byte me

Dear Tech Guy at Work Who Goes from Zero to Snotty in Seconds Flat:

Kindly get laid.

Thank you in advance,
Curly McDimple

batter up

Yours Truly: I'm supposed to have coffee with a colleague who's in town for the day. I'm dreading it because she makes me really uncomfortable.

Jess: Why's that?

YT: Two words: pancake makeup

Jess: Mon dieu!

YT: Yup.

Yes, it's true... I have issues with pancake makeup. Laugh all you want and poke fun but that shit really disturbs me. As stated before, I'm really weird about texture so, not surprisingly, when I see layers of schmutz on someone's face at close range... well, I want to die. (Notice I didn't say "shrivel up and die" because the word "shrivel" brings to mind wrinkles, creases and folds. As you can imagine, that is a most unholy mental alliance for someone like myself who's not down with the whole texture thing.)

I interned at CNBC when I was in college and whenever I encountered pancake-wearing on-air talent in the halls, I had a mini nervous breakdown. I was on the elevator with a female anchor one day and she insisted on engaging me in small talk. Under different circumstances, I would have welcomed that. For example, fill-in anchor Sheila Steinback and I had a lovely conversation about Melrose Place in the pantry one evening. She hadn't gone to makeup yet so I was more than happy to chat with her about Amanda's latest schemes and the funky scar on Kimberly's melon. It was all very pleasant. However, had Sheila taken the Elevator Anchor's lead and tried chatting me up with layers of thick beige shit and primary colors spackled to her face, well... I would have asked Sheila to kindly do me a solid and disengage.

I'm still traumatized by Elevator Anchor's made-up face. In the light of that elevator, she looked like she had been prepped by a mortician. Since I don't make a habit out of talking to stiffs, this was NOT a pleasant experience for me.

However, I'm pleased to report that there's a happy ending to this ridiculous tale... the aforementioned colleague got sucked into a bunch of meetings and had to cancel on me. Pity.

the new-age cheese diet

Several months ago, I launched a little something called The Tesh Experiment. For those of you too lazy or disinterested to follow the link, the exercise involves my pseudo chagrin over the lack of activity on the Tesh Cam.

You see, there was a time when the Tesh Cam provided insight into John and his crappy music-making. And now, sadly, it only shows John's less-than-bustling mailroom. Despite a fictional impassioned email authored by Yours Truly, the camera angle has not been moved. It still shows that fucking roll of tape! It's been that way for months and shows no signs of budging so I'm officially giving up. You beat me this time, Tesh.

However, I found a new source of amusement on that website -- the Message Board! Oh, but it's a fascinating and informative area to explore! For example, did you know that The Tesh has his own radio show? Did you further know that like his fellow God Squad member, Pat Robertson, The Tesh is now doling out diet tips and health advice on said radio show? Oh yes, it's true. Behold!*

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Subject: Diet tips air on the radio

John, I listened to your radio often. One night, I heard you list a few things that we can do to loose weight. Would you please email this list to me again? It starts with drinking coffee in the morning and eating sour dough bread for lunch.

Thanks,
JP

Put down the weights, ladies and gentlemen! Step off the treadmills and elliptical machines for The Tesh himself says a mere cup o' joe and a slice o' sour dough will trim you down. Hmmm... I wonder if that's how Connie manages to stay so slim?

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Subject: "eat less of your entree"???

Ok, you've got some good ideas and thoughts that i really enjoy. BUT....you said that you should order a soup or salad as an appetizer so that you would eat less of your entree. Why should you eat less of an entree that you paid for? In my opinion, that's just a waste of money, and more importantly, food.

How dare The Tesh promote portion control! If Applebee's wants to give you an entire side of beef on a bun, you best eat that shit up. Stick it to the Man! And don't forget your coupons from the Sunday circular!

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Subject: John Tesh Radio

Dear John
I just wanted to say that I really do enjoy your show. My son loves it when you bring up things that will improve our lives ie. chewing gum to increase oxygen to the body, eating dinner together as a family.

Thanks

Feeling sluggish and run down? Why, just pop a stick of Juicy Fruit into your gob and you'll be all oxygenated and refreshed. Oh and that whole eating dinner together with the family idea is positively revolutionary. His originality astounds me. What on earth would we DO without The Tesh?

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Subject: You have an awesome show!

Dear John,
I listen to your show every chance I get. If I can't listen, I go to the computer and go to your web site and look at the transcript. Totally amazing all the tidbits of intelligience that you come up with.

