by Dave Barry
But let me make this very clear: Penelope and I did not experience any kind of linkage. For one thing, we are both very happy in our current relationships. For another thing, we did not, technically, meet. Yes, there was a brief, tension-charged moment when I glimpsed a dark object that I have reason to believe was the back of Penelope's head. I can't say for sure, because Penelope was surrounded by an entourage the size of my high-school graduating class. But that is all that happened. So I am calling upon the international news media to stop spreading these vicious rumors, which can only cause pain to me, and Penelope, and Tom, and their respective entourages. We have all suffered enough.
Now that I've cleared that up, you probably want to hear about the other celebrities I met that morning, and what they were like in person. Probably the biggest name was the late George Harrison of the Beatles, whose sister, Louise, was on the show. I rode in the elevator with her, in person, and although we did not speak, she seemed very nice.
Also on the show was Julia Roberts, but she had been videotaped earlier, so I can't tell you what she was like in person. I can tell you that, on the videotape, which I watched in person, she seemed to be not at all “stuck-up,” and very easy for Katie Couric to talk to. In person, Katie Couric—and you may quote me on this—is very nice.
I personally shook hands with Al Roker, the jovial and portly NBC weatherman. I would imagine that, at one time or another in his career, Al has shaken hands with many top celebrities, including Brad Pitt, the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Donald Rumsfeld, and “J. Lo,” although none of them were there on this particular morning. Nevertheless, in person, Al was every bit as jovial and portly as you would hope.
One little celebrity “tidbit” that I can pass along—and I know this is true, because she looked me right in the eye and told me so herself—is that Claudia Kaneb, the wardrobe person at the Today show, who personally removed the dandruff flakes from my sport jacket, has also, in her career, worked on sport jackets belonging to Mr. Geraldo Rivera. I asked Claudia what they were like, in person, and she told me that they were—and this is a direct quote—“very nice jackets.”
I was interviewed by Bob Costas, who was filling in for Matt Lauer, who was on vacation at an undisclosed location, which I am sure is very nice. While we were off-camera, Bob brought up a column I wrote about baseball several months ago in which I mentioned Bob's name in connection with the song “Who Let the Dogs Out?” by the Baha Men. Bob stressed to me that he has nothing to do with that song. So let me state for the record: BOB COSTAS IS NOT NOW, NOR HAS HE EVER BEEN, ONE OF THE BAHA MEN. Although I am sure they are nice.
After I got off the air, I called my wife to ask her how I did on national television. My wife did not want to talk about that. All she wanted to talk about was whether I thought Penelope Cruz is as beautiful as everybody else seems to think she is. I assured her that, from what I could tell, Penelope, in person, is a woofing dog. I try to be nice, but I am not a total idiot.
Learning to Love the Computer, Warts and All
At least once per day, without fail, my computer, like every computer I have ever owned, has some kind of emotional breakdown. It simply stops working—often when I'm not touching it—and it puts a message on the screen informing me that an error has occurred. It does not say what the error is, nor where it occurred. For all I know, it occurred in New Zealand, and my computer found out about it via the Internet, and became so upset that it could not go on.
When this happens, I have to turn my computer off and start it up again. When I do, my computer puts a snippy note on the screen informing me that it is scanning its disks for errors, because it was shut down improperly.
“But I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!” I shout, but my computer ignores me, because it is busy scanning its disks. You just know that if it finds any errors, it's going to blame me, even though I don't even know where its disks ARE.
While my computer is busy, I scan my wart. I have a wart on my right leg. It has been there for many years. I call it Buddy. I keep an eye on Buddy, in case his appearance changes. I've read that it's a bad thing, medically, when a wart suddenly changes appearance. If I ever look down and see that Buddy has turned green, or he's wearing a little pair of Groucho glasses, I'll know it's time to take some kind of medical action. Such as quit drinking.
