Kwik Goblin Humor Blog

Have you been shopping this holiday season? I suspect that you have. Not only do people push and shove their way through the crowd, but also Christmas music constantly blares over the speakers in the mall’s ceiling. No matter which way you turn, some of the most annoying songs in the world greet you.

Some Christmas music isn’t bad, but some is most annoying. Here are the ten most annoying Christmas songs of all time, in my humble opinion.

* Deck the Halls - This song really annoys me. It is strictly a pagan song and makes me want to rip the speakers out of the mall’s ceiling. Over and over again we hear, “fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la. Grrr!

* Carol of the Bells - This song is asinine. The same four notes play over and over again. If you weren’t brain dead before it plays three times in 30 minutes, you’ll wish you were. It seems the “ding-dong, ding-dong” song never ends and once you leave the mall, it continues to play for hours in your head. Over and over and … Well, you get the idea.

* Do They Know It’s Christmas - Released what seems a century ago, but is really only three decades, this song is dead and needs to be buried. The words, “world of dread and fear” and “clanging chimes of doom,” make me crazy. The gloom and doom is depressing and the holidays are depressing enough without it for some.

* Happy Christmas- This song is referred to as War is Over by some people. This is one of McCartney’s worst ever attempts at songwriting.

* Happy Holidays - Do we have to have “happy” in ever Christmas song? This is another one that retail stores play every ten minutes, or so it seems. It’s enough to turn your stomach by the end of the first week of December.

* Have a Holly Jolly Christmas - When Burl Ives first sang this song, people tapped their toes and sang along. Decades later, I grit my teeth whenever I hear it. It certainly takes all of the “holly” and “jolly” out of my holiday season.

* Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - This song makes no sense at all. What is a “little Christmas?” It’s cheesy to say the least and it annoys me to distraction. The songwriter’s attempt at “cute” revolts me.

* Santa Baby - Santa is a plump, red ball and I can’t for the life of me see how anyone can find him sexy. Of course he’s a fictional character, but give me a break. Plus, that scratchy voice is enough to make you tear your hair out by the roots.

* Blue Christmas - I’m a Baby Boomer. When Elvis was in his hey-day, I loved his music… Well, that is all but Blue Christmas. I find the moaning about lost love akin to a mooing cow and it makes my nerves scream. It would be more fun to hit my thumb with a hammer.

* I’m Getting Nothing for Christmas - There are many children in the world who aren’t getting anything for Christmas and I think that this song is an insult. It’s supposed to be cute but is terribly annoying. It makes my nerves scream. The singer’s complaints about “getting nothing” for Christmas because “I ain’t been nothing but bad” irks me to no end. It has poor grammar and uses double negatives and the voice does nothing to endear the listener to the child. Truthfully, I’m glad that he’s not “getting nothin’ for Christmas.”

TO: The Executive Producers of C-Span
FROM:  John Q. Public
SUBJECT: Uniforms for Congress

How do you expect to attract viewers to your boring political programming when all of the players look and sound the same? In an effort to boost your cable ratings, I propose some changes to assist ordinary concerned citizens in understanding the United States Congress. UNIFORMS.

That is correct. I propose that all legislators be required to wear the coveralls similar to NASCAR drivers decorated with the patches, logos and symbols that reflect their funding sources. Senators and representatives should wear red and blue coveralls representing their states’ majority political affiliation. The coveralls would then be adorned with brightly colored, glow in the dark decals so viewers could see not only who pays which lawmakers to push their agenda, but lets us ordinary, Bill of Rights toting citizens see exactly what the hell their agenda is.

Just think of the visual created for TV audiences. We can easily identify the energy conglomerates, like Big H. And the big box retail giants, as in Big W. And of course the Saudi Royal family, as in Big Oil.

Let me offer some fashion examples for your consideration. Those congress men and women funded by Greenpeace, already easily identified by their Birkenstocks, would have hippie hand made embroidered patches displaying spotted owls, whales, dolphins, frogs and obscure birds. This group could wear Smokey the Bear hats with little tree hugger decals. The little Darwin fish symbol might add a nice touch.

The pharmaceutical companies could provide their representatives with big baggy overalls with tag lines such as “We are the legal drug pushers selling you American made Zoloft and Prozac. Not those street punks selling marijuana.” I can’t wait to see which fat old men push more boner drugs through the bureaucratic maze constructed by the FDA while other drugs for cancer and other real catastrophic illness die in unread reports.

