christmas Lights, The Real Story

By Tracy K. Lorenz

December 27, 2011

I received a number of emails this year asking why I don’t write a “Christmas Lights Review” for my current papers like I used to write for my former paper. Here’s the answer.

Back before I had my own column I was just a freelance hack who’d pick up a few bucks by writing music reviews. Over time my editor grew to like my reviews because I was the only reviewer who ever wrote bad stuff. I didn’t automatically assume the “Styx” concert was going to be magical and I wasn’t afraid to write it because I knew by the time the review appeared the next day “Styx” would be in Toledo.

Winter came along and a tradition my editor hated came with it; people wanted someone to come out and look at their Christmas lights and write a nice little story. I was a reviewer, he called me.

Twenty-five people sent in requests, I visited all twenty five over a four day span and by the time I was done I was ready to take a shovel and beat a plastic penguin to death. When I wrote my story (which was supposed to be 500 words and ended up at 1600 words) I felt cleansed, like a leach had sucked the evil from my blood. My goal was to send in the column and then rest assured I would never ever be asked to review Christmas Lights again.

After the story ran (front page, with pictures) the hate mail started pouring in. Apparently when an eighty-year-old man dying of cancer puts up a single row of lights on his garage you aren’t supposed to start your critique with “You owe me gas money.” To be fair I should mention that I didn’t know he was eighty, I didn’t know he had cancer, and I didn’t know that putting up the lights by himself “Was one of the few joys he had left.”

Ooopski.

So my plan worked, I may have been vilified for writing about how fast Mary lost her baby weight or what nice abs Baby Jesus had but at least I’d never have to review lights again. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
The next year forty-five people wrote in, the Chronicle promoted the heck out of it and once again I had to drive hundreds of miles to review displays I had ZERO desire to look at. It wasn’t just the crappy display, it was getting to the crappy display. I’d put in a full day at work and then I’d have to go out into a blizzard and try and find houses from Holland to Whitehall in the days before I had a Garmin, by the time I showed up I was so frustrated and angry I had no choice but to be brutally honest. I’d deduct points for having a reindeer near a manger; I’d deduct points for crooked ice icicles, I deducted points for having a snowman next to a giant fake candle, I took points off from one lady because she actually wrote “Come at night because the lights look better.” Seriously.

My favorite was some guy who lived in Norton Shores between my office and my house. I went out and looked at his pitiful display and was unimpressed. He called me at home and asked if I’d driven by, I said I had and he said that wasn’t fair because he didn’t have all his lights up yet. He asked if I could drive by again in two days. I drove by and it did look better but not great, one major addition was a giant sled being towed by reindeer, it was tied up between trees about fifteen feet off the ground. The guy called and I told him it was nice but Rudolf’s nose was burned out.

Now you have to understand Rudolf was WAY up in the air, the guy told me he had to park his truck underneath and put a ladder in the truck bed to be able to reach which, in my mind anyway, wasn‘t my fault. He said to give him a day and then come back. The next day he called and I said Rudolf looked better but the bulb in his nose was orange which I just couldn’t accept. He started begging; “Please, just one more day, just drive by tomorrow night and everything will be perfect.” The next night he called and asked what I thought, I told him the nose was the right color red but it wasn’t blinking…

I think I gave him third place. It’s the least I could do considering the guy all but destroyed his front yard by driving a pick-up truck across his lawn four times.

Again I thought that would be the end of the Christmas Lights review, again I was wrong. The next year so many people wrote in the Chronicle supplied me with a driver. It didn’t help, I still hated every second of it and refused to do it the following year. No amount of money could have gotten me back in that car. I didn’t know if people actually liked the reviews or if they just liked the fact I was suffering . In the end it didn’t matter, turning down the cash in exchange for keeping my blood pressure below 1,000 makes me a truly…wise man.

 

Wishes for the Coming Year

By Tracy K. Lorenz

January 3, 2012

 

(Dancing with the Stars weekly update: It’s not looking good, my choreographer and dancing partner has resigned, I may be the only DWTS dancer to ever to perform solo. I’m thinking of doing an interpretive dance called “Spring.” Scarves will be involved.)

I’ve never been much for resolutions, especially resolutions tied to a date. I know I’m weak, I know I’m a creature of habit, and the rattlesnake of failure holds no appeal for me. That being said, it doesn’t mean I can’t wish for some changes in 2012 involving other people…

I’d like to see an end to all commercials with the line “That was so 15 seconds ago.” There are few people as annoying as techno-snobs and these commercials give me violent thoughts. What’s the hurry anyway, is it that important that I know someone retired 15 seconds faster than you knew? This also applies to knowing about a taco party in front of Bills office.

