We have some good friends, Buzz and Libby, whom we see about twice a year. When we get together, Beth and Libby always wind up in a conversation, lasting several days, during which they discuss virtually every significant event that has occurred in their lives and the lives of those they care about, sharing their innermost feelings, analyzing and probing, inevitably coming to a deeper understanding of each other, and a strengthening of a cherished friendship. Whereas Buzz and I watch the playoffs.
This is not to say Buzz and I don’t share our feelings. Sometimes we get quite emotional.
“That’s not a FOUL??” one of us will say.
Or: “YOU’RE TELLING ME THAT’S NOT A FOUL???”
I don’t mean to suggest that all we talk about is sports. We also discuss, openly and without shame, what kind of pizza we need to order. We have a fine time together, but we don’t have heavy conversations, and sometimes, after the visit is over, I’m surprised to learn—from Beth, who learned it from Libby—that there has recently been some new wrinkle in Buzz’s life, such as that he now has an artificial leg.
(For the record, Buzz does NOT have an artificial leg. At least he didn’t mention anything about it to me.)
I have another good friend, Gene, who’s going through major developments in his life. Our families recently spent a weekend together, during which Gene and I talked a lot and enjoyed each other’s company immensely. In that entire time, the most intimate personal statement he made to me is that he has reached level 24 of a video game called Arkanoid. He has even seen the Evil Presence, although he refused to tell me what it looks like. We’re very close, but there is a limit.
I know what some of you are saying. You’re saying my friends and I are Neanderthals, and a lot of guys are different. This is true. A lot of guys don’t use words at all. They communicate entirely by nonverbal methods, such as sharing bait.
But my point, guys, is that you must communicate on a deeper level with a woman, particularly if you are married to her. Open up. Don’t assume that she knows what you’re thinking. This will be difficult for guys at first, so it would help if you women would try to “read between the lines” in determining what the guy is trying to communicate:
GUY STATEMENT: “Do we have any peanut butter?” INNER GUY MEANING: “I hate my job.” GUY STATEMENT: “Is this all we have? Crunchy?” INNER GUY MEANING: “I’m not sure I want to stay married.”
If both genders work together, you can have a happier, healthier relationship, but the responsibility rests with you guys, who must sincerely ... Hey, guys, I’m TALKING to you here. Put down the sports section, OK? HEY! GUYS!
Nerds ‘R’ Us
COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS TO THE HIGH-SCHOOL GRADUATING CLASS OF 1992: As I look out over your shining faces, I am reminded of the Bartlett’s familiar quotation by the great Greek philosopher Socrates, who said, “Eventually your skin will clear up and your faces won’t shine so much.”
As is so often the case with great philosophers, he was lying. Your skin is a lifelong enemy, young people. It has millions of hardy zit cells that will continue to function perfectly, long after the rest of your organs have become aged and decrepit. Remember Ronald Reagan? No? Well, he used to be the president, off and on, and in 1985, after undergoing a medical procedure on his nose, he met with the press and made the following two statements, which I swear to you young people that I am not making up:
1. “It is true I had—well, I guess for want of a better word—a pimple on my nose.”
2. “I violated all the rules. I picked at it and I squoze it and so forth and messed myself up a little.”
And President Reagan was no spring chicken at the time. I believe that, at one point in his acting career, he actually was in a movie with Socrates. The point I am making, young people, is that your skin will never “clear up.” People have been known to break out with embarrassing blemishes at their own funerals.
But postmortem acne is not what you young people should be thinking about today as you prepare to go out into the world, leaving behind the hallowed halls of your school, but not before sticking wads of gum on virtually every hallowed surface. Perhaps you think you have gotten away with this. You may be interested to learn that, thanks to a Used Gum Tracing procedure developed by the FBI, school authorities can now analyze the DNA in the dried spit molecules and, by cross-referencing with your Permanent Record, determine exactly who was chewing every single wad. This means that someday in the future—perhaps at your wedding—burly officers of the Gum Police will come barging in and arrest you and take you off to harsh prisons where you will be forced to eat food prepared by the same people who ran your high-school cafeteria.
Yes, young people, modern technology promises an exciting future. But you must also learn from the wisdom of your elders, and if there is one piece of advice that I would offer you, it is this: Burn your yearbook right now. Because otherwise, years from now, feeling nostalgic, you’ll open it up to your photo, and this alien GEEK will be staring out at you, and your children will beg you to tell them that they’re adopted.
it is a known science fact that, no matter how good your yearbook photo looks now, after 15 years of being pressed up against somebody else’s face in the dark and mysterious yearbook environment, it will transmutate itself into a humiliating picture of a total goober. This is true of everybody. If, in
early 1991, the U.S. government had quietly contacted Saddam Hussein and threatened to publish his yearbook photo in the New York Times, he would have dropped Kuwait like a 250-pound maggot.
Yes, young people, old yearbook photos can be a powerful force for good. Yet the horrifying truth is that sometimes newspapers publish the yearbook photos of totally innocent people. Yes! In America! I know what I’m talking about, young people, because it happened to me. The March 1992 issue of Panther Tracks, the newspaper of my alma mater, Pleasantville (New York) High School, has an article about me, and although I definitely remember looking normal in high school, there’s a photograph of this solemn little junior Certified Public Accountant wearing glasses sold by Mister Bob’s House of Soviet Eyewear.
People I hadn’t heard from in years mailed me this picture, along with heartwarming and thoughtful notes.
“Dave!” they’d say. “I forgot what a Dweeb you were!”
Or: “Who styled your hair? Bigfoot?”
This is unfair, Class of ‘92. Let me assure you that I was very “hip” in high school. I distinctly remember an incident in 1964, when Lanny Watts and I got a stern lecture from the assistant principal, Mr. Sabella, because we showed up at a school dance with our sport-jacket collars turned under, so the jackets looked like they didn’t HAVE collars, because this was the style worn by the Dave Clark Five. Remember the Dave Clark Five, young people? No? Sure you do! You must! They had that big hit with the drum part that went: NAIHOMPA NAIHOMPA OMPA. Wasn’t that a great song, young people? Hey, are you laughing at me? STOP LAUGHING AT ME, YOU LITTLE ZITFACES!
Thank you.