Joe MacLeod, aka Mr. Wrong, can converse with you via many medias.

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Joe MacLeod, aka Mr. Wrong, can converse with you via many medias.

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Look, some people are Summer-poopers and they only want to focus on how it’s gonna be the F-word pretty soon, and I’m like are you kidding me? It’s Summer! What the hell is your problem?

Sure, I am totally the goddamn Grasshopper in the fable about the Grasshopper or whatever that enjoyed Summer while the Ant Worked Hard to be able to do what, enjoy Winter? No offense, but do you know how many more clothes you have to wear in the Winter? Hey, howabout working all Winter to enjoy Summer, hah? Did you ever think of that, Ant? Yeah, exactly. Don’t get all Aesop on me while I am Enjoying Summer, man, I’m not the one counting how many less minutes of daylight is at the end of the day, I mean Jesus, Mary, and Watermelon, man, do you know how many mega-factors times Infinity that kind of Thinking is in terms of being a Half-Empty Glass of Water-arian? Negativity, man, it has no place in my Summer, you know?

I’m gonna grill a whole chicken on my grill, man, outdoors in the Summer! My kitchen won’t get all smokeyed-up and I won’t have to go after the smoke alarm with a broom handle, you know? Summer! Out-of-doors stuff! Corn!

And seriously, look at all this indoors stuff going on right now with those bozos in the Stock Market, do you know who much more depressing this would all be if it was Winter? I can watch Big Brother XIII out on the porch and not even get pissed-off about Julie Chen’s blabbering when it is the Summer, you know? Summer is about Positivity, not Counting Down until the End of Fun! I might even go to the drive-in movies this weekend, wowee! You can’t do that shit in the Winter and expect it to be Good Times, you know? When you go to the Drive-ins it doesn’t matter what the movie is because you are at the Drive-ins!!! The Power of Summer! Bring bug spray, though.

Meanwhile, I am not disparaging on any other Season you may care to enjoy. Spring is lovely, the Autumn has crisp air and stylish new jeans to fit your butt, Winter has... Aah, wait: Fuck Winter.

All’s I’m saying is Summer is the only one where people can’t wait to be all Debbie Downer with their Facts about how much less hot it is getting (even taking into account Global Hottening) and the less daylight, and then the Big FU to Summer, the Back-To-School bullshit. What is it with this BTS Industry, man? They (and you know who They are) already got the clowns on the “Today” show squawking about goddamn School, and the going back to it! I ain’t never going back, man, it’s Summer! Why are you Harshing on the Mellows of so many Schoolchildren, many of whom are only now shaking off the effects of Scholastic Incarceration, when all they wanna do is be roasting a marshmallow while sitting around a Summertime campfire? That’s some kind of Child Abuse, really, to be cranking out the BTS Propaganda in the second week of August, Summertime. Save it for Labor Day weekend, you know?

There is way more sweating to be done, more skin to spray sunblock on, more weenies to roast, more ice cold beers to slide into Koozies, man, don’t listen to all those Ants out there telling you it’s over, OK? Nothing is over! Go, Summer!

Mr. Wrong can converse with you via many medias.

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I’m glad all the Basketball and Hockey (assuming the Riots are over) is done and now we can focus on Baseball, not because of Sports, but because Baseball = Summer, and Summer is my favorite. I know you know Summer is only three months long,* but when it’s really happening the right way, it is endless, eh? You know what I mean, like, no offense to those other seasons, but unless it's a negative thing (as in: “Man, that day last winter, when I beat up all those cops and went to jail, that was a long-ass day”), there are no days that last as long as Summer ones, and that includes the nights, because that’s a big part of Summer too, just because you're outdoors way more enjoying your day, right?

Yeah, Summer kicks ass, and I don’t care how hot it gets, man. I mean, I dunno if it’s Global Warming or whatever but where I am, it’s been over 100 degrees already a couple-three days and the corn isn’t even as high as an elephant’s eye or whatever equals later in the summer, and I will still take that over a Crisp Fall Day or goddamn Winter where it gets cold.