The gun lobby could supply their representatives with camouflage coveralls with decals of shotguns, rifles and semi automatic weapons. Those neon orange vests could be decorated with colorful iron on patches of Bubba shooting Smoke the Bear. These legislators could then pass legislation to mix weaponry and boner drugs.

The emblem of the tobacco companies could be the smoking gun. Of course only the Kool legislators and those who have come a long way get to wear these decals. The designs could be similar to the drug companies only shaped like little coffins.

The Christian Coalition, those representatives who remind you of your Louisiana relatives who can make shit into a three syllable word, might have a cross shaped patch stating, “One nation under my specifically defined God.” Perhaps another might be a little red school house with “Stay out of our Christian schools, you monkey-relative believing blasphemer.”

Probably the most glamorous uniforms or coveralls would be worn by the Hollywood supporters. Those Jewish, homosexual limousine liberals who influence the minds and corrupt the minds of our youth. Those who are determined to put a Baldwin in the White House. I cannot even begin to imagine the Bob Macke designs for this group.

Let us not forget the retired people. Also known as the old people. They are easily identified by their wrinkled uniforms as they promote their agenda of preserving the dignity of the elderly. Especially those who were able to retire with hefty benefits and make major campaign contributions. Their real agenda is to find the damn cocoon before the opposing party does.

These are just a few thoughts that I think will make easier for us commoners to identify who is buying our congress and for what. Thank you for your consideration.

“Mommmmmmyyyyy! WAIT!” my 3 year old daughter’s voice rang from the hall as she raced into the laundry room, snatching her jeans out of my hands and reaching deep into the pocket she pulled out two smashed, tattered dandelions which now more resembled compost than flowers. Their brown-yellow color brightened though when she shoved them up at me with a wide grin. “These are for you.”  
Standing jeans and dandelions in hand I thought back to just a few hours earlier, the familiar mommy guilt that seems to plague the best of us these days washing over me. We had been 15 minutes late as it was, finally getting out of the house for an appointment. I had ushered her out onto the porch pulling the front door shut I stepped around her making my way, little sister and diaper bag in hand, to the car.

I had hollered back at her “Hurry up, we’re late.” And with all her preschool might she had wanted to obey, I am sure of that, but you see an ant, tiny and black, had crossed her path on the short walk from house to driveway and curiosity had gotten the best of her. She dropped to her knees crawling behind the ant examining him with great interest, at this point I imagine the ant was running for all he was worth for the sheltered safety of the nearby grass fearing death by chubby preschool finger. As his luck would have it though, with just centimeters to spare, a butterfly had caught her attention sending her scrambling to her feet and running around the house to the back yard jumping, diving, and swooping all the way in her best attempts to catch the poor unsuspecting creature.

Luck would once again intervene on the behalf of the insects that call our yard home, greeted by a generous lick to the face and a paw planted lovingly and oh-so squarely in the middle of her white shirt her attention would turn to the family mutt, Toby, who just happens to be her favorite sand box buddy in the world. She had once told me that no one can dig better holes than Toby.  At the time my flower beds had experienced his expertise that very day which lead to the sarcastic “uh, huh.” That she received as a response. Apparently recognition was all she was out for in her informative conversation so it had luckily done the trick without my having to delve into the unfortunate things that would happen to our beloved Toby if he chose to use mommy’s flower beds as his digging grounds again. With their history I can be almost 100% sure that they headed straight for the sand box.

How they ended up in the middle of a patch of bright yellow dandelions, my daughter kneeling picking as many as she could reach, Toby watching contentedly probably plotting the angle in which he was about to pounce to ensure the entirety of the bouquet she had collected would end up in his mouth, remains a mystery but this is where I found her.

Exasperated, I had yelled at her, “I said to get into the car! We’re late! What are you doing?” I remembered seeing her stuff the flowers into her pocket as she ran towards me, but had been so preoccupied with the now filthy clothes that I had just dressed her in an hour before the memory was vague and at the time had probably been over run with my anger at the state I had found her in. Didn’t she know we had to be at the doctor’s office now?

It had taken the slimy brown flowers and that big grin, hours later to make me realize, she did. She knew we had to be at the doctor’s office. She knew we were late. And she knew something that I didn’t. She knew that stopping to smell the dandelions was more important than anything our day had in store. Even if it only lasted the 2 minutes it had taken me to buckle her little sister into the car who, thank goodness, has no interest in ants - yet!

