American Fez

The Acrylic Creep

The Acrylic Creep at work is not comfortable in his own skin. It's obviously two sizes too small for him and doesn't fasten properly behind his neck; there's a big, red, hairy bulge there as if it won't zip up all the way or there's a button missing or something like that.

The material is pretty cheap too, definitely manmade, probably polyester but not the kind of polyester that's sporty or active. This is clingy, itchy, sweat-stained polyester that's pilling and seam-stretching into an early grave. The Acrylic Creep's skin is a skin you can't get the smell out of, no matter how many times you drown him in bleach and detergent.

I've recently suggested we should just cut the Acrylic Creep into strips and use him as a cleaning rag. He's not much good for anything else. We certainly can't have him interacting with clients with irritatable skin like his. Ours is a presentation business after all and he looks as though he's presenting a case for the joys of eczema and inflammation.

Surely there must be creams and ointments on the market? Or maybe he could shed his current skin like an average reptile and slip himself into a Snuggie or a pair of regular cotton pajamas, anything except his own uncomfortable skin. I'm frankly sick of feeling the urge to scratch myself everytime I pass by his desk.

Piano Prescription

The pianoforte is, without a doubt, the best musical instrument. It is surely the most resilient, as its keys can still produce reasonably pleasurable music when abused by the fingers of avant-garde composers or ridiculously coiffed pop artistes from the nineteen-eighties. Even modern iterations of the classical keyboard such as the Moog synthesizer and the Hammond organ rarely produce unlistenably offensive noises.

Piano sounds are also serviceably versatile. Piano moods inspired by summer months can equally be enjoyed in the depths of winter since it is easy to reimagine the tinkling of a stream rushing over rocks in July as January's swiftly spiraling snowfall. Listeners can't really do that with a strummed guitar or a bellowing trombone. 

Likewise, the same piece of piano music can provide suitable accompaniment for a romantic dinner for two or an evening spent alone examining a lifetime of failings and regrets. It can be either sentimental, melancholic, euphoric or seductive depending on the auditor's current state of mind. You can't say that of the banjo or the gong. 

Of course, hunch-shouldered advocates of the violin will probably take issue with my verdict. But what do you expect from malcontents who wallow anemically in the sniveling whine that results from dragging a so-called "bow" across four strings stretched from one end of a dwarf oboe to the other? The violin is nicknamed the fiddle and reputedly played by the Devil for a good reason. 

The Octopus In The Room

I often see stickers plastered around town claiming that 'Science Is Real.' They appear on lampposts and traffic light poles alongside other stickers promoting local rock bands, advertisements for moving companies, and cartoon meme images of Big Brothers commanding the passerby to Obey in block letters.

Science Is Real? Until relatively recently scientists believed the world was contained within an invisible substance called the Aether. But it turns out the Aether isn't real. On a personal note, scientists told me a horse pill called Niaspan was good for my heart condition, then decided it wasn't after I'd been swallowing the damn things every day for six years.

Follow The Money, was a streetwise sticker you'd occasionally come across not so long ago. Not that I'm suggesting there's any insidious connection between cold hard cash and results from The Lab, of course. But dollar bills do look larger under a microscope, of that there can be no doubt.

A Fact, a Shibboleth, and an Agenda walk into a bar. They order three Flirtinis poured in the same highball glass with a slice of lemon and a cherry and the bartender says "Get real."

I believe man landed on the moon and that the Earth is roundish, but I also believe it's possible that octopuses came from outer space on the back of a meteorite. Mainstream science considers that last belief to be pseudoscience, the village idiot of hypotheses. Yet those self-same sanctimonious scientific sneerers waffle on about some equally unproven fudged concept called 'Dark Matter' like it's an incontrovertible truth.

Science Is Sometimes, sure, I decide, pondering the sticker while waiting to cross the road. It's about as real as the State Law that traffic should stop for pedestrians when the Walk sign is flashing. In other words, it may be real in theory but not always in practice.