DAVE BARRY IS NOT TAKING THIS SITTING DOWN

by Dave Barry

  This column prompted a somewhat critical article in The Tri-City Herald, which is the leading newspaper in the “Tri Cities” area. The article pointed out that my column, in focusing on radioactive insects, ignored many of the positive things happening in the “Tri Cities” area, such as (these are direct quotes) “the winning Tri-City Americans hockey team” and “the booming construction going on behind Columbia Center mall.”

  The Tri-City Herald article prompted yet ANOTHER article, this one in The Seattle Times (motto: “We Cover The Tri-City Herald”). The Times article quoted a “communications specialist” with the Hanford cleanup company who objected to my statement that the dump site “glows like a Budweiser sign.” The communications specialist states: “That’s a little bit more than inaccurate.”

  The Times story also notes that:

  Authorities prefer to call the insects “contaminated,” rather than “radioactive.”

  According to the president of The Tri-City Visitors and Convention Bureau (this is another direct quote): “The reality is that the real story, so to speak, is that the community has many positive attributes, like a great quality of life.”

  The Hanford site also produces (I swear I am not making this up) contaminated tumbleweeds “on a regular basis.”

  So anyway, I feel terrible. The first rule of journalistic balance is: “Before you report that an area has radioactive ants, ALWAYS check to see if it also has a winning minor-league hockey team.” And I violated that rule. So I hereby apologize to the “Tri Cities.” I’m sure it’s a wonderful area that everybody should visit immediately. To help promote tourism there, I’ve come up with some slogans:

  “The Tri Cities Area . . . Contaminated—NOT Radioactive!”

  “Relax! That Booming Sound You Hear Is Nothing More Than Construction Behind the Columbia Center Mall!”

  There! I hope that patches things up between me and the “Tri Cities.” If there is anything else that I, personally, can do from 3,000 miles away, please let me know!

  Now let’s turn to celebrity-attacking birds. I broach this topic in light of an alarming recent incident involving Fabio, the megahunk male supermodel with long flowing hair and a certain special way of looking at a woman that says to her: “My chest is the size of a UPS truck.”

  On March 30, Fabio was at the Busch Gardens theme park in Williamsburg, Virginia, to help inaugurate a new roller-coaster ride, “Apollo’s Chariot,” named for Apollo, the ancient Roman god of motion sickness. With the press on hand to witness this historic event, Fabio climbed into a seat in the front row of the coaster, and off he went. At some fateful point during the two-minute ride, Fabio collided with—you guessed it—a contaminated tumbleweed.

  No, seriously, he collided with a bird. He was not seriously hurt, but in the Associated Press photo I saw, he had blood on his nose and the stunned look of a man who has gone beak-to-beak with Terror.

  Busch Gardens officials attempted to downplay the incident, calling it “relatively minor.” They told the press that nearly a million people have ridden roller coasters there, and Fabio was the first one ever to collide with a bird. We do not have to be trained statisticians to understand what this means: It means the bird did it on purpose. The bird community has probably been waiting for years to get Fabio up in a roller coaster and take a whack at him.

  And this will not be the end of it. As any bird scientist (or “orthodontist”) will tell you: Once a bird tastes celebrity blood, it wants more. Today it is Fabio; tomorrow it could be the Spice Girls. That’s why I urge President Clinton to go on TV and bite his lip in a sincerely weepy manner until Congress approves a program wherein we lash expendable volunteer celebrities such as Dennis Rodman, The McLaughlin Group, and actress Fran Drescher to roller coasters and send them up around the clock until they are attacked by birds, at which point F-16 fighter escorts open fire (on the birds).

  Let’s do this NOW. Let’s not wait until celebrity roller-coaster attack birds—which, like “contaminated tumbleweeds,” would be an excellent name for a rock band—puncture a truly irreplaceable national treasure such as, God forbid, Adam Sandler. Let’s keep our nation free from terror, from sea to glowing sea.

  Batman to the Rescue

  One evening my wife mentioned, casually, that she had been talking to the son of one of her friends, a little boy named Alexander, about his upcoming fourth birthday.

  “Alexander says he’s having a Batman party,” my wife said.

  “Hm,” I said.

  “So I told him that maybe Batman would come to the party,” my wife said.