All I wanted was a new pair of jeans to reward my dieting diligence. Besides without belted support, the crotch of my old pants hung to my knees. Trust me. A fifty-five year old, gray-haired woman in hip-hop attire is not attractive.

I love wearing jeans. As a child, my mother took me to Uncle Cecil’s commissary every September to purchase a new pair. Uncle Cecil’s store was an old-fashioned country store that sold everything from food and dry goods to livestock feed and caskets. Wrangler cowboy jeans were the only brand Uncle Cecil sold. If one wanted to wear Levis, it meant a 25-mile drive to the closest town - something my Mother refused to do. Why drive to the next town when you could purchase a perfectly good pair down the street?

I switched to Levis for my college years proudly displaying “W 34, L 34″on the waist’s brown and red label. As my girth increased over the years I was embarrassed for the size to be viewed by the world. I switched to large, baggy, unflattering jeans and continued to wear off brands until my recent body shrink.

Entering the store, I confidently walked to the women’s section only to be overwhelmed by a ten-foot wall of jeans that seemed to stretch the length of the store. Turning around I was overcome by acres of oblong and circular racks with enough jeans to outfit a third-world country. I remained calm and sought sales help. A Britney Spears look alike with a cartoon character voice and a nametag that read “Tiffany” asked, “May I help you?”

A surge of confidence returned as I said, “I would like to buy a new pair of jeans.”  Before I could reveal my new size, Tiffany asked, “What kind of jeans would you like?”
Kind? Blue jeans. What did she mean, “kind?”

Tiffany recognized my dazed look and helpfully offered, “First, we’ll decide what kind of jean you want. Then we’ll decide what style. This rack,” she said pointing to an oblong frame, “is Calvin Klein. That stand is Liz Claiborne; that one is Gloria Vanderbilt…” On she went, twirling and pointing to racks of Rocky Mountain, Curly Girl, Ralph Lauren and names I’ve never heard of. My head was pounding, “I just want a pair of Wranglers or Levis,” I sputtered.

“We don’t sell Wranglers. But the Levis are over here.”

We sauntered to the wall with the red Levis sign. “What style do you want? Bell bottoms like the ones I am wearing are in style.” As she modeled her size four frame, I realized my bells bottomed out years ago. Adding injury to insult, Tiffany asked, “Did you want to try some hip huggers?” I decided to spare her my oxymoronic hip hugger theory that only bodies with no hips looked good in hip huggers. Assuming no, Tiffany continued, “What leg style would you like?” Leg style? I just wanted the leg to hit the top of my shoes.

“Straight leg? Tapered leg? Boot cut? Or flair, which is not as large as a bell bottom.”  I could feel an anxiety attack coming on. “Straight, I guess.” I mumbled.  “Great. What kind of fit?” I stared at her clueless. Sensing my confusion she continued. “We have relaxed fit, classic fit, regular and slim.”

“Uh, classic, I guess,” I replied with wilting enthusiasm.

“This bin is classic fit. What length do you wear? Short, medium or long?”  My face was turning red. A menopausal stress induced hot flash was seconds away. I had no idea buying jeans would require the decision making skills of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“What type of fabric?” Tiffany persisted. “Soft denim? Regular denim? Stonewashed? Acid washed? Stretch? Rivets on the pockets? Plain pockets?”

I was near tears. Suddenly an attractive forty-age woman appeared. “Try these on,” she smiled. “My name is Karen and if that pair doesn’t fit, I’ll bring you another.”
A perfect fit. Arriving home, I placed an index card with “Levis, size 14, classic” in the important stuff file. Next time I will not drown in the jean pool.

In this wide world of vast variety and deep diversity where so many opposites attract and too many birds of the same feather repel (and often times repulse!), two absolutes remain consistently constant.  Item Number One is not a case in point and seemingly has never changed, but is still important.  Put simply, it is: the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Item Number Two is a little more complicated but just as contradictory: the more special and indispensable a thing is, the less chance for its survival and being around for very long.

Superman is a good example of this.  So are Bruce Lee, John Wayne, Mother Teresa, Princess Diana, Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope, to name only a few.  At one time or another they all seemed invulnerable, invincible and too unique to ever vanish from our world.  But evidently, not only are their kind each an vanishing species, but are now extinct.