But my point is that because of computer weirdness, I regularly see an entire morning's work—sometimes as many as eighteen words—get blipped away forever to the Planet of Lost Data. Needless to say, I use Microsoft Windows. I've been a loyal Windows man since the first version, which required you to write on the screen with crayons. Every year or so, Microsoft comes out with a new version, which Microsoft always swears is better and more reliable, and I always buy it. I bought Windows 2.0, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1415926, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows RSVP, The Best of Windows, Windows Strikes Back, Windows Does Dallas, and Windows Let's All Buy Bill Gates a House the Size of Vermont.
My computers keep having seizures, but I keep buying Windows versions, hoping I'll get lucky. I'm like the loser in the nightclub who keeps hitting on the hot babe. His shoes are squishing from the piña colada she poured on him, but he's thinking: “She's warming up to me!”
I bring this all up because now Microsoft has a new version out, Windows XP, which according to everybody is the “most reliable Windows ever.” To me, this is like saying that asparagus is “the most articulate vegetable ever.” But still, I am tempted. “Maybe this will be the one,” I say to Buddy, as the two of us wait for the disks to be scanned.
If I do get Windows XP, I won't try to install it myself. I no longer mess with the innards of my computer. The last time I tried was a disaster, even though I enlisted the aid of my friend Rob Stavis, a medical doctor who is the most mechanically inclined person I know. Rob can disassemble and successfully reassemble a live human being. He and I recently spent an entire weekend trying to solve an allegedly simple computer problem. We wound up at the computer store, talking to guys who were trained by the Monty Python Institute of Customer Service:
US: So, what do we need to make it work?
THEM: You need a model FRT–2038 expostulating refrembulator.
US: And that will make it work?
THEM: No.
Finally, I hired a guy named J.C., who is a Microsoft Certified Technician. He was in my office for the better part of two days, most of it on the phone with Technical Support. It was fascinating for me, a layperson, to hear the technical terminology that J.C. used to get the information he needed: “DO NOT PUT ME ON HOLD, DO YOU HEAR ME? DO NOT PUT ME ON HO . . . HELLO? HELLO?? YOU (very nontechnical term)!”
In the end, J.C. solved the problem. So now I'm thinking about hiring him again. Because the more I think about this Windows XP, the better it looks, sitting over there by the bar, drinking a piña colada. All I have to do is make my move, and I'll have what every guy dreams of: computer reliability!
I worry about who will take care of Buddy.
It's All About Cloning, Not Clowning
Human cloning: Will it be a lifesaving scientific advance, like penicillin? Or will it prove to be a horrible mistake that unleashes untold devastation upon humanity, like the accordion?
As American citizens, we need to form strong opinions about this issue, so that we can write letters to our congresspersons, so that their staffs can, as a precautionary measure, burn them. But first we must inform ourselves by asking questions and then answering them in the “Q” and “A” format.
Q. Does Tom Cruise shave his chest?
A. We meant questions about cloning.
Q. Oh, okay. What is cloning?
A. In scientific terms, it is a procedure by which a theoretically infinite number of genetically identical organisms emerge, one at a time, from a Volkswagen Beetle.
Q. No, that's “clowning.”
A. Whoops! Our bad! Cloning is a procedure whereby scientists, using tweezers, manipulate DNA, which is a tiny genetic code
that is found in all living hings as well as crime scenes that have been visted by O. J. Simpson. A single strand of DNA can be used to create a whole new organism, as was proved when scientists at Stanford University took DNA from the fingernail of a deceased man and grew a six-foot-tall, 190-pound fingernail. Unfortunately, it escaped from the laboratory and held police at bay for hours by screeching itself against a blackboard. It was finally subdued by National Guard troops equipped with ear plugs and a huge emory board.
Q. Have scientists cloned any other organisms?
A. In 1997, a group of Scottish scientists cloned a sheep named Dolly, which was genetically identical to the original sheep.
