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Serious Humor

THE TRUTH LIESWITHIN

March 8, 2003 Volume I Issue 185

Environmentally friendly since late 1999

Made entirely of recycled bits & words

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Commentary

First Fox TV wowed us with the incredible reality show, "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?" where we met the incredibly deep Darva Congers. As if they could ever top that tacky experience of having fifty women compete to be the bride of a rich dude they never met, they came up with an even more brilliant idea, "Joe Millionaire" or better titled "Who Wants to Marry a Pseudomillionaire?" In this entry in the millionaire marriage mélange, they had a guy pretend to be a millionaire. The premise is that they took an ordinary Joe Lunchpail, who was earning the incredible sum of $17,000 per year, (way below official Federal poverty levels) and informed marriage hungry females that he had inherited fifty million dollars. Not wishing to appear shallow, they willingly agreed to compete to marry a complete stranger, who just happened to have fifty million smackeroos coming his way. The joke was on them and the egg on the winner’s face when she discovers that, alas, poor Joe is still poor Joe and he ain’t-a-gitten no millions. Maybe she will call off the wedding because he won her under false pretenses.

Now, these TV geniuses, who make Fred Silverman and Brandon Tartikoff seem like mere amateurs, have managed to come up with a new twist on marriage. In the promo, they have some hot-looking blonde bartenderess, who must have some major psychological issues or really bad standards if she can’t find a suitable mate, and she is going on TV to let the American TV-viewing public pick her husband for her in "Marriage Made by America." I give this marriage about a week and half, if it ever happens at all. The premise of this show is that fifty percent of all American marriages end in divorce anyway, so they figure they can do no worse. They have brought back the ancient old world custom of the arranged marriage. We all know how well that worked out. Those people all stayed together because they were happy, right? Wrong. They didn’t have much of a choice due to social pressure. They were spineless enough to get married in the first place, so what are the odds they had the guts to leave if they were unhappy?

We had such a marriage in my own family. My late wife Diane’s aunt, Carmella, was a product of such a marriage. The story related to me was that Carmella, who was born in America and much younger than Diane’s mother, Mary(Carmella’s sister), was in love with a truck driver and she wanted to marry him. He was also in love with her, but Carmella’s mother, Fanny, who was born in Sicily, did not approve, as she felt the truck driver was not good enough for her Carmella. So, she dialed Sicily Six, as they say in the family, and called the relatives back home and arranged a marriage to Ernesto, a man from the village of Palermo. Carmella has been married to this man for about forty years now and has had five children with him. She rarely attends family functions, including our wedding, though she was invited and was only a few years older than Diane. When I last saw her at Diane’s funeral in 1995, she was in her early fifties but looked like a woman of ninety-five. She was old and haggard looking and seemed to be mad at the world. Diane always told me that she wanted to marry her truck driver but was afraid of her mother. This is in America in the 1960s, mind you. Granted, not all arranged marriages turn out like this, but making a happy marriage is difficult enough when you love your partner going into the deal. Trying to make it work with no feelings for the other person, or worse yet, bitter resignation rather than love, seems quite impossible.

To combat those difficulties, "Marriage Made by America" is sweetening the pot. If the couple stays married(though they did not indicate for how long), they will receive a new luxury automobile(notice that luxury vehicles are automobiles and not cars, like we peasants drive), $100,000 in cash and a house. The total deal is supposed to be worth nearly a half a million dollars. I wonder how long you have to stay married in order to collect. I don’t suppose that would motivate any of our young gold diggers, do you?

I watched the premiere episode on Sunday to see what it was all about. They have five contestants, three women and two men, all longing to have someone else find them a spouse, so to speak. Jill, 25, Long Island, NY(my home turf), NY Islander’s hostess; Stephen, 26, NY, restaurant owner; Billie-Jean, 28, NY, bartender; Max, 26, Atlanta, underwear model; Jennifer, 27, Atlanta, real estate agent. Both the underwear model and the real estate agent complained that they didn’t know where to meet people. Excuse me, folks, but when I was a real estate agent, all I did was meet people. In fact, most of my clients were people. Most of the people I dealt with were, in fact, people. And an underwear model can’t score any chicks? Who is he trying to kid? All he needs for an opening line is, "Hi, I’m Max. I model underwear." That ought to start some conversation, don’t you think? Well, maybe not if the crowd is all male, but you’d think it would spark some interest amongst the ladies.

Now the other part of the deal is that they have 25 single people, five for each bachelor or bachelorette, who will compete to marry them. They are all in their twenties, except for one or two in the their thirties, attractive, and apparently successful. One is even an investment banker. You did not get any fat, paunchy, carny ride operators, or butchers from the Bronx named Marty in this crowd. In other words, no ordinary people. They all look like they want to be actors. Not the sort of real reality we are from. The show’s people pair up five of these people with the eligible receivers. Then their friends and relatives will go to work on the five hot prospects. They get to interrogate the prospective spouses and eliminate two of them, ala Survivor. Of the remaining three, they will pick one they think their friend or relative ought to marry. Then it is up to America to call in and cast the deciding votes. The winner gets the prize, the spouse, the house, the car, and the dough. Nothing like a little audience participation. In case I forgot to mention, the winner has agreed to marry the boy or girl, sight unseen. They supposedly have never met before America matches them up.

