A lot of things you do once in a lifetime - birth, death, circumcision, those sorts of things. Speaking of being circumsized, I applied for Social Security today.
Our favorite government says on its website that the best way to apply for SS is on its website. Then it refers you there. Thus, the weirdness begins.
On www.ssa.gov is a button that says "Apply for Benefits." You might expect an application to appear on-screen at this point, but you would be so desperately wrong. What you get is a video that tells you how to apply.
On the video, in the finest government tradition, is a series of PowerPoint slides - yes, a video of slides - and an authoritative voice that reads the slides to you. In case you are both illiterate and deaf, there is a button that provides Closed Captioning of the authoritative voice reading the slides. Evidently, someone else would read the Closed Captioning to you. If you are not only illiterate and deaf but also blind and stupid, there is a phone number, which you can get someone to dial for you while you sit drooling in a corner. There's no doubt a video on how to do that.
"It's easy," says the video, "just make sure you read the instructions." So you click on the instructions, which explain that you should type your name into the space labeled "Name," and progress to complicated issues like, "Are you married? ___Yes ___No." Still not sure what to do? There's a video you can watch.
About halfway through the video for the second time, I began to suspect an endless loop of the "lather-rinse-repeat" variety, and so I disobeyed the authoritative voice and resumed searching on my own for the application form that I thought I had clicked on in the first place.
In the final analysis, getting circumsized by the government is easy. The application, once you drill down to it, contains only a couple of dozen highly predictable questions. It took me 10 minutes to complete. But of course by that time I had been inspired by an hour or two of preparing to learn how to understand how to understand the instructions that explain how to begin to start to fill in the application. Courtesy of the U.S. Department of Redundancy Department.
My first check should arrive in the mail any day now. Along with a video explaining how to open the envelope it came in.
Newt
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Dear God, Give Me a Sign
Besides advertising that holds you down and kicks your ass, locals here are given to personal testaments that would never see the light of day in more organized communities. The first time I drove through Clearwater, last fall, I watched a young zealot manhandling a 4 x 8 foot sheet of plywood down North Myrtle. He had invested hours painting his message in neat block letters:Born-Again-Man is likely the endpoint of a progression that starts down here with the ubiquitous sandwich board, on which an endless parade of sandwich-board-men and -women hawk everything from $5 foot-longs to a strip joint called Mons Venus. Outside the Pinellas County Sherriff's office last week was an otherwise normal-looking lady with a sign reading:
Carry-it-yourself messages are not the only medium in town. Newspaper classifieds here commonly publish squibs like:
Jesus Christ is coming SOON and
He is going to KILL
everyone who is not Born Again!!!
Police Unfair to Jaywalkers!
Carry-it-yourself messages are not the only medium in town. Newspaper classifieds here commonly publish squibs like:
Thank you, dear Lord, for punishing your enemies!
No doubt submitted - and paid for - by a relative of Born-Again-Man. The same relative may be responsible (if I can use that word) for:
Tampa Bay is a land where Scientology is half-revered, half feared. Also last week, a nearby pizza joint that routinely posts specials and menu items on its sign posted this plaintive appeal:
Actually, I'm sure the comma was not in there, but I have considerable editorial discretion here. Despite an appalling absence of rigorous punctuation, personal billboards of all persuasions do have one common excess: exclamation points. I think the number of exclamation points is intended to convey the level of fervor for the sentiment expressed
Florida is perhaps the only state that approves of makeshift roadside memorials to loved ones who have departed this mortal coil via the windshield of a car. Paeans to Linda or Rocco or Satchel-Butt appear at regular intervals on most roads. The state apparently sees the signs as an effective, if macabre, deterrent, since a bureaucratically correct message is fixed to the top of each such memorial:
It seems to me that the state's message would be more effective and certainly more personal if it were less generic. Depending on the cause of a crash, the topper sign might read:
or
Or perhaps Born-Again-Man could schedule an appearance at each such memorial, saying:
I could be wrong, but I don't think so.