I do have one question....I have been troubled by kidney stones. Have had two surgeries in less than a year with another coming up. One urologist told me that they are caused by dehydration and another tells me its calcium that causes them....but because I am menopausal, I can't stay away from calcium. Is there anything in your research that can help me out with information on how to avoid the kidney stones. My stones grow so big that they block the ureter. Any dietary advice? Thank you for reading this post. Sincerely, Dolores

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Subject: airlines and hospitals

Dear John...I was on my way to work when you said you would talk about not flying if you have been in the hospital. My daughter works in a hospital and is leaving on an airplane on Wednesday. Anything I need to worry about? Thank you so very much for all the great ideas and information.
Barbara

Why call your doctor with important health questions when you can just ask The Tesh?! I'm sure his years of cohosting Entertainment Tonight have adequately prepared him to tackle such topics. And if he's not sure, I'm sure he can just call up Jesus to get a second opinion. He's got His direct line, you know.

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Subject: Less stress food shopping

I'm a meat wrapper and I see some really nice people come in the supermarmarket when it's open 8:00A.M. looking for (fresh)chopped meat.

Mr.Tesh most butchers only start at 8:00 Their shopping experience would be a lot less strssful if they would give them at least a hour. tell them to read the (entire0 sales letter.When turkeys are on sale,see if the sign reads,Fresh or Frozen.

At Thanksgiving people get crazy when they think they're going to get a (fresh)trukey only to be told the sale is for a frozen one. I hope this will help all of us, workers and shoppers alike. Thank you

I'm not even going to make fun of the meat wrapper because dude's got a cleaver and access to machinery that could make my ass disappear. Even worse, he could pass me off as ground chuck and well, that's just humiliating. While I don't eat meat, I do fancy myself a more expensive cut... should my body ever become available in this format. So I'm going to make nice with the meat wrapper and put forth his message that one should not piss off the supermarket butcher by quibbling over frozen versus fresh turkeys at 8am. Capiche?

* Please note that there is a global [sic] for all typos and misspellings in the quoted messages. For typos and misspellings in my own copy, uh... just deal until I discover and fix them myself.

on role reversal and really good memories

I recently babysat My Two Favorite Wee Boys. The younger one (age 8) asked that I read to him before bed. I love love LOOOOVE reading to kids so I went at this task with a gusto.

He selected McDuff & The Baby, a rather short book that we tore through in several minutes. As a result, the 8-Year-Old was neither satisfied nor sleepy. I let him get out of bed to pick out another book. Picture it... a 31-year-old and an 8-year-old standing side-by-side perusing the shelves and then the 31-year-old clapping her hands excitedly and squealing, "OOOOH! OOOOH! Can we read Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel? Please?! Can we?" The 8-Year-Old was the picture of coolness, mind you. At first he countered with Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and then relented, no doubt because of the scowl that had formed on my face.

I hadn't read Mike Mulligan since grammar school so I was tres excited. The first thing I did after opening the book was lift it up to my nose to smell it. Naturally the 8-Year-Old was all, "What the hell are you doing?" (Yes, he says "hell" and "sucks" now. I swear it's not my doing!) I explained to him that the smell of a book is one of the best smells ever. He picked it up, gave it a sniff and then said, "Mmmm." Between you and me, I think he was just being polite because he wanted to get on with the story and get my snout out of his book.

I love the smell of books, rally I do. I can conjure up the precise smell of the library in my grammar school without much effort. And from there it leads me on a sensory stroll down memory lane. I can hear the sound of the hard plastic protective wrappers rattling and cracking when a book is opened. I hear the "ja-dunk" noise from that little machine the librarians used to stamp the due-date cards before reinserting them in the book's inside cover. I can hear the awful clanking of our school's one and only ditto machine. I even remember the smell of the purple ditto ink. It was quite noxious as I recall...

I loved going to the school library... except on the days we had to sit through Sister Mary Ellen's boring ass lectures about the Dewey Decimal System. That's not a saucy topic to begin with but sweet Jesus, that woman took it to new boring heights. Normally, the library trip was supposed to calm kids down and get us to be quiet and focused. However, I remember my entire class being visibly agitated and riled-up after that long and overly-detailed explanation of the card catalogue. And we had to sit through it EVERY year! Oh it was torture.

But back to the good points of the library... Each week we were allowed to check out one book and a magazine or two books. The kids always ran right to the magazine rack in order to get dibs on the new Highlights (I loved me some "Goofus and Gallant"), 3-2-1 Contact and Dynamite magazines. The rack was picked clean within seconds so the stampede then made its way towards the books. There was always a cluster of kids shoving and throwing elbows in three specific areas in the fiction section: "D" (Roald Dahl); "H" (S.E. Hinton); and "B." Any guesses who that popular author was?

Further Reading (if you're so inclined):
Here are my responses to a Book Challenge Sheila tasked me with a few months back.