Sit down to eat, drink and travel

I don’t like to travel. Never have. That’s why they invented the Travel Channel. For me, traveling is like going to Colorado. Once you’ve seen one mountain you’ve essentially seen them all. That’s about a ten-minute experience and a life-long memory.

    I know people love to travel and good for them. Travel is a huge business world-wide. It just doesn’t interest everyone. I get worked up if I have to drive over to Yoder.

   I remember going to Colorado with lots of film one summer and when we returned I had rolls and rolls of film developed and when the prints came out it looked as if we had photographed the same mountain over and over. I was not amused.

   My rich sister just got back from Mexico. She told me she saw something earth-shaking and unique while avoiding drug cartels and serial murderers. She visited a salon where people in search of pedicures placed their feet in a bowl full of tiny fish. The fish are employed to bite the dead skin off feet. I realized this is one of the many reasons I am not rich. This sort of exercise is lost on me, so why have a bunch of cash to waste just for the opportunity to feed fish with my feet. Just consider the mind it required to come up with that practice. Somebody certainly has a lot of time on his hands. It’s no wonder Mexico is a homicidal wasteland.

    According to the Central Intelligence Agency, “Since 2007, Mexico's powerful drug-trafficking organizations have engaged in bloody feuding, resulting in tens of thousands of drug-related homicides.”

    That’s just the place I’d like to go. Bring your friends. Better yet, bring your enemies. If you ever wanted to bump someone off, what better way to do it? Invite your really aggravating neighbors to come along on your trip and once there invite them down for a pedicure and then let the fish and the cartels do your dirty work for you.

   I recently traveled to Chicago. I had no choice. My daughter ordered me to go up there. All I learned after four days was that Chicago taxis list a bunch of fees and fines on a little plastic list on the backseat for the passenger. The most interesting item was “Cab vomit cleanup fee $50.” I immediately wondered if I were traveling in one of Chicago’s premier vomit cabs. I would have asked the driver but he was listening to loud foreign music and talking on his cell phone and no doubt texting as well, by the haphazard way he was driving.

     While I was in Chicago I had the best hamburger on the planet at the Rosebud Restaurant, which is just up the street from The Drake Hotel. The Drake, by the way, has some old-fashioned stuff. In their Palm Court every afternoon they hold a Ladies Tea, and any day of the week women show up in their Sunday best to hang out with one another, drink tea and gobble pastries. I attended and seated myself at the back of the well-appointed room.

    Suddenly I was listening to “Somewhere over the Rainbow” played by a harpist in a sultry black gown who was performing in front of an enormous running fountain.  This was better than therapy or liquor. It was the sort of momentary escape that soothes the soul, except I remembered I was in Chicago, a city that breeds gangsters like rabbits. The thought made me glad I had picked a seat against a wall in the corner so as to observe any funny business. After all, to date Chicago has reported 2,361 people who have been shot, 408 of them killed.  Funny how none of the travel ads note such mind-numbing numbers.

    I’ve considered traveling to exotic places: the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids, the former Berlin Wall, and the Amazon. But the hassles always outweigh the rewards.   

    Anyway, anyone who travels these days carries a phone around just to show off their last trip. Like it or not, once the subject comes up, the person with the phone has your attention and shows you photo after photo of a desert: fine, beautiful, endless white sands, hundreds of photos that sure look a lot alike. And then once you’ve experienced every detail of their last trip, for dessert they want to show you cute cat photos they found on the internet (always an in-depth entertainment), or photos of their grandkids. Here’s where I get into lots of trouble. Show me a grandkid on your phone and I’ll usually provide a reaction. “Holy mackerel,” I might say, “Honestly, that kid’s actually uglier than the last one.” This is why I have few friends.

    I’m usually very adept at interrupting my visitors and getting out of there but I’ve not mastered a good smooth excuse to remove myself without being rude while enduring an endless display of travel photos. I’ve considered keeling over while screaming “call 911!”, but I know the ambulance folks have better things to do.

    The worst trip I ever had was aboard a Greyhound Bus. I worked in the baggage department of Greyhound, so my trips were discounted. I traveled to Newport, Rhode Island, to attend the famous jazz festival there. Since I sat at the back of the bus, I sucked in fumes all the way from New York to the festival, which gave me the worst headache of my life. After an hour or so, I returned to the bus depot to await the morning bus. I sat most of the night observing a prostitute and a sailor making eyes at one another. That proved to be better entertainment than the festival. Returning home, I swore off bus travel.

    There are really only two things I’d like to see. One is an oozing volcano rich in running lava; the other is the icebergs of the Antarctic. I would need to travel to see either one of them, but it’s not like either one is a cab ride away. They both require some heavy- duty travel; then there’s the passport, the reservations, the packing, the planning, the calling of everyone on the planet to help with last minute chores, parking the cat, getting cash, buying a camera phone, learning how to use it; and then, of course, there is the planning for the return. Many people make the mistake of coming back on the Sunday before they return to work. That’s bad business. You need wind-down time during which you can arrange your lava photos or pix of icebergs to stir the imaginations of your friends.

