Top Ten Foods To Avoid On The First Date

10. Cabbage - lovely sauerkraut scented belches will follow

9.  Spinach – for a smile like a spotty green compost pile

8. Lobster – requires messy on-table insect dissection– how fetching

7. Blueberry buckle – give your teeth a mauve and purple rainbow

6. Garlic – the resultant stink doubles as vampire protection

5. Cherry tomatoes – stab and they erupt with messy juice and seeds

4. Oysters on the half shell – think, slimy mucous into your mouth

3. Baked beans – pretend you’re an old fa*t and smell like one

2. Spaghetti with marinara sauce – help grow a tomato sauce beard on your shirt

And…


1. Sweet breads – perfect for grossing out vegans, PETA members and normal carnivores

Top Ten Ways to Celebrate New Year’s Eve, 2014

10. Pretend it’s a century ago. Start a World War over nothing.

9. Pretend it’s a century ahead. Book a getaway to that new resort on Phobos.

8. Commandeer a GoPro drone. Take a selfie with 90,000 close friends at Times Square.

7. Go to Heaven, party with Dick Clark, Guy Lombardo and Howard Hughes.

6. Try to figure out what Auld Lang Syne really means.

5. Break every single resolution you made. In 15 minutes.

4. Get a head start. Send out a million valentines.

3. Get a real real head start. Wear St. Patty’s green

2. Get a real real head start. Organize an Easter egg hunt.

and...

1-. Get a real real real head start. Set off July 4 fireworks.

Bonus round

0. Scale One Times Square inebriated and ride the Waterford Crystal Ball down. In your birthday suit. With a lamp shade for a hat.

Top Ten Ways To Cure the Lost Jetliner problem

10. Drain the world’s oceans. Make deserts bloom

9. Install 10,000 The Clappers on each plane

8. Give all sky marshals telepathic powers

7. Ban air travel in favor of water taxi’s

6. Go back to noisy slow piston engined airliners

5. Require pilots to text continually while flying

4. Hire ghost of Amelia Earhart as special consultant

3.Make black boxes out of Chernobyl scrap metal

2. Mandate big ball of string that unrolls over entire route

and...

1. Put a plastic Jesus on each cockpit dashboard

Top Ten ways to promote a global flu pandemic

10. Get ghost of Edward Jenner to recant principles of vaccination

9. Have FDA ban Tamiflu, Relenza and vitamin C

8. Hold Sneeze-in at UN

7. Organize thong and speedo rave at South Pole

6. Enact prohibitive tax on fruits, veggies and exercise

5. Roll back time (and medicine) to 1918

4. Bribe Ebola virus to mutate into HINI Mark V

3. Legalize marriage to avians and swine

2. Establish new Olympic medal sport:  virus mutation rate

And…

1. Pipe in virus laden jetliner cabin air to Superbowl.

New Years Resolutions for 2015

Attach portable Clapper to car keys

Put lithium batteries in Clapper

Keep motorcycle collection additions under ten

Discontinue habit of running up down-escalators

Try to find compost pile without GPS

Do not snow shovel entire driveway

Stop compulsive calendar creation

Try to regrow hair with chia seeds

Paper walls and ceilings with medical records

Seek to get hemoglobin above 7. Chew nails.

Attempt to cure marrow malady. Eat bones

Try to boost white cells. Swallow titanium dioxide

Fall out of love with foxy fetching brilliant oncologist

Cease counting free food court samples as a daily meal

Top Eleven notorious awards for 2014

11. Fred Noonan Award to navigator,  Malaysia Airlines flight MH370

10. Gyro Gearloose Award to chief air bag engineer, Takata Corporation

9. Adolph Hitler Award to Vladimir Putin for annexation of Crimea

8. Ted Bundy Award to Bill Cosby for his dating habits

7. Mr. Magoo Award to US Congress for their visionary legislation

6. Charles Ponzi Award to the Greek government for financial probity

5. Jack The Ripper Award to Shark Tank for its kind treatment of entrepreneurs

4. Kevin Mitnic Award to North Korea for hacking Sony

3. Atilla the Hun Award to sadly too many school shooters to mention

2. Victor Frankenstein Award to New England Compounding for fungi-laced steriods

And….