Summer! Less clothes!*** More fruits and vegetables that don’t come from Chile!**** And my favorite Summer driving activity: listening to other people’s car radios because Summertime is when people tend to drive around with their windows down so you can hear their Boomin’ System, and I know a lot of people are bothered by all the sub-woofing out there, but I dig it, except when the vehicle emitting all the sub-woofs is a little raggedy and all the trim and license plate and stuff are all sympathetically vibrating with the bass notes, but even then it’s kinda cool trying to identify which parts of the car are getting shook by the inaudible.*****

And the Booze of Summer, man, wowee, “Summer Booze, makes me feel fine,”****** you know? Arrooo! Summer drinkles are a mega-kabrillion times better than all three remaining Seasonals combinated! Are you kidding me? Refreshment, man, sweaty glasses fulla Planters Punch and Pimm’s Cup! And Gin! And Tonic! Beer, even. I still haven’t found the best kind of hooch that matches well with Mountain Dew, but I have all Summer to make that discovery!

You lose weight in the Summer because of all the sweating! It’s way easier to smoke outside! There’s more daylight, so you are less Seasonal Light Deprivation Disordered! There’s no serious taxes or politics in the Summer! There’s no school sometimes even if you are a Teacher and even if you are a bonehead and end up in Summer School it’s not that bad, because Summer School is for boneheads so it’s easy!

C’mon, it’s fucking Summer! Let’s go out and get you some!*******

* By my Official Measurements, the season of Summer is Officially 99 days long, stretching from Memorial Day, turning over to get some sun on the other side right around Fourth of July, and then ending on Jerry Lewis Day.

** Which I cannot fucking believe: 1.) Jerry Lewis is quitting the Telethon before he dies, and 2.) the fucking Telethon is only gonna be six hours long.

*** OK, not always a good thing.

**** Not hating on Chile. Just saying Carbon Debits.

***** OK, kinda off-topic, but I went and saw the Jon Spencer Blues explosion a few months ago and it was surprising to see the guy in back at the sound board keeping time with the music and then every once in a while detonating this huge bass drop that is, along with incoherency and theremin breaks, sorta like a trademark of the JSBX.

****** Sing that quotable to the tune of “Summer Breeze,” by Seals & Crofts, but I recommend the Isley Bros. version because it’s even mellower, especially when you are hammered on Summer Breezes.

******* I'm all done with the asterisks. Thank you for reading and have a great fucking Summer, man, seriously. Hey, have two.

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Like Dave Letterman, my Teevee Pal, who musta done some jokes in his “monologue” about this guy and then I saw him talking about Weiner with Rachel Maddow (and the producers basically, I Theorize, in my Opinion, totally cloned her show on Keith Olbermann’s so effing hard she made him feel Not Special, I think, which is a big part of why he left the MSNBC or CNBC—I can never remember which is which—but yeah, support for Rachel Maddow coming on after Keith Olbermann forced Olbermann into doing this live cross-over-handoff chitchat with Rachel Maddow, which totally messed up his gag of throwing a wadded-up ball of paper at the teevee screen to end his show, and he obviously started to hate her guts. I’m serious, man, I bet that really hacked him off, that guy is a Major League Prima Donna, I think, and I’ll totally watch his show on Al Gore’s teevee channel when that happens), but anyway, that time Dave did that bit on his show about messing around with one of his employees, and dude went and put the whole thing into big fucking air-quotes and did bullet points and made it all sound like he was doing the Top Ten where people are supposed to laugh, and he was basically doing the equivalent of those I’m-sorry-if-you-think-you-were-offended deals, only people were kinda laughing because he wasn’t being real, he was being my Teevee Pal Dave Letterman, because that’s the only way he could preserve his show (and American jobs) by telling The Nation he had participated in sexual activity with an employee who was not his wife. Which brings me to another thing about this Weiner guy which is: You don’t know what the deal is with him and his wife. That shit is private, man, his wife didn’t lose her right to be a private person because he hit Enter insteada the DM thing, and if he had Tweetdeck insteada regular Twitter, chances are that shit would not have happened in the first place. I don’t know what people want here, you know?