The great part is when they introduce each of these people. They all are looking for true love and many of them hoped to find their "soul mate." Now ladies and gentlemen, in my half a century on this planet, I have had a soul mate or two in my time, and it took a lot to develop those relationships. I am not wise enough to know whether for every pot there is a lid, and only one lid, and that you only get one true love in life, but for me, that is way too important a thing to leave up to a bunch of geeky, TV viewing losers who have nothing better to do in life than to call into a TV show to pick my soul mate for me. Of all the relationships I have had, I have only had maybe three that would be of soul mate caliber. And I was doing the picking after getting to know these ladies. What makes anyone think they are going to get a soul mate at random from a TV show? I think it trivializes the whole soul mate concept. It is a process that many of us will never master in a lifetime of seeking. Besides, do any of you really believe that these fairly intelligent people really are there for soul mates? If it were only that simple. This could be a great sociological experiment. They can study this thing in grad schools and I am sure some clever enterprising grad student is going to get a PhD dissertation out of this.

Tell me, whatever happened to courtship and dating and quality TV programs? No wonder the divorce rate is so high. Does anyone take marriage seriously anymore? Not the good folks at the Fox network, that is for certain. How in the world did they ever manage to put such a good show like "The Simpsons" on the air. What am I saying? I am beginning to think that there is a real-life Homer Simpson in charge of programming at Fox. These sound like his kind of ideas to me. After all, he did come up with the idea to have Mel Gibson slaughter U.S. Senators in the filibuster scene in the remake of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." O.K. He had one great idea.

I cannot wait to see what they come up with next that can possibly top this. I have a few ideas, in case any of you are TV producers. It seems to me that the logical next step would be to tackle the divorce situation. Since we have trivialized marriage and turned it into a crap shoot to the point that divorce is almost an inevitable, why not tackle that situation. I have an ex wife who never remarried though we have been divorced for 18 blissful years. I am sure there are many people in a similar situation who would like to see their alimony payments stop, so why not a show called, "Who Wants to Marry My Ex?" If that fails, we could follow it with, "Who Will Kill My Ex?" where people compete to get a shot at whacking someone’s ex for them. You scoff, but you know it happens more than you care to admit. When I was having trouble with my ex, some of my new relatives, who belong to an ethic group that I cannot mention but have often been associated with organized crime, kept telling me that bullets are cheaper than alimony. That may be so, but the consequences are far costlier. Though they may have offered to help me out, I never availed myself of their services.

Now we can carry the concept much further as there are people that may be hard to marry off. So why not let the TV audience help us out? After all, they apparently have nothing better to do, judging from the fact that they are sitting around watching these crappy shows. So how about, "Who Wants to Marry My Homely Sister?" It can work equally well with geeky cousins, dweeb siblings, and "old maid" aunts. If that doesn’t work, we can always go back to Fox’s newest idea for a show, "The Search for the Biggest Tits in America." A sure fire winner, if ever there was one. Hang on while I go get my flashlight. I sure hope they are on a woman.

And THAT, was my two-cents plain!

Irvmeister

the artist formerly known as

Meisterzingers

Weekly Helpful Hint

OK. This is really the first helpful hint but we are published weekly, so we can get away with calling it that. If you have a computer, and you would almost have to have one in order to read this, you can print out some really useful lists for organizing your life at

http://www.listorganizer.com/lists.htm

This site provides free printable lists/checklists for all areas of our personal lives including grocery shopping, cleaning, autos, moving, holidays, parties, gardening, weddings, home office, child care, travel, time management, pets, medical records. There are also fancy lists if you want to pay for them.

Master Index of Free Lists
http://www.listorganizer.com/toc.htm

Weekly Safe Driving Tip

OK. We won’t be doing this weekly either for the same reasons mentioned above, unless of course, there is a groundswell of support for it. So, keep those cards and letters coming in.

I recently took a driving safety course offered by A.A.R.P. (Association of Retarded Putzes) of which I am a charter member.The following safety information was presented in that class.

It has also been brought to my attention by Rockland County, NY, sleuth, Fred Mass. If you are driving in the rain, do not use your cruise control. This is serious as it can cause your tires to hydroplane. Hydroplaning occurs when the road is slick and the tires are no longer riding on the road surface but rather on the water surface. The cruise control can interpret this as a slowing down and will automatically accelerate to maintain the speed you set it at. You have little or no control over a vehicle that is hydroplaning and the last thing you want to be doing is accelerating. Anti-lock brakes will not help you avoid this situation. The same advice also applies to icy roads as well. Cruise control can be a major convenience, especially on long, tedious trips involving highway driving. Just make sure you use it safely. We need you alive if we are going to save the world together.