Q. How could they tell?
A. They had the original farmer take a hard look at it, and he said, quote: “That's her, all right!”
Q. Wow.
A. Of course, he said the same thing about one of the scientists.
Q. Have there been any other successful cloning experiments?
A. Yes. In 1995, scientists in Florida used a single strand of DNA from the Backstreet Boys to form 'N Sync. Or maybe it was the other way around.
Q. What about humans?
A. We are getting very close. Recently, a firm in Massachusetts announced that it had cloned some human embryos. However, these embryos were alive for only a few hours, and stopped growing after they had formed microscopic six-cell spheres.
Q. What did the firm do with them?
A. They are currently working in Customer Service.
Q. Is anybody else trying to clone humans?
A. Yes. A group called the “Raelians,” which was founded in France, and which we are not making up, claims to be working on a human-cloning project. According to their Internet site ( www. rael.org), the Raelians are named for a French journalist named Rael who, in 1973, “was contacted by a visitor from another planet.” This visitor informed Rael that human life was brought to Earth by aliens, who will come back and visit us if we build them an embassy. The Raelians estimate that this will cost $20 million, and would appreciate donations for this vital mission.
Q. Where does the U.S. government stand on this issue?
A. There is growing bipartisan support for a nuclear strike against France.
Q. Speaking of wacko cults, do you think Tom Cruise is so handsome?
A. We think he is a little chest-shaving weasel, but when we ask our spouse to confirm this, she just gets this dreamy look in her eyes.
Q. How do you, personally, feel about human cloning?
A. Why do you think we refer to ourselves in the plural?
Book-Tour Blues: My Kingdom for a 100-Watt Lightbulb
I recently spent several weeks on a book tour, flying around the country with a suitcase full of increasingly alarming underwear. I'm pleased to report that airport security remains highly effective, especially as regards the terrorist threat posed by eighty-seven-year-old women with the mobility of oak trees. Because these women need extra time to reach their seats, they are—as instructed by the pre-boarding announcement—first in line to board the plane, and thus they almost always get picked for “random” screening by the security personnel, who need to reach their quota so they can get back to standing around.
We frequent fliers have figured this system out, and we lag behind the elderly women, who dodder forward cluelessly, cannon fodder in the War on Terror. They are pulled aside and stand, bewildered, as security personnel wand them and root through their denture adhesive while we able-bodied males stroll onto the plane. Granted, this system is insane, but we must not let sanity stand in the way of airport security.
Speaking of insane: One of my stops on the book tour was New York City, where the publisher put me at an extremely hip hotel. It's so hip that there is no sign outside saying HOTEL. I walked right past it the first time. Evidently if you're hip, you just know there's a hotel there.
The lobby was full of hip people on stark, modernistic furniture, talking into cellphones. They were all twenty-five years old, and they all wore black. I suspect their underwear is black. I myself was wearing khaki pants. I felt like a pig farmer in town for the big manure-spreader show.
The worst part was that I couldn't see. At some point in recent years, light must have become unhip, because this was the darkest hotel I've ever stayed in. The lobby wasn't so bad, but the elevator was so dimly lit that I had to put on my reading glasses, squat, and put my face right next to the buttons to find the one for my floor. I'm sure this amused the hip lobby people. (“Look! A pig farmer squatting in the elevator!”)
My floor was actually scary. Have you ever been in one of those Halloween fun houses, where it's pitch-black and people leap out of the darkness to frighten you? The hotel hallway was like that. It was so dark that I honestly could not see my feet. I initially thought the walls were painted black, although I was later informed that they were very dark purple (a hip color). Sometimes I would encounter other guests in the hallway, but of course I could not see them because they were wearing black. I knew they were there only because I could hear their cellphones ringing.
