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It’s no secret that I dislike most advertising, but I can stomach it when it’s straight with me. “Here’s our product. You should buy it for these reasons.” On the other hand, I know advertising is never straight with us. Just because you got a low-carb crust on your pizza doesn’t mean it’s good for you, and no matter how exorbitantly happy the people in the ad are, Eggies just don’t work.

Embedded advertising has the opportunity to be blatant or sublime. As a long time fan of “House” I almost turned the show off right after Odette Annabel told Charlyne Yi about how her car senses turns and slows down for her. If a car can do that, why can’t an actual person sense blatant stupidity and edit it out of the script?

Sometimes sponsorship is just there – yes, Eureka runs on Subaru, we get it. And Breaking Bad was all about the Aztek. I’m not sure if Pontiac was trying to make a point that your Aztek in so handy you could run a meth lab out of it, but maybe they were!

Other sponsorships seem just as sketchy or worse. Why does Harley Davidson sponsor Sons of Anarchy? I know that there are tons of biker fans who watch the show and will possibly purchase a Harley (aside from the standard masses like me who simply drool when one goes by.) But several years ago a wide net was cast and massive RICO and drug charges were brought on the Hell’s Angels. This may be the spark that started the show, but does H-D want to be associated with that? There’s a definite balance to be had between sales and arrests. With the addition of the second Sons of Anarchy sponsor I really have to wonder about the advertising. Yes, sponsor number two is Miller Light. Is this an appeal for us all to drink and drive? Is Smith & Wesson going to join them in sponsorship for Season 5? It really would make the trifecta.

Another wonderful sponsorship? American Horry Story is sponsored by . . . none other than Victoria’s Secret. Does Vicky’s Secret carry full body latex suits? Is Horror Story going to start showing off their main characters in Body by Victoria? I can’t wait to see Dylan McDermott in a line-free bra and panty set, telling another character (maybe a dead one?) about how comfortable the airy weave is and how it gives him just the right amount of lift. What’s awesome – and not just a speculation by me, but a fact – is that the voice of American Horror Story reads the ad for Victoria’s Secret in his spooky voice. “American Horror Story is brought to you by Victoria’s Secret – the sexiest lingerie brand in the world.” Is it okay if I’m kindof afraid of sexy lingerie now?

In the meantime, since this is where TV is obviously headed, I’d like to make a few sponsorship suggestions of my own (and some from friends!)

True Blood – brought to you by the American Red Cross
(So many opportunities there – to embed the logo in the program, or even talk about the Red Cross without sounding like a total nit.)

Mad Med – by Canadian Club Whiskey

Dexter – sponsored by Ginsu Knives

The Walking Dead – brought to you by Omaha Steaks

There’s a time and a place for it. I’m okay with one drug-running, Harley-riding biker guy telling another about his gun. The heft is solid, the changeable grip means it fits his hand, and the nine-mil size means it fits any of a number of bullet types from blanks to hollow-points. Perfect for all styles of gangland assassinations.

I’m okay with the crew of The Office or 30 Rock with any number of office-important logos at hand. Staples, Office Depot, 3M . . . the list goes on. But it’s about believability. Advertising works best when it’s seamless. We have to buy in. And I just don’t buy that doctors who are harassed by Greg House will talk about their turning radius. I’ve had more conversations in my adult life about crazy embarrassing things – physical problems, something humiliating that happened in high school, deep personal issues – than I have ever had about how my car functioned.

So if they want to continue on in this vein, and make it believable, here’s how the next interaction should go: (Take note script writers for “House”)
Odette: Can you feel that?
Charlyne: What?
Odette: It’s the sensors in my car. They sense when I’m approaching a curve and they slow down. Pretty cool, huh?
Charlyne: That is neat. It would be cooler if they sensed this.
[Charlyne reaches over Odette, releases door handle and pushes her into oncoming traffic.]
Charlyne [yelling back to Odette, lying in the middle of the road]: That was really cool. It did sense something and slowed down just a bit. Will it beep if I try to back up over you?

Every family has its points of pride . . . some are the most active members at their churches. Some families are the wealthiest on the block, or in the town. Some families are politically or socially connected. My family is none of those things.

We can start with the fact that we are geeky . . . and proud of it. My little brother at age two would dunk his basketball and yell out any of a variety of great phrases “Rim shot!” “Nothin’ but net” “He shoots, he scores!” but he could also name every dinosaur ever known to man – including a full range of therapods. And you did not want to get into an argument with that kid. You would lose.

So I thought I would share some fun notes from my family.

When my kids were little and asked about something electrical, my Dad would always wind up asking them if something was an insulator or a conductor. My favorite moment came when my three year old son looked at Grampa with an ‘are you crazy?’ look on his face. But rather than telling Grampa that he was three and what did he know? he said “It’s a conductor, Grampa. Everyone knows that.” (They have since moved on to capacitance.)