What really amazes me is so much of our lives now revolve around phones but finding a business phone number on-line is growing more difficult by the day. It should be a law, or at least a really strong guideline, that if you have a website your phone number and address should appear on the home page and I don’t mean a “Contact Us” tab either. In 2012 I wish for businesses to wise up.

One remarkable trend-breaking moment did occur on January 2nd at the Outback Bowl in Tampa. It wasn’t just that Michigan State won a bowl game, it was that they didn’t dump a bucket of Gatorade on the coach afterwards. The Gatorade dump is sooooo 1986 and sooooo, well, stupid. I hate the Gatorade dump, it was funny once and I mean ONCE, now it’s just lame.

On the downside the Gatorade dump has been replaced with every player who makes a simple tackle standing up and doing the Superman Shirt Rip motion. Whatever happened to just playing the game? I wish more coaches would institute the Lou “Mush Mouth” Holtz rule that if you perform a little skit (the shirt rip, the pretend eating, the one hand chest pound) after you do something good you have to do the exact same thing when you do something bad. If you pound your chest after you catch a pass you have to pound your chest after you drop one.

I hope 2012 puts an end to auto-tune even though I know there’s no chance of that happening. I’m tired of being force fed corporate music performed by interchangeable inflatable dolls. I also hope that in 2012 Justin Bieber continues his inexorable slide into non-cuteness. What worked when he was fifteen looks idiotic at eighteen, just take your cash, fade away, and wait for your call from VH1 in 2025.

The Olympics are coming up and I hope in 2012 they actually shows some sports and stop with the Bob Costas smarmy inspirational back-stories; the only thing they inspire me to do is change the channel. It’s the Olympics, skip the heart wrenching and show the pole vault for gosh sakes.

Along that line, what used to make the Olympics fun and entertaining was cheering against the Rooskies, every good story needs a good guy and a villain but we’re fresh out of villains which makes me cheer against American’s who act like jerks. (See: Olympic basketball team.)

I wish success for whoever takes over the failed “Summer Celebration.” I hope the first thing they do is round up the residents of Muskegon and explain how to act and dress in public situations. Muskegon needs a serious intervention and re-branding when it comes to how the city is viewed by outsiders, what flies here doesn’t fly anywhere else and we’re repelling the tourists. Without tourist money we’re just trading dollars back and forth with each other and that’s not a strong economic plan.

It’s an election year so I hope the republicans can control the monkey show they have now and focus on one candidate. Four years ago they nominated the only guy who couldn’t beat Obama, with the shape the country’s in now they should be able to nominate a pineapple and take the Whitehouse back, they just need to cut away the brush and put all their support behind the right pineapple. I know a lot of people dream of living in a nanny state but I’m not one of them, the whole “Give them bread and circuses” routine has never worked and it isn’t working now.

I hope in 2012 my son Q continues to think I’m an invincible genius capable of solving any problem and righting any wrong. He’ll be a teenager before I know it and he’ll probably turn on me so I’d like to enjoy the adoration while I can.

I hope someone close to Dick Clark pulls him aside and tells him to retire. Although his ability to count backwards from ten is unparalleled I’m pretty sure we can find someone else to carry the New Years Rockin’ Eve load. I watched that poor guy on Saturday, watching him talk was nothing short of painful and his makeup people didn’t do him any favors. He had so much makeup on I’m surprised his neck could support the extra weight, I kept waiting for him to tip over and do a face digger on his desk. I pictured him with his head pinned to the desk by forty pounds of pancake, his arms flailing as he called for help. The magic ball has reached the bottom, Dick, it’s time to walk away with whatever dignity you have left.

One of the odder things that happened towards the end of last year was a couple of my childhood friends became grandparents. My friends are some of the nicest guys to ever walk the planet and I hope they can help the new editions to enjoy childhood as much as we did. The world is moving fast, I wish them all a little bit of slow.

Subsets

By Tracy K. Lorenz

January 10, 2012

(Dancing with the Local Stars weekly update. My partner is back and even if we’re not totally on the same page at least now we’re now both in the same library. I move forward with much apprehension.)