Not so ants.  In fact, as far back as 1999 scientists estimated that there are over one quadrillion (1 million billion) ants in the world–a number so gigantic that I’d rather ponder the inner workings of corporate America.  And yet, every year whole species of ants and other insects are driven to extinction by rain forest destruction, which entomologists and other ant and termite lovers don’t find too appealing.  What’s really sad are all the rare species of ants never even discovered that keep dropping off like flies (okay, perhaps flies was a bad choice of words!).  Still, as vanishing species go, perhaps we shouldn’t be too upset over the demise of ants…or flies.

The damsel in distress is a far more endangered species and almost completely vanished from the human landscape.  She is so scarce and few in number that I had to order a special DVD edition of Hitchcock’s 1940’s film “Rebecca” to locate her.  Unfortunately, my order was confused with someone else’s and I was sent “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” instead–a movie wherein the damsel is about as distressed as I am over the demise of ants.  Still, I persisted.  And one day actually found myself opening a car door for an actual lady, and actually helping her carry groceries to her hotel suite.  To this day I contend she was an actual damsel in distress (although she thought I was the valet, then ventured to tip me).

Equally endangered and probably even harder to locate is The Perfect Gentleman.  The reason I was able to service the aforementioned damsel in distress is because no other member of the male species would.  Tall men, short men, well dressed men and even good looking men, all just sauntered by without so much as a “Can I help you, Miss” concern.  Well, their imperfection was my gain.  At least until the grim gratuity was thrust into my hand!

And though I still do open doors for imaginary damsels in distress, I must confess that I am no one’s perfect gentleman.  Just the other day (okay, it was last year and not the other day) an elderly lady was attempting to transverse a very deep, dank sidewalk curb during an unobliging downpour.  Yes, I had my trusty rain-resistent overcoat on.  And could have come to her rescue.  But I was out for pretty, young damsels in distress.  And wasn’t about to remove my twenty-four carat raincoat, drape it over the obstructing puddle, and catch my death of cold.  Unless, as in past rescues, the gratuity had been offered in advance.

On a more serious note, I read recently that over the next 100 years one in eight of the world’s bird species are seriously endangered and have a risk of becoming extinct.  Equally disturbing and potentially vanishing are hundreds and even thousands of other species sharing terra firma with us often unmindful humans.  They include fish, reptiles, amphibians, mammals and insects (ants again) as well as plants, flowers, trees and shrubbery.  Should all of us be alarmed?  I would answered with a resounding YES!

The necessity and benefits of plants and animals are immense, and certainly essential to a healthy terra firma.  And I’m not just talking about the Ozone Layer and the ever-debated Greenhouse Effect.  Plants and animals of every category — singularly and in unison — provide tremendous agricultural, medicinal, ecological, recreational, aesthetical and commercial value to humanity.  And every endangered species sorely needs protection so that future generations of humanity can enjoy and benefit from their intrinsic value.

Ecologically speaking, plant and animal species are what keep the Earth from spinning off its axis and becoming a dead, uninhabited moon.  Our planet consists of ecosystems.  And healthy ecosystems — which consist of primordial and remote forests, prairies, grasslands and coastal estuaries –are critical to humankind’s survival.  They provide us with food, clean water and purified air.  So every time another endangered species becomes vanishes, the whole lot of us become more endangered and closer to our own vanishing act.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has estimated losing one plant species can trigger the loss of up to 30 other insect, plant and higher animal species.  So when another Floridian coral reef, British countryside, or Brazilian rain forest erodes, is fragmatized or bull-dozed away, the loss of other crucial life forms are obliterated and Planet Earth draws a few steps more near its own obliteration.

Not even Superman will be able to save us if this should occur during our generation, or possibly the next.  And other vanishing species, like honest politicians, environmentally-conscious capitalists, gallant scientists and enterprising industrialists, may all as well chuck their good intentions and noble endeavors, and head for the hills.  Though where they and we might find hills of pasture and green, will be anyone’s guess.

On a lighter side, for me, I at least hope to find one bone fide damsel in distress to rescue and serve, before Mother Nature “Shakes out her rain-drenched hair” and relegates all of us to our own unwitting, expedient demise.

“The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.” - Mark Twain

Modern man at times, seems to think he invented humour. We had vaudeville, stand-up comedians, sitcoms, cartoon strips, ad finitum ad snickeringum. But the fun started long before the twentieth century

A Year By Any Other Name

In France, people used to get out the party hats and later in the evening the lampshades, on April 1, to celebrate the New Year. Then Pope Gregory had a brainstorm, putting together 12 sheets of paper with blocks too small to write in, and cute pictures of puppies and kittens, and called it the Gregorian calendar. And the Pope said it would begin on January 1. And it was good. Except to those who had not heard his edict, or simply didn’t believe it. Consequently, when they continued to party as usual, others would call them “April Fools”. Not believing it in the first place, led to the tradition of telling people things that weren’t true, so they too could be April Fools. You believe this?