The idea for my first book – Resonance – was sparked when my father handed me a photocopied journal paper on Polar Reversal Theories. At the dinner table.

The other night all four of us were out practicing at our new basketball hoop and trying to decide how to spend our time. Games of PIG or HORSE were suggested, but we pointed out we had plenty of time for HORSE and then some. The eight-year-old suggested we play BACTERIA.

When we pulled into a parking garage last week, my sister told my Dad, “Remember our parking number.” Dad replied. “Okay, we are at 236 which is only a few down from Plutonium.”

I saw a geeky T-shirt to get my brother-in-law. He has quite a huge collection of snarky or brainy shirts. He’s also a marine biologist. So a shirt with the greek letter Pi with 8 feet on it and saying ‘octopi’ seems like the perfect gift, right? No. It’s not. The plural of octopus is not octopi. (Octopus is a greek word and therefore the true plural is ‘octopodes’ though even the marine biologists don’t say that. But they don’t say ‘octopi’ either. It’s ‘octopusses’.) So, ultimately, we have gotten too geeky for the geeky t-shirts. So sad.

I am the proud owner of a ‘Frequent Jumper Card’ at AJ Hackett’s Bungy. And yes, it works just like your coffee punchcard at Mapco or Dunkin Donuts.

In 2002, for Father’s Day, my dad asked for me to take him to see “The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood”. I needled him the whole time about getting to the theater early to beat those Father’s Day Ya-Ya Lines.

This one is serious: I was concerned that my children would eat so much of one thing that they would unbalance their diet. I had to say “No more broccoli until you finish your french fries.”

All the adults in my family love to watch the TV show ‘Dexter’ on Showtime. It’s a relatively graphic program about a serial killer. But several of us cringe during the opening credits when a shot comes up of a mosquito sinking its proboscis into someone’s arm. This is the most disturbing part of the show for us . . . because someone really had to get bit for that shot. The killings are fake, but the mosquito is real. (Oh, I’ve got the willies right now.)

Upon being referred to an online puzzle game, my father decided to solve each new puzzle daily – by writing a program to solve it for him.

Yes, every family has something unique. Ours is just a bit left of center.

Okay, way more than a bit.

I know we spend our time here with the absurd and ironic. We are snarky and irreverent. But this time it’s about new years and resolutions, so we are going to take this one time to stop and be serious – just for a moment.

Like everyone else, for this new year – this election year – I want a New America. Or maybe I just want to fix the old one. But I have realized we can’t do that until we take care of one thing: we need to become America first. We live here and we give ourselves the moniker, but few of us are real Americans. Wait. Let me explain – I’m not talking about flag-flying patriotism. I’m talking about the basis for this nation.

We were founded by peoples fleeing from religious and government oppression. We came to a land where no one was native. (The ‘Native Americans’ bear a misnomer – they immigrated across the Bering Strait. Though they did it first, they are still immigrants.) Once here, we found ourselves in groups – protestants, ‘natives’, Europeans – and we fought like dogs to each protect our group.

The irony is that it wasn’t just our founding fathers who have felt this isolation and persecution. The ‘Great American Melting Pot’ does not melt things smoothly or quickly. In the 1800s, it was common to see signs that read “No Irish”. In the 1900s the signs read “No Blacks”. Today the signs read “No Mexicans” or “No Gays”. Have we learned nothing?

Who has come to America? Irish and Africans. Italians. Germans. Japanese. Just to name a very few. Who among us is not an immigrant or the descendent of an immigrant then? Regardless of the fact that we are all in some way or other immigrants to this land, we have other problems in our group identities. This is not to say that you shouldn’t maintain your own group culture, not at all. But remember we have the larger group of ‘country’ to maintain, too.

I, too, want a New America. But I am sick at the idea that we build our new world by closing doors to the groups that we don’t personally like. If you want to see what that looks like, just look around the world.
But lately it seems that Americans are making laws based on what group can get the most votes in an attempt to make their group culture the American culture. Dictating belief through law is not what we are, not what we are supposed to be.

And why are we trying to make our personal cultures into law when we don’t have to? We have the right to speak our own minds, free of persecution. We have the right to close the doors of our homes to those we do not agree with. And my church, synagogue, mosque or clearing in the woods does not have to bless your marriage. You do not have to bless mine.

But we are better because we are diverse. We are strong because we are free. And if we wish to stay free, then we must be strong enough to be diverse. This is my country. This is the country I want to see. It is your country, too. From many, we are one.

Think for a moment the last time you thought about the ‘damned Irish, taking over our country’. Exactly. Personally, I’ve never had that thought. Because it didn’t happen; they didn’t take over. Nor did any of the other groups to emerge and eventually meld. If we are strong and if we are diverse then neither will anyone else. The problem is that old sentiment has not faded. We have simply replaced it with another group identity. Be honest, would you say ‘mexicans’ ‘gays’ ‘liberals’ ‘rednecks’?

