The Hard Taco Projects

Dear Friends,

    CD sales have been pretty good, but I'm still a ways from my goal of raising 35 million dollars to erect a low income housing district on Chicago's South Side, which I will call "The Hard Taco Projects." People will call me "The Kind Super," because I will personally decorate the hallways for all major holidays. On weeknights, I will sit on the stoop with the tenants, drink punch, and discuss local politics. ("What on Earth does Mayor Daley think he’s up to this time?")  Maybe after we have built up a rapport, I will respectfully try to talk one or two of the tenants into quitting smoking.  When I arrive at work in the morning, there will be two young sisters jumping rope in front of the main tower.  I will briefly jump rope with them, give them high fives, and ask them when their mother is going to bake me some of her famous pound cake.  When I go through the front entrance, I will always be whistling some old song. The maintenance man will say, "Uh oh! Here comes The Super!" like he is afraid of me, but then laugh afterwards so that I know he is joking. 

    At the end of the day I won't have hordes of gold watches and jewel-encrusted piles of treasure, but I'll have something a hundred times more valuable: A smile from a hard-working family with quality affordable housing. That's the kind of riches you can't buy, even with a lot of money.

    The Hard Taco song for June is called "Stamp My Hand." So far, everybody who has heard it has commented on its pithiness. One reviewer even said, "Now that's what I call pithy!" I admit I intended for the pith factor to be tangible, but such overwhelmingly consummate pithiness was completely unforeseen. All I can hope for is that I don't alienate any of my dear friends or family with offensive levels of relentless, unadulterated, hard core pith.

With warmest regards,

HT

STRATEGO!

Dear Friends,

If you hid a microphone in my living room plants, you would probably figure out that I talk an awful lot about which board games I like and which I don't. Most of you who I suspect of spying on me regularly don't manufacture board games for a living, but in case any of you do, pay close attention.

When I'm playing your game, there must be a situation in which the rules allow for me to yell out the name of the game enthusiastically. Preferably, this happens about once every five to ten minutes, during an appropriately climactic moment. Here are some examples of games that meet my criteria: UNO! SORRY! YAHTZEE! BLACKJACK! CONNECT FOUR! PASS THE PIGS! 

Sometimes, I find a way to yell out the name of the game, even if it's not explicitly called for by the rules of the game. JENGA! TWISTER! BARREL OF MONKEYS! CANDYLAND! (Or, depending on the situation, "Damn you, CANDYLAND!") 

Unfortunately, some games just don't make good exclamations, no matter how much enthusiasm you muster. PICTIONARY JUNIOR! TRIVIAL PURSUIT GENUS 4! I feel that these games should be recalled, and everyone who was duped into buying one should get a fat rebate check from Hasbro or Galoob or whoever is responsible for the travesty. 

I would be especially happy to get a fat rebate check from Galoob, because they have the greatest company name ever. Not only does the company itself beg to be yelled out in a high voice (Galoob! Galoob!), but it can also be spelled upside down on a calculator! Don't believe me? Type 800789 and flip your calculator over. I admit that technically, that spells GBLOOB, but when your friend whispers "What's your favorite game company?" and you pass her the ultra-secret upside-down calculator note, she'll probably be able to figure out you're not talking about Milton Bradley.  

What makes this story even more interesting is that the British actually used the upside down calculator code in World War II to send encrypted messages to the Allied forces. As it turns out, the only two things besides "GBLOOB" that can be written on upside down calculators are "hI BILL" and "BOOBLESS." The first was useful, because of the 600+ British Generals in WWII, over 100 of them were named William. The second was useful for making fun of Hitler's Mistress, Eva Braun, who was flat as a spatula. 

The Hard Taco song for May is called "Steal a Man a Fish." Contrary to logic, I was not on any drugs at all when I wrote this song. If it sounds like I was, that's only because YOU are probably on drugs RIGHT NOW. Don't think I can't smell it on your nappy-ass hair, you freaking hippy deadbeat. Hopefully, you didn't take so many drugs that you start having seizures before you realize how much Lauren has learned how to rock out. 

Until next time... PARCHESI!