Faked Fossils For Fractious Fellow

Johan Beringer, (1667-1740) may have been the first teacher, foxed by his students. In 1725, after he had hired some local boys to dig on a nearby mountain, he was outbid by some junior faculty members of the University. They paid the boys to provide Beringer with some amazing, three dimensional fossils on rock slabs. Beringer, in raptures at this historic find, began writing a long treatise on their significance. He was still at it a year later, when the guys finally decided to “rock” his theories. They sent him a fossil with a 3-D image of his name. He sued his colleagues, and while the case aged gracefully in court, he ran around buying up all the copies of his book, “Lithographiae Wirceburgensis.”

A Town By Any Other Color

It was April 6, 1837 and the end of season races left the fox hunting fellows with time, and paint on their hands. The eccentric Marquis of Waterford and a few of his cronies, decided the town should match their hunting “pinks”, which are actually red melton cloth. Thus was born “painting the town red”.

Coals to Fire the Funny Bone

In 1905, coal tar product salesman, Soren Sorenson Adams, (Sammy to his friends) noticed that the leavings of his goods, black dust, had the power to invoke earth shattering sneezes. He began to investigate it’s giggle potential, sprinkling it through hotel keyholes, outdoors where bands played, and once, at a trapshooting competition. When he put it on the market under the name of Cachoo, one Philadelphia buyer purchased 70,000 bottles in the first three months. Cachooooooooooo! Bless you.

He Was A Real Card

After acing the sneeze powder, S. S. Adams became a real life joker, inventing over 700 of the most popular practical jokes, including squirting flowers, snakes in jars, and the famous dribble glass. For which, the joke would be outta this world. Dribble glasses do not work in space. Why? Surface tension, and no gravity. Water tends to cling to things (like dog’s feet crossing your kitchen floor). This is why water dribbles down a victim’s chin instead of falling in drops. In space it would likely run up your nose.

He Was Real…No He Wasn’t…He Was…No He Wasn’t..

German folklore is rich in the stories of one Till Eulenspiegel, major prankster, said to have lived in the 14th century. “Eulenspiegel” literally means “owl mirror”, and people theorised that in his stories, Till was wisely holding a mirror up, so people could see themselves in the tales.  It was also a fairly common name at the time. It was also suspected of being the vulgar expression “Ul’n speghel” or to wipe one’s arse; an interpretation that would have fit right in with his humorous stories of practical jokes. A 1500 A.D. book about his life, contains a preface written by “N”, someone who claims to know little of Latin or high learning, but who appears to know more than a latter day historian could, about Till’s day to day life of laughter, lived from 1290-1350. Bringing people to wonder, if the real joke, was not the forging of the stories.

Real or not, the character of Eulenspiegel had the engaging habit, whenever he had pulled some particularly good piece of foolery, to write with chalk or coal over the door: “Hic fuit (He was here).  So at least now we know where “Kilroy” (was here) was born.

 In my position as boss of a small company, whoa, stop right there. I had 130 employees at my peak. Not exactly General Motors but I never thought of my company as a small business. I really thought of it as a giant pain in the butt whose sole purpose was to support my employees and their families on modest wages and make me rich. To me, small businesses are those where you make a down payment on that lawnmower and rake combo and whoosh! you’re in business. The difference, I guess, between my business and the lawn guy is that if he went bad, all he had to do was go out and find himself a job and maybe hock that mower and rake thing for some quick cash. If I went bad, the nightmare scenario of bankruptcy proceedings and nervously counting cash while fat guys in bad suits and sunglasses stood around me cracking their knuckles, would begin even before the power company turned off the juice. Simply stated the qualifying difference between a small business and a big business is how much you owe. Answer this question, Mr. Businessman - If you shut down your operation today, could you pay off all your debts and walk away clean with money left over, or not? If you stopped tomorrow, would somebody be left holding the bag? There’re only two answers and there’re only two choices if one of them is yes. Let’s examine the possibilities.

Possibility #1 - Yes. In this case, if you can walk away clean, you are probably an extremely small business where you most likely did everything by yourself, maybe had a few employees and on a good week you were able to pay most of your overhead and actually eat a bit of food. You’d probably make more money working for somebody else but at least you are your own boss, you get to set your own vacations and even diddle the secretary or the girl who brings sandwiches around at lunch once in a while. Life is hard and you’ll never get rich this way, but if you don’t want to get out of bed some mornings, you don’t have to.