The fact of the matter is that I am here today as you are: confident in my belief that I am right and you are wrong. But I realized something else: as much as I believe I am right, so do you. So take a moment to look at the other people around you and say to them “I am right and you are wrong.” You have the freedom to do so. But do you also have the courage to say to them “You are welcome in America”?

I invite you to do this with me, but be warned: in the next few moments you will become uncomfortable. This is not an easy task. If it were easy, we would have already done it. If it were easy, we would not have the rifts we have today. But it needs to be done or we will all slowly lose the rich culture and the rights that we have. So here we go . . .

To the Irish and the Italians, to the Protestants and the Catholics, you are welcome here. To the Japanese, the Germans and the Jews, you are welcome here. To the African Americans, the Mexican Americans, those of mixed race and culture and beliefs, you are welcome here. To the Pagans and the Muslims and the Rednecks, you are welcome here. To the one-percenters, the transgender and gay people, liberals and conservatives, racists, homophobes . . . whoever you are, you may be afraid of anyone, you may hate others, you are allowed your beliefs. You are welcome here.

Did I lose you? Where do each of us drop off the list? The point is that when we stop welcoming diversity, we all lose. You do not have to agree with the people you welcome. You can speak loudly against them. We have laws that are designed to protect us from hurting each other. So we need to stop fighting like cornered animals. We aren’t. We will not be oppressed. The Amish have the right to not attend public schools; the Christian Scientists have the right to refuse medical treatment; and the Atheists have the right to not say ‘one nation, under God’. And you are welcome to think they are all crazy and wrong. We will still hate. We will still identify with our own groups – there is nothing wrong with that. We can be strong that way. But we must welcome diversity.

Think of the groups on that list that you hate. Maybe ‘hate’ is too strong, but whatever it is, if there is a group you do not wish to welcome it is likely because you morally oppose them. There are groups on that list that I think are morally and ethically wrong, wrong, wrong. But I welcome them. And out there someone who has not met you hates you because of what you are or who you are. People are hated because they are Muslim or because they are gay or because they are lawyers. I hate some of you because of what you believe, and some of you hate me. I welcome you to America. I will close the doors of my home or my church to you and suspect you will do the same to me. But I welcome you to my country.

This is not the land where I am free and you are free. This is the land where I am free BECAUSE you are free. So I sit here, and just like always I think I am right and you are wrong. But I welcome you.

So at this time of year, when Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Yule have just passed, I am making my resolution. I will support those who support others. I will be open to the diversity that is here. I will do my best not to have a ‘Damned ________s, taking over my country’ attitude. I will respect your right to practice your religion, believe what you want and be who you want and ask that you please respect mine.

There are too many crises on our plates right now – debt, war, energy, just to name a few – we cannot afford to fight each other. So I will not be attending your church, your mosque, your Amish barn service. But if you harm no one, then build it, worship, believe. And right next to you, I will build my own synagogue or clear my circle in the woods.

We all have to know that as soon as we start dictating what others can believe, we cut off our own freedoms. When we make laws that say one god or another is right, one group is welcome and others are not, then we put the tools of discrimination into powerful hands. And we are fools to believe we will never be on the other side of it. As soon as you live in a world where your ideas are law, you have lost the freedom to change your mind. For many of us, even laws based on what our parents believed would have left us on the wrong side of discrimination.

And that may be the heart of the matter: I still believe I am right and you are wrong, just as you believe you are right and I am wrong. It is easy to believe that discrimination is okay as long as it is based on what I KNOW to be right. But that’s what I realized this week. No matter who dictates it – even ME, even YOU – it is wrong for this country. So fly your flag and hate your neighbor, but remember you are free BECAUSE he is free.

So please join me this year in supporting the melting pot. I’m not saying that we should throw open the doors to illegal immigrants, nor that harming or bullying anyone based on anything is okay. I simply hope that soon, all Americans are welcome in America. E pluribus unum – from many, we are one.

It’s the holiday season again, and for many of us that means spending copious amounts of time searching for just the right gift for everyone on our list. Never mind that the definition of ‘gift’ is ‘a thing given willingly or freely without thought of payment.’ Like Valentine’s Day and birthdays, much of December remains drenched in mandated gifting (yes, that is a complete oxy moron!) And there’s the constant worry about just the right gift, and – if you’re smart – just the right budget.

This gifting is such a pain that holiday advertising is all about what to give and how easy it can be. I have a local jewelry store advertising that husbands get their wives a pendant from their store. This is literally phrased as a “No-Brainer Gift”. But the ad is so pervasive that I think the wives who get this pendant are going to be upset . . .

Some of you are leaning back and thinking “No, the holidays aren’t a problem. I have this all covered.” What’s the secret? No secret really, gift cards. They are always what you want.

Personally, I love’em! Just like everyone else, the unknown gift you gave me – via gift card – is now that thing I have had my eye on for a while! WhoooHoooo! Except . . . there’s a problem. Gift cards are awesome, when used sparingly.

