Christopher Moore's Blog

Let me tell you a story that came to mind today, while I was thinking about the election, and reading the depressed, anxious, disappointed, e-mails from many of you guys. See if this doesn’t make you feel, as it did me, a little bit better.

My Uncle Johnny was a mechanical genius. He could completely disassemble an automobile down to the smallest part and put it back together and it would work. In fact, he did that once, a black Lincoln, during his vacation. Socially he was a little rough, a Georgia boy with an eighth grade education and a bit of a mean streak, but he could make anything mechanical sing. A tall, skinny Southerner with a cigarette dangling perpetually from his lip while he worked, one eye squinting and watering under the smoke, the irritated look on his face something between a scowl and the evil eye, a shock of blue-black hair falling in his other eye – Uncle Johnny frightened some people, but machines smiled when he passed. Machines loved him.

Early on, shortly after he married my Aunt Geneva, my mother’s sister, Uncle Johnny took his family North to work on the giant steel freighters that prowl the Great Lakes, hauling steel from Ohio and Pennsylvania up to Detroit, where it is pounded into Fords. Before long he was made chief engineer on one of the ships, spending the bulk of his time below among the giant pistons of the diesel generators that ran the giant electric motors that turned the screws that pushed hundreds of thousands of tons of steel across the water. Uncle Johnny, lived most of his life in the company of his gargantuan machines (and a couple of machinists’s mates he liked to yell at.) I don’t remember seeing Uncle Johnny smile, but I’ll bet he did when he was down there in his engine room.

So, one cold October day, Uncle Johnny’s ship was making the run from Toledo to Detroit with a full load and a new captain at the helm, and as they were approaching the dock, at full speed, but still a mile or so out, the machinists’s mate called to Uncle Johnny. “Sir, we are coming in way too fast. We need to reverse the props.” “Nope,” replied Uncle Johnny. “Wait for the order.” And the great ship plowed on. “But Sir, we have to reverse the props or we’ll hit the dock.” “Yep,” said Uncle Johnny. “We sure as hell will. Wait for the order.” “Wait? Sir, there’s no way we can slow the ship down in time.” “Goddamn right, son, and if I reverse her now, it’ll be my fault when we hit, but if I wait for the order, and then reverse ‘em, and go full throttle, and we still hit, then it was the Captain’s fault. I was just waiting for the order. So I’m waiting for the Goddamn order.” “But we’ll hit either way?” “Yep. You be ready to reverse when the order comes down, and then you best grab your ass and brace for impact.” “Aye, aye, sir.”

They smashed the shit out of the dock in Detroit, did about 1.5 million dollars of damage, and that was in 1970 dollars. Nearly sank the ship.

Uncle Johnny had a long career, and retired with a clean record. The captain, he went on to pilot a Yellow Cab.

Well, imagine, if you will, that the United States is a big ship. A really big ship. Like one of the great steel haulers, it takes miles and miles to slow her down once she’s moving. And whoever gives the order to reverse the props is going to take the blame for the damage that is done. Isn’t it right that the captain who put that ship up to full throttle without looking at the charts to see how far from the dock he was, should take responsibility for the damage?

There you go.

Could John Kerry have changed the direction of the war, reconnected with our allies, repaired the environmental policies, bolstered the economy, and fixed the health care system in four years? Probably not. I was hopeful, but things really are a huge mess. I don’t think anyone can turn this leviathan ship of doom around. Too much momentum. So, looking on the bright side, grab your ass and brace for impact. At least it’s not our guy at the helm. We did, after all, yell “lookout”, the 48% of us. We did our duty and we can sleep safe in the wreckage, our consciences clear, our hands clean, our souls light.

And if, by some bizarre stroke of irony, things actually do get better, the killing stops, our friends respect us, our rights are protected, we can all afford heath care, well what a joy it will be to have been wrong. What a narrow escape we will have made from disaster. And in our little ship metaphor, the dock, which is the rest of the world, will be happy and safe and we will all smile like Uncle Johnny’s great machines. It could happen.

Churchill once said, “There is no thrill so great as being shot at, and missed.” What a thrill we will have had!