  “Hm,” I said.

  My wife said nothing then. She just looked at me. Suddenly, I knew who was going to be Batman.

  I was not totally opposed. In my youth I read many Batman comics, and it seemed to me that he had a pretty neat life, disguised as wealthy playboy Bruce Wayne, waiting for the police commissioner of Gotham City to shine the Bat Signal onto the clouds (it was always a cloudy night when the commissioner needed Batman). Then Bruce would change instantly—it took him only one comic-book panel—into his Batman costume and roar off in the Batmobile to do battle with the Forces of Evil or attend a birthday party.

  Of course Bruce owned his own Batman costume. I had to rent mine. It consisted of numerous black rubber pieces, similar to automobile floor mats, with strings so you could tie them to your body. One piece was shaped like rippling chest muscles, so you could transform yourself, like magic, from a flabby weakling into a flabby weakling wearing an automobile floor mat.

  It took me a lot longer than one comic panel to get into this costume, but finally I was ready to speak the words that strike fear into the hearts of criminals everywhere: “Michelle, could you tie my G-string?” It turns out that a key part of the Batman costume is this triangular floor mat piece that protects the Bat Region. It’s very difficult to attach this piece to yourself without help, which could explain why Batman hooked up with Robin.

  At last I was ready. In full Bat regalia, I stepped out of the house, and—as crazy as this may sound—for the first time I truly understood, as only a crusader for justice can understand, why people do not wear heavy black rubber outfits in South Florida in August. Staggering through the armor-piercing sunshine and 384 percent humidity, I made it to the Batmobile, which was disguised as a wealthy playboy Toyota Celica.

  When we got to Alexander’s house, in accordance with our Bat Plan, I remained outside in the Batmobile while Michelle went to the backyard, where the party was going on. We had bought Alexander a Batman walkie-talkie set; Michelle gave Alexander one unit and told him to use it to call Batman. These Batman walkie-talkies contain actual transistors, so when Alexander called me, I was able to hear, on the other unit, clear as a bell, a random bunch of static. Interpreting this as the Bat Signal, I pulled the rubber Bat Cowl over my head, thus rendering myself legally blind, and drove the Toyota Batmobile into the backyard.

  The effect on the party guests, as you would expect, was electrifying. The adults were so electrified that some of them almost wet themselves. The younger guests were stunned into silence, except for Matthew, age one, who ran, crying, to his mom, and probably did wet himself.

  With all eyes upon me, I stopped the Batmobile, flung the door open, and, in one fluid, manly motion, sprang out of the seat, then got retracted violently back into the seat, because I had forgotten to unfasten my seat belt. Eventually I was able to disentangle my cape and stride in a manly, rubberized way over to the birthday boy.

  “Happy birthday, Alexander!” I said, using a deep Bat Voice. After that the conversation lagged, because, let’s be honest, what are you going to talk to Batman about? The pennant races? So we just stood there for a while, with Alexander staring at me, and me trying to look manly and calm despite the fact that after 30 seconds in the sun I could have fried an egg on top of my cowl.

  Finally the cake arrived, and everybody sang “Happy Birthday,” and I announced that I had to go fight crime. Striding
back to the Batmobile, I opened the car door, turned dramatically toward the youngsters, and said, quote “BWEEPBWEEPBWEEPBWEEP.” Actually, it was the Batmobile that said this, because I had forgotten to deactivate the Bat Alarm. I climbed into the front seat, slammed the door with several inches of cape sticking out the bottom, and backed manfully and blindly into the street. Fortunately there was nothing in my way, because I would definitely have hit it, and the law would not have been on my side. (“Mr. Barry, please tell the jury exactly what you were wearing as you backed your car over the plaintiff.”)

  The next day, Alexander’s mom reported that the first thing he did when he woke up was turn on his walkie-talkie and call Batman. He said he could hear Batman, but Batman couldn’t hear him because he was busy fighting evil supercriminals named Poison Ivy and Mr. Freeze. This was almost true: Batman was actually battling Heat Rash. So he will be out of action for a while. The next superhero from this household to visit Alexander—and I have made this very clear to Michelle—will definitely be Cat Woman.