I know more than one family who just shouldn’t have Christmas anymore. They simply pass gift cards around to each other. Aside from the smallest children (who unlike the rest of us understand to be thankful for real presents) they each open envelopes. Yes, there aren’t even boxes under the tree. Just envelopes. Often pulled from pockets and purses at the last minute. Again, there’s nothing wrong with gift cards . . . until it hits the point where there are no more real gifts.

What do you say to the person who gave you a $25 gift card when you gave them $50? Or they gave you $50 and you thought – whoops – they were only worth $25. Some families I know have been at this for so long that there is even a standard amount expected on the gift cards. The only surprise is where the card is to. Even more fun is finding a card on Christmas afternoon and saying “Who’s Best Buy card is this? Is it mine or yours? Or his?”

Why bother? Why not just wish each other a happy holiday and this year say “Look, I know you were going to get me a gift card, and I was going to get you one. So what do you say you just get yourself something you wanted and we’ll call it a day?”

And the issue is there’s often not a way around it. You have cousins who are teenagers or have teenagers. And no one wants to say “Look, I’m not getting you anything for Christmas because I have no clue what to get you. You mope around here the whole time I see you each year, and I’m not getting you a belly button ring / black hair dye / a car.” So what is there to do? You got it! Gift card! Mom’s happy (no piercings!), your teenage cousin is happy (well, as happy as he’s gonna get) and all is well . . . but dull.

So here are ways to spice up your gift card giving this year . . . .

So maybe you know what you want to get them, but you don’t know the color or such. This is a great reason to get a gift card. Maybe it’s the snarky T-shirt of the geek-in-your-life’s choice (Yes, I’m talking to you brother-in-law.) So get them a gift card for the exact amount of the thing – not a generic, thoughtless, $25, but a specific “I got you this thing” card. Then wrap the card in a box with a picture of the thing. Sometimes a picture of the options will do. Whenever possible, offer to go with them to pick out the thing.

Going the generic denomination route? At the very least wrap that sucker. Forget the envelopes and cutesy little Home Depot tins. Put that puppy in a box. A big box. Put a brick or an anvil in the box. Then wrap it with paper and bows. Put it under the tree. It’s up to you if you put a gift tag on it or if you just let people wonder who it’s for. However you do it, be sure to grin maniacally whenever anyone inspects the box.

If you are giving gift cards to a handful of people you can play this little game: get the appropriate number of cards in the same amount but get them to different places (and really, you can get them for just about anywhere at WalMart or Target). Make one or two double what the others are . . . Now put them all in identical envelopes. On Christmas morning, you may be pulling out envelopes like everyone else, but you are better than them. Tell everyone that one or two of the cards are for a better amount, then fan out the envelopes magician style and let the family pick. It’s a gift and a game of chance all in one.

Lastly, my personal favorite: Gift Card Spoons. This is for the family that has replaced actual presents with gift cards. Have you ever played ‘Spoons’? It’s a card game where you pick up cards and pass your rejects to the next person. Once you have a set, you grab one of the several spoons available. The number of spoons is one less than the number of people playing. Whoever is last man with no spoon is stuck with the cards he holds. One person here isn’t going to get what he wants. He may be stuck holding Granny’s Rexall gift card. But more of you are going to be able to jettison that Lady Foot Locker card (because there isn’t one in your whole state) or that Honey Baked Ham card (you just went Vegan) and pick up what you want.

Please don’t think I’m maligning the holiday. I’m in favor of actual thoughtful presents. And let’s be honest – if your family has gone the route of simply trading gift cards, my ideas aren’t the reason you aren’t really celebrating the holiness of the day. So yes, the gift card is a dull gift, but the presentation doesn’t have to be!

Happy Holidays Chickens!

The things I have learned from watching the Hallmark Channel.

And, yes, I am aware that pretty much everything in that sentence smacks of wrongness. You could repeat it with an emphasis on any of the major words and it would have appropriate meaning. Why was I watching the HALLMARK Channel? If my TV was there, why was I WATCHING it? Why ME? WHY?

Well, I can answer one question (but not the rest, sorry). I was watching because a friend of mine is an up-and-coming actress and had a role on one of the holiday movies. I’m very proud of her . . . for keeping a straight face. I want her to know what a good friend I am: I watched that whole movie, and I learned.

Here’s what I now know from her movie and a few of the Hallmark Channel commercials I was graced with while watching.

If you kill someone and you are female, be sure you kill someone with a good spin. Don’t just off the mugger who is chasing you – tell them it’s your birth brother. You can kill your husband, but be sure it looks like he has mafia ties first. If you kill the man you are having an affair with, it’s helpful if he’s your teenage daughter’s boyfriend. Better yet, get him to kill your teenage daughter. Then, when you are getting hauled off to jail and get to make your one phone call, don’t call a lawyer – call a PR agent. (Any good PR person can find you the right lawyer; it doesn’t necessarily work the other way around.) Yes, smart women finish with Hallmark Movie deals.