We had our first all-group practice of the 24 participants in this years “Dancing” group. All the professionals breezed through it, but some of us novices looked to be stomping out the embers of an invisible fire. Luckily I had Mayor Steve Warmington next to me to commiserate with and share moments of nervous consolation / panic / dread. We may both be in just a leeeetle bit over our heads.

One nice thing about the group dance (we were practicing our opening and closing numbers) is we have 24 people crammed onto a 20 x 20 stage which would seem to allow for much covering up, it’s basically like when the Red Army marches in front of the Korean President, we’re so jammed together you almost have to do the proper moves or risk getting a bayonet in the back of your neck .

So my plan was to sidle my way towards the middle where I would become almost invisible, just another stalk of corn swaying in the field. But no, Steve and I were placed front row center. This will not end well.

But one thing this experience has allowed me to do is get a glimpse of the dance culture, when I first got there I couldn’t tell who the “Stars” were and who the “Professionals” were because the only person I knew was Warmington. Then I started looking around and noticed that when dancers stand they have one foot pointed straight and one foot at a forty-five degree angle, male or female it didn’t matter, it must be something they teach at dance school because the rest of us schlubs were just standing haphazard. Another way to tell the real dancers was they’d just be standing there and all of a sudden they’d kick their leg really high. I’d be hanging out talking and KICK! This leg would catch my peripheral vision and then KICK! Another leg would go flying out unprovoked. It was like being confined in an area with a bunch of Tourettes sufferers minus the occasional profanity but with an occasional split.

So I started to think of other groups I have fallen into at various times in my life and what sets them apart…

Artists: The worst. The thing about artists is 90% of them have no talent. They have lots of earrings, they have black clothes, they have the surly attitude of a sixteen-year-old-girl sitting home on prom night but they couldn’t paint a bedroom with a roller. Probably no group contains more people who really really really want to be something but who really really really never will. Maybe that’s why they’re always so angst-y? Honestly, I’d rather hang out with a vegan.

Bowlers: If life has dealt you a bad hand and you’ve accepted the fact you’ll never ever be able to play any other sport, ever, then bowling is where you end up. Let’s face it, it’s not that hard. I have one bowling ball, I bowl once a week, and I my league averaged is about 215 over the last few years. And yet there are guys who are “into it,” they show up with six different balls (seriously,) they talk about oil patterns and break points and boards and I’m thinking “The pins are right there, just wing the ball at them.” No group has larger self esteem issues with the possible exception of female volleyball players.

Writers: Quite a miserable lot, actually. Most are introverts who’ve spent their lives consumed by word counts and the demons of punctuation. If you walk into a newsroom you will never hear laughter but you will on occasion catch just the slightest wisp of alcohol.

Soft Ball Players: Here’s a tip; If you see a softball player and he’s wearing a knee brace keep your distance because he’s going to be a dink. Guys with knee braces tend to call other players by their number (Nice catch six!) and talk incessantly about the Class B District Championship game of 1992. Like bowling, softball is a sport you will never be respected for and may actually work against you in social situations. There are guys who play like they’re taking the beach at Iwo Jima and there are guys who play to have fun. The skill level between the two groups is almost indistinguishable.

Female Softball Players: Take all the traits mentioned for every group above and cram them into one non-flattering uniform.

Skiers: Probably the only group of people in the world who wear clothes that haven’t even been invented yet. Guys ski to get away from their wives, wives ski so they can tell other wives what a wonderful weekend she just spent skiing with her husband.

Snowboarders: For some reason snowboarders have decided it’s cool to dress like a smashed Pepsi can. Dude, wasn’t there anything available within seven sizes of the one God intended you to wear? Snowboarders also lead the world in descriptive phrases used to describe the most basic and repetitive motions, few of which are intentional. It’s almost as if the secret language they’ve created gives them the special power needed to jump off a little mound of snow and remain upright. It doesn’t. But it does sound cooler to say “Dude, I was doing a backside fakie off the pipeline and did a total digger…” than a simple “I fell.” Snowboarders are a lot like artists, looks trump skill every time.

Evolution

By Tracy K. Lorenz

One of the things that fascinates me about sports is the evolutionary progression that keeps all things equal. Runners have gotten faster but so have throwing arms, a third baseman can still field a ball and throw a runner out by half a step the same way the did in 1920 when their uniforms could easily fit two people. The scores at Augusta aren’t all that much different now than they were when Bobby Jones was playing with a cane and a ball of feathers. Nature just has a way of making everything equal out.