Possibility #2 - Yes. In this case you owned a larger business and you probably stole money faster than it was coming in. Furthermore, you are my hero. In the category of victimless crimes, stealing from yourself is my number one favorite. You never have to worry about the guy with the secret drug problem falling apart at the last minute and blowing the entire scheme, there’s nobody looking over your shoulder, as long as the taxes are paid the government will never know (or care) and there are constitutional amendments to protect you from testifying against yourself. God bless America! No matter what your background and education, no matter what type of business you own, stealing from yourself is the fastest, easiest, most foolproof way to make money ever devised by modern man. It ranks right up there with the computer, the cell phone and Viagra as great inventions of the 20th Century. And it wasn’t until greedy idiots like the Enron guys and the MCI jerks applied this time honored formula to PUBLIC COMPANIES (Damn them! Damn them to hell!) that the public caught wind of what was going on and got pissed off. My God they’ve stolen all the money and used it to buy big houses and cars and hookers! Right. Like that was new.

Possibility #3 - No. You are an honest businessman, running a very large company and you are maybe the last one alive today. You pay all your bills, draw a large but easily sustainable salary with perks, drive a nice but modest car, pay all your taxes, give your employees benefits they wouldn’t get anywhere else and everybody works hard and respects you. They probably call you “The Old Man” in reverential tones when you’re not around. BORING!

The point is this: The bigger the business you own, the more debt that you have, the more money you can make. If your business grosses 100K per year there’s no way in hell you can make 200K no matter who you stiff and how much you steal. Period! How much money you can make is simply a factor of how much money you owe. The more you owe the more you can make - or steal. Debt is good. All together now, 1, 2, 3 - Debt Is Good! And God Bless America!

It was the mid 1970’s, and I was young, about 23 or so and had been working for a national magazine distribution company in Los Angeles, California for almost five years when I realized I was totally bored. I had moved up fast - from the warehouse to management in two years and I was in charge of almost all of the internal functions involved with magazine distribution on a national scale. Nothing creative - just move the product in bulk from the print shop to the shipping center, run the invoices off the computer (the computer by the way was so big that it had its own room in those days), oversee the breakdown and shipping of the titles, get the invoices filed and the customer copies out in the mail. I was just starting to form relationships with the accounts, major periodical distributors all over the world when I got bored. Like I said I was young and in looking back I realize now that boredom was a luxury of youth that disappears as we get older. Somebody somewhere, at a party or a bar, started talking about record distribution and I’ll be damned if it wasn’t identical to what I was already doing except that it was RECORDS! (FYI- records were those big, vinyl things that came before CD’s) Rock Stars! Groupies! Parties! I was on fire!

I started with personal letters to NAME PEOPLE at the top of the industry. I wrote to them as if they were friends of mine who could help me make the shift from magazine distribution to record distribution. I had the skills, the talent, the experience and the look (long hair, Quiana shirts etc.) and the desire, so why wouldn’t they welcome me with open arms? That move flopped so loudly the noise still registers on the Richter scale in Southern California every time I think about it. Employment lesson #1 - The people at the top of an industry, who don’t know you, aren’t dating your sister, or related to your uncle, don’t care if you live or die and won’t help you get a job.

I moved to phone calls and was I ever surprised when I actually got a positive response. Two actually. One guy talked to me for about fifteen minutes and we scheduled an appointment for the next day. Another other guy talked to me for about fifteen seconds, handed me off to personnel and we scheduled an appointment to meet a few days later. I was off! I was flying! I had two “interviews” - one with the head of distribution for a small but well respected record label and one with the head of personnel for a major company. One out of two! 50% odds I was going into the record business! Even money (I played the ponies in those days) that I was leaving my boring, well paying job in magazine distribution for the glitz and glamour of the record biz. Yeah!