Newt
No doubt submitted - and paid for - by a relative of Born-Again-Man. The same relative may be responsible (if I can use that word) for:
Scientologists Suck!!!
Tampa Bay is a land where Scientology is half-revered, half feared. Also last week, a nearby pizza joint that routinely posts specials and menu items on its sign posted this plaintive appeal:
Happy 14th Birthday, Angela!
God Help Me!
God Help Me!
Actually, I'm sure the comma was not in there, but I have considerable editorial discretion here. Despite an appalling absence of rigorous punctuation, personal billboards of all persuasions do have one common excess: exclamation points. I think the number of exclamation points is intended to convey the level of fervor for the sentiment expressed
Florida is perhaps the only state that approves of makeshift roadside memorials to loved ones who have departed this mortal coil via the windshield of a car. Paeans to Linda or Rocco or Satchel-Butt appear at regular intervals on most roads. The state apparently sees the signs as an effective, if macabre, deterrent, since a bureaucratically correct message is fixed to the top of each such memorial:
Drive Carefully!
It seems to me that the state's message would be more effective and certainly more personal if it were less generic. Depending on the cause of a crash, the topper sign might read:
Don't Drink and Drive!
or
Check your Brakes Soon!
Or perhaps Born-Again-Man could schedule an appearance at each such memorial, saying:
See? I Told You!
I could be wrong, but I don't think so.
Newt
Monday, November 29, 2010
The Mind Game
I'm standing in a spot of light surrounding a microphone at the front of a darkened room. The mic stinks of stale cigarette smoke and worse, and I'm struggling to breathe. A mass of anonymous humanity ripples out there in the crummy meeting room at the Holiday Inn. "Hullo," I say. "My name is Newt and I play bridge."
A crowd that should be sympathetic remains quiet. Someone coughs in the back of the room, a throaty, gurgling cough that signals unspeakable evil. Bridge players.
"I play three or four times a week now." That's a lie - it's really more like five or six. "On a good day, I whup ass on a roomful of little old ladies. On a bad day, they whup mine. It's a foul life."
I explain that I play in a bridge club that meets in a nondescript office park. Next door is a methadone clinic; the local AA office is across the way. The whole complex teems with low-lifes. A uniformed cop parks outside, afraid to get out of his cruiser.
I try to make the room understand how I got hooked again after 35 years on the wagon, a good 35 years, with no bad habits other than an occasional beer bender and a cigar now and again. My shame is absolute.
Years ago, bridge was not so bad. You bid one spade if you had four spades in your hand and some aces and face cards, and your partner would bid three spades if he had a few spades and some more face cards. With great cards, you'd just up and bid two spades from the get-go. It was a simpler time, an innocent time. No longer, my friends.
Now, if your partner bids one spade and you have any four spades in your hand, even lousy ones, you bid three clubs - THREE CLUBS, for God's sake - or, if your opponents bid something, like two hearts, you go ahead and bid three hearts to show that you have some spades. Or if you start out with a great handful of spades and aces, you jump right up and start with two clubs. It's an insane wasteland.
And the little old ladies, they'll finesse the crap out of you for a miserable extra thirty points. They'll strip your hand and end-play your lights out for a top board if you let them. My life these days consists of trying to figure out where the other 39 cards are.
Oh, I once had a productive life helping corporate clients make more money. Now I scrabble night and day for a couple more masterpoints. You get 300 points and they make you a Life Master. Like Obi-Wan Kenobi, right? A guy here in town has 55,000 masterpoints. I have 26. People wonder why I feel inferior! 26. Damn.
This week I am going to The Nationals in Orlando. With my 26 points. I'll beat little old ladies over the head trying to become a Sectional Master. That's like a Life Master in diapers. Between games, I'll scheme with my partner - a woman of otherwise good reputation - about how we can ruin someone's day in the next round.
"In conclusion," I croak into the microphone, "I have only myself to blame for my life of dissipation and overbidding. I am an addict. I play bridge."
The crowd sighs as one. Someone in the back shouts out, "Hey, you need a partner for Thursday?"