With Warmest Regards,

HT

Siteerror404 Charles Grodin Fanpage Not Found

Dear Friends,

    Someone recently pointed out to me that some junk mail filters are siphoning off your well-deserved Hard Taco updates into junk mail folders of questionable moral content. These Hard Taco Digests are very innocent appearing, and are an easy target for the other ignominious emails that are rightfully banished to these disreputable cesspools of quackery and perversion. I'm sure you would be as shocked as I would to see my untainted, fawn-eyed April Update bullied by a Turkish Levitra Substitute email or molested by an invitation to Consolidate Your Debt with Free University Diplomas.

    Therefore, I've removed suspicious words from my title (like "Hard" and more specifically the capital letter "H" which is crucial if you're advertising Horny Asian Teen Housewives. Hopefully, this will result in 75% more emails getting through and 200% more people linking to my favorite Charles Grodin fanpage. It was "Made in the Netherlands by a really big fan." I was going to put it at the bottom, but you've been patient enough.

    Getting back to the subject of horny teen housewives, I am a huge fan of the phrase "barely legal." My New Year's Resolution this year is to use that phrase all the time. This English Muffin I'm toasting right now is so fresh, it's barely legal! I'm going to dig a hole in my yard right now and I'm not going to stop until it's barely legal!

    I know what you're thinking, and don't worry... If I start enacting a New Year's resolution three months late, it's only fair that I continue describing everything as barely legal until April '05. One caveat: When I'm talking about something that I expect to happen after 4/05, I don't have to use the phrase.

    For example, by late 2005 I will complete work on my one-wheeled robot butler. He will have a painted-on tuxedo and monocle and a wrought iron mustache that will rotate back and forth when he talks.  I will call him either RoboButlerBot, RoboButBotLer, or perhpas Cyber-Jeeves-odroid the Electrobutlertron. I will program him to say adorable things like "Please. I can't work any faster," and to have a mind-blowing crush on Lauren's grandmother.

    This month's song, "Kollector," is titillating pinch of pop-rock chew to place between your cheek and gum. It is now available for download, but I should warn you that downloading free MP3's off the Hard Taco Project site is only barely legal! I spelled Collector wrong on purpose because where I grew up, that's the way we pronounced it. It's not that I'm unaware of the correct spelling... it's just that spelling it phoenetically lets you know that I'm street smart and on the level.

With warmest regards,

HT

Emotional Compatibility Quotient

Dear Friends,

  Hard Taco asks... What is Your Emotional Compatibility Quotient? Take our newest quiz to find out!

Question #1: Your significant other insists on paying for dinner every time, even though you make nearly twice as much money. Do you:

a) Let him/her pay. It's not worth the domestic turmoil and besides, that's more money for you to spend on hair care products.

b) Insist on paying at least the tip this time, and refuse to leave the restaurant until you get your way. 

c) Raise one fist in the air, slam a mind-splitting power chord on your guitar, and swing your sweat-drenched hair in circles, grimacing sardonically. 

Question 2: You have a date to have coffee with an old college buddy, but as usual, he's twenty minutes late. 

a) It's no big deal... some people are just more punctual than others. Besides, your cell phone has a great solitaire game. 

b) Say, "Hello, Mr. Show-Up-Whenever!" when he gets there and pout a little bit while he orders his cafe mocha.

c) Go down to the tattoo parlor and get a giant demon-winged death's head tattooed on your chest with a flaming snake coming out of its mouth. The snake will also have a skull head with skeletonized dragon wings and blood dripping off its fangs. It will also have inverted bloody crosses made out of bones instead of eyes, and each cross will have a crucified goat-demon on it with inverted pentagrams shooting out of its mouth.

Question #3: You accompany your parents to your grandmother's birthday party and you are soooo bored. You:

a) Sit in the corner and admire the Kleenex cozy she knitted, waiting patiently for Grandma and her friends to go to bed.

b) Start tugging on your mom's sleeve and whining as soon as you get to the nursing home parking lot.

c) Bang your head against your drum kit, kick over the bingo table and scream in German until you can taste blood in the back of your throat. Throw your flailing body through the China cabinet, tongue wagging, and then slam-dance with your great aunts until the police finally arrive and disable you with three times the usual dose of tranquilizer darts. 