1. Bubonic Plague Award to the Ebola virus in Africa

Ten Worst Ideas of 2014

10. Thumb your nose at crackpot despot via cinema

9. Score bargain in bulk  tix on Mayalsia Air

8. Invest heavily in solar -- cos oil will go up forever

7. Start International Bill Cosby fan club

6. Buy Grecian Formula franchise. Territory: North Pole

5. Cancel your Florida sinkhole insurance

4 .Build a Ukranian Elks lodge in Crimea

3. Take spokesman job for Vladimir Putin

2. Develop expensive view property high on Mount Kilauea


and

1. Spend tons of time writing silly blog

Top ten reasons you overslept on Christmas

10. The kids’ Shake Til Awake alarm clock you were testing didn’t work.

9. Shopped for all twelve days of Christmas gifts. At Walmart. Christmas eve.

8. All your 1400 dinner guests would need food to eat, you realized. At 3 AM.

7. That Airwick spray can from Ebay was really an Army surplus sleep induce weapon

6. You had Christmas Eve punch made by Bill Cosby

5. You stowed away on Santa’s sleigh. Got wicked jet lag

4. Watched that Chevy Chase movie 19 times, bored yourself into a stupor.

3. You tried a new reverse caffeine elixir in your eggnog. It worked too well

2. You were up six days straight trying to get tab A into slot B for little Johnny’s gift

and

1. You took Ambien, and slept-ate the entire Christmas turkey the night before

Bonus...

You contracted a rare case of Rip Van Winkle Syndrome

Top Ten reasons why men shave their heads

10. Bald someday, anyway. Think ahead. Be consistent

9. So do not want to emulate Donald Trump

8. Beats the heck out of face paint if you are a billiard ball fan

7. Tough economic times. Extra body billboard space, Chaching

6. Want to start a collection of functional toupees

5. Better headtop tat visibility

4. Rick of  Pawn Stars is kinda cool.

3. Tough economic times. Lucrative drone landing strip.

2. Just joined Yul Brenner Impersonator Association

1. Better no hair than blue hair, eventually

Bonus

Hair clippers went berserk. Liked the outcome

Top Ten reasons you know an economic crisis has hit Russia

10. They start cutting canned beluga caviar with albacore tuna.

9. The Ruble is devalued and becomes a new currency, the Rubble

8. They begin to get aid from North Korea

7. Putin annexes Switzerland for Swiss chocolate reserves

6. They sell Vladivostok to the Chinese for $26 dollars in beads.

5. They trade Crimea to the Ukraine for a rundown pier on the Black Sea

4. Europe taunts them to cut off oil. They can’t afford to.

3. Mummified Lenin body parts start appearing on Ebay.

2. They import decrepit 1950’s cars from Cuba for their head-of-state vehicle fleet.

And….

1. Ads for Amazon, Apple and Harbor Freight Tools appear on Russian TV

Bonus

At the G-20, Putin breaks down and laughs manically like Jeff Bezos

They beg for everybody to like them on Facebook

Top ten reasons to suspect we’ve all been hacked

10. Amazon drones make deliveries, then return to bomb HQ

9. Israeli uranium centrifuges get downgraded to salad spinners

8. Your stick shift Ford sticks it to you

7. All wine cellars turn into vinegar warehouses

6. OnStar becomes a black hole

5. GPS only gives directions to Pyongyang, Chernobyl and Fukashima

4. NORAD can no longer find Santa – or anything else

3. Big Ben plays Hail to the Chief

2. Apple stores start selling I-Cortlands


And

1. Sony picture releases that movie

Top ten things the fish that lives 26,000 feet down must be uttering

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/12/141219-deepest-fish-mariana-trench-animal-ocean-science/