I also learned that daytime programming is for old TV shows. We all know that if you want reality you should avoid TV and movies. No one wants to watch your family (or mine) eat TV dinners while you epically fail at “Jeopardy” then argue about whether to watch “The Middle” or “Survivor: Nicaragua”. But the fact of the matter is that TV has gotten more real over the years. “Little House on the Prairie” makes “Modern Family” look gritty and raw.

In fact, you can do some TV archeology here on Hallmark. Just like “Prairie” gave way to “Modern Family” and “Parenthood”, I can argue that “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” and “Rescue 911” have led us straight to current alphabet shows like “NCIS” and “CSI: Insert City Here”. Moreover, I can make a strong case that “Murder, She Wrote” and “Diagnosis, Murder” are merely the early harbingers of “The Walking Dead” . . . really. If you want to see someone in a dramatic chase scene where one of the characters is hindered by a death-like lack of speed, just watch Angela Lansbury or Andy Griffith attempt to get away from, well, anyone.

But maybe the best part of the Hallmark Channel is their original movie programming. It’s clear that Hallmark has a blanket policy of automatically rejecting any show with characters containing greater than puddle-depth. But for their movies, they have taken it to the next level – more character development than aluminum foil? You’re out! Add in the necessary element that Hallmark labels ‘romance’ and you can have some good times here. Well . . . maybe not.

On the one hand, I feel like such a stellar parent after watching Hallmark. I learned that Holiday Movie parents are pushy, never listen, have unreasonable demands for their children and lack any concept that grown children are actual people. This means that adults can/should do things like: fake engagements, lie about being married, and borrow other people’s cars, houses, children and boyfriends.

Hallmark characters not only lack in depth, they often lack in all neural processing. No one has any real qualms about safety when frying a turkey for Thanksgiving (of course hilarity occurs, rather than actual serious burns). One character claims a ‘cop’ brother will run a background check, but three scenes later puts her ‘best friend’ in the car with a strange man after a ‘google search’. And no one catches on when the man their daughter calls “Jason” is recognized as “David” by a really creepy Mexican restaurant waiter. Furthermore, even if you buy the really slim excuse for this, why are these parents not concerned that their future son-in-law is friends with the disturbingly creepy waiter? Maybe it’s because their other future son-in-law is a podiatrist who lovingly fondles the bare feet of near strangers (offering zero podiatric advice), and then proceeds to eat corn chips without washing his hands. (I kid you not.)

In the end, I learned so much. I learned that you can have a beautiful wedding in 27 days. You can find true love with the man of your dreams by pretending to be someone you aren’t. And that nothing will spoil your big day (like, say, the fact that she lost her job as a newspaper journalist, the industry is dying and she’s made no attempt to find other work but continues to live on her own in San Diego – and she’s the stable one. He was recently FIRED as a dancing street corner cell phone.)

But mostly, I learned that if dating the regular way (getting to know someone face-to-face) fails you, then the internet is a great place to meet people and find love. It’s best utilized by posting videos with identifying information on random websites, then giving out any additional personal info whenever requested. True love, I’m coming . . . Hallmark style!

I’m not sure where to start with this, but it bears repeating. With all that we are focused on the economy and Black Friday and on the ongoing saga of Occupy Wall Street, there is something serious afoot: Amish on Amish crime.
I have to admit that when I first read about this I checked for the ONN (Onion News Network) logo in the corner. Then I checked my calendar and it’s nowhere near April first. What is happening? Has the world gone crazy? What with the recent spate of holidays (Halloween, Nigel Tufnel day (11-11-11) and Thanksgiving) we seemed to have missed the hate a-brewing in the middle of Ohio. I thought the only thing in the middle of that state was the fictional Glee high school.
There has recently been a rash of hate crimes that are striking fear deep into the heart of the Ohio Amish. Splinter groups are roaming the hills and attacking Amish men and women and cutting their hair!
Though hate crimes against the Amish aren’t uncommon – rocks thrown at buggies, hats stolen and the usual name calling – actual physical crime is relatively low. This may be because the Amish tend to stay in small, closed communities. Known for shunning such modern conveniences such as phones, cars and zippers, they speak a version of German and farm for a living. Though they don’t communicate much with the (heathen) outside world and most people think their lives are primitive, they are more ‘off the grid’ than anything else, running many relatively modern machines with gas powered generators. They don’t need much they can’t produce and sell their farm produce, furniture and quilts for quite a sum. (The local hospitals love when the Amish come in – they stop at the desk on the way out, pull out a wad of cash and pay their bills.)
Though they go wild and crazy for Rumspringa – a practice whereby teenagers are sent out to experience the rest of the (heathen) world before committing fully to the Amish way of life – they are a relatively quiet and god-fearing bunch. Which brings us to the hair-cutting problem . . .
The hair is a commandment from God. Personally, I’m not sure of a God that has a stake in my hairstyle when so much is going on in Africa, and I’m even less impressed with a God with that particular style in mind. But the Amish see all that hair and beard as a sign of devotion. They also don’t bear witness. I have a friend who tells the little kids “No one likes a tattle tale.” Apparently, the Amish really don’t. You turn your cheek, then the other, then trust that God will mete out the appropriate punishment. (I’m going to take a moment here to point out Africa again. I think there’s a long line before he gets to haircut punishments. And honestly, there are a lot of moms in the US who need to be in this line for those bowl-cuts they gave their kids before people get spanked for snipping Wildman beards.)
But just when you thought the hate-crime scenario of holding down a person who won’t fight and giving them a haircut couldn’t get any worse, it does.