And then how do you say this Breitbart guy’s name? This is the guy who got some pictures off the Twits? And then the shock-jocks got the picture of the picture? That looks like some shenanigans right there man, to get that shit Out There, eh? Man, does he have people just hunched over screens all day watching errbody’s Tweeters for shit that pops up or did somebody hand it to him? He has that Web site newser dot com, but I don’t look at it because a lot of it is just links to shit from other places. Anyway, I always thought his name was like “bright-bart,” but the snippy announcers on that Right-Wing radio channel I swear were going kinda like “brey-bear,” is that how you say it? I haven’t been listening to them and their Right-Wingedness long enough to determine if maybe they were just being wacky morning personalities and going all Frenchie with his name for funsies. Unless maybe I was hardcore on my toothbrushing at that point and developed Slurred Hearing? There is one of those International Phonetic Alphabet things on the Wikipedia for this guy, and that one makes it look like “brate-bart,” I think, but mostly that IPA always makes me think of beer and then I lose interest in stuff, you know? I knew this one guy who had a name that people had a hard time figuring out and he put a little audio file on his dot com, but I forget where that is.

Meanwhile, I ain’t gonna lie, I think it’s funny when the word WEINER is in like 3,000-point type on the front page of the New York Post, and the Daily News has been getting its ass kicked in the WOOD WAR on this one going with various turns on PUTZ and SCHMUCK. C’mon Daily News, let’s get some WEINER WAR going here while there’s time, huh?

I don’t think I need to say anything about Anthony Weiner and the Bad Things he has done because errbody else is all over that shit, you know? So it’s like unless you got Real News or Jokes for the front page of the New York Post, you should just keep on Twitter where it started.

Previously: This New Food Pyramid is a Plate! And Also a Scam

Mr. Wrong can converse with you via many medias.

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Do you see what they are doing with this food plate? It’s exactly like they did with the cigarettes.

For years it was all good and everybody smoked their smokes and got Cancer and died and nobody complained, some cigarette companies came up with ones that would smooth out your Smoker’s Hack and stuff, but it wasn’t like you were sick from ‘em or anything serious, just a little dry throat, but then they started saying that cigarettes were Bad For You and the Big Tobaccos generally deny, deny, denied all the Scientific Evidence until Russell Crowe narced on ‘em in that movie about "60 Minutes" with Al Pacino. The Insider, it was called, and it was a great movie if you like your Russell Crowe all grey and sweaty yakking it up on the phone talking about paperwork to Al Pacino on a beach with a giant antenna sticking out his cellie. There’s gonna be a movie called The Even More Insiderer-Insider about the lawsuits from all the Brain Cancer errbody gets from all these fucking cell phones, seriously. Also I am gonna produce a play called "Al Pacino On A Beach" and it won’t have any actors, it will feature a different audience member reading the script every night doing that Al Pacino impression all humans have within them.

Anyway, then there were all these years of bullshit where none of the Tobacconists would tell the truth and then there were these lawsuits which were basically the cigarette companies paying out piles of dough to The Lawyers in exchange for getting away with cigarettes being the reason tons of people died from Cancer and then not being responsible for anybody else dying from Cancer because there are now giant labels on cigarettes that say SERIOUSLY THESE THINGS WILL KILL YOU only in more bullshitty ellipticals like QUITTING SMOKING NOW GREATLY INCREASES YOUR RISK OF NOT DYING FROM CONTINUING TO HOOVE ON THESE FUCKERS, REALLY MAN.

So with this Food Plate, anybody who pays the teensy-weensiest bit of attention to what is “good” food knows you need to eat a certain no-fun way, and now it’s official; They will be keeping score. If you want to get some Government Health Care, the Government is gonna look at what’s on your plate, and there’s gonna be a sliding scale, man, if you ate a lot of Beefaroni, you are gonna have to get a Lawyer to argue in some Claims Appeal thing that you didn’t get whatever you got because of Chef Boyardee, you know? Meanwhile, what happened to Chef Boyardee cheese raviolis? Seriously, you try to eat just the slightest bit on the healthy side with this shit and they discontinue the product, I swear, they got it on Amazon, but c’mon, you gonna buy cheese ravioli off Amazon? It’s kinda embarrassing. I don’t get it, what’s the deal, Boyardee? Why are you denying the cheese? And don’t tell me to eat that “Whole Grain” stuff you’ve been making, I tried one of those “Whole Grain” Beefaronii and it was nasty. And I eat Beefaroni, so that will give you an idea of how nasty it was if an avowed Beefaroni Enthusiast can’t choke it down, you know?