Well, most of the time anyway…

Miracle fibers: No matter how large people have gotten over the years scientists have come up with ways to reign them in. It doesn’t matter if the first law of hydraulics is “you can’t compress water“ people still try. It started out long ago with corsets and now I see commercials for something called “Spanx.” I guess they call them “Spanx” because “Run!” was already taken. Near as I can tell women wear Spanx right to the edge of public safety and if that fiber ever lets go the resulting release of energy will be like Satan coming to breakfast. In any event, the bigger we get, the faster technology works to hold us in.

Hair Styles: No matter what hair style you’re sporting today it will look stupid in twenty years but good again in forty. In the 50’s guys wore short hair and so did the kids in the 90’s, in the 60’s hippies had long hair just like kids do now, it’s cyclical. Where we’re lucky is that no really really famous statue-worthy people have popped up between the 70’s and now. What if George Washington started a country in 1987? Two hundred years from now people would be looking at a founding father wearing a skinny tie and a mullet. It’s hard to imagine Ben Franklin wearing Hammer Pants and a fade. Somehow nature times it out so really famous people only appear when the fashion market is in a somewhat neutral period.

Telephones: In an odd case of reverse engineering telephones have actually gotten worse. I remember back when phones were hooked to a wall, I never lost one, I never broke one, I never dropped a call, and it didn’t cost me $300 a month. Okay, I couldn’t text anyone but didn’t society decide texting was mundane back when Morse Code was phased out? Instead of one guy in a visor sitting behind a Western Union window we now have hundreds of roaming zombies typing absolutely nothing of importance. I’m going out on a limb here but I predict texting, face book, and Twitter will all disappear by the end of the decade. If the reverse engineering trend continues people will be writing “LOL” in smoke signals by 2021.

Wing tips: Then there are things that don’t change at all no matter what society at large is up to. Wing tips serve no real purpose but they won’t go away. Winston Churchill wore them, Ward Cleaver wore them, and Barack Obama wears them. The only difference is Winny and Ward didn’t do a girly little jog-walk when they went down a flight of stares like Barry does. The girl-trot and wing tips just don’t mix.

Cars: They make family cars now that can easily top 100 mph but for some reason the one in front of me is always going 52. They have cars with navigation systems, air bags, DVD players and yet every car in front of me tops out at 52. The only exception is if it’s a gigantic van with handicap plates and a guy the size of Orson Wells behind the wheel, those go 51 and change lanes without hesitation or warning and make REALLY wide turns. With all the car technology we have available couldn’t we step up the speed just a little?

Pretty Women: Something happened where women got better looking but guys just sort of stayed the same. Seeing a drop-dead gorgeous woman with a toad used to be a rarity now it’s as common as Starbucks. The big difference seems to be at the high school and college level, have you ever been out on the town on Prom night? The eighteen-year-old girls look like Victoria Secret models and the guys look like, well, dorks. Their ties are too short, their jackets don’t fit, and their hair looks like a squid is giving birth on their head. Somehow nature skipped guys when it came to the natural advance of societal looks, maybe it’ll catch up some day but right now women have a huge lead.

Then again, they could all be wearing Spanx.

The Return of Mr. Genius man

By Tracy K. Lorenz

(Ten years ago Tracy wrote a column about his being a member of the American Mensa Society, a group whose only qualification is that you have an IQ in the top 2% of the worlds population. After the column ran, readers sent Tracy questions many of which began “Okay, Mr. Genius Man, if you’re so smart…” That was the beginning of the “Mr. Genius Man” columns. The Editor)

Richard J., Norton Shores, MI: You’ve written a couple times about the crab fishermen on Deadliest Catch. Have you ever watched “Swamp Loggers?” Who do you think would win in a fight between the crab fishermen and the loggers?

Mr. Genius Man: I’d go with the loggers because the crab fishermen are always tired and they’re about half the size of the more sedentary loggers. Not only are they smaller I gotta believe every guy on that show has lungs like a piece of burnt toast from chain smoking. To defeat a Deadliest Catch crab fisherman all you’d have to do is run up a flight of stairs.

But both the crab guys and the loggers wouldn’t stand a chance against the guys on “Swamp People,” the ones who catch alligators for a living, gigantic alligators, alligators in a teenage-girl-mood all the time. There’s a guy on there named Willie who appears to be in his early thirties, he’s missing a front tooth, and he might weigh a buck and a half. Last year his dad was trying to shoot an alligator that Willie was holding on to (there’s no OSHA in the swamp) but the alligators skull was too thick so the bullet bounced off and hit Willie in the arm and face.