One – they say this crime strikes at the heart of all the Amish believe. I’m kinda shocked that the hairstyles rank that high. Vanity is bad. They cover most of their hair. And there are a ton of don’t-lie, pray-every-day, bake-your-bread-from-scratch and zippers-are-evil commandments that I would have thought ranked high above have-long-hair.

Two – this crime is Amish on Amish. Yes, these be Amish haters out there cutting hair. Thus the groups are even less inclined to report it. There has been an attempt to deal with the problem within the community. Because the Amish farm, and they have a reasonable growth rate in community size, they live in communities that often splinter off due to two things: mild religious differences and need for farm land. So this was a splinter group striking back about treatment from a central group. (What did they do? Ride up and steal something? Salt the fields? Make fun of buttons? Was there a getaway driver waiting in the buggy? What does that chase scene look like? So many questions!)

Third – (And this is where I went back a second time and made sure the article was all legit) Apparently, the crimes were eventually reported and the local police found a ringleader among the splinter group. And his name is Mullet. Yes, Mr. Mullet and his sons have been giving the Amish in Ohio haircuts.

I have been having nightmares. What do the Amish consider a bad haircut? This is clearly no Edward Scissorhands situation – he had zippers.

So when you take an elbow to the nose during your Christmas shopping, or you start to choke and you realize that the other shoppers have brought mace to keep you away from the Leapfrog Learning Pads or those two-dollar waffle makers, you may start to long for a simpler life. But remember, there is no simpler life.

Is it really simpler to bake your own bread? Plow your field with a mule and a wooden V?

And even though the Amish are mostly a loose conglomeration of peaceful and loving communities, no one is immune to hate crimes. So though I don’t know what you should do if you get mauled at the mall this season, you can at least find comfort in this: you are highly unlikely to find yourself the victim of a set of Amish men named Mullet trying to give you an unwanted haircut. But if it does happen: grab their buttons and scare the horses on the getaway buggy!

Happy Holidays to all!

I have to start with saying how lucky I am. I moved to Nashville for the job opportunities, low cost of living and ability to have some land but still be in a neighborhood. After three months of getting used to a new place, I ran into an old friend at church. He’s married to another old friend. And sitting next to them was yet another old friend. Yes, toss in a few more and there’s a circle of eight of us here which I luckily wandered back into. Add in another two who stayed closer to the Knoxville area and their significant others and you have a circle of twelve. The last magic ingredient is: Andrea, Queen of all Organization. What you get is a yearly, three-day weekend retreat at a cabin in the woods.

Cabin rules: No kids allowed. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. Cook one meal for the whole group. And BYOB – plenty of it.

That’s it.

We’ve hit different state parks through the last four years, but this year Andrea found us a private cabin. No neighboring cabins to be seen. And this time: a hot tub.

In the past, we’ve often gone on hikes or just walking about the state park as a group mid-day on Saturday. But not this year. This year our isolation was partially responsible for the sign that graced the front door: “This cabin has been recently visited by Black Bears”. We were asked to follow certain rules pertaining to putting our trash out and to also follow certain safety procedures when walking in the woods.

We sent Sean out the first night with a big bag of trash. For a while we deliberated. Do we keep it all inside until we leave? Is putting the lid on the can enough? Should we maybe wait ‘til daylight and revisit these concerns?

At some point while we were arguing these serious issues, Sean decided he’d had enough discussion and just went out the door. He went about 100 feet to the trash can holding a big bag of bear bait and lived to tell about it.

Later, after much alcohol had mysteriously disappeared, we debated the Un-P.C.ness of calling these majestic creatures “Black Bears”. (One of our group, Keifel, is married to Victoria – it’s a beautiful interracial love story, that certain members of her Southern family think is fine because “He’s not black, he’s Caribbean” Oy.) We thought perhaps our Black Bears were indeed Caribbean Bears, and would prefer to be called such. In the end, we decided that ‘Bear Americans’ was the most P.C. term.

Tara is our resident athlete – she rises with the sun, runs when possible and has energy to burn. So the second night after the dark hit, she put on a coat, grabbed a flashlight and tried (desperately) to find someone to join her for a hike. She made it around to all the others before she tried me . . . I refused, because of the Bear Americans. I said “Tara, I weigh more than you do, and you run faster than me. It’s not happening.”