10. Captain Nemo, eatcher heart out ..neener, neener

9. Malaysia Air, you do want this black box?  How much?

8. Oh hi. Nice of you to drop in, Amelia.

7. And you think your life is pressure packed?

6. At least I know where my next meal comes from…above

5. Okay so Hide n Seek is over, right?…hello?.. hello?.. HELLO?!!

4. Been Down so long it looks like Up to me.

3. No, you can’t do fracking in this neighborhood

2. That last fathom is a real lulu.

And…

1. So -- are we having a deep conversation or what?

Bonus

Only thing below me in the cellar is the Boston Red Sox

Top ten reasons to steal boxed cologne and then hide in a stream

http://www.telegram.com/article/20141215/NEWS/312159666

10. You ate 69 garlic cloves and 49 cabbage heads for din-din

9. You are testing a new miracle fish lure…..

8. You are testing a new miracle fish repellent

7. You’re broke and you’ve got a thing for the Little Mermaid

6. You actually wanted to see scent-adverse herring run..for their lives

5. It’s your bizarre answer to Ridley turtle groundings

4. It beats the heck out of lurking in highly scented pond scum

3. You want people to call you a stuffed shirt. But not a stinky one.

2 You’re homesick for your houseboat in Germany's fourth-largest city

And….

1. It’s your random act of kindness for a small polluted waterway

Bonus…

Your impersonation of George Hamilton, Winona Ryder and Mark Spitz got out of control

Why you might (or should) be a germophobe like me

10. Your white cell count is smaller than Powerball Lottery odds

9.  Your eyeballs play ping-pong conjunctivitis. A tournament

8.  You buy antiseptic gel in gallon jugs. By the case

7.  You get pneumonia when someone sneezes. In China

6.  You see a fifty dollar bill on the shopping mall floor. And keep walking

5.  You industrial steam your undies. Hourly

4.  You put in a carwash. To clean your kids

3. You own stock in Clorox. And Safety Cleen

2, You wear sani-booties. To bed.

And….

1. Your home is surrounded by a moat of black holes

Bonuses:

Your  idol is bubble boy

You bathe in copper pennies. Twice an hour

What happens when you sue Apple

10. You’re offered one orange for settlement

9. Steve Jobs’ ghost hacks your Galaxy

8. Sony makes a film about your death

7. Your russet cider turns to vinegar

6. You’re sucked into a reality distortion black hole

5. Bad sign – judge is grooving in court to I-Tunes

4. You tell the world, No we meant Fiona!

3. A mountain of Ipods appear on your driveway. In cement.

2. 2nd bad sign. Judge takes calls on his Iphone5

And….

1. The press starts calling you an I-diot

A bad marriage is like….

-- scuba diving on a coral reef. With no oxygen

-- strolling on a primrose path. At the South Pole

-- voyaging to Europe. By swimming.

-- diving into an Olympic pool. At the wading end.

-- chocolate cordials. Filled with gasoline.

-- Paris in the Spring. After a dirty bomb hit

-- sunning yourself. On the planet Mercury.

-- a cashmere sweater. That moths have discovered

-- balsamic vinegar. That you originally bought as wine

-- Nantucket. In August, just after the ferry arrives.

-- dear family. The Addams Family

-- home sweet home. A Rest Home. Staffed by sadists

-- modern conveniences. When power is out

-- dining at the Ritz. On just Ritz crackers

-- Continental breakfast. When you are incontinent.

-- an astrological sign. Cancer

-- eating Fugu. Prepped by an apprentice

Top ten ways to cope with fat ankles

10. Pretend you are a svelte elephant.

9. Develop severe myopia. You won’t be able to see that far.

8. Wear disguise galoshes  24/7.

7. Become obese. Then the rest of your body will match.

6. Turn c-clamps into compression socks.

5. Hang by your ankles like bat while sleeping.

4. Take Chinese foot binding to the next level.

3. Put on  spats a la Scrooge McDuck.

2. Never come out of the water.

And…

1. Go back to ancient medicine. Try leeches.

Bonus

Try a Papal foot washing with meat tenderizer

Top ten reasons you should shop at the mall instead of online

10. You get cookies you can actually eat

9. Jeff Bezos is filthy rich already

8. Overworking UPS creates jobs

7. You push a real shopping cart – good exercise

6. Instant free food court samples..try that via FIOS

5. Serendipity way more quaint than Google search

4. Mall germs help restock your healthy gut flora

3. Pathetic JC Penney deserves a fighting chance

2. No frustrating 404 error messages .....and......

.......