Now if that was me I’d just, at know, die. Willie went home and had his mom cut the bullet fragments out of his face with a hot knife. They don’t do that on Jersey Shore. But Willie doesn’t just catch alligators, to pick up a little pocket money he cruises the swamp at night in pitch darkness and catches snakes by hand. On one show he caught 65 snakes and every single one of them bit him. If it was me I’d be considering another career path after snake number two. But Willie just complained of being woozy and threw up over the side of the boat every now and then. The only time I’ve ever seen him complain was when an alligator that was supposed to be dead sprung back to life and clamped down on his Willie’s hand. His dad somehow pried the beasts mouth open and extracted Willies fingers. He wrapped an old t-shirt around it and went back to work.

Now compare catching angry fourteen foot alligators in a twenty foot boat to catching a little crab on a gigantic ship and the contest ends quickly.

Jason M., Findley, OH: I’m heading to up Grand Haven on vacation in two weeks and I was told to be weary of the rip tides. Any suggestions?

Mr. Genius Man: Yes, be like me and don’t go in the water. Well, not above your waist anyway. I’ve done a very non-scientific study over the years and it would appear that most Lake Michigan drowning victims have at one point had their head under water. The experts say if you get sucked out by a rip current you’re supposed to swim diagonally but these are the same experts who say you should punch a shark in the gills when it’s biting you. In either case I’d be in such panic I doubt I’d have the presence of mind to act accordingly. All I know is if I was in a rip current and a shark started biting me I’d just figure it wasn’t my day and accept my fate.

If you do for some reason feel the need to actually swim in Lake Michigan do it as far from the pier as possible since that’s where rip tides occur. But seriously, there’s no shame in just lying on the beach.

Kevin24rulz, Traverse City, MI: I’m getting married next year and my girlfriend wants a big ring. I’d rather get her a smaller ring and use the money for a new truck or a down payment on a house. Do you see any reason to buy a large ring?

Mr. Genius Man: Dude, just tell her the big ring makes her look fat and go buy the truck.

The Keg

By Tracy K. Lorenz

I saw something on Saturday that I haven’t seen in a long time: a keg. It was during the Coast Guard Festival parade and was in a neighbor’s side yard, people were gathered around it like a campfire, occasionally glancing at whatever inane group was passing by. I’ve never been a big fan of drinking when it’s light out but the group surrounding the beer seemed to be enjoying the potential for a sunset hangover, with any luck the pain would dissipate before the fireworks kicked in.

When I was a kid a keg was a big deal, there’s just something about the potential for getting in trouble as a group that heightens the excitement level of an otherwise pedestrian activity. Kids were different back then; we cared about what our parents thought and didn’t openly flaunt our illegal activities like today’s youth. The secrecy was part of the allure. Dragging an 800 pound keg up a dune was less alluring.

The two main “keg” party spots were in Whitey’s Woods where, ironically, my parents now live and Beachwood Park where, ironically, I was almost killed when John Prekosovich lost his grip on a keg which sent it rolling down the hill with menace. The keg had picked up quite a bit of steam by the time I looked up and noticed it growing exponentially but I was able to step aside at the last second. Afterwards I was ridiculed for not stopping the runaway cylinder of aluminum death; they might as well have mocked me for not trying to stop a runaway cement truck of cement truck death. In such a situation the only thing you can do is get out of the way and let gravity take its course. When the thing stops rolling you just pick it up and head back towards the dune’s summit, it’s a very Sisyphusian process.

The thing about dune keggers, and probably all keggers for that matter, is there’s a consistency and protocol that I enjoyed. The plastic cups were either red or blue but a couple guys would always bring a beer stein or other “look at me” container that appeared no better at holding liquids than a plastic cup, it also appeared no better at attracting women. In addition to the specialty cup owners other notable participants were the guy who tells everyone to tip their cup to avoid foam and the guy in charge of pumping the keg to make sure there was lots of foam. The pump guy was usually a fringe planet in the high school universe, by standing next to the keg all night it allowed him to have contact with the more popular kids and see the inner workings of the buzz-bomb that is the high school social scene. On Monday he’d return to school and the anonymity that he so abhorred.

