Sesame Street: An HBO Original Series

Cut to a dark and dirty alley. Garbage is strewn about, there is urine pooling in corners. The streetlight on the corner is broken, the glass still on the sidewalk.

Cookie Monster stumbles into the alley and slumps against the wall. He pulls out a sleeve of Chips Ahoy and starts smashing them against the pavement, over and over until the sleeve contains nothing but cookie dust. He takes out a well worn syringe and a spoon. After heating up the cookie dust with some water, he injects it into his fuzzy vein.

Cookie Monster’s eyes roll into the back of his head, a little drool escapes his half open mouth and he lets out a long deep sigh.

Cut to Sesame Street credits on screen, over the Cookie Monster image.

Next Scene

Elmo is walking down a street at night, headphones on. He is humming the ABCs, totally oblivious to what is around him. Beeker grabs him from behind and shoves a chlorophyll soaked rag over his mouth and nose. Elmo collapses. Beaker looks down at the body, pauses, and quietly says “meep,” before taking Elmo by the legs and dragging him out of the frame.

Cut to the basement of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew’s house. Close up of Elmo’s eyes as he slowly wakes up and looks around. Camera pans out, we see Elmo is tied to a rusty gurney with hospital restraints. Dr. Honeydew walks into the frame holding a scalpel. We realize he is going to attempt to extract Elmo’s eyes and transplant them into his own head, finally giving himself the ability to see. Camera goes in for a closeup of the panic registering in Elmo’s face, then pans out past the glint of light off Dr. Honeydew’s eyeglasses, till we see the entire basement lab, with Beaker standing by the instrument tray. As Dr. Honeydew starts to cut, Beeker runs to the corner of the room, closes his eyes and says “meep, meep, meep” over and over frantically while rocking back and forth. The Sesame Street theme music starts playing loudly, incessantly cheerfully over the gruesome scene.

Cut to sponsorship ad: This episode of Sesame Street was brought to you by the letters F, M and L.

The End is Near

This has been a tough week. And it is not even over yet.

On Monday the New York Times tried to start the revolution with its profile of Colin Rath, a man with a dream. A dream spurred by his frustrations at having to park his Porsche on the street. A dream of the perfect condo.

Several million of his father’s dollars later, plus a defaulted $2.7m mortgage that he somehow got out of paying, a double indoor waterfall and a glass marble encrusted ceiling, Mr. Rath has not been able to live his dream. What he has been able to do is self publish a tell all book blaming his neighbors and get the Times to profile him.

The world does not understand Mr. Rath and his dreams. And so, the Times tells us, he has set sail into the open waters with his family on a yacht. “The yacht is named Persevere, a reminder of all that came before,” the Times reports, before closing on Mr. Rath’s final thoughts on the matter:

“We’re thinking of settling in New Zealand,” he said. “This is not the America I knew.”

Cry for Mr. Rath, nation. Cry for him and his Porsche.

Tuesday, the Times Magazine, not to be outdone by the paper proper, brought us the tale of a modeling scout. Not just any modeling scout, the most famous, in demand modeling scout. A woman who attended the finest schools and interned with Woody Allen’s casting director while in the 11th grade to hone her fine model choosing skills.

The article, which is either brilliant trolling or lacking any self awareness, highlights the trials and tribulations of casting young models with gems such as:

Recommending practice walking in heels to young girls “whose ‘legs just aren’t strong enough to hold the weight of their body.'”

And meeting the parents, so that “if the girl is not yet post-pubescent, to get a sense of how tall she might end up.”

And my personal favorite, advice for where to find the best stock: “The most ideal model-producing places, she surmises, have lots of interracial marriage, a high G.D.P. (predictive of good teeth) and protein-rich diets (good for turning out tall but trim citizens).”

And now, with only Wednesday upon us, Pizza Hut  has introduced a pizza with 28 miniature hot dogs baked into the crust, all for the low low price of $11.99.

I fear for Thursday.

Japan I love you but you are bringing me down

Japan is starting to sound like that friend who you think might be inches from a nervous breakdown.

As the Guardian reported in 2013, the young people have stopped dating or having sex. Studies find that a third of people under 30 have never dated. When it comes to young women, a whopping 45% of them in one survey said they were “not interested in or despised sexual contact”.  Despised. Think about that.