After another disappointing round of trying to convince anyone to join her, Tara asked me again, too. (Perhaps she hoped we might make poorer decisions as the evening wore on?) At this point, I finally relented. But Tara put the nix on the walk. She didn’t like my stipulations. 1) I got to carry a full bottle of barbecue sauce while we walked. 2) If a bear approached us, I got to squirt the barbecue sauce all over her and run screaming. There was no walk that night.

In the end, the hot tub saw some use (though you would think ten intelligent people would be able to figure out how to get the bubbles on for a second time), some holiday crafts were made, good food was eaten and games were played.

Though we are fans of Balderdash, Phase Ten, Scattergories and the like, one that is particularly fun with this boisterous group is Encore. Even the board on this game looks like it came into style (and went out of it, too) in the eighties. As the name implies, you have to sing (which is why it’s fun when no one can really sing well and there’s alcohol involved.) You get a word on a card, and the two teams face off – one team sings a song with that word in it, and then the other team has 30 seconds to produce a different song with the same word. It goes back and forth until one team can’t do it.

Our word: Shake. We did the usual “shake it up baby, twist and shout” and “shake, shake, shake Sonora” but just before the timer went off my friend Mark (whom I have known since the tenth grade) hopped to his feet and began wailing “My milkshake brings the boys to the yard!”

Yes, I will still be laughing about that one come next October. When I am 90 and don’t recognize my own children, I will still be able to see Mark, jumping around and singing “My milkshake is better than yours, I can teach you, but I have to charge.”

Listen to AJ's Podcast SMART CHICKENS

Because Sometimes We All Just Want to Fly the Coop!

Why do grammarians worry about whether or not to capitalize Twitter – as in ‘to twitter’ or ‘to Facebook’ – but not ‘to tweet’ or ‘to text’. Texting and online posting have no concern for grammar. Why should grammar have a concern for them?

I bet Ke$ha looks beautiful right when she wakes up in the morning.

Can mushrooms get mold? It just doesn’t seem right.

Why don’t Americans understand that every American is an immigrant or the descendant of an immigrant? Even the Native Americans aren’t native (they came across the Bering Strait, remember? That means the immigrated.) I’m not saying there aren’t issues; we clearly need a process that works. But – unless you are a squirrel – just don’t be a jerk about it.

Why does the GRE contain words that the Webster’s Dictionary doesn’t?

Why is the “this semi makes a wide right turn” sign posted on the back right corner of the truck? That’s the spot where you are when it’s too late to do anything about getting out of the way. They’d be better off putting a sign there that said “Sorry Charlie.”

Why does the autocorrect on my phone have the word Klaxons in it? And why, when I type b-e-t-e-r (instead of ‘better’) does it give me this list: Beyer, Veterans, Veterinary, Heterosexual, Heterogenous, Beret. (Better isn’t even an option!)

Why does New Mexico keep posting those pictures of the bear with the arrow through it?

I understand it’s a Native American symbol but it looks like it’s the Native American symbol for ‘Bear with Diarrhea’

Do people not see that it’s oxy moronic to call something ‘The Incredible True Story’? Since ‘Incredible’ means ‘not believable’ . . . and once I even saw a movie advertised as ‘the incredibly true story’.
If we are all so grossed out by sixteen-year-old Courtney Stodden’s marriage to fifty-one-year-old Doug Hutchison, then why is the Edward/Bella (Twilight) romance so dreamy??? Edward is 110. Bella is in high school.

If dogs have such a keen sense of smell, why do they keep sniffing each other’s butts? If I had that great a sense of smell, a butt – particularly a dog butt – is the last thing I’d want to sniff.

Listen to AJ's Podcast SMART CHICKENS

Because Sometimes We All Just Want to Fly the Coop!

Welcome Coffin Hoppers and Smart Chickens alike!

For those of you who are Smart Chickens, please give a shout out to our visitors. Coffin Hop is a blog tour that goes from October 24th-31st. The tour will visit numerous blogs, Smart Chickens being one of them. So give a warm welcome to the Coffin Hoppers!

In this final week before Halloween we have several great giveaways, a super deal and a scary picture!

I’ll start with the scary thing . . .

Yes, that’s a picture of fabric grocery bags . . . in a plastic bag.

It seems I had bought more cloth bags than I needed, so the nice girl at the checkout decided to bag them for me.
In plastic.

I’m afraid to take the bags out of the bag. I think it will make a wormhole or something. But on Halloween I’m going to do it!

So if there’s a nasty little matter of anti-matter for the holiday, that would be my fault!

While you are visiting, you can sign up to join the Smart Chickens Team (sign in at the top of the page) and you’ll be entered to win a copy of Bite Size. This is a print collection of four short thrillers. Copies of Bite Size have never been sold – the only way to get one is to win it. I’ll be glad to autograph it if you wish, and of course we will ship to the winner!