Newt
A crowd that should be sympathetic remains quiet. Someone coughs in the back of the room, a throaty, gurgling cough that signals unspeakable evil. Bridge players.
"I play three or four times a week now." That's a lie - it's really more like five or six. "On a good day, I whup ass on a roomful of little old ladies. On a bad day, they whup mine. It's a foul life."
I explain that I play in a bridge club that meets in a nondescript office park. Next door is a methadone clinic; the local AA office is across the way. The whole complex teems with low-lifes. A uniformed cop parks outside, afraid to get out of his cruiser.
I try to make the room understand how I got hooked again after 35 years on the wagon, a good 35 years, with no bad habits other than an occasional beer bender and a cigar now and again. My shame is absolute.
Years ago, bridge was not so bad. You bid one spade if you had four spades in your hand and some aces and face cards, and your partner would bid three spades if he had a few spades and some more face cards. With great cards, you'd just up and bid two spades from the get-go. It was a simpler time, an innocent time. No longer, my friends.
Now, if your partner bids one spade and you have any four spades in your hand, even lousy ones, you bid three clubs - THREE CLUBS, for God's sake - or, if your opponents bid something, like two hearts, you go ahead and bid three hearts to show that you have some spades. Or if you start out with a great handful of spades and aces, you jump right up and start with two clubs. It's an insane wasteland.
And the little old ladies, they'll finesse the crap out of you for a miserable extra thirty points. They'll strip your hand and end-play your lights out for a top board if you let them. My life these days consists of trying to figure out where the other 39 cards are.
Oh, I once had a productive life helping corporate clients make more money. Now I scrabble night and day for a couple more masterpoints. You get 300 points and they make you a Life Master. Like Obi-Wan Kenobi, right? A guy here in town has 55,000 masterpoints. I have 26. People wonder why I feel inferior! 26. Damn.
This week I am going to The Nationals in Orlando. With my 26 points. I'll beat little old ladies over the head trying to become a Sectional Master. That's like a Life Master in diapers. Between games, I'll scheme with my partner - a woman of otherwise good reputation - about how we can ruin someone's day in the next round.
"In conclusion," I croak into the microphone, "I have only myself to blame for my life of dissipation and overbidding. I am an addict. I play bridge."
The crowd sighs as one. Someone in the back shouts out, "Hey, you need a partner for Thursday?"
Newt
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
The Return of the Native
I have lived in Florida for two years now, which means I have personally experienced about two percent of recorded local history. I am a Native.
Oh, I know that Florida has been around longer than 100 years, at least in the James Mitchener sense: the big sand bar left behind as the last Ice Age subsided to Canada (more on that in a minute). But people who are even more native than I know that real Florida history doesn't go much further back than the early Carl Hiaasen novels. The Historical Society fights to save buildings thrown up in 1955. The original Clearwater Beach Crabby Bill's has a commemorative plaque. My own Ulmerton Road has a bronze sign reading: "At this location on November 16, 2000, the first hanging chad was discovered by roving bands of aboriginal Republicans." We have historically significant structures made of plywood.
As a Native, I now distinguish myself from the annual influx of snowbirds that is fluxing heavy as I write this. You see them everywhere. Men jogging sans shirt? Must be from New York. Lying on St. Pete Beach in the 75-degree heat? Michiganders. Bobbing in the surf? Canadians, no doubt. We can tell a Quebecoise from a Newfoundlander by how high they float in the water. Make no mistake: snowbirds are beloved here. They bring money, a scarce commodity in this state of sunshine. But there is a certain rehabituation required each fall.
Snowbirds struggle with the time scale here. We Floridians, for instance, don't generally need to be anywhere soon. The line at the local Publix glaciers along because the cashiers like to chat with the clientele. Before I became a Native, I chafed at the delay. But when my turn came, the cashier, who turned out to be a sweet southern belle, chatted with me as well. She didn't seem to care that I was not yet a Native. Our New York snowbirds especially find this adjustment challenging. Folks in New York don't chat.