But just in case, even as you enjoy the sense of speeding toward a bright and hopeful future, grab your ass and brace for impact. Just know that it ain’t your fault.

It’s a pretty simple equation. The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize in order to change people’s behavior. To scare people. When people start making major decisions based on acts of terror, the object of the terrorist has been accomplished.

Could be any major change in behavior, I don’t know, say, the election of the most powerful leader in the world (next to Osam Bin Ladin, of course, because you just gave him the power too, you realize? Even if he’s dead, he beat you.).

Pretty much all of the pre-election polls said that the economy was not going in the direction people wanted it to, that they were the same or worse off than they were four years ago, that they were not satisfied with the direction the country was going, and we were about fifty-fifty on whether we should be at war in Iraq at all, but 62% of the people thought the war in Iraq was being mis-handled. Yet Bush won. How is that possible?

The one issue where Bush consistently polled better than Kerry was in the war on terror. Because he told us that he would do a better job. And here’s where Osama got your vote: you believed that the war on terror was, in the final analysis, the most important issue of the campaign. You were frightened enough to vote based on fear of terrorism.

And here’s the kicker, the states that went for Bush are the last that will ever have a terrorist attack. The only terrorist attack that ever happened in a red state was perpetrated by a right-wing redneck from Michigan, not some international Muslim mastermind.

No one disputes that the attacks on 9/11 were tragic, and scary, and that seeing three thousand people lose their lives is horrifying, but if it’s fear of being killed that motivates you, take these figures into account:

In 2001, while 3028 Americans died from terrorist acts….

922,334 died of heart disease 156,058 died of lung cancer 42,443 died from auto accidents 38,784 died from kidney failure 32,238 died of septicemia (that’s right, general infections) 29,573 died from firearms (16,869 suicides, 11,348 homicides, 802 accidents, 323 police) 27,035 died of liver failure brought on by alcoholism 21, 683 died from drug reactions 15,019 fell to their deaths 14,078 died of accidental poisoning

That’s right, you have a nearly five times better chance of poisoning yourself than you do of being killed by terrorists. Would you have voted for Nader if he’d promised you syrup of ipecac, activated charcoal, and a skull and crossbones on every scary bottle, despite the fact that he’s a certified loon? Well, you did it with Bush. You voted for Osama. He scared you and you voted.

Even if it was determined that you had to die this year, the chances of the causes of death being a terrorist attack is less than 1/100th of 1% . If your tag isn’t up for sure, if you’re in the mortality tables with the rest of us, your chances of being killed by terrorists are less than 1/1,000th of 1%, or, about one in every 87,000 people, and that’s based on the year of the worst terrorist attack in American History! (In any normal year the odds are about 1 in 100million, and that’s only if you count getting your head cut off in Iraq.)

So what in the hell were you so afraid of, that you allowed the biggest political decision you were ever going to make, to be swayed by a terrorist? Shame on you.

Time and again I’ve heard the born again conservative, Dennis Miller, end his descriptions of world events and conditions with, “and it scares the hell out of me.” It’s his number one rational for turning into a Bush toady, yet I can’t help but think, “Here’s a guy who I used to admire, who obviously has a head on his shoulders, yet by his own admission, will kow tow to an administration who only a few years ago he satirized and criticized, because now he is afraid.” The cowardice disgusts me.

So how about a suggestion for those of you who felt that the tough-talking cowboy would better protect you against the renally challenged Islamic tunnel rat than an actual combat veteran? The damage of this election is done, but here’s an idea for what you, personally, can do to fight the war on terrorism.

DON’T BE AFRAID

Instead of picking the guy who turned his boat into machine gun fire and charged the enemy, you picked as your protector the cheerleader who hid out in Alabama, so I’m at a loss as to your definition of courage, but just try the whole, “don’t be afraid” experiment. Courage is not the absence of fear, it’s carrying on in the face of fear. It’s power over fear. Try it.

You got your guy, now grow a set, for Christ’s sake. The sweater on the chair is just a friggin’ sweater. You fucked up the country and possibly the world for the rest of us, the least you could do is have the courtesy to not sleep with the light on.

So that sucked.