1. Grainy security video could make you famous

Top ten easy ways to get a Rudolph red nose

10. Wear Bozo Clown disguise – ditch the wig

9. Drink to excess like W C. Fields

8. Become bullseye in red paint ball war

7. Develop nasal rosacea

6. Enter raspberry eating contest

5. Polish bike parts with red rouge – omit mask

4. Fall face down in bushel of cranberry relish

3. Climb Annapurna. Get mother of all nose bleeds

2. Fall asleep just before kids find mom’s lipstick

And….

1. Become hapless victim of errant face painter

Top ten ways to cope with Shark Tank

10. Wear an aramid/kevlar wetsuit. Omit deodorant.

9. Be ingested  by an anaconda instead

8. Use a bigger boat

7. Bring wet vac. Suck it dry. Watch sharks asphyxiate.

6. Dress up as Shamu. They won’t mess

5. Conscript  Johnny Cochran as your mouthpiece

4. Have Vladimir Putin and Steve Jobs negotiate for you

3. Get Barbara Corcoran and Lori Grenier into a fatal catfight

2. Smoke cigar, blow in Cuban’s face.

And….

1. Impersonate BP. Drill offshore. Leak oil. Kill all sharks.

Top ten reasons to like ice storms

10. Power out for days on end , huge electric bill savings

9. Stacatto drone of misfiring generator lulls you to sleep

8. A falling tree speeds up the planned chop-top of your vintage Mercury

7. Driveway turns to skating rink, you can play hockey

6. Mountains of road salt pollutes water, perfect for cooking pasta

5. You learn something new -- how to cook on camp stove

4. No need for a walk-in fridge, that’s your whole house

3. A plummeting  icicle could always kill your mother-in-law

2. Arcing power lines beat the heck out of Xmas lights

and….

1. A tree crash makes your car now look like an Edsel. How kool is that?

Top ten reasons to be thankful for oil price drop

10.You can stop lubing squeaky doors with ear wax.

9. Big Oil gouges the US consumer for only one trillion dollars instead of two.

8. The snotty self-righteous smirks of hybrid owners turn into scowls.

7. Texans can speed without freezing Yankees.

6. The Exxon Valdez is converted into a cruise liner.

5. Russia and Iran get what they richly deserve.

4. Coal-filled mountain tops in Appalachia stop disappearing.

3. Greedy smug and rapacious hedge funds levered long on oil get crushed.

2,. Your toilet bowl no longer has to freeze over in January.

and ...

1. You can complain about the weather and politics instead of energy prices

Top ten things you should know about Barack Obama

10. In a former life he was lead singer for the Christian vocal group Barack, Meshach, and Abednego

9. He goes to hospitals for sore throats. Especially his.

8. He is badly in need of some Grecian Formula 16.

7. His dad herded goats. The son tries the same. With Congress.

6. He did not use the Bill Clinton marijuana smoking method.

5. He is an omnivore. And how. Dog, grasshopper and snake in Indonesia

4, He opposed the merger of Oklahoma and Alabama into a new state of Obama .

3, His dogs, Bo and Sunny, have never ridden on an auto roof rack.

2. He is not part of the Bush/Clinton presidential contender monopoly.

….

1. Never ever ever get between him and his Nicorettes

The polio parable

The misty view through a half century of time obscures my memories. But, a few beacons remain. I was a just boy. And infantile paralysis -- poliomyelitis – reined as a scourge like no other. It rivaled today’s Alzheimer’s disease. It transformed summer into a time of fear. It made swimming pools anathema. No one was safe from an affliction that could strike, cobra-like, with devastating and deadly swiftness. No one was immune. No one could know whether they had just contracted a mere summer cold or the ominous onset of dreaded polio. It targeted little children, young adults in their prime, and yes the aged as well. A lucky few got injections of gamma globulin to safeguard them during the hazardous months of July and August. Stunning, heartbreaking images of people condemned to a lifetime in iron longs or crutches were emblazoned everywhere. The March of Dimes crusaded like a Labor Day Telethon every single day of the year – for years and years.