Feel like you never win anything? Everyone who enters gets a FREE PDF copy of my novella Dissonance as well as the first 2 chapters of my new novel God’s Eye.

Lastly, a great big deal on a little evil! For this week only, God’s Eye is on all e-formats for just $2.99. That’s 70% the regular price.

Get it while it’s hot. On Kindle, Nook, iTunes or right here on PDF if you don’t have an e-reader or just prefer a computer version.

Thank you to the Coffin Hop for including me on your tour, and thank you for visiting Smart Chickens! – A.J.

It’s said that Generation X can be defined or identified by a simple test:
Complete the following phrase: Conjunction Junction________________

If you don’t know it, you are not a member. And if you are a member, you said (or most likely, sang) “What’s your function?”

But there’s a lesser known test for Gen X, and it’s defined by this phrase: “Where’s my flying car?” (and the slightly less common “Where’s my personal jetpack?”)

Cars haven’t taken the quantum leap that was not only predicted but planned for in the 1900s. They not only don’t fly, many use more gas per mile than their counterparts from just twenty years ago. Electric cars were an interesting idea – and I know there’s a whole movie about who killed them. But I think the fact that you couldn’t just ‘fill-up’ was problematic. You had to plug-in (which required finding a station) and wait around. If you had an electric car you couldn’t take long trips (or you could, but they’d be REALLY long, because of the re-charging problem.) Conspiracies aside, I don’t think these cars would have completely caught on. Have you ever forgotten to re-charge your cell phone over night? Yeah, I know. I’m not responsible enough to have an electric car either.

The hybrid car is faring much better – it has the best of both worlds and never has to be plugged in. But scientists pulled them apart and were greatly saddened to find a mere 40%-ish efficiency. If you know anything about engines, then you know that’s crappy. There’s part of me that says, ‘I could have told you that.’ Because Ford is selling hybrids that get up to 22 miles per gallon. Twenty-two miles per gallon! Stop the presses . . . !

Why? Buying a super-gas-guzzler hybrid is like buying a fake fur coat with real fur trim. Or like owning a pro-football team and telling your friends to suit up for a game. If you can afford this car, you can afford to tell people what you really think. That little H on the back of your big, big car isn’t making anyone believe you care about the environment.

Though cars aren’t going to take flight anytime soon (they aren’t even going to be able to achieve Dukes-of-Hazzard-like leaps), they have evolved. And the evolution has come from some pretty unexpected sectors.

It isn’t the car companies or even the scientists that are making the biggest strides in car development, it’s the good-ole-boys and the gang members.

Yeah, have you ever been mud-boggin? For those of you who don’t know about it, you go out into mud bogs (surprise!) in your truck and freewheel around until you get stuck. When you do, you get someone near you to haul you out. That’s it. That’s all there is. But it’s a riot.

Those monster truck rallies have their birthplace in the mud bogs. And it’s the boggers who made all the advancements. They’re the ones who thought to jack up the chassis and put on those tires that were intended for excavation equipment. They added the floodlights to the top (for night-time adventurers) and managed to get a lot of these vehicles declared street-legal.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have the gang bangers. These guys added music, hydraulics, and neon. Color changing paint came from this quarter – and is so cool that it has migrated beyond the bouncing car and onto minivans and Volkswagon Beetles.

What’s best about the tricked-out-trend is that it takes a lot of money. So, in order to put the money in the extras, a lot of times these guys start with the cheapest cars they can get. I saw a Toyota del Sol go hopping down the back roads of Las Vegas one night. And, God bless it, it was frog green too. I would have thought that was intentional, but the horn played “La Cucaracha” so I’m not really so sure. The people behind me at the light honked at me to go, but I couldn’t: I was spellbound and sat, stationary, until it hopped out of sight.

On another day, several of us got stuck on the 405 in LA. Next to us was a Hyundai Accent. It had a spoiler on the back (thank God! Because it was clearly in danger of achieving lift-off if not for the downward pressure of that spoiler. (And the fact that it was in LA and likely to never go over forty miles per hour. But whatever.)) The spoiler was a huge whale-tail of a thing too. Honestly, it looked like some giant toddler was going to come stomping down the freeway and pick up this car by the spoiler to carry it back to his toybox.

The spoiler – and the Christmas lights strung inside the car – weren’t all. This car was painted lavender. Sparkly lavender. And, no, it didn’t come that way. The Accent has never come in this shade particular of purple, AND the spoiler was painted to match. This was planned.

I wanted to laugh, but my window was open and the guy driving it looked like he not only had an unregistered gun, but like he would use it if I laughed at his car. I can handle being taken out by a gang member on the LA freeways. But I kept my mouth shut. I can’t die at the hand of man driving a sparkly lavender Accent.

So I popped in my Schoolhouse Rock CD and sang along, thinking of prepositions and personal jetpacks.

Listen to AJ's Podcast SMART CHICKENS

Because Sometimes We All Just Want to Fly the Coop!