But there was a downside to high school kegs, most people had no clue how much they could drink before what went in decided to come out, usually in spectacular fashion. I remember one guy in the middle of a huge crowd in Brian Clarke’s living room, suddenly he got the chipmunk cheeks and the wide eyed look that will appear on the face of those about to destroy their social standing. But the crowd was so thick he couldn’t get to the bathroom or out the door so he placed his hands over his mouth like the “speak no evil” monkey and promptly shot chunks out his nose. That wasn’t good.

I saw another guy sitting on a couch when he decided to do the Technicolor yawn, rather than get up he just lifted the couch cushion, hurled, put the couch cushion down and continued to drink. I saw another friend throw up into the hole of a guitar. Which of those two was worse has long been subject to debate.

Throughout high school and college I can’t tell you how many keg parties I either went to or hosted but I never once got in trouble, never got caught, never got arrested, and never threw up. But I did come close to accomplishing all three at once.

It happened at a keg party overlooking Lake Michigan high in the dunes at Bronson Park. As usual the cops got wind of the event and broke it up (cops were actually pretty cool back then as long as you were cool back) and everyone scattered. At the time I was driving a pretty hot Mustang and the Mustang was parked with the front bumper about two feet from a tree. Immediately behind the Mustang was a cop car pinning me in. Eventually I had to walk over to the cop and asked if he could, ya know, move his car. The cop looked over the situation and said “If you can’t get that car out you must be drunk.” That wasn’t the response I was looking for. The Mustang lacked power steering, I had to make about 3,000 one-foot “Y” turns to get out. The frustrating part was, as one would expect, all my friends split like a banana so I had to go through the entire ordeal without a co-pilot. You’d think out of all the people there I could have found at least one…Bud.

The Money Pit

By Tammy Derouin

The only news that is getting round the clock attention is the debt crisis. It’s too bad that our government didn’t take this issue seriously in the past. Obama has been reckless with his spending. He has racked up an incredible amount of debt. Obama isn’t the only president to use endless credit but he has certainly done his share of damage. This administration can’t blame everything on the Bush administration.

Entitlements have been draining our economy for decades. It isn’t the government’s responsibility to provide an income, housing, food, and jobs for the people of this nation. It is the responsibility of the people to provide for themselves. There will always be a percentage of the population that is unable to provide for themselves for one reason or another. This is where the generosity of the community comes into play. People are always willing to help in times of crises.

The founders had a deep desire to help those in need. They also knew that handouts weren’t the answer. They believed that it was better to offer just enough help so that those in need could help themselves. In times of emergency, helping those in need was the right thing to do. Prolonging the assistance would only make those in need dependent on the assistance. “Under no circumstances is the federal government to become involved in public welfare. The Founders felt it would corrupt the government and also the poor. No Constitutional authority exists for the federal government to participate in charity or welfare.” (From “The 5,000 Year Leap”)

Back when I was in school there was a fellow classmate whose family was living on the welfare system. I remember a conversation where she said; “I’m tired of eating steak.” I also remember the look on my mother’s face when I told her what I heard. Entitlements have a way of causing friction. There are those that don’t have to work or work very little for full benefits by way of the government. Then there are those that work very hard to support themselves and their families but fall short of what the government is handing out. This is what probably sparked the middle class families to come up with the phrase, “Tell them I said you’re welcome.” It is on the backs of those that work that support those that have less through taxation.

The finances of this country are a mess. Congress needs to learn to say no to lobbyists. They need to read what they are voting for. Every household in America needs to live within its means or suffer the consequences. I don’t think it’s asking too much of our government to do the same. Our founders knew how detrimental a debt would be to this nation.

August 2 is fast approaching. I’m sure in the end Congress will come up with some sort of compromise that combines revenue and cuts. Obviously, this nation needs to fix this problem but can you imagine an American household doing what our government is doing? Picture if you will Mr. & Mrs. Average Joe Citizen. They happen to be in debt. They are in so much debt that they don’t know how they are going to pay their bills. They get this great idea to go to their bank and ask for additional money. The bank tells them that they are already over extended and can’t even pay the bank what they owe let alone their other creditors. The banker falls under a spell, due to fast talk and fancy foot work. The couple is able to convince the banker that increasing their credit limit and cutting a few minor expenses will save them from bankruptcy. The banker gets a worthless I.O.U and the couple receives their money and a higher credit limit. They spend their money just as recklessly and they didn’t even have to show the bank a budget of how they would get their spending under control. The spending frenzy continues. In the real world the banker would have lost his job and applied for entitlements.

“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

Thomas Jefferson

From the Soap Box

Tammy H. Derouin