My room had stark, modernistic furniture and several modernistic, low-wattage lamps, which, when I turned them all on, provided about the same illumination as a radio dial. The only way to read was to turn the TV on and tune it to a program with bright colors, such as Baywatch. My room was strewn with hip items, many of them for sale, including a hotel T-shirt (black), various herbal substances, and an “Intimacy Kit” for $12. If they really want to make money, they should sell 100-watt light bulbs; I would have paid $20 for one. They did sell a candle, labeled “TRAVEL CANDLE,” for $15; I considered buying it and using it in the elevator, to find the “Lobby” button.
My situation improved in California, where I stayed at a swank Beverly Hills hotel that had lights. It also had a swank bar jammed to the walls with fortyish movie executives who all wore (there must have been a memo) black pants, black shirts, and black leather jackets. They were talking about film projects with young, gifted blond women wearing attire that conveyed the message: “Take a look at THESE gifts!” Everybody was drinking—really—watermelon martinis. So I was still out of place (“Look! A pig farmer drinking beer!”). But at least I could see.
IRRELEVANT FINAL BOOK-TOUR NOTE: You know how, at drugstore cash registers, there are little displays of breath mints, batteries, etc., to encourage impulse buys? Well, in Los Angeles, I went into a Longs drugstore where the product on display at the cash register was: a sofa. Really. Suspended ominously right behind the cashier's head was a full-size sofa, priced at $499. Apparently this is for the harried shopper who gets to the cashier and goes, “Let's see . . . dental floss, aspirin, and . . . Ohmigosh! I almost forgot the sofa!” I should write a clever final sentence here, but I need to do my laundry.
Part Five
* * *
We come, finally, to two essays I wrote about September 11, 2001. I wrote the first on the day after the attacks, in a state of shock and anger, not to mention serious doubt about whether there was anything meaningful that anybody—let alone a humor columnist—could say about this horrible thing.
I wrote the second essay almost a year later, when the Herald asked me to write something for the one-year anniversary. I realize this is a pretty somber way to end a humor book, but it didn't seem right to follow these essays with more jokes.
* * *
Just for Being Americans . . .
No humor column today. I don't want to write it, and you don't want to read it.
No words of wisdom, either. I wish I were wise enough to say something that would help make sense of this horror, something that would help ease the unimaginable pain of the victims' loved ones, but I'm not that wise. I'm barely capable of thinking. Like many others, I've spent the hours since Tuesday morning staring at the television screen, sometimes crying, sometimes furious, but mostly just stunned.
What I can't get out of my mind is the fact that they used our own planes. I grew up in the C
old War, when we always pictured the threat as coming in the form of missiles—sleek, efficient death machines, unmanned, hurtling over the North Pole from far away. But what came, instead, were our own commercial airliners, big friendly flying buses coming from Newark and Boston with innocent people on board. Red, white, and blue planes, with “United” and “American” written on the side. The planes you've flown in and I've flown in. That's what they used to attack us. They were able to do it in part because our airport security is pathetic. But mainly they were able to do it because we are an open and trusting society that simply is not set up to cope with evil men, right here among us, who want to kill as many Americans as they can.
That's what's so hard to comprehend: They want us to die just for being Americans. They don't care which Americans die: military Americans, civilian Americans, young Americans, old Americans. baby Americans. They don't care. To them, we're all mortal enemies. The truth is that most Americans, until Tuesday, were only dimly aware of their existence, and posed no threat to them. But that doesn't matter to them; all that matters is that we're Americans. And so they used our own planes to kill us.
And then their supporters celebrated in the streets.
I'm not naïve about my country. My country is definitely not always right; my country has at times been terribly wrong. But I know this about Americans: We don't set out to kill innocent people. We don't cheer when innocent people die.
The people who did this to us are monsters; the people who cheered them have hate-sickened minds. One reason they can cheer is that they know we would never do to them what their heroes did to us, even though we could, a thousand times worse. They know that when we hunt down the monsters, we will try hard not to harm the innocent. Those are the handcuffs we willingly wear, because for all our flaws, we are a decent people.