    Humans need a vacation after their vacation and most of us don’t have the time for that. We can’t wait to get back to work to wow our colleagues with photos or get to the family reunion to show off pictures of our latest adventure.

    I say stay home and avoid the hassles. Get a library card and check out a picture book and camp out in your easy chair. Chances are you won’t get arrested or shot. You might get a headache, but the trip is worth the price of admission. Anyway, that’s one of the many sacrifices you make when you travel. 

Are experts smarter than you are?

I have decided to pursue a new career as a TV expert.

    You might have noticed that television talk shows have now adopted a five-person forum for any and all subjects. There is the host and four experts who comment on the news of the day. These folks are so smart it doesn’t matter whether the conversation is about the Ebola outbreak in the world or how to remove stains from silky shirts. These folks are the ones to call.

    Some folks seem to have their own place in the TV expert world. I’ve seen Sen. John McCain on so many programs, I have wondered from time to time if he isn’t really the president while that Barack guy is merely a placeholder. McCain will answer any question put to him.

    Being a TV expert would offer a number of adventures. Surely they will gain huge amounts of weight since many of these shows now offer a table full of pastries no one seems to eat. I would not only eat the pastries between my talking ditties, I’d bring an extra bag to take the leftovers home. These are tough times and pastries should never be wasted. A country that wastes pastries is a country on the decline. Take it from me. The Expert.

   I am struck mostly by the range of information and opinions these TV experts seem to possess. I’m an honors graduate of a small college (so small we could not afford school colors!), and I know a lot (if I say so myself), enough to convince some people I know more than I really do, which makes me, according to Webster’s Dictionary, a blowhard, which is the best definition I’ve found of a newspaper columnist. And yet it’s a little difficult to be an expert in national politics, while also being a competent observer of military maneuvers in Botswana, understanding the range of reality shows starring little people, as well as race relations in Boston, knowing who is the best Scrabble player on the U.S. Supreme Court, being able to quote oil prices nationwide, and have an in-depth knowledge of the better brands of mustard.

    I don’t know how much these so-called experts earn per show, but I suspect they are paid by the number of words they speak, since everyone speaks at the same time.

    We don’t really know these TV people’s true expertise because they are introduced swiftly and innocuously, meaning in a manner that is uninteresting, not stimulating, nor significant.

    For example, the host will say, “I’d like to welcome Dr. Martin Leatherbrain from Louisiana State University’s Legal and Ethics Department, whose recent efforts resulted in the release from prison of two men who spent the last twenty years on death row. He will be talking today about the high price of produce, especially oranges.

     “Also, welcome to Ian Everwhite, whose background in race relations is so extensive he changed his name to represent his expertise. He is here today to discuss the national debt and the decline of film parts starring Richard Gere. Mr. Everwhite once met a former girlfriend of Mr. Gere’s and actually met the actor himself at a cocktail party.”

    The host continues, “I would also like to welcome our longtime colleague Amy Wormwood, a political strategist whose new book, “Where Am I and Why Am I Here?” hits the bookshelves Monday.

    “Finally, a very special welcome to Senator John McCain, who is here on short notice since our scheduled guest, Racebaiter Johnson, was apparently arrested by federal authorities as he crossed the state line en route to our studio this morning. I don’t know what charges Racebaiter faces, but I have scheduled an appearance by him next week, which should make for an exciting show.”

    The host generally is as mysterious as the guests. There is no bio of these people. They could all be residents of the Witness Protection Program, for all we know, but they are always ready to explore any subject on the face of the earth.     

   The last humans able to discuss any and all subjects were folks like Socrates and Aristotle and Donald Trump, although I meant they were able to discuss things intelligently, so knock off that last name. And yet, even smart experts like Aristotle would not do well on modern television, which operates according to the clock. I can imagine the chatty host addressing Aristotle: “OK, Ari, before we go to break. What exactly is the meaning of life? We have twenty seconds.”

    The only expert whose qualifications are readily understandable and somewhat believable are the guests who show up in jungle hats and goofy shorts from zoos around the country. They appear with huge snakes across their necks or holding a mongoose or tiny bears. We assume they know something about animals because they are dressed for the part and they’ve not been killed even though a lethal animal is hugging their leg.

    Most other TV experts all have the same dress code. The men show up in suits as if they are about to attend a job interview and the women look like they are off to church once they have finished yapping in the studio. Oddly enough, you might see the same experts on various shows on the same day, which only means they are sending their children to fancy schools and need the extra cash.

    I don’t begrudge anyone a job. But these so-called experts have had their time and have made little difference in the national discourse. They don’t process information. They more or less mumble facts that don’t make any sense whatsoever and rarely present a cogent argument pro or con. In fact, these talking heads on all sides have accomplished nothing but mucking up the gears of democracy so deeply, the country is split down the middle. It’s time to change the formats.

     If you’re not going to employ experts, then employ regular people. They’re entitled to have an opinion and since expertise is really beside the point, then open up the show so the rest of us can shoot off our mouths.  I realize this is what the Internet offers. But it’s always nice to match a face with an opinion.

    Regular people have as much a right as anyone to sound silly and look stupid on television. You don’t have to be an expert.

   Obviously, I need to buy some new ties.