Look, I’m all for making health care available to everybody and more affordable and cutting out the middleman and replacing the middleman with a new middleman, but you need to wake up and smell the ‘roni if you don’t think this new Plate deal isn’t just another way to get us (as in U.S.) in line for another milking before taxes. Meanwhile they got 12 tacos for ten bucks at Taco Bell. You can stick that on your new Food Plate and see what happens. I’m just gonna eat it outta the box and then take a nap.

Mr. Wrong can instruct you via many medias.

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Anyway, it is around this time of year when all the graduates and graduatresses come down out of their Academic haze and ask themselves for the last time (or maybe the first time) if they Really “enjoyed” college: “What lies ahead? Will we have rainbows every day? How did I let my roomie talking me into wearing just my underpants under my rented Graduation gown?”

And look, I’m not saying I am an Expert Authority or Preeminent in a Field, I’m just saying one time I went to somebody’s graduation thing and they had the guy who played Rhoda’s dad on that teevee show "Rhoda," with Valerie Harper, which was a spinoff of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and had this guy who always did a really funny voice-only bit as “This is Carlton your doorman,” and he would talk to Rhoda over the intercom of her apartment, Lorenzo Music was the guy’s name, and he was also the voice of Garfield from the comics on some cartoons, but then they got Bill Murray for the Garfield movie because I guess the Carlton guy died, but anyway, Harold Gould was the commencement speaker to a bunch of graduates, so no offense to Harold Gould, but just saying, really, I’m not being a showoff or anything when I say I can do this, and I can’t remember a fucking word that Gould guy said, no offense, in his speech. I guess he opened with a joke, because you are always supposed to open with a joke to get the crowd loosened up or something, but like they say, man, the joke’s in your hand, and it’s got D-I-P-L-O-M-A scrivened upon it, and it cost somebody a lotta money, and now Baby Bird, you are supposed to flap your golden tassels and fly away into The Future, won’t you?

I also remember he was in the movie The Sting, staring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Harold Gould, I’m talking about. He played a guy called “The Green Hornet” or something; in one scene a hooker was like “Hi Horney!” I think he also got a "Cold Case" and a "Nip/Tuck," and he was definitely in the last version of Freaky Friday, so there’s a connect to Lindsay Lohans for you kids. Now they are calling her “Linnocent," that’s a good one, yeah, this one blog is like "She's drunk and braless,” which brings me back to the assembled graduates, right? Hiyo. Anyway, look man, Robert Redford, wow, he is really looking craggy these days, eh? I haven’t seen that movie he did about Abraham Lincoln’s mistress or whatever but I’ll definitely check it out on my Netflix.

OK, look, they set up these Commencement Speakers to stand up here and basically tell you what it’s like to be an Adult, and right away, you should be asking for a Partial Refund on your financial aid because like what the fuck have you been doing here in College, right? You take my dough for two-to-seven years and then you have some clown up here giving me The Speech to send me on my way? It’s bullshit, right? But really, the whole reason most of you even went to College is because you didn’t know what to do, I mean Linnocent Lohan didn’t get any College and she’s a success, seriously, because she is Out There getting it Done. She gets paid to be Out There, that is her Industry. A lot of you were like, “Well, I don't know what to do, so I guess I will keep going to school until I figure that out,” and if that’s the case, then just go to school some more right away and then go Pro, right? Professional Schooler, whatever, Scholar, I know the word, be quiet, I get Paid to be up here talking, so just be quiet.

Let me give you a little bit on what it is to be an Adult who Graduated from stuff. Here’s how I start my day—better yet, here’s how I start my night, I brush my teeth, and look, if there’s anything you punks “take away” from this lecture today, please do not let me underscore the importance of good Dental Hygiene. Maintaining Good Dental Health is one of the things that sets us (as in, U.S.) apart from many other Nations of the World. I’m not saying we’re perfect or anything, I voted Democrat last time so I know what’s going on with the rest of the Planet, I’m just saying have you looked on Google for the thing with brushing your teeth on the regular and Heart Attacks and stuff? It’s right there, you don’t need College for this one, it’s like, if you don’t clean your teeth, all that garbage that passes over 'em on the way to your Digestive Tract and, ultimately, Your Bloodstream, all that food and a lot of other stuff that really isn’t food, if you know what I mean, all that stuff leaves trails in your mouth, man, sediment or whatever, and that crap builds up on your teeth and beneath—down below your gumline, and you can forget Terrorism, man, because Below The Gumline, that’s where the true Enemy is, you gotta keep the Theater of Operations known as Your Mouth spic and span, boys and girls, I am not kidding about this, you think this is some sorta Tangent, like I’m veering off the Prepared Remarks, but I am totally on point with this message, serious as a Heart Attack: keep those choppers clean, that’s where the true Enemy is, man. You gotta keep the Theater of Perations known as your Mouth spic and motherfucking span, ladies and gentls, I am not kidding about this. I am as serious as a heart attack, keep those choppers clean.