The youths are not moving out either. Estimates are that some 80% of women and 60% of men in their early 30s are still hunkered down in mom and dad’s basement.

And instead of dubbing them something neutral like the boomerang generation, they are being called “parasite singles.”

To fight their crushing loneliness, they go alone to cafes and sit with stuffed animals having coffee in silence.

Recently, a satire article about Japan creating a “suicide bear” that would assist people in killing themselves got a long of mileage out of people taking it seriously.

So yeah, the young people despise sexual contact, society calls them parasites, they are so lonely that they have coffee with inanimate objects and people are jumping to believe they want to be killed by a friendly bear faced robot.

And now, they have introduced crying rooms in hotels, where, provided you are a lady, you can have a good sob, alone, surrounded by high end tissues and what I hope are soundproofed walls.

Send help.

Photo via Shutterstock

Victorian talking dolls, because you need nightmare fuel

Well, now we know that something was too creepy for kids in the 1890s, a time when a Halloween costume meant dressing in rags and putting a burlap sack over your head with holes in it, like something slithering out of a primal nightmare. A time when clowns could not inspire fear in the hearts of children. When dead people were propped up for photos, positioned like they were still alive, deceased children sitting with their living siblings, in a grisly tableau.  And that was all okay. That was all not creepy.

But this doll. This doll was too much even for the postmortem modeling fans.

It was made by Thomas Edison’s phonograph company, in a noble effort to find new uses for the technology.
Per the NYTimes: In 1890, Edison’s dolls were a flop; production lasted only six weeks. Children found them difficult to operate and more scary than cuddly.

Inside each cyborg metal body was a cylinder that would play slowly enunciated nursery rhythms. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the like. While the eyes stared at you, unblinking. Clearly ahead of its time, it was a true predecessor to Teddy Ruxpin, who still haunts the dreams of many a young adult and probably their well intentioned parents.

Photo via The New York Times

The Many Uses Of Discarded Christmas Trees, A Poem

NPR decided to give that old poem, “A Visit from St. Nicolas”, the one that goes- “Twas the night before Christmas…” a run for its money with a delightful tale of what happens to all those Christmas trees after the holiday is over.

High fiber snacks for health conscious elephants has always been my favorite use, not to denigrate the wonderful work in protecting coast lines and providing new habitats for fish.

The entire 3 minute and 36 second presentation, complete with quotes from environmentalists, conservation experts and animal caretakers is all in rhyming verse.

It is both the most sweetly NPRish thing to do in the world, and at the same time the best case for someone having way too much time on their hands.

But really, rhymes about elephants and giraffes and bears snacking-what better way to wrap up the old year and start the new.

Photo via National Geographic

Ancient Scrolls From Herculaneum Now Readable, Not Best Sellers

Scientists have figured out a way to unroll and read the charred remains of scrolls from Herculaneum. Spoiler alert: it’s all the musings of a lesser known philosopher and one play about a loan shark and a pimp.

If you recall your ancient history, Herculaneum and Pompeii, two large, wealthy and flourishing cities near present day Naples were destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. Some religious authorities may think this happened because the cosmopolitan inhabitants were really into sculptures of Pan having sex with a goat. But actually it was because volcanoes just erupt. This is how natural disasters happen.

The ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum have taught us amazing things, primary of which is that while technology may change, people never do. Pompeii for example is full of graffiti, a lot of which translate roughly to “Cornelius was here, yo.”

Which brings us to the scrolls. They were found inside the library of the partially excavated summer villa of Julius Cesar’s father-in-law. So you know everyone assumed this had to be it. A guy that important. His library. This was the moment. So many of the greatest works of the ancient Greeks and Romans have not survived to this day except as mentions in other works. Now here was a chance to finally read them. Squee.

First there was the matter of figuring out how to do just that. The papyrus scrolls were turned into charred, black, unbelievably fragile sticks by the 752F temperatures, followed by layers of ash which then turned into solid rock. They were actually found in the 1700s and after some false starts a brilliant conservator from the Vatican figured out how to unroll the burnt remains using a machine he devised, which took 4 years to ever so carefully open the first scroll.

But even painstakingly unrolled, it was just a mess of little black fragments with the memory of text on it.

That is where modern science comes in.

Using infrared light created enough contrast between the ink and the paper to resurrect the almost 2,000 year old text.

