Plan 10

Hello. We are going to begin today by discussing the most important national issue we face, which is not the fact that the Earth is slowly boiling our ignorant asses to death like proverbial frogs in water on pots on stoves, or that the former president of the United States was apparently a wisecracking Mafioso while in office, but the recent contention, delivered by some anus under oath, that there are unidentified flying objects, with the ability to reverse direction in a millisecond, defying all laws of physics realized by Isaac Newton and clarified by Albert Einstein.

Here is the thing that The Gene Pool needs to tell you today: This testimony is total gibberish because it defies the Weingarten Principle, which was invented in the Bronx around 1992, as a clarifying adjunct to Occam’s Razor.

Now I know what you are thinking. Occam’s razor is suspect on its own, and not just because the man’s name was William of Ockham, not Occam, nor because for some reason we identify his central accomplishment as a “razor,” as though it were a personal grooming device and not a basic methodological insight into human philosophy and ethics. The point is that Occam’s razor says that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one, even if — especially if — conspiracy theorists disagree. A perfect example is the the Kennedy Assassination. One common theory is that it was carried out by a consortium of Soviets, the CIA, American moguls of industry, Jews, the Mafia, a man with an umbrella, and Ted Cruz’s father.

Why is this nuts? Here is where the Weingarten Principle comes in. It is a corollary to Occam’s electric razor:

To accept the conspiracy theory you have to believe in a plot so complex and devious it involve dozens, if not hundreds, of people, all of whom are currently deceased, and each of whom once was on his — or less likely, her— deathbed holding a key to The Greatest Story Ever Told, available for sale to the highest bidder at extremely affordable prices.

How hard is it to accept that the assassination was perpetrated by a skinny, ignorant nebbish asswipe loser who hated the United States and whose only skill was in riflery and who was bitterly angry with the world because he couldn’t get laid even by his own wife?

The Lone Asswipe Theory was correct, from the start.

So, that’s that. No physics-defying UFOs.

Meanwhile, we are going to discuss the second most important story facing America, which is the clue and answer to 38 Across in Sunday’s New York Times Crossword. The clue was about “a Ring Pop,” and the answer, part of a theme, was the alleged Spoonerism “A Wearable Thing to Taste.” Now, here is the two-pronged problem.

Prong One: “Wearable” does not remotely rhyme with “terrible” unless you are an ignoramus who chronically mispronounces words, a person like my editor, Tom the Butcher, or, as he would probably pronounce it, Tom the Boofer.

Prong Two: “A mind is a terrible thing to waste” is the slogan for the United Negro College Fund, and is not, to my thinking, an appropriate pun to be punning on.

Here is today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll.

ALSO, in a not unrelated observation, regarding Twitter now being called “X,” Musk should have taken a marketing cue and renamed it “F.”

Next, I am going to reveal a major secret about journalism, which is that journalists are filled with guilt and self-doubt. All of us are. We fear being accused as liars, even though most of us know we are not liars. But the fact is that when we write something that is true, but we cannot prove it is true, we think people will assume it is not true. We are mistrusted. One of these things happened to me, for example, a quarter of a century ago, when I was not the astoundingly successful Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism genius who is now reduced to begging people for Substack money, and was once assigned to cover the White House Easter Egg Roll.

This is the story I wrote. It was good. I am proud of it, still. But it included an anecdote I witnessed but could not prove. It was a momentary conversation between a 5-year-old old girl and her ma. The girl was named Megan Carroll. She said something GREAT after noticing that the giant rabbits, in giant costumes, were each being escorted and steered by a volunteer handler, who held their hands, because it was not clear that their giant costume eyes could see.

What Megan said to her mother, and I exclusively overheard, was “Mommy, are the bunnies blind?”

But after getting their names I lost track of them. If I had to prove I had not made it up, I could not have. And for what it is worth, I cannot, today, find a Megan Carroll in Chicago. She’d be 30 today and if she remembered the Easter Egg Roll, I’m sure she would confirm my story. The reason I am mentioning this is that it is the dream of many journalists that in a case like this, something amazing happens. In my case it would have been a letter to the editor from Megan’s ma, confirming the moment, complimenting me on getting it right, and asking for copies of the newspaper that she could keep and publicize when little Megan becomes a Supreme Court justice.

Well, that sort of thing happened this weekend. In my weekend Gene Pool, I told a story from 1978, about myself and a couple of coworkers. I said I had won a bet and that a coworker, extraordinarily, had paid me by buying an ad in the Detroit Free Press. I could not have proved that. But a reader named Phillip Walker actually found the ad. And sent it to me. So.