You can read more about this subject at Urban Legends at

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl-cruisecontrol.htm

What’s the deal with cookie dough as a flavor for ice cream and other confections? After all, it is raw dough. Not baked. Did someone accidentally drop some raw dough in ice cream that he was intending to bake into cookies? While trying to get it out, did they stick their finger in the ice cream and accidentally into their mouth afterwards. "Hey, this is not bad. I wonder if I can put this stuff in ice cream without baking it?" After all, many of our greatest inventions were accidents. Vulcanized rubber, penicillin, sticky notes, and Nike’s waffle soles come to mind. I can’t even begin to imagine how they came up with the Rocky Road flavor, and I am not sure I want to know.

Letters to the Editor

Re:- Ax That Tax!

Irv, you have outdone yourself. I wish I could write like that. We went through something like that when my mother passed away, trying to repair and sell the "estate" to pay the bills, dealing with the Land Sharks (Attorneys), etc. It really was an educational experience . . . Coming directly from working for a 'Defense Contractor', to the 'Real World', it was an adventure I hope I'll never forget. I know CAT won't . . .

Tuck

It appears to me that you do write like I do, or is it as I do? I always get those similes mixed up, which is why I stick to metaphors. I am strictly a metaphor man, metaphorically speaking, that is. We even use the same font. Thanks for the compliment. BTW, if real estate attorneys are "Land Sharks" what would maritime attorneys be called? High sea sharks? Just sharks? (-Ed.)

Irving:
What you say is probably right, but it still is no excuse for people not showing up to vote for the party and person they want. If they do no vote, then they should not complain. I too, work for the Board of Elections out of the Woodmere Firehouse. On some elections, it is a shame, but there are times that for hours at a time, just a few people trickle in to vote. They should be ashamed of themselves, and then they bother to complain if someone other than the person that they would like to get voted in, does not. Be well.
Florence Peress, Cedarhurst, NY

That is true, Florence, and I probably would agree with you, if I were the agreeable sort.

Just kidding, you are correct. I work for the Board of Elections and it always amazes me how few of the voters actually turn out; then again, if we had a really big turn out, we would never get home. After a sixteen-hour day, that becomes important. Of course, I may just be using that as an excuse. If you get the names of those nonvoters maybe we can publish them and shame them into voting. (-Ed.)

If you think taxes on drivers is bad where you are, try Europe. Petrol in Europe is 75% duty and 25% actual cost. As for road tax (the tax that we have to pay each year to drive our cars) they have now started charging 5 pounds a day to drive into central London and a lot of other places in the UK and across Europe are looking very closely at the scheme to see how well it works so that they can apply the same to other cities.

It's not only the cities neither. They are thinking of doing the same thing to tourist areas in the countryside to get more money out of visitors. Will it ever end?

Also, can you explain the difference in duty and taxation? Duty is what you pay on petrol before they stick the sales tax on.

Lastly, is sales tax the same as VAT in the UK, TVA in France, BTW in Holland and, lord knows what else, in other countries? Or is this in addition?

Andy

Ouch Andy,
A fiver a day equals 1825 pounds per year, roughly $3102.50 in my money, depending upon the rate of exchange. How do they collect that? Do they have toll booths on all the roads in London now, or is there some sort of annual fee deal? Petrol has always been more expensive in Europe, even 30 years ago, when I visited London. I suggest you switch to gasoline as it is much cheaper. I would have thought that your North Sea oil platforms would have made the price a little better, but then our Alaska pipeline was supposed to free us from Arab oil but instead, they sell the oil to the Japanese.

To answer your question about sales tax, I am not sure what the taxes are that you are referring to, but in the US, each state and county and municipality can add a sales tax to most of the items we buy, such as clothing, services, and some nonessential grocery items like soap and toilet paper. Why they feel these are nonessential is beyond me. In New York State, the state gets 4.5%, the other 4% we pay is tacked on by the county we live in, for a total of 8.5%. The only items that are exempt are prescription medicines and some over the counter medicines, such as cold tablets and aspirin, some food items, and doctors and other professional bills, though they did start taxing laboratory fees a few years ago. Health insurance companies refused to pay the tax and tacked it onto the co-pay, which, to me, is a violation of the contract.

The difference between a tax and a duty is four letters, t-a-x and d-u-t-y. Besides, it is your duty to pay your taxes. (-Ed.)

Loved the ice sculpture, Irv.

So I guess you have found the reason why it is almost always faster coming home from a trip . . . you lose ten miles on the return. Go figure.

Marta Martin

Maybe I have the wind with me since the weather always seems to blow that way from Michigan to New York. BTW, was that really an ice sculpture? I thought it was CheyAnna's brother who was frozen to look like an ice sculpture. (-Ed.)

iRv:
You outdid yourself this week.
I really enjoyed it.

Pete, Oceanside, NY

Thanks Pete,

And I really enjoyed your comment. Stay warm and well. (-Ed.)

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