Okay, so there was this really nice article in Publisher’s Weekly today about me. Or it might not be today, but it will be soon. Someone sent it to me today. And they say all kinds of nice things about Stupidest Angel, and you guys, my readers, and so forth, and that’s great, so I am officially lifting the fatwa I put out on PW for calling Lamb “frat boy humor” three years ago. They gave Fluke a decent review, they gave The Stupidest Angel a rave, and now they wrote a swell bio article, so they are no longer on my shit list.

But here’s the thing, the woman who interviewed me, Natalie Danford, asked me about why my web site and my relationship with my readers seemed so personal. Evidently this is unusual. And I replied, “Well, because it is personal. I answer every e-mail I get from my readers (unless it’s unduly creepy), and they write back, and I sort of just share my end of the world with them and they do the same with me.” And then I went on to sound all literary, by saying that because I write humor, the work has a pretty strong voice, and people really get a sense of someone being there telling them the story, so by the time there’s any contact at all, my readers have hung out with me for hours. We’ve had some times. And that’s true. (None of that made it into the article, by the way.)

I’m sharing that with you guys, because after I posted about being too freaked by the election to be funny, many of you wrote to me, not just in the blog comments, but by e-mail, and you said it was okay, it would be okay, that you were fine with a few weeks of stressful rambling, and that you were going through a very similar thing…

and you know what?

Thanks. That was really fucking cool. Beyond any of the myriad pleasures of interacting with you people on the receiving end of my art, that was a major payback. So Thanks.

I was getting on a plane earlier this month, going for a quick turn around at a conference all the way across the country, and because ever since I completely destroyed my life about seventeen years ago in October, and totaled my Datsun 200SX about fifteen years ago on an October 13th, October has not been the luckiest month for me – let alone the whole seasonal defective thing I get every year when daylight savings time kicks in. So as I do sometimes, I sat Charlee down, told her where my will was, where the bank accounts were, that it was okay to sell the house, and that if she couldn’t figure out how to finish the next book, she owed money back to my publisher so don’t go buy a new Jag or something. Because flying is a perfectly unnatural act, and irony is the most powerful force in the universe, and since The Stupidest Angel actually had a chance of making the NY Times best-seller list, and I was flying in October, the unluckiest month, my plane was probably going to crash before I would ever see one of my books in the top 15. That’s how the Universe works, right?

And she said, and I’m not making this up, “You can’t get killed. How would I tell your readers how much they mean to you?”

So, what I’m saying is, you guys are my homies. I do not, for a second, take you for granted. Where else am I gonna find people who have such great taste in literature? 😀

Thanks. Peace.

Now go vote out the retarded cowboy and his evil robot sidekick.

Every day I sit down at my desk, and for a few hours I try to tell stories and be funny. Every day I read and answer a bunch of e-mails from readers who tell me how much laughter they found in my books. Short of hearing people laugh, hearing that you made them laugh is the best. But the last few weeks I have been hard pressed to come up with anything funny to write down. You’ll even notice that the blog entries have been pretty scarce, and the last time this happened was in the six weeks following 911, when everything I did just seemed trivial in the face of the disaster. And I’m feeling it again because of the election.

The election.

The other night, late, I had just finished reading a front page story in the NY Times about 3600 volunteers in Ohio who were going to challenge newly registered Democrats at the polls to try to discourage voting. 1600 of them would be assigned to Cuyahoga county, largely urban and ethnic. Right up front, the Republican party was saying that they were trying to win the election by depriving people of their right to vote. This seemed a just okey-dokey way to go about winning an election to them.

Then I signed onto this bulletin board, and I read the election poll that someone had put up which at the time showed 82% Kerry, 18% Bush, and I completely went off my rocker, wrote a vicious post pointed toward the 18%. A few hours later I came to my senses, was hit with a wave of remorse, and erased the post, I hope in time for only a few to have viewed it.

So here’s the thing. People are going to get hurt over this election. I’m from Ohio, and if someone challenged my right to vote at the polls, after I had gone to the trouble of registering for the first time in my life, I would, at the very least, bitch-slap them. And I am a relatively mellow, Buddhist, tropical island-living Ohioan. If I had to live in Cleveland I’d be looking for a reason to beat someone’s ass every day of the week.