As a virologist, my father became engulfed in the state-of-the-art immunology of its day. For, he participated in the race to develop a safe and effective oral polio vaccine. It was a torturous, pressure-packed endeavor fraught with peril. For oral polio vaccine was, after all, the live virus itself, in attenuated form. Researchers and clinicians from competing factions alike struggled with things like reversion to virulence and the hazards of attenuation in monkey kidney tissue culture. Ten of millions of 1950s-era dollars were spent. Scientific reputations soared and crashed and soared again. And, patients in clinical trials did die.

In the end of course, a successful vaccine was developed. But it consumed vast amounts of time. Years and years stretched into decades. Human patience and initiative were stretched to the breaking point. Strain after strain after strain was isolated, tested, attenuated and then tested again. After all that effort, most were summarily abandoned as unsafe. And then, the entire process had to be started anew.

The team that included my father lost their battle. For it was the vaccine strains from a competing effort that ultimately garnered the first government license. But they won the war. For only my father’s team had devised the methodology to attenuate, to grow the vaccine -- safely -- in ordinary chicken eggs. And hence only they could mass produce it.

It had been a lengthy, arduous and painstaking process. But now came the rewards. Now, the victor had to come, hat in hand, to the vanquished. And surrender a large hoard of their spoils to get the vaccine made in volume.

The costs my father personally bore did not escape me, young as I was. He was absent for months at a time for clinical trials in far-off lands. Which did not always go well. The pressure, the perils, the politics all took their toll. I saw his vigorous, vibrant and sunny disposition eclipsed by a sometimes stormy, distant and sullen demeanor. My father died later – now long ago – in some ways a man spent and made gray before his full time.

And so now we come to the case of Elan. And Alzheimer’s disease.

Now I am a man not even remotely close to my father. For I am a lowly, merely, retired writer. Toiling on an anonymous message board. He was a world class virologist. He truly contributed to the advancement of science. I only dare speak of it.

But even I can grasp the haunting parallels from the days of my father. I see the devastation with no effective treatment. I can sense Elan scientists and immunologists and clinicians slowly, steadily, methodically progressing against it. It has taken years and years. Yes, there have been setbacks. And yes, patients in clinical trials have died. Even so, years ago I decided to make the biggest commitment I have ever made in my life. I took the largest position I dared in Elan, during its darkest days. And have held on like a terrier to a rat. Like lag bolt in southern yellow pine. Like solsticial sun over the Sahara.

Because I believed. Because, somehow, I knew.

Because others – hugely more knowledgeable and intelligent than I – gave unselfish, unstinting, sound and sagacious counsel to bolster me. Because a community of people cared not only about making money in the stock market, but also cared about pure science, about humans can help each other, about how illness can be conquered.

And now finally the uncertainty has cleared. We stand at the clinically-demonstrated cusp of at least one -- and likely more -- immunological treatments that can alter the course of Alzheimer’s disease -- for the first time. We can now look forward to day when such treatments will be administered -- prophylactically – preventatively -- to otherwise healthy persons. Who have been genetically identified at increased risk for the disease. We can hope for immunology that forestalls, that blunts, a devastating and deadly scourge as surely as Elan’s Tysabri treats multiple sclerosis – as surely as the oral polio vaccine did a half century ago.

Maybe it is only just my imagination, but somehow I see my father - once again as sunny and vigorous and vibrant as he was in his prime. And from above he is looking down on me and saying..

…well done, my son….well done.

And so in turn I say to you all, on this mortal earth, from the bottom of my heart…

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

June 2008

Top ten Octogenarian taunts and retorts

You were born before the age of electronics.
You were born before the age of anesthetic.

Better no hair than blue hair.
Better peach fuzz than billiard ball.

Your memory is toast.
Your memory is burnt toast.

My cane is faster than your walker
My chair lift is fast than your stair climber.

You still read books.
You still fetch water.

You are on dialysis.
You are on psychoactive drugs.

You take your teeth out at night.
You put your hair on in the morning.