Scoring: Give yourself 1 point for every "a", 2 points for every "b" and three points for every "c".

If your score is 1-8: 

You are timid and weak. You are a parasite living on pigs and worms. In due course, you will be willing herded to the slaughter along with everyone you know and a new society will rise from your smoldering cadavers. 

If your score is 9: 

You have potential to succeed in your relationships, but something is still holding you back. You need to focus less on pleasing others and stop living as if your parents are still watching your every move. You will be happier and healthier when you learn that it's okay to do something special just for yourself sometimes. 

We hope you enjoyed the quiz, and learned a lot about your Emotional Compatibility Quotient. The Hard Taco song for March is called, "The Medicine Show," and it's the opening number to a forthcoming musical by almost the same name.  From now on, you can assume that any song that seems to have a cast of thousands is probably part of this project, but I will try to remember to let you know which ones those are.  Also, don't forget to take our previous quizzes: "Are You a Slave to Your Pets?" and "Which Famous Author Are You Most Like In Bed?"

With warmest regards,

HT

Wisdom of a Founding Father

Dear friends,

  Every month I start my newsletter with those two words, and there is a reason. You are all my closest friends. Seriously!!! In fact, just thinking about it I find myself having to wipe a glorious single tear off my cheek. A few minutes ago I was really struggling to think of a greeting card-caliber proverb or a sentimental aphorism to match this symbolic tear, but my own mind wasn't inventive enough to express the appropriate degree of tenderness. That's when I decided to consult the hundred dollar man himself, Benjamin Franklin.  

  As you probably know, Benjamin Franklin wrote, "Poor Richard's Almanac," an entire book of quotes (most of which start with "I quote myself, saying...") Franklin penned this manifesto of maxims shortly after the Revolutionary War, during which he saw many of his most trusted companions become Tories and join the redcoats in battle against his countrymen. Many of his adages about friendship were especially apropos to these times, including:

"Beware old friends like meat twice boiled"

"Best friends, like fish, stink after three days"

"Two friends may keep a secret if both of them are dead."

"The only difference between friends and enemies is that enemies won't lend you the stick to beat them with."

"A friend is someone who will help you move. A real friend is someone who will help you move the first friend's body after you beat him to death with a stick."

  My views about friendship are much more traditional. In fact, I just came up with my own proverb:  "It's no coincidence that the words 'friendly' and 'friend' share the same root." I don't think one proverb is enough to publish a whole book of quotes, but I'm going to keep working on it.

  I am also working on a side project, which is to compile a complete list of real life best friends. I think I'm just about done, but if you can think of any more that should be on this list, let me know...

The Lone Ranger  -  Tonto

Blossom  -  Six

Mike Seaver -  Richard "Boner" Stabone

Ricky Schroder - Alfonso

Theo Huxtable - Cockroach

  The song for February is called, "Best Friends Forever." Even though I generally express myself best with lists (see above) I thought I'd give music a shot, too. A lot of people are asking me if the guy I'm singing the song with is actually my real life best friend. Unfortunately, my publicist has told me not to answer that question directly. I am supposed to segue back to plugging the last Hard Taco album or talk about the Golden Globes. 

With warmest regards,

HT

Why I Hate Terns

In this Week's Hard Taco Digest: 

1) Why I Hate Terns 

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Dear friends,

  This is why I hate terns: 

  Project Puffin is an organization dedicated to reintroducing wild puffins into their natural habitats. Recently, my wife and I joined the Audobon Society's "Adopt-a-puffin" program. Our adopted puffin is a beautiful 26-year-old named Y22. She spends the summers with her lifemate Bi70 on Eastern Egg Rock, an historic nesting island in the Gulf of Maine. We have already received a good deal of correspondence from Y22 and her caregivers, and we have watched her grow over the last year. She has been seen loafing with other puffins, billing with Bi70 (a graceful puffin pair bonding ritual), and bringing white hake fish to her fledgling chick. All of this may sound rather droll to those of you who have never experienced the joys of parenthood, but to us, there is no greater joy than seeing our own Y22 nurturing a new baby puffling. 

  When I picked up the most recent issue of "The Egg Rock Gazette," I was shocked to learn that another animal protection group has moved in