So, that said, you guys don’t need me to vilify someone for his political opinion, and you certainly don’t need anyone to throw gasoline on the fire of divisiveness that’s burning out of control in this country. I figure if you’re reading this board, you like my books enough to come by here, and you enjoy a good laugh. You “get” the humor. You are probably a pretty intelligent and reasonable person. So even if you’re in the 18%, well, I’ve had my crazy moments, you are allowed yours. Or vice-versa.

I ask this, from both sides: tease, cajole, jape, jive, raze, rib, and satirize, but in the midst of practicing the fine art of fucking with each other, here and in the real world, try to do the right thing. Try to think, be perceptive, see things as they are, and do the right thing. As critical as this election is to your own life, and your own agenda, or even, as in my case, your own piece of mind, try to allow the opposition to be wrong. You’ve been wrong before – or most people have — you can allow people to be wrong. You must, in fact, allow them to be wrong and forgive them for being wrong. Because the alterative is to face a nation in which half of your countrymen are idiots. I’m not sure I can get up tomorrow and be funny if I truly believe that.

So, apologies in advance for my extended lack of humor. This may take some time to get past. In the mean time, practice your Christian forgiveness, your Buddhist tolerance, or your human compassion and give your brother’s and sisters a break. They are not the ones who are pissing you off. They are not the ones spouting the rhetoric that rings so falsely to you. They are just as clueless as you are.

As am I.

I have to go chill now. Peace.

So, in case you guys haven’t noticed, they posted a new home page for me today. Looks spiffy, I think. This one is a joint effort by some designers, the main web person at Harper Collins, Julia Bannon, and our own Ken the Web Guy, who will remain part of this whole goofy effort.

Some stuff sort of disappeared, and there is a bunch of new stuff, but I think it’s going to grow as we go along. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get more A/V content to you guys more often with the new design. Right now there are some pretty cool video interview questions.

The good thing, is that this is a good beginning for our cult compound. I think, in addition to the tin foil hats and the swimming pool, that we should have a big water tower that says CRAZY FUCKS in big letters. Until we have the funds and influence to build the real thing, please feel free, as part of your homework, to post your Photoshopped cult compound suggestions and renderings in the Blog comments.

Drive thru please.

So, the new book will officially be out any second, or already is in some areas. My eighth book! Today I looked at them all on the shelf over there in my office, by the little altar, with the picture of me and the incense, and the sign that says, “I rule, you drool!” and I said, “How did a humble kid from the back woods of North Carolina, the son of a mill worker, who put himself through law school by shoveling coal for frail people on cold winter days – oh, wait, that’s not me?” Then I said, “Wow, I have written eight books. So I haven’t really done an honest day’s work in like fourteen years. Maybe I should get a job or something.” And as I was talking to myself, a rooster crowed outside my office.

(You see many years ago, when hurricane Iniki devastated Kauai, many chickens were released from their cages, and now, with no natural predators on the island, we have a huge population of feral chickens.)

So anyway, a rooster crowed. So I grabbed the new paint ball gun off my desk, ran outside and started blasting away, hoping to knock his middle-of-the-afternoon nuggets into the next town. I strafed the whole perimeter of the property, a line of day-glow pink spots drawing across the grass like I was perforating it so I could tear off my neighbors yard and mail it away for valuable prizes. But despite semi-automatic fire, determination, and a desperate need to be distracted from this part of the new book that I’m having trouble with, the rooster did not falter. Once out of range in the neighbors yard, he crowed once again. The bastard!

He hates my freedom. That’s what’s going on there.

I mean, I can sleep as late as I want. The book isn’t leaving without me. It will be exactly where I left it yesterday. So if I want to get up at nine, or ten, or noon, well, it just doesn’t matter. But the rooster ( I’m sure there’s one, a head rooster. A large and in charge poultry potentate, pusillanimously planning my pre-dawn perturbation.) will not let it happen.

So I have armed myself. And if the odd tool shed sports a Pollacking of pink, and if the neighbors dog heretofore known as Willy would suddenly be more appropriately named Spot, well, there is collateral damage in war. Freedom is not free, my countrymen.