But I'm not here to talk about history or snowbirds. Florida Natives know at this time of year that - Bucs aside (Go Bucs!) - there is only one subject worthy of serious scrutiny: how's the oyster crop? Crassostrea virginicus. The same Eastern oyster that thrives from Malpeque Bay to Blue Point, Long Island to Chicoteague Island, Virginia, C. virginicus reaches perfection in the waters off Apalachicola on Florida's panhandle.
Apalachicola is back in business. I popped into Crabby Bill's last week, and the oysters were merely very good. Earlier tonight, they were better still: fat and sweet, swimming in icy oyster liquor and happy-looking, verging on outstanding. I was pretty happy-looking myself after two dozen of the little darlings. On the half-shell. Nekkid. (Not me - the oysters.)
But - but - but - THE OIL SPILL!! Yeah, I know. There's oil out there somewhere. Well, there weren't no oil in my dinner tonight. The news shouters have failed to mention that virtually the entire Florida coastline completely escaped the oil spill. Including - thank you, God - Apalachicola Bay.
C. virginicus will only get fatter and sweeter as the season proceeds. Life on the Gulf is good. Did I mention that a dozen on the half-shell at Bill's cost me the princely sum of $6.99, complete with freshly grated horseradish, which I snubbed. After all, we Natives do it nekkid.
Newt
Oh, I know that Florida has been around longer than 100 years, at least in the James Mitchener sense: the big sand bar left behind as the last Ice Age subsided to Canada (more on that in a minute). But people who are even more native than I know that real Florida history doesn't go much further back than the early Carl Hiaasen novels. The Historical Society fights to save buildings thrown up in 1955. The original Clearwater Beach Crabby Bill's has a commemorative plaque. My own Ulmerton Road has a bronze sign reading: "At this location on November 16, 2000, the first hanging chad was discovered by roving bands of aboriginal Republicans." We have historically significant structures made of plywood.
As a Native, I now distinguish myself from the annual influx of snowbirds that is fluxing heavy as I write this. You see them everywhere. Men jogging sans shirt? Must be from New York. Lying on St. Pete Beach in the 75-degree heat? Michiganders. Bobbing in the surf? Canadians, no doubt. We can tell a Quebecoise from a Newfoundlander by how high they float in the water. Make no mistake: snowbirds are beloved here. They bring money, a scarce commodity in this state of sunshine. But there is a certain rehabituation required each fall.
Snowbirds struggle with the time scale here. We Floridians, for instance, don't generally need to be anywhere soon. The line at the local Publix glaciers along because the cashiers like to chat with the clientele. Before I became a Native, I chafed at the delay. But when my turn came, the cashier, who turned out to be a sweet southern belle, chatted with me as well. She didn't seem to care that I was not yet a Native. Our New York snowbirds especially find this adjustment challenging. Folks in New York don't chat.
But I'm not here to talk about history or snowbirds. Florida Natives know at this time of year that - Bucs aside (Go Bucs!) - there is only one subject worthy of serious scrutiny: how's the oyster crop? Crassostrea virginicus. The same Eastern oyster that thrives from Malpeque Bay to Blue Point, Long Island to Chicoteague Island, Virginia, C. virginicus reaches perfection in the waters off Apalachicola on Florida's panhandle.
Apalachicola is back in business. I popped into Crabby Bill's last week, and the oysters were merely very good. Earlier tonight, they were better still: fat and sweet, swimming in icy oyster liquor and happy-looking, verging on outstanding. I was pretty happy-looking myself after two dozen of the little darlings. On the half-shell. Nekkid. (Not me - the oysters.)
But - but - but - THE OIL SPILL!! Yeah, I know. There's oil out there somewhere. Well, there weren't no oil in my dinner tonight. The news shouters have failed to mention that virtually the entire Florida coastline completely escaped the oil spill. Including - thank you, God - Apalachicola Bay.
C. virginicus will only get fatter and sweeter as the season proceeds. Life on the Gulf is good. Did I mention that a dozen on the half-shell at Bill's cost me the princely sum of $6.99, complete with freshly grated horseradish, which I snubbed. After all, we Natives do it nekkid.
Newt
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