Your mother wore combat boots.
Your mother wore a chastity belt

You shouldn’t drive a car.
You shouldn’t make toast.

….and……

You need blue pills to perform.
You need a ventilator to breathe.

Great Talladega Road Race

C     Em        Bb   F
Daybreak      sunshine

       Ab        C              G             C
We gotta be gone by a quarter to nine

       C               Em       Bb      F
The bikes in the van are fully gassed

Ab     C              G          Am        Ab   F     C
Safety wired and ready to last



     Am                     Fmaj7
A hundred ten miles in the hot southern sun

     D7                             G7
The Talladega National has got to be won



C                    Em     Bb         F
Some how our ardor wasn't the same

                Ab            C               G               Am        Ab   F     C
When the green Kawasaki went down in flames

     Am                     Fmaj7
It all appears as an insane dream

          D7                     G7
What we will do to our pretty machines



        C         Em      Bb          F
The race is over the sun goes down

       Ab        C                      G             C
We close our doors and are northward bound

          C      Em    Bb           F
Somebody asks as the night falls

Ab                  C                G              Am        Ab   F     C
Who won the marbles; we can't really recall


 Am                     Fmaj7
A hundred ten miles in the hot southern sun

     D7                             G7
The Talladega National has got to be won

C     Em        Bb   F
Daybreak      sunshine

       Ab        C              G             C
Onto the next race at a quarter to nine

-- 1967

Rock star

           A                    G          D            C   A
So you think that your life as a rock star is a lonely one

           A                    G           D              C   A
'Cos your search to play what's in your mind is never done

            F                    Bb                   C         D         A
Come day when you'll realize, there's millions just like you

     A                B4    C                     D                      A
In quiet desperation, waitin' for their dreams to come true


         A                    G          D            C   A
As along distance trucker you sure put in some lonely miles

       A                    G           D              C   A
Tons of overcooked coffee and whitetops between friendly smiles

            F                    Bb                   C         D         A
Come day when you'll realize, there's millions just like you

     A                B4    C                     D                      A
In quiet desperation, waitin' for their dreams to come true


           A                    G          D            C        A
On the line making cars in Motown ain't an easy score

           A                    G           D              C        A
When you think you're done, look up to see how many more

            F                    Bb                   C         D         A
Come day when you'll realize, there's millions just like you

     A                B4    C                     D                      A
In quiet desperation, wonderin if their dreams will come true


C      B7         A

Amarillo in Late October

Am              D
Amarillo in Late October

C                 E7
Passin' through on my way back home

Am              F
Skies so bright they look like day glow

C                 E7
Sunlight sparking in my chrome

Dmaj7                     E
[Oh how  I miss  the rain

Dmaj7                   C# maj7           E
Autumn leaves will surely ease my pain...]

Am              D
Heading home from California

C                 E7
Never could find any peace

Am              F
Pretty girl she's waiting for me

C                 E7
Back there in the East

Dmaj7                     E
[Oh how  I miss  the rain

Dmaj7                   C# maj7           E
Autumn leaves will surely ease my pain...]

-- 1973

Top Ten ways to lose weight when traveling

10. Fly coach. No meal. No real food at all. A teeny snack suitable for a …deermouse.

9. Buy exorbitant concourse food. You’ll only be able to afford a single ritz cracker

8. Fly coach. The claustrophobic cabin will surely kibosh your appetite.

7. Fly coach. The sardine cramped seating will motivate you to make your body smaller.

6. Fly coach. Lugging around your nine-ton (but free of charge) carry-on bag consumes kilo-calories.

5. Avoid non-stop. You’ll get joyous exercise running the interminable terminal to make your connecting flight.

4. Seek out peak travel times. The endless delays will aid calorie-burning teeth gnashing and thumb-twiddling

3. Try a budget motel. The nauseating stench of dirty carpet will do wonders for your planned bulimia

2. Go with the bottom rate rental car. Great mileage . But you have to pedal. Think, exercise bike.

And (drum roll please)

1.Navigate the bewildering airport road maze without GPS. Furious map page flipping burns tons of calories