  The Fountain of Youth

  Recently I was at a party hosted by a younger couple, defined as “a couple that had not yet been born when I started worrying about cholesterol.” You will never guess whose music these young people were playing: Bobby Darin’s. Yes. Bobby Darin, hepcat swinger from my youth, is cool again!

  No doubt you’ve read about how the Hot New Trend among “with-it” 20-something people is to eschew the rock scene and pretend that they’re swank sophisticates living three or four decades ago—drinking martinis, going to nightclubs, dressing like the late Frank Sinatra (not the women, of course; they’re dressing like the late Dean Martin), voting for Dwight Eisenhower, using words like “eschew,” etc. This makes me wonder: If old things are cool, could I become cool again?

  I have not felt remotely cool for a long time, thanks largely to the relentless efforts of my teenage son, whose goal in life is to make me feel 3,500 years old. We’ll be in the car, and he’ll say, “You wanna hear my new CD?” And I, flattered that he thinks his old man might like the same music he does, will say “Sure!” So he increases the sound-system volume setting from “4” to “Meteor Impact,” and he puts in a CD by a band with a name like “Pustule,” and the next thing I know gigantic nuclear bass notes have blown out the car windows and activated both the driver- and passenger-side air bags, and I’m writhing on the floor, screaming for mercy with jets of blood spurting three feet from my ears. My son then ejects the CD, smiling contentedly, knowing he has purchased a winner. On those extremely rare occasions when I like one of his CDs, I imagine he destroys it with a blowtorch.

  My point is that, for some time, I have viewed myself as being roughly equal, on the Coolness Scale, to Bob Dole. And then, suddenly, at this party, these 20-somethings were playing Bobby Darin, a singer from my youth, an era known as “The Era When There Were a Lot of Singers Named Bobby and One Named Freddy” (Bobby Sherman, Bobby Vee, Bobby Vinton, Bobby Rydell, Elvis “Bobby” Presley, and Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon).

  I KNOW Bobby Darin’s music. Whenever I hear his swinging version of “(Oh My Darlin’) Clementine” I snap my fingers in a happening “jive” manner and sing right along with these immortal lyrics:

  You know she would rouse up

  Wake all of them cows up

  (They don’t write them like that anymore. They can’t: They have been medicated.)

  I vividly remember when Bobby Darin had a hit record with “Mack the Knife,” which is sometimes referred to as “The Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band of 1959,” because it was nearly three minutes long and had weird incomprehensible lyrics involving somebody named “Sukey Tawdry.” I remember going to a record hop—that’s right, an actual record hop—in the gymnasium of Harold C. Crittenden Junior High in Armonk, New York, where they played “Mack the Knife” maybe 14 times and we all danced the Jitterbug.

  The Jitterbug was a dance wherein you remained in actual, physical contact with your partner—what kids now call “touch-dancing.” I grew up at the tail end of the touch-dancing era; after that, we started doing non-touch dances—the Jerk, the Boogaloo, the Cosine, the Funky Downtown Rutabaga, etc., wherein you strayed several feet from your partner. Later in the ’60s, songs got longer and dance standards got looser, and you often lost visual contact altogether with your partner, sometimes winding up, days later, in completely different states. This was followed by the disco era, during which you and your partner might touch briefly, but only for the purpose of exchanging narcotics; which in turn was followed by the “mosh pit” concept of dancing, wherein you dance simultaneously with many people, the object being to inflict head injuries on them.

  So for decades, the only time you saw touch-dancing was at wedding receptions, when the band—as required by federal wedding-reception law—played “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” and guests age 73 and older would hobble onto the floor and do the Fox Trot while younger people gyrated randomly around them.

  But now touch-dancing is back, and I’m excited about it, because—ask anybody who has seen me at a wedding reception after the bar opens—I can still do the Jitterbug. I can get out there on the floor and really whirl my partner around. Granted, sometimes my partner winds up face-down in the wedding cake, but that is not the point. The point is that, despite what my son thinks, maybe I am cool again. I’m thinking about putting a tube and a half of Brylcreem in my hair and going to a swank nightclub. I’d saunter up to the bar, order a dry martini, and settle back to soak up the scene; then, when a really “swinging” song came on, I’d get to my feet and “wow” the younger generation when I, in a suave and sophisticated manner, threw up on my shoes, because martinis make me sick.