And if the toofuses are clean, generally you will have good breath, and Out Here in the day-to-day? It’s all about your breath, and that goes a long way in that Job Interview, do you understand what I am saying here, Young Men and Women of the America? Yeah, they talk about how if you are good looking you get a lotta things in Life handed to you, but I am here as a Paid Representative of what is Real, and I don’t care how hot you are, if you have the Dragon dwelling back there in your speak-hole, Halitosis, whatever you wanna call it, Stank Bref, The 'zacklys, if you have that going on, nobody will be hiring you any time soon, except maybe for some Customer Assistance Help Desk Line stuff on the phone maybe, and you better hope they have individual headsets because if you’re on a regular phone, whoever comes on shift after you is going to bitch about how the instrument smells, please listen to me on this.

So anyway, after I brush my teeth I knock down three or four of those ROLAIDS-TUMS-type antacids because I have the Acid Reflux, but I have a handle on it, I got the prescription stuff that inhibits my Proton Pump or some bizarro Science Fiction thing like that but I just do this to make sure, because I tend to eat late after the bars close, you know? OK, so you will be working in Food Service, this is what I’m trying to get to, don't be afraid of it, and don't give me that crap about how can you work in Food Service if you hate People, that’s where all the really good maître d’hôtels come from, seriously, you have to have genuine Contempt for human beings to be a good maître d’, and if you’re going to be a waiter, don’t be a friendly waiter, think about this because they did not teach you this in your stupid-ass College, people don’t tip their friends as much as they tip strangers, be a pro, keep your distance, focus on Customer Service, pay attention to keeping my water glass filled at the table because I am dealing with this Acid Reflux like a lot of other Americans, nobody’s paying attention to the depletion of our Precious Bodily Fluids, there’s too much soda pop and coffee and booze and stuff and it’s fucking up our electrolytes and corroding the National Stomach, so when you see me at your table at the restaurant where you will soon be employed, just top off that fucking water glass and we’re straight. Thank you.

Mr. Wrong can instruct you via many medias.

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Because I ate enough of the little goddamn paper shooter-cups of that crap they were handing out because when it’s not real busy they usually don’t care how many you eat, really, you can just stand there with the lady who is working the stand and knock ‘em all back, she doesn’t care, as long as you have a little chat with her, but sometimes they are not so nice and they say like, go over to the display and buy some, and sometimes they even have it right at their stand, a bag of frozen whatever, maybe some kinda spicy honey-barbeque chicken wing, let’s say, and so what you can do is just go ahead and take the bag from her (and one more sample of fried ravioli) and then go down another aisle and put it in one of the freezer-things, it’s cool, they have people who go around all the time and rearrange the frozen food, nobody is getting hurt by this. But that Turkey Pot Roast, don’t get it, man, it’s like, all dark meat (and I bet a whole buncha the skin, that ocurred to me on like my third sample, for more of a meat-like fat flavor, yuck) and you know they gotta just salt the living shit out of it, seriously, I would never buy that stuff unless it was for a really good sale price, because you could thin it out or something, cut it with something, use it as a base for something not as bad maybe?

Man, I’m hungry.