And I know what it is like to run an unpopular war, believe me. Because if you think people get miffed about a rooster going off at dawn, you should hear the kind of thing they shout when you blast off a salvo of CO2-powered pellets under their bedroom window. Don’t they know that chicken carries salmonella? That’s a pathogen. Sure, the rooster might look harmless, just sort of loud and obnoxious, but have you seen what salmonella can do if it gets on your cutting board, and then on your salad? Poop out a fire hose, that’s all I’m saying.

So tomorrow, first thing, after I creep out of elephant grass in my camo-jammies, and have a cup of coffee, I’m going to throw open the fridge door and blast the shit out of the half-carton of eggs we have in there. No, they’re not roosters, but they have the materials to be roosters. Even in their little carton, all lined up like good little soldiers, I can feel them hating my freedom. And when I’m done there, I’m going over to the neighbors and having a look in their fridge.

I shall not falter, I shall not be wavier, I shall not rest until I have done every thing in my power to avoid getting on with writing this next section.

So what I’m saying is, thanks everybody for ordering the new book.

Peace. Out.

You guys know I love the new words the kids are using today. (Officially, that’s the most lame-assed middle-aged thing I have ever composed,besides “I don’t think so honey, if I take another viagra the ceiling fan is going to re-circumcise me. Sorry.) Anyway, words…

From time to time, I run across a few I’d like to work into my vocabulary, usually more for the sound than the meaning.Some of the loyal boardies have gotten me using the Tard variations(Fucktard, Botard, uptarded, and my own personal gaming alias Ubertard) to a point of nearly intolerable political incorrectness, but here’s a few I found on my one my favorite web sites, Urbandictionary.com, and below that, a list of political words that appeared in the NY Times a couple of days ago. All toward helping us achieve more colorful speech and writing.

Your homework, list your fave obscure, new, or made-up word, and really good or funny acronyms are welcome.

kthxbi shortening of “k thx bye”. The K is short for OK, which is short for oll korrect, which is a facetious alteration of All Correct. thx is short for thanx which is a facetious alteration of thanks which is short for thank you. Bye is short for goodbye, which is an alteration of alteration of God be with you. “kthxbye” is the pinnacle of English’s advancement, shortening “All correct, Thank you, God be with you.” into seven lowercase letters. Humanity is doomed. Obviously, it is used to end a conversation *fast* that you don’t want to be in anymore.

Whiny bitch: Here’s your hamburger. Anyway, as I was saying about how bad my life is…

Whiny bitch: I have no friends. Wan wan wan.

douchewaffle An offshoot of the highly popular douchebag. Use in a derogatory sense.

Literal definition: a waffle made using the contents of a douchebag.

Abstract definition: a person who has surpassed the usual level of a ‘douchebag’ and is now at a whole new level of doucheness.

After his accident, Bob Novak is officially a Douchwaffle.

Booty Chirp (noun) a chirp aimed at getting into your pants. (alt) Use of a Boost Mobile phone to call for sex.

I was madd horny so I booty chirped Jamie and told her to get her ass over heah.

fo’ shizzle my batmitzvah

what ghetto jewish kids say

jewish kid 1: what up jewish kid 2: fo’ shizzle my batmitzvah jewish kid 1: wurd dawgie

diet whoopass

A can of Whoopass with only 1 calorie per serving.

I will open a can of diet whoopass on these townies because I am watching my weight.

badonkadonk An ‘ebonic’ expression for an extremely curvaceous female behind. Women who possess this feature usually have a small waist that violently explodes into a round and juicy posterior (e.g., 34c, 24, 38). Other characteristics would be moderately wide hips and a large amount of booty cleavage (i.e, depth of butt-crack).

Her badonkadonk made a brotha pop mad wheelies

Slang Only a Velcroid Would Love By TOM KUNTZ

Actorvist A politically involved actor. (Also, raptivist, the hip-hop version.)

Bafflegab Confusing or unintelligible speech, doublespeak.

“As the parade to the rostrum continued, the bafflegab glossary expanded: Narrowing Parameters, functions of situational variables, diagnostic-planning activity, …”

The Wall Street Journal, March 14, 1967

Barking Head An aggressive or loud broadcast commentator.