Another reaction to the Weekend Gene Pool arrived from my good friend Eric Brace, with whom I used to work at the WaPo, but who quit his well-paying job many years ago to follow his dream of becoming a rock star. An idiot impulse, right? Except he pulled it off. Eric is frontman for a terrific country-blues-roots-rock band called Last Train Home. Eric was writing about the 1978 Yankees-Red Sox playoff game I saw on TV! His comment: “Gene! Eric Brace here... I was AT that “Greatest Game” in 1978 at Fenway... skipped out on college classes and took the bus into town with a pal who'd gotten tickets! I felt bad for Yaz, but... what a game.”

I wouldn’t mention this except it is giving me an opportunity to introduce you to Eric and his band. So here are two of their songs. Spend the 7 minutes. They are great.

And:

I do want to say that Eric and I had a hilarious conversation once about “Doughnut Girl,” specifically the lyric “you’ve got that glazed look on your face,” and he confirmed my suspicion, and I am not going to further elaborate.

Okay, we are done here, except for my begging. The Begging Interlude is an essential part of the Plan.

Do you like this thing that I hope is entertaining you? Do you want it to continue? Is it worth four dollars a month? If it is not, you should stride away. Or slink away. I mean, four dollars a month is what you pay for toilet paper, and only the really cheap irritating stuff, and only if you get it in bulk from Costco. So you probably should pony up right here.

We are about to enter into the amazing question-and-answer phase of The Gene Pool, in which you make observations and ask questions, and I respond to them. It is in real time on Tuesday, Aug. 1, from about noon to 1 p.m. Eastern, so remember to keep refreshing this page until I get exhausted.

Many of today’s entries come from my Saturday Gene Pool, where I asked you to come up with “Googlenopes,” which are phrases that return no hits when entered, in between quotes, in Google. But I also asked for details about your greatest year. This first one has nothing to do with either, but is now competing for the most spectacular aptonym in the history of the Earth. I am the only recognized international curator of the aptonym, which is a term for a person whose name bizarrely represents who she or he really is. Some great ones have been “Sue Yoo,” who is a lawyer, and this guy, a firefighter named…

https://twitter.com/KiliZac/status/1220483602057744384

…. “Les McBurney.”

Well, we have a new contender for the greatest ever, submitted by a reader.

TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this right now on an email:   Click here to get to my webpage, then click on the top headline (In this case, “Plan 10 … “) for the full column, and comments, and real-time questions and answers. And you can refresh and see new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post from about noon to 1 p.m. ET Tuesday.

This is Gene. I am going to publish two anecdotes from readers. I cannot verify them, because of the nature of anonymous correspondence.  The first one answers my “What was your best year?” question.  The second answer answers “What is something dumb you did that turned out great?”

I don’t know that these are true, I just know that they are interesting, and that they SEEM true to me. I am a professional skeptic, and there are reasons I buy these, reasons I cannot share.   I got a third one  that is equally dramatic, but which I am not publishing, because I do not believe it, and absent proof, I won’t go with it.  So.  Here are the two I believe. 

Q: The best year of my life was only about nine months, from May 2009 until February 2010. I met a woman whom I thought was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen in my life. We connected on every level. We fell hard in love, so much so that a month after meeting she decided to spend the rest of the summer with me. In August we took a trip to London, went to a music festival, and were in the front row for when Radiohead came out and played one of the best sets of their career. So many magical, one-of-a-kind experiences seemed to happen during that period -- too many to list here, including the night we were having dinner at my favorite Indian restaurant in New York (I know; I'm sorry) when the Foreign Minister of Pakistan was dining there as well, and experienced in real time an already-amazing restaurant becoming transcendent. By February I was ready to propose. I arranged a trip to Paris for Valentine's Day, with a plan to propose to her at the top of the Eiffel Tower. But as it turns out the top of the Eiffel Tower is a small metal box packed with tourists and not an especially romantic location (take heed, young lovers), and by the time we were back down we were tired and the moment wasn't right, so I never took the ring out of my pocket, figuring that another perfect moment would arrive. But while I had been planning the trip and my proposal, I had been neglecting work. I came back to missed deadlines and angry bosses.

In March, I was told I needed to start looking elsewhere. Three months later I was unemployed, kicking off a downward spiral that saw me at one point quietly pawn that engagement ring she never saw. We stayed together two more years, but our relationship was never the same -- by the end, things were so far gone that she didn't even tell me she was leaving me, just went on vacation and never came back. I am in a better place now personally and professionally, and in a lot of ways my life I am happier and healthier now than ever before. But nothing will ever compare to how magical the world felt for those few short months.