But then, like, conversely, somehow, I have been to “Health Food” stores where you pay $3.99 for a teeny little tray of frozen organic Macaroni & Cheese that you would probably have to eat three of ‘em to even feel a little bit happy, and I have noticed that the people in those stores with the “Natural Foods” and stuff tend not to be overweight. Unfortunately, I also think it would probably be kinda uncomfortable going to a “Natural Food” store if you are way overweight, though, like I think if you go to the gym and you are hefty, it makes sense you might be self conscious, you know, so you go to the “Price Club” where you blend in and nobody judges you. I mean, I don’t know because I don’t go to the gym, but not because I’m way overweight, I just think it costs too much to go to the gym, so I take walks, and I bought a chinup bar, but right now I’m not strong enough to do any chinups so I just hang from the bar, but I read about this study on students, and they would just hang from a bar for a few minutes every day, and they got strength from that. So far I can hang from the bar for 30 seconds, and pretty soon I’m gonna take my feet off the ground. It’s all part of a sensible plan, man, you gotta make sure you don’t over-train, otherwise you’re gonna get injured and then you’re back to Couch One, you now? Also probably that Macaroni & Cheese example might not have been the best item to be discussing in terms of Health Food, but anyway, these goddamn CLIF® bars cost too much at the regular supermarket. I mean, if I’m gonna buy something Healthy, I want it to be a Good Deal, you know? Does that make sense? I don’t want to get overcharged for some Healthy crap just because it is good for me, you know? Anyway, I have been thinking maybe I’ll just skip breakfast and have a cuppa coffee with a lot of half-and-half in it for protein because I probably shouldn’t be eating an “Energy Bar” with a picture of a guy rock-climbing on a rock or whatever (a cliff?) just to sit on ass at my desk, right? Really, especially since the other day I got a leg cramp from sitting at my desk, I’m not kidding, the whole back part of my leg was trying to curl up into a ball, so I had to get up from my desk and work at my computer hunched over, but look, my point about the CLIF® bar is at the “Price Club” they only sell ‘em in multi-packs of 24 CLIFs and you only get three flavors, so it gets pretty boring only having the “Carrot Cake” flavor and the “Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch” flavor and some other brown-colored flavor and I was wondering what a CLIF bar would taste like if I buttered it and fried it in a fry pan and put an egg on it.

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It is The Holidays! So really, Merry fucking Jingle! Or Merry Jinglin’-baby-go-ahead-baby, if you will, because it’s all about jingling right now, some jingling in your pocket, no?

It is The Holidays! Here’s the Ichiban-Number-One thing I do when it is The Holidays; I tip double and I give money to bums. I figure that would be a good thing for The Holidays, some Green, on account of I’m right there with you, man, I got some Xmas-themed scratch-offs going right now and if I score, I’m gonna pump it right back into The Economy’s tied-off arm, you know? It is the Circle of Giving.

It is The Holidays! I always opt-in for the Be of Good Cheer aspect, you know? I Sincerely Wish you a Happy The Holidays, whatever you are, and if you are someplace hot, I hope you are cool, and if you are someplace cold, I hope you are toasty.

It is The Holidays! If you are Sick, please Get Well. If you are Sad, please get Happy. They sell it in bottles all over the place! If you are Unemployed, I hope in this order: 1.) You get a Job, 2.) You can collect on those extended Unemployment Benefits, because wow, there sure were some Serious and True Anti-The Holidays em-effers out there who were Scroogin’ it up big time, all year long, and they are even some of the type of people who would “Merry-Christmas-In-The-War-On-Christmas-So-Get-It-Right-It-Is-The-CHRISTmas-I-Am-Wishing-On-You” to you, right to your underemployed face, while they are still bitching about the Taxes, you know? This is like, the one Time of Year when people make an effort to be positive and Of Good Cheer, and there’s these goddamn “War on Christmas” Grinches who get all prickly if you say “The Holidays” and not their Jesus one. YOU ARE TAKING A POSITIVE TIME OF YEAR AND BEING ALL “THE PARTY OF HELL NO” TO IT. Quit it! Ultimately to them I still say a Happy The Holidays, Jesus Christmas, whatever floats their goddamn boat to the Party of Tea, but they need to get in touch with being Human Beings and the teachings of Jesus The Chris. In Theory. Anyway.

It is The Holidays! I don’t have time to be chopping them all up into categories. I say just go ahead and Enjoy you some, as long as it does not involved exploding my desk or anything like that, OK? Go hang some jingle balls! Drink an Egg Nog, or a reasonable and festive simulacrum of same! Make some fucking COOKIES, man, that is good for any The Holidays you can think of that have eating in them. Anyway, I love Egg Nog, man.

Joe MacLeod really loves some egg nog.