Belligerati Any belligerent person or group; as a group, pro-war commentators.

Bogsat [Bunch of Guys Sitting Around a Table’ target=’_blank’> Policy or decision making by a small group of associates.

Bomfog Platitudinous political rhetoric or obfuscation. (From “brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God,” closing line of a radio speech by John D. Rockefeller Jr., on July 8, 1941; later used as a slogan by Nelson Rockefeller.)

Cave [Citizens Against Virtually Everything.’ target=’_blank’> Persons who seem opposed to all real estate or commercial development or change. Hence Cave people, Cave dweller, Cavie.

Conchie A conscientious objector to military service. Also conshi, conshy.

“We’re ‘conshys’ too – but we don’t work at it.”

Stars & Stripes, Aug. 30, 1918

Doubledome A scholar or intellectual, esp. a highly educated person who holds impractical or unrealistic views.

“Then the doubledomes in Washington set a deadline.”

“Sayonara,” James A. Michener

Drag Influence.

“What’s your angle, Flynn? Where do you get your drag?”

“The Mob,” 1951 film

Flush-Bottom A wealthy contributor.

Globaloney An unrealistic foreign policy or global outlook.

Granfalloon Any large, amorphous organization without real identity. Coined by Kurt Vonnegut.

“Other examples of granfalloons are the Communist Party, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company, the International Order of Odd Fellows – and any nation, anytime, anywhere.

“Cat’s Cradle,” Kurt Vonnegut

Johnny Congress The United States Congress.

“Johnny Congress has been busily engaged for some time past in raising the pay of Naval officers.”

Gettysburg Republican Compiler, Jan. 6, 1835

Minarchist An anarchist in favor of minimal government sufficient only to protect citizen rights and provide civil defense.

“The two main divisions within the modern libertarian movement are the anarchist libertarians, who believe in no government, and the ‘monarchist’ libertarians, who believe that a shred of government is tolerable.”

The Los Angeles Times, Nov. 1, 1985

Mister Whiskers The United States government or one of its law-enforcement agencies.

Neverendum A series of referendums initiated until the desired outcome is achieved, (specif.) referendums on the status of Quebec.

Panda-hugger A specialist in American-Chinese relations said to be too accommodating to Chinese perspectives.

Politainer A politician who is an entertainer.

“Jesse Ventura and the Brave New World of Politainer Politics”

The Star Tribune, Minneapolis, May 4, 2000

Red-Headed Eskimo A precisely targeted bill, law or piece of legislation.

Sheeple Submissive citizens.

“Mrs. Anderson begins every book sale with a lecture, and in this instance she derides taxpayers in general as submissive ‘sheep people’ – or ‘sheeple’ for short.”

The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 27, 1984

Slacktivism Activism which requires little effort.

Snollygoster A shrewd, unprincipled person, esp. a politician.

“A Georgia editor kindly explains that ‘a snollygoster is a fellow who wants office, regardless of party, platform or principles, and who, whenever he wins, gets there by the sheer force of monumental talknophical assumnacy.’ ”

The Columbus Dispatch, Oct. 28, 1895

Turkey Farm A department or agency staffed with political and patronage hirees; (broadly) an underperforming office.

Twinkie Appealing but lacking substance.

“Democratic presidential hopeful Paul Tsongas told the nation’s mayors on Monday that leaders of his own party are advocating ‘Twinkie economics’ by appealing to popular tastes without offering substance.”

Associated Press, June 17, 1991

Vampire State A nation or state seen as consuming excessive resources or taxes, esp. if it delivers services poorly or suffers from chronically weak economic conditions. [Often a play on “Empire State,” a nickname for New York state.’ target=’_blank’>

Velcroid A person who seeks the company of the powerful or famous in an attempt to borrow glory by proximity. Hence velcrosis.

Zoo Plane An airplane carrying journalists accompanying a traveling politician.

Charlee and I went to a first birthday party tonight for a little girl named Lilly. Now here in Hawaii, first birthdays are a big deal, a huge deal. The grandparents spring for a huge party, tons of people come, friends, family, extended family, a big deal. But the coolest part of this party was that Lilly was not the biological granddaughter. Lilly had been adopted from China.