  Then I’d go to bed, because I’m 3,500 years old.

  He Would Flee Bosoms, But His Car Is Booted

  Vacation season is approaching, so today I want to issue a Travel Warning to help you avoid a menace that could completely ruin your vacation: bosoms.

  This menace was brought to my attention by a recent letter to my newspaper, The Miami Herald (motto: “Keep Looking! It’s Somewhere in Your Yard!”). This letter was written by the Reverend Keith A. Marvel of Wilmington, Delaware. He states:

  Three friends and I recently visited Miami to get in a little Florida sunshine and some golf. Our four-day stay was a bit of a shock.

  First we thought maybe we landed in another country when we walked to a beach—marked for our hotel’s guests only—only to find topless women sunbathers.

  As Christian men, we are taught to flee this type of thing, which is hard in Miami since it seemed that this type of immorality was nearly everywhere.

  Then, the clincher came at 7 P.M. Saturday night when we went to get dinner and came back to find our car, which was “booted” by a company.

  After describing his group’s unsuccessful efforts to protest the $25 parking fine, the Reverend Marvel states: “I hope that the city of Miami Beach would do something about this ordinance and topless sunbathing. If not, maybe you should warn tourists before they spend their hard-earned money on a trip to Miami.”

  First, by way of sincere apology, let me state, on behalf of all of the citizens of Miami and Miami Beach, who have unanimously elected me to speak for them, that the letters in “Keith A. Marvel” can be rearranged to spell “Hark! Evil Meat!”

  Let me also state that the Reverend Marvel is correct: There are topless women sunbathers in Miami, although I think it’s a stretch to say they’re “nearly everywhere.” I’ve lived in Miami for 13 years, and if it were infested with topless women, I definitely would have noticed. Also it would be mentioned on the TV news.

  ANNOUNCER: What’s our forecast, Bob?

  WEATHERPERSON: Bill, I look for warmer temperatures and continued naked bosoms all over the place, so the public should remain indoors with duct tape over its eyes.

  It’s not as bad as that. But we do get our topless sunbathers. Most of them are tourists from Europe, which is known for being im
moral. Europeans openly smoke cigarettes; they think nothing of toplessness. You cannot turn around in Europe without seeing a marble statue of a topless ancient Greek or Roman goddess the size of a Budweiser Clydesdale, expressing the ancient artistic concept: “I cannot find a marble brassiere in my size.”

  So European women often sunbathe topless. European men are also quite exposed. Apparently there was some huge mixup over in Europe, whereby all the eye patches were mislabeled as men’s bathing suits, the result being that European men at the beach often have nothing covering their Euros but a piece of fabric the size of a Cheez-It. Meanwhile, Europeans who injure their eyes are stumbling around with swimming trunks over their heads.

  On my fact-finding trips to Miami-area beaches, I’ve noticed that the Europeans don’t seem to notice that they’re almost naked. But the Americans definitely do. American women are cool about it; they have developed the ability to look at things, such as a man’s Euro region, via a Stealth Glance technique, so that you never actually catch them doing it. (They use a similar technique for scratching.) American men, on the other hand, are as subtle as a dog with its nose in another dog’s butt. When an American man catches sight of a bosom, his head snaps toward it, his eyeballs lock onto it like missile radar, and a loud alarm goes off in his brain, similar to the one in submarine movies that goes “DIVE! DIVE! DIVE!”—except it goes “BOSOM! BOSOM! BOSOM!” As long as the man is within range of the bosom (12 miles) his head will remain pointed toward it and he will be unable to think about anything else; this is the primary cause of freighters running aground.

  The point is that if a man, for example the Reverend Marvel, is on the same beach as a bosom, he is physiologically incapable of simply ignoring it. He has to look! And then of course he has to flee. This is why I am issuing the following warning to travelers: IF YOU COME TO THE MIAMI AREA, AND YOU GO TO THE BEACH, THERE IS A CHANCE YOU WILL SEE TOPLESS SUNBATHERS. The Miami tourist bureau requests that you tell everybody you know about this warning and spread it on the Internet. The Orlando tourist bureau has also asked me to warn you that they have a bosom problem there, but the Miami bureau claims that most of the Orlando ones are artificial.