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So she didn’t have the time or the inclination to cook in the kitchen like Betty fucking Crocker, and she had never really learned to cook Home Made Food because she was too busy drawing pictures and reading books when she was growing up, not learning to cook from her mom.

We had lots of cook books around, but my mom bought ‘em because she liked the layouts, and she watched the Julia Child's French Chef show on Public Television because it was entertaining. The idea of actually doing any of the wacky shit that Julia Child was doing didn’t occur to us. It would be like deciding to build a space ship because we watched the Moon landing.

My mom depended on Convenience Foods, and this was back before we all found out That Shit Will Kill You. If there was an Instant anything, my mom would buy it, and all that stuff was and still is designed to go straight to the TASTES GOOD part of your brain, so we never complained about mashed potatoes out of a box, or powdered milk, or TV Dinners, or pizza kits, or powdered Instant Breakfast that you added to the powdered milk. My brother was seven years older than me, so I was mostly a latchkey kid on my own schedule, and convenience foods insured that somehow we would eat if my mom was late coming home or too wiped out to do anything but go to bed. I never went hungry.

Thanksgiving meant everything it still means to me now: Watch the Macy’s Parade, glom lots of food, and then we all lie around on the floor in front of the Boob Tube like a pride of lions after The Kill.

We had no experience with Home Made anything, so here is a breakdown of what I remember as a Classic Thanksgiving meal my mom made one year.

There would be a salad made outta iceberg lettuce with shredded carrot and some other vegetables I would push around, like maybe green peppers. We had an awesome big wooden salad bowl and these little wooden bowls for serving, so that always looked festive. Thanksgiving was always when my mom got out the cloth napkins and put ‘em inside these big colored bracelets for even more Festive. She found out about Bac~Os® and those went on the salad on top of the French salad dressing, or sometimes “Russian,” even though we had a theory it was just mayo with ketchup mixed into it. Sometimes I would eat like half a jar of Bac~Os® as a snack, so she stopped buying ‘em. Anyway.

The frozen rolls out of a tube were always perfect. My mom bought this tabletop Electric oven called a “Turbo Oven” (Convection Oven) because it was supposed to cook shit super fast. Not Microwave fast, (Microwaves were still new and way expensive) but faster-enough that there was a special chart for figuring out the adjusted times for cooking stuff because it didn’t really match up with whatever was on the Instructions. Sometimes we’d burn stuff, but not often. The oven had a fan inside of it, to, I dunno, speed up the hot air. I guess the thing was basically like a Toaster Oven with a fan, or a super powerful hot-air hair dryer inside a metal box to trap the heat. I remember it made a comforting whirring sound, very Domestic Tranquility to hear the oven on, because it meant Food, you know?

My mom knew a few recipes, like for Green Bean Casserole, and we dug it because it had French-Fried Onions on top of it, and that, along with Candied Sweet Potatoes pretty much rounded out the Vegetables Department of Thanksgiving since even I knew Instant Mashed Potatoes were just infrastructure for the Gravy, which came out of an envelope.

For dessert a lot of times we would have some sorta Frozen Pie like a Boston Cream or Lemon Meringue, so we had to remember to get that out of the freezer and thawing out way before the turkey got done. My mom bought a lotta Morton’s brand frozen food (they don’t make it anymore) I think because she liked the Art Direction on the packaging. It was very clean and 70s-Future-Modern, none of that homey earth-toned settings with warm wood-grained kitchens crap, nope, all the Morton’s product photos had the food item in black space with sans serif type. You didn’t bake the cream pies like you would with an apple pie, but you were supposed to thaw ‘em out, so timing was Critical, however, if you get it right before it’s completely unfrozen, it tastes pretty good.

So OK, if you do Turkey, Thanksgiving = the Turkey, and we had the Cranberry Sauce out of a can and some kinda Stuffing just like you’re supposed to have on The Big Day, and my mom found the perfect Convenience Bird, a Frozen Turkey Loaf. No giblets, no bones, no nothing but open the package and stick it in the oven. It’s kinda like that Neopolitan ice cream that only has chocolate and vanilla, only it’s Turkey, with dark meant and light meat, and I still remember what that thing smelled like when it came out of the Turbo Oven, all crackling with the juices coming out. It smelled like Thanksgiving.

Joe MacLeod knows that sauce is a privilege.

Illustration by Susie Cagle.

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