What emerged is duplicate copies of the greatest and not so greatest hits of the philosopher and poet Philodemus of Gadara. Julius Cesare’s father-in-law it seems may have been his patron, and was letting him use the place as his working library. There was also that comedy in Latin about the loan shark and the pimp.

Scientists are trying to pressure the Italian government to allow them to excavate the rest of the villa to find what they believe are additional scrolls. The ones found were not just organized on shelves, but lying all about, on the floor and in carrying cases, so there is a good argument that more scrolls will be found lying around other parts of the villa. If people really never change, my bet is the most interesting ones are going to be near the bedside tables of the former occupants. Those will be the scrolls worth rereading.

Photo via BBC News

Lions To Be Released In Hamptons To Deal With Deer, Sort Of

According to Hampton’s local Dan’s Papers at any rate. The chronicler of all things fabulous put out an article about a wealthy South African who brought in lions from his native land to deal with the deer overpopulation problem in the Hamptons, circle of life style.

That’s right.

Lions.

To wander the Hamptons.

Maul wealthy ladies in Chanel. Fall asleep in the middle of the road. Snack on the children of the maids.

Van der Klerk’s solution has been to bring 26 male African lions from South Africa to Bridgehampton. He plans to release them into the woods here in the Hamptons on Monday.

“They are the natural predators of deer in South Africa,” he told this reporter at a meeting at his house on Friday. “I have done the math. Based on the rate that these carnivores eat meat, the deer herd should be gone in 10 days. This is mother nature at work.”

Van der Klerk also had his attorneys do some research. There is an ordinance in the Hamptons prohibiting the harboring of “wild animals,” but in the list of such animals there is mention of coyotes and American mountain lions, but not the South African lion.

A quick search does not turn up the words satire paired with Dan’s Papers, but it also does not turn up any Mr. Hans Van der Klerk, either. Not in Fortune Magazine. Not on the Googles. That is not stopping the article from bouncing around Facebook with shocked comments.

It does turn up other amazing hoaxes Dan’s Papers founder Dan Rattiner has pulled off in the past though.

We have sadly been trained at this point to believe that the rich can do basically anything. But considering how upset security gets at the airport when they think you brought an apple to snack on from a foreign country, I am pretty sure they would notice 10 male South African lions.

Robot Santa Claus is Now Real

Forget Santa. Google is keeping all the lists of naughty and nice this year. Probably. Maybe.

As everyone by now knows, in the future Santa will not be white or black. He will be evil and aluminum.

As everyone also knows, the future is Google.

Reading the news today of Google’s purchase of military robotics contractor Boston Dynamics, did you find yourself wondering why Google needs a 6 foot tall humanoid robot that can walk over rough terrain or a huge 4 legged one that can lift and throw heavy objects right before Christmas?

Ho ho ho boys and girls. It’s Robot Santa Claus. Either that, or they want to delve further into machine learning, as some randos assert.

But let’s go with Robot Santa.

Next week, when the good little boys and girls go to sleep dreaming of razor scooters and Lego sets, an army of Santas and “reindeer” will go about their task. Tireless, strong and needing no sleep, they will travel over asphalt, unpaved roads, rubble of war zones to deliver that blue-eyed doll and slightly traumatized and lightly bruised puppy.

And how does Robot Santa know whose been a good boy or girl?

That’s where all that data collection Google does comes in. All those phone numbers and emails sucked up and stored in Google’s servers. All those photos of your house. The GPS satellites, the passwords and the browsing histories.

Oh, the browsing histories. Doing Google searches for obscure fetishes involving circle twerking? Have the cell number of the local pusherman in your Android address book?

Maybe you should rethink that.

Back in 2009, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said it best:

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

Because come Christmas Eve, Santa Claus is coming to town.

Photo via 20th Century Fox

Gumby Kill. Gumby Eat Soul.

Gumby likes nothing better than to wrap those boneless toxic green colored arms around things and squeeze. Or so I thought. I have a confession. I wasn’t born here. I moved to the US around the time I was 6, and wasn’t fluent in English until about a year or so later. Due to the timing and travails of immigration, I missed a number of key childhood cartoons for my age set. Some I only saw pictures of on lunchboxes, others I only know from offhand references by friends. Lacking the time and the inclination to watch 80s and 90s cartoons for the preschool set as an adult for educational purposes, I simply filled in the details based on what the cartoon characters either looked like or sounded like from the titles.