See our friends Lori and Stuart went to China a month or so ago to pick Lilly up. You may remember Stuart from an earlier story. He is a carpenter and was supposed to help me install the new floors in our house, but had to cancel because he had to go get a Chinese baby. At the time, I was against it, and insisted that if they got one Chinese baby they’d just want another one a half hour later, but Stuart and Laurie were resolute and went and got their damn baby anyway…

And it was just swell. I mean just, SWELL. This little kid was so happy, and they were so happy and all the people in this big restaurant that the grandparents had rented for them were so happy for them. The kid clapped and smiled and screamed out stuff like little kids will, you know, little verbal barks, (most of the time it’s the word “no”) only it was in Chinese, so it sounded like there was kung-fu going on in there, but obvious the kid was happy. And Laurie was wearing a red and black silk dress that matched Lilly’s red and black silk dress and Stuart had on one of those ornate Chinese silk jackets and pants, also red and black. They were happy and color coordinated.

So the guy sitting next to me leans over and goes, “Laurie had those made for them in China. Cheap. Child labor you know?” And I go, “Yeah, I know, how long before we can get Lilly to make us some Nikes.” And he goes, “Dude, she’s an American now, you can’t afford her Nikes.” And I go, “Oh yeah. “

So there were slide shows, with Stuart and Laurie posing on the Great Wall of China. (Which, you know what? really? Not that great.) And posing with other adoptive parents, and with a whole line-up of Chinese babies who looked really, really unhappy, mainly, I’m guessing, because China sucks. Anyway, then there was a prayer, and a guy played happy birthday, singing the lyrics in English, Hawaiian, and then Chinese, and one of Stuart’s sisters got up and danced a hula, which was excellent, and I’d never seen a hula performed in jeans, but it didn’t detract. The sister didn’t look anything like Stuart, which is because Stuart is adopted. And so is his brother. And did I mention that most of the people in the room were Japanese, except for the Portuguese, and a few Hawaiians, oh yeah, and a couple of Filipinos, and there was a smattering of Haoles, (the white folks) and a lot of what we on the islands call Hapas, which means mixed race, and Lori and her family are from West Virginia, which I believe makes them Crackers.

And with all that, the M.C. stood and welcomed Lilly into her new family. And he said that because we all live on this small island, we all will have a part in raising this child, so it’s only right that we all take part in this ceremony. (Everyone a generation above you is Auntie or Uncle, even if you can’t trace blood.) And it was sweet and good and I was very happy for this new family, and Charlee and I were honored to have been included in this Ohana, this family.

And it made me think.. If my whole extended family was on an island with me, and supplies ran short, who would we eat first?

Now, this is a hypothetical, because much of my family is dead or afraid of flying, so getting to an island would be really expensive, but, you know, say the family reunion was held on a deserted island. Who would go on the spit first? Grandma is the obvious choice because of her age, if you use that criteria, right? But grandma is not a large woman. I’d say on her best day she’s doesn’t go a buck ten even with the walker and those creepy shoes with the big thick heels. And she can live for three days on one of those jelly things that she steals from Denny’s, so as far as caloric efficiency, she’s not really a logical choice.

So going on those grounds, you have to go for Aunt Vron. (Yes, her name really is Vron, and that is not her Romulan name left over from a Star Trek convention. ) One of Aunt Vron’s breasts is as big as Thanksgiving turkey. Imagine that: two sixteen pound gobblers slung in a Playtex cross your heart, coming across the room at you like guided meat missiles, determined to hug you until you turn blue. (It’s a wonder really, that any of us kids survived the family reunion.) When Aunt Vron decides to move, she has to notify the outer reaches of her hips to begin the trip, and send a telegram that she is moving out to the equator of her ass before everything can be mobilized. A large woman, is what I’m saying. What I’m saying, is that when Aunt Vron sits around the house – well — you know. That lovely, affectionate, gargantuan hunk of avuncular womanhood is calorie-rich, is what I’m saying. Your honor, on a caloric basis, you must fry the bitch up.