This is Gene. Here is the second one I believe. Alert: It is about violence and attempted rape.

Stupid thing that worked out...I was a junior in college for my performing arts major and everyone had to take a ball-busting Shakespeare class. The Monday-Wednesday-Friday class involved reading one play for each class and then taking an idiotic 100 question test, involving obscure lines spoken by tertiary characters. The class was required for performers and was a GPA killer. Luckily, the final was decided by popular vote so the majority (performing arts majors) won over the English majors (who voted for a 30 page research paper) and we performed A Midsummer Night's Dream (I was Puck). Rehearsals were at the only time everyone had available: 6 am. That meant most performers didn't get to sleep much that semester since performers are often on stage until 2 am running lines and breaking down sets, but it was worth it to get a passing grade in the class.

Near the end of the semester, our 'regular' plays and concerts wrapped for the season. I attended a party and a drunken idiot followed me home, threw me to the ground, and attempted to rape me. After I delivered a few quick palm punches, he was unconscious and missing several front teeth. I'm not a monster: I rolled him onto his side so he wouldn't choke on his own blood before I fetched the police. As it turned out, he was the son of my Shakespeare professor, who informed me at rehearsal I owed him $3000 for the dental work, I was out of the play (so I would fail the class), and would fail it in the future since he was the only one who taught it. I responded, with bravado I didn't really feel, "If we go to court, I'll press charges (the police talked me out of that), and I can change my major." I was so shook up, I sobbed to the chairman of the theater department and told him the whole story. I was sure my school career was ruined. Why had I been so rash? Why hadn't I just shouted louder for help or kicked him in the nuts just enough to get him off me? I used to eat breakfast with several of the faculty, including the father of the Rapist Romeo - how terrible would THAT be from now on.? The chairman said, with his usual poker face, that he would waive Shakespeare and allow me to substitute a linguistics class I had taken as an elective. I didn't have to perform in the play (I did so, anyway, for the sake of the other performers who were counting on me - finding a replacement was impossible with less than a week until opening night, and they had been stuck with the 45 year old professor playing several parts, including Puck - his skittering across the stage was more than they could take without laughing), I didn't have to take any more of the awful trivia quizzes, and, best of all, I didn't have to stay up all night reading Shakespeare and trying to memorize every line uttered by every character.

Added plus: I kicked a rapists' ass and walked away with only scratches, bruises, and some teeth marks on my palms, while he gets to look in the mirror every day and remember that a little blonde girl with pigtails is the reason he has false teeth in the front of his pathetic mouth..

Gene here again: I am not doubting your story. I don’t understand why you feel any guilt. It seems to me you acted heroically.

Gene again: I have to say that your responses to the poll, so far, are bizarre. “Wearable” and “terrible” just do not rhyme. They just don’t. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terrible

Look, don’t argue, learn. Tom the Butcher, an erudite man who wins Pulitzer prizes by editing other writers into Pulitzerdom, pronounces crayon as “cran.” And “veterinarian” as “vetinarian.” And “vulnerable” as “vunerable.” It doesn’t mean it is right or defensible. Or that he shouldn’t have to atone for his sins.

”Googlenopes received

‘Schrodinger’s wallaby.” – this turned out to have a googlehit, but none of the following did did: 

“Schrodinger’s porcupine” 

and, “Schrodinger’s mentally incapacitated chicken”

And 

“Schrodinger’s marmoset.”  

And I tried them all without the umlauts, too.  

Another submitted Googlenope: “Jejune orgasm.” 

And: “I shan’t have sex with you despite your perky bosom.”

 And, in a related development: “and yas I said yas I will Yas indeedy.”

And,

“I enjoy filet mignon with Yoohoo”. 

Q: My daughter (born and raised in Cleveland) would say wearable and terrible do rhyme while I (a native Long Islander) would say they absolutely do not. It's a regional accent thing and I will always agree with you on these matters.

A: Thank you.

Q: Hi Gene, Please identify me as Marylander410. I've been wondering about the phrase, "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". I can understand the first two, but "the pursuit of Happiness" seems to be really advanced for the time.