This has led to some misunderstandings.

Gumby

When I first saw a picture of Gumby, the strange, humanoid green creature with fused arms and legs like cancerous masses, I assumed he was evil. The flat, engorged head, the limbs bent at unnatural angles; it’s the stuff of nightmares. Moving like one of those promotional wind powered flailing dolls outside used car lots I assumed he wrapped his boneless, gelatinous arms around victims before uttering in a deep and distorted voice, “Gumby kill. Gumby eat soul.” I guessed there were other characters on the show, which spent their entire time running for their lives while chased by Gumby, an ever nearing green menace.

Rocko’s Modern Life

Rocko paved the way for gay friendly sitcoms like “Will and Grace” and “Modern Family”. The cartoon, a progressive import I figured, followed Rocko, a little dog-like creature, as he explored what it meant to be a young gay man/dog-like creature in the 90s. I am also pretty sure he was dating the cow. That cow seemed very flamboyant. Rocko was obviously the handsome twink on the show. There had to be a bear, was there an actual bear or a metaphorical one, I don’t know.

Rugrats

These are clearly rats. I had a pet hamster as a child, so I figured rats were good people. The rats on the show lived in a rug, possibly some sort of 1970s shag number with extra long fibers. They built an entire civilization, with a complex social order, all in one living room rug. They had ratty adventures, saved the rug from the resident pet cat and everyone learned a valuable lesson about sharing and caring in the end. Like I said, good people.

Mr. Rogers

I first learned of the illustrious Mr. Rogers in my late teens. This is not a good time to learn about a single man who likes to invite young children to his house to play. Curious, I caught the introduction segment to his show once on TV. The lonely aging Mr. Rogers, with his colorful cardigan and soothing voice set of all sorts of alarms in me. Years of stranger danger hammered into me by well meaning teachers reverberated through my brain like a manic fire alarm. Run. Run now.Before you end up in some courtroom, showing on the teddy where the bad man touched you, your mom sobbing into a wad of disintegrating tissues. Mr. Rogers was bad news.

Hells Angels, Now a Brand of Yoga Pants?

As a lifelong New Yorker, I am not one to long for the good old days when the city was more “authentic.” Getting mugged and watching prostitutes shoot up on the stoops of the East Village is not actually better in my book then seeing ritzy designer stores occupy the buildings attached to those stoops. For one thing, I can simply not walk into a store, but telling a mugger, “thanks but I think I will pass on tonight’s mugging, I got mugged last night”, does not work so well.

But even I feel a little twinge of nostalgia for a simpler time when reading about the new identity of the Hells Angels: litigious copyright enforcers. What happened to beating up people outside bars?

Sure, they use a lawyer with what the NYTimes describes as a red Mohawk on his head, though in reality it is really more like a tuft of red crayon cartoon hair in the middle of his wizened scalp. And yes, everyone seems to be talking about “brand identity” and “brand loyalty” these days but when a symbol of freedom from rules and laws starts acting like a corporation, it is a sad day.

It seems the Hells Angels sued a teenage girl for copyright infringement for selling embroidered patches on ebay that looked a little too much like their logo. A teenage girl.

They also sued, amongst a longer list:

Toys “R” Us, Alexander McQueen, Amazon, Saks, Zappos, Walt Disney and Marvel Comics

Why the sudden itch to litigate? In the words of Yogurt from Mel Brook’s opus, Space Balls, merchandizing!

Hells Angels ladies yoga pants! Hells Angels Coffee mugs for the office drones in your life! Hells Angels T-shirts, for that guy who has it all (children’s sizes also available)! You can even get cabernet sauvignon with the name of the Hells Angels’ leader. Whether it tastes like the wind rushing through your hair on the open road or like the stuff your mom gets at the local liquor store is open for debate.

Least you give up on society altogether, the NYTimes reassures us, at least when it comes to the police, no amount of yoga pants is going to rehabilitate their image.

law enforcement officials have cracked down on the Hells Angels, saying they represent a criminal gang on six continents, trafficking drugs and guns and engaging in money laundering, extortion and mortgage fraud.

Image from Hells Angels Toronto