But despite her size, Aunt Vron is vital. Vital I tell you! Sure, she might get winded shuffling the cards before she kicks your ass at gin rummy, but if you ever get between Vron and her gallon of potato salad, you will have wished you had smeared yourself with marmalade and tried to blow a Kodiak bear during his nap instead. People have seen her do a ballpark job of parallel parking her ’67 Lincoln Continental with the suicide doors, leaving that jet mama-jama a good three feet from the curb, only to get out, grab her pocketbook, and nudge it up to a tire-width away with the bump of a hip. Her pocketbook alone has herniated a half-dozen gallant gents who held it safe while she rolled into the fitting room, if only for a wisp of a chance at scaling the vertiginous flesh mountain that was Vron (for she was always a widow, even as a child). No, Vron has too much life, you can’t just eat a woman like that.

And so, methinks, it’s time to start basting Uncle B. No one knows what the B stands for. His brothers and sister simply call him B. But what we know about B, what we have always known about B, was that be could never be far from death’s door. At any given hour of the day, Uncle B is smoking and drinking. His right hand is a constant “C” fitted perfectly to the roundness of an Old Fashioned glass. His left hand is a mass of scar tissue from the cigarettes that have burned out in them after he has passed out. Except for the reunion, he lives in a Lazy Boy, which sits next to an ashtray that looks very much like the Olympic torch from the 1968 Mexico City Summer Olympics. It has never been emptied. It is the Gettysburg of ashtrays. Hundreds of thousands of dead, burnt bodies lay in it’s wide field. At some point in the morning, Aunt Alma removes the tumbler from Uncle B’s “C”, and replaces it with a coffee cup, the coffee black and Folgers and laced with brandy. After his breakfast, Uncle B. goes to the bathroom and coughs for an hour and fifteen minutes. Neighborhood dogs howl, children cry, and smokers as far as a half-mile away will crumple their packs and swear “never again” during one of Uncle B’s coughing fits. Then after a six pack to rehydrate, Uncle B is ready to start his day. He’s a uniform olive green color, darkening to a dark gray under his eyes, and although his hair is always combed, severely to the side, like an SS officer’s, and dressed with Brillcream (who knows where he still finds it) he has dandruff flakes the size of Post-its. That, along with the silver trail of ashes that cascade down the front of his shirt through the day, make it appear that gnomes have been helicopter skiing on him. Every time you talk to Uncle B, you say good-bye like it is the last time you are going to see him, even if you are just going to take a leak. Now that’s the kind of guilt-free calories an extended family can live on, right? And! And, it has the exotic thrill of eating fugu, that deadly blowfish, from which one bite of its liver will kill you within minutes – Uncle B’s liver has to be at least that toxic! And all of those empty carbs from alcohol have not gone to waste – Uncle B is calorie rich, and pre-marinated.

You simply have to eat Uncle B.

I can just hear my cousin Sherry, “Wow, it sort of bites the tongue a little, like it has pepper in it.” “That’s the carcinogens,” Grandma will say (Grandma always cooks, and you know she won’t let anyone else prepare her little brother B. My guess is she’ll roll him in corn-meal and flour and fry him in bacon fat, which is her preferred method of cooking everything. We are a happy family, proud of our LDL levels well into the 400s.)

Yes, our extended family will feast long and say great things about Uncle B. On this small island, everyone will take part, everyone will have a piece of B. It will be sweet, and good, and we will be honored to be a part of him.

So that’s your homework. On your family island … Who first?

Aloha.

Just wanted to thank you guys for all the great birthday wishes. I’m touched (and not in a bad way).

I spent my birthday writing on the new book, and I realized how lucky I am to have done that, and to be able to do this for a living, because it’s exactly what I wanted to be doing on my birthday. You guys have all made that possible, so again, I thank you.

Now that I’ve reached my very, very late twenties, an age, quite honestly, when most of the males in my family take the big dirt nap, I started looking, as one tends to do on birthdays and New Years, at my life in a sense of where I’ve been and where I’m going, and a very strong voice in my head said this:

I am not tired, I am not bored, I am not burnt out, I am not cynical, and I am definitely, not done.

Onward!