A: I remember reading something years ago that the original wording was “Life, Liberty, and Property” and that this was expunged because it seemed cold.  It’s actually more complicated.  “Life, Liberty and Property” is in the Fifth Amendment and John Locke used similar words in his treatise on civil government, in 1689.   “The pursuit of happiness” seems way more brilliant to me.  It was borrowed not from Locke but from some Scotsman named Adam Ferguson who wrote:  “If, in reality, courage and a heart devoted to the good of mankind are the constituents of human felicity, the kindness which is done infers a happiness in the person from whom it proceeds, not in him on whom it is bestowed; and the greatest good which men possessed of fortitude and generosity can procure to their fellow creatures is a participation of this happy character. If this be the good of the individual, it is likewise that of mankind; and virtue no longer imposes a task by which we are obliged to bestow upon others that good from which we ourselves refrain; but supposes, in the highest degree, as possessed by ourselves, that state of felicity which we are required to promote in the world."

Jefferson took that and edited it down.  For which we should be grateful, though never to professional “editors” like Tom The Butcher, the man from the land of the lost syllables who would have pronounced it as “Life, Libry and the Pursuit of Hpns.”  

Q: If you visit someone’s house and they have a bowl of mixed nuts on the table, or next to a couch, is it okay to look through it and pick out only the ones you like best?

A: Yes, but only if they are cashews.  Picking any other nut would be an admission of food Philistinism. 

Q: You wrote: Rachel was one of those Harper Lee’s. Wrong use of the apostrophe, no?  

A: I argue no.  “Lees” reads weird.  It’s like using an apostrophe when referring to the baseball team, the A’s.    If you call them the As, you look like an ass. 

Q: So, Gene - how do you manage the windows in your house? a) I leave them open whenever the weather remotely permits b) I open them on days of perfect weather, if I happen to think of it c) I never open them and it never even occurs to me d)....

A: The answer is A, and I know shame. 

Q:

Googlenopes: 

Forced Gump 

Jackie O-face 

Libya majora 

Premarital socks 

The whorehouse that Ruth built.

Q: Hi Gene, After hearing about bidets for years, I finally got a bidet attachment for my comfort-height toilet. I got this one: Bio Bidet Ultimate BB-600 Bidet Toilet Seat, adjustable Heated Seat and Freshwater, Dual Nozzle Sprayer, Posterior Feminine Wash, Elongated https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007HIKQCK?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details I really like using it, as well as hoping it's better than a regular toilet for the sewer system and Mother Earth.

A: Bidets are the best. It is weird that Bidet seems like “Biden.”  Though he did clean up after an asshole! 

Q: "Tell me all about our lord and savior Jesus Christ" is a Googlenope - seriously, no one is asking.

A: Wow!

Your story about the cabinet had me sobbing, but in a good way I assure you. My father was (or at least he fancied himself) a Jack of all trades. At various points in my young life, he was a professional pizza delivery man, a professional electrician, licensed and everything, a jewelry store owner and professional jeweler. But there was also the time spent as an in-patient in psychiatric hospitals after he would invariably attempt suicide. I remember one time we all visited him in one, and woodworking was one of the activities available for enrichment. He had made each of us little trinket boxes with hearts at the handles. Still have it to this day. So, he also fancied himself quite the Carpenter, and has built various pieces for me over the years. There was the wall mounted spice cabinet with a door – and to be honest, he was not the greatest Carpenter in the world, and so the inside of the door featured a large stain where he had bled out a little bit while making it. He also made me a beautiful cedar chest from scratch, and though the edges have come apart a little, it is essentially sound structurally. The most creative piece he ever made me is the door-sized cabinet on wheels that could be pulled in and out of this very small 3-4 inch gap between the refrigerator and the wall. It's a piece I still own now, even though I’ve since purchased a house that does not have that gap. I can’t yet get rid of it - It's in my garage - I might give it away someday to somebody who needs it, it’s a great piece and super useful, assuming one has a gap that size. My father passed away in April of 2019. He suffered from not only depression and alcoholism for most of his life, but as he got older he had begun suffering from frequent small strokes called TIA's, as well as very poorly managed diabetes, to which he lost several toes. So, when he got a really, really bad case of pneumonia early in 2019, his body just kind of… gave out, and we had to pull the plug. He was only sixty-seven. In some ways, I am glad it happened when it did - because there is no way his body would have made it through COVID, clearly. But I am sad that he never got to meet his three grandchildren: the first born in June 2020, the second born last July, and the third in April of this year. I just hope Molly appreciates that cabinet as much as I appreciate all my dad’s handiwork, rough edges and all. Thanks for the memory. Holly in Takoma Park

A: I am going to end with this one, because it brought a tear to my eye. And the next time we talk I will have some interesting news about Molly.

Hey, KEEP SENDING IN QUESTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS AND SUCH. I will pounce on them on Thursday, with the Invitational Gene Pool. Send them here;