Interview #1 with the actual head of distribution. I was polished and ready to roll. I arrived early and was led to an office, in this totally cool office complex and told to wait. The secretary of the guy I was waiting to talk to looked like she just stepped out of Dream Girl Monthly. Long blonde hair, short skirt, throaty voice. She offered me coffee, water, anything I wanted to drink. I declined - what I wanted was to marry her right there on the spot. I was home. After a few minutes she signaled me to go into his office. I opened the door and the place looked like heaven on earth to me. You actually had to step down to enter. Rock posters adorned the walls next to gold records and pictures of this guy with the stars. This is what I wanted, simply replace his pictures with mine and bang, I’m there. I sat down. What a nice guy. He was totally professional. And charming. He was knowledgeable about his business and mine as it turns out. I told him my skills, talents, expertise and education and the job I was doing now. And as it turned out, I was correct in my analysis of record distribution - it was identical to what I was doing. I was already trained in doing the job I wanted to do. I was getting in! After fifteen minutes of the most pleasurable conversation I’d ever had in my life, he turned to me and said, “You know, the job you want is my job.” My heart sank. I knew he was right. He gave me some advice about starting at smaller companies, at the bottom and working my way up, but I knew it was over. In another minute we were shaking hands and I was leaving, never to see him again. I was crushed. Employment lesson #2 - never interview for a job with the guy you want to replace. The better you look the faster you’ll get thrown out of his office.

Interview #2 with the head of personnel for a major record company. As I feared, the big company was not cool but so businesslike that I was thrown off my “game” as soon as I walked in. No long haired, laid back guys but suits everywhere. Receptionists who looked like my mother’s friends, and who worked like machines in a building so clean you could sleep on the floor. I was handed a printed sheet with instructions on how to get from the lobby, up the elevator and into the personnel department with warnings about visiting other floors or poking your head into offices where it didn’t belong. It felt more like the pentagon than a record company. I arrived at personnel and checked in, was handed a clipboard and sheet to fill out and I waited. Thirty minutes later I was ushered into her office where I met the scariest women I had ever met up until then. Dressed like a lawyer, she spoke in clipped tones, asking a set of rehearsed questions and writing down notes as I spoke. She asked all the usual stuff about background, education and then the big one - “What were my goals at the company if I was hired?” I took a deep breath and thought to myself that this was the one and only chance I would have to impress this woman, to loosen her up a bit with some charm and self confidence. I said, “I fully expect to begin wherever there might be an opening in distribution, and work my way up to the top of this company so fast that I would appear like a blur to other people.” I smiled, satisfied that I had hit just the right note. She rolled her eyes and before I knew what hit me I was out on the street. I never heard from her again. Employment lesson #3 - Big companies have a working structure, a hierarchy, and while some upward motivation is viewed as a good thing, too much ambition is definitely discouraged and viewed both as a threat and some form of not so temporary insanity.

Well, I never made it into the record business but I actually ended up owning that magazine company a few years later. Here’s what you might want to glean from my attempts to get into the record business. Unless you’re related to someone, you have to start at the bottom and blend in and work your way up. And you have to do that slowly. Fast movers without connections are gotten rid of somehow, by somebody higher up the food chain who you’re threatening to replace as you move vertically throughout the organization. I knew I was good and I proved it when I bought that business and turned it into a real moneymaker. But if you know you’re good, and you want to work for somebody else, keep most of your mouth shut. Give them your stuff a little at a time. Keep your goals in line with the corporate structure you’re in. I want to work hard for the good of the company and show my superiors what I can do is a better attitude than I want to rise to the top like a blur, even when you really, really do. Suppress your youthful ambitions and dreams - don’t kill them, just don’t wear them on your sleeve. Get in to the industry where you want to be and then slowly impress them with the quality of your work. It works out better for everyone that way in the long run. Especially you.

Expensive cars are definitely more difficult to park. Finding a parking space is tougher because the owner will actually need to locate two adjacent spots. This allows him to park diagonally in the belief that he’s avoiding dents from the opening doors of cars beside him. Also, he needs to be at the highest elevation in the lot so the inevitable runaway shopping carts will be rolling away from his car, rather than towards it.

Before he leaves his car he may very well lock a brightly colored bar across the steering wheel, which makes steering the car virtually impossible. Chances are some people will notice the device later on, and speculate that this is the reason that the driver needed two spaces to park. Obviously this anti-theft bar doesn’t help if the car thief has a tow truck.

The driver then locks the car and activates his car alarm, causing that annoying noise familiar to every owner of both a long tailed dog and a rocking chair. Everyone else within earshot either has no interest in the car or now wonders just how expensive the stereo is, since the owner spent hundreds of dollars on an alarm system to protect it. Some people may now be considering breaking into the car because of the alarm.

It’s also possible that people would notice the car simply because of the volume that its stereo puts out. Many drivers feel that they should be able to proceed at a red light if the way is clear, and the car beside them has a bass cannon.

Some drivers have the type of auto stereo that pulls out with a handle, so it’s not vulnerable to being stolen from the car if the driver’s carrying it. Unfortunately this means it is vulnerable to purse-snatchers. And if the owner forgets to take it out of the car, it’s even easier to steal than normal units because there are no wires that have to be cut.

Another feature that owners of expensive cars seem to favor is tinted glass. Supposedly, if the glass was dark enough, thieves couldn’t see if there was anything in the car worth stealing. The driver needs to see out though. How would a police officer pull over a driver who couldn’t see the cruiser? He’d probably have to reach him by cell phone… Or maybe his car fax. A few years ago, many drivers of pricey cars had phones installed in them, and carried cell phones too. The cells came in handy in case someone tried to call them when they were walking in their driveway between their car and house.

So as the expensive car owner strides confidently towards the mall entrance; phone in pocket, he is actually enjoying a false sense of security. After all the precautions against other drivers, runaway shopping carts, car stereo thieves and criminals who would steal the car itself, there’s one hazard he hasn’t thought of, and it’s out of his control… His expensive paint job is at the mercy of birds.

There are many proven methods circulating around that offer plans and advice on how to make a lot of money. There’s the buying real estate for no money down, then fixing it up (which is interesting since I can’t even plug in the toaster without causing a tri-state blackout) and selling it for a huge profit.

There are the investment strategies that allow you, through the wonder of modern technology, to sit at home on your computer and watch your life savings slowly pour into some unknown commodities trader’s pocket. And then there’s those mysterious little oriental guys, surrounded by tall blondes in bikinis, sitting on Ferrari’s and Bentley’s in front of their mansions, telling you that even nerds like you could have all this too. Somehow.

Mostly, they’re a lot of crap. The number one, most favorite way to make lots and lots of money according to my own personal survey that I never took and wouldn’t waste time compiling, is to inherit it. Imagine that! Inheriting money means at least two things - it means that somebody older than you went to all the trouble of working really, really hard, saving his money and putting your name on chunks of it. Secondly, it means you probably grew up rich and never had to work a day in your life for anything. Does it get any better than that? No!

The second most popular way to make lots and lots of money is to win it. I’m not talking about scratching off $5.00 at the local 7-11. I’m talking about the guys who win those Powerball Lotteries for 135 million. Or the guy who spent last night in a dumpster behind Ceaser’s Palace in Vegas before he put his last dollar into Big Bertha and hit 4.5 mill. Don’t you just hate them? I’m especially fond of the guy who crawled across the Mexican/American border on Thursday with $4.00 in his pocket and by Monday he’s hired Lorenzo Lamas to interpret for him at the news conference celebrating his miraculous winning of 25 million in the California Lottery.

In reality, it’s the third way of making lots and lots of money that inspires the most conversations, especially around the third quarter of the super bowl when the beer’s starting to slur your speech just a bit. You won’t find it in any book, there’s no college course for it and as of yet there have been no infomercials trying to sell you the formula for 3 small payments of only $39.99 plus shipping and handling. Stated quite simply this time honored, almost foolproof method is called Marrying the Boss’ Daughter.

You’ve heard of that before, have you? Sure you have. But did you try it? Did you get off your lazy butt, go find yourself a boss’ daughter to marry and sail off into the corporate sunset, bypassing all the traditional, get an education, start at the bottom and work real hard types who sneered as they bowed to your magnificence?  No you didn’t. And that’s a good thing because without the rules of how to do this and do it well you’d have probably screwed it up. I know I did.

So here’s the rules:

1) You’ve got to be good at what you do and you’ve got to work really hard. Being the boss’ son-in-law and being good at the highly overpaid job you’ve landed at the top is an unbeatable combination. Let’s hear some gray haired, pipe smoking professor at Harvard Business School argue with that one!

2) Learn early on the difference between son-in-law and son. The son is the blood descendant of the boss. You’re there by some fluke of pheromones and you must never forget that. The son is an obnoxious, rich kid, undoubtedly an idiot, who will feed you to the lions if you stand in his way. And when push comes to shove, it will be you who will be politely asked to sacrifice his blood for the good of the family business.

3) Never, ever cheat on your wife. Enough said about that one.

That’s it really. Not quite enough stuff for a book, or an infomercial, but I’m still working on it. If they would offer a course in Marrying the Boss’ Daughter at business schools enrollment would increase tenfold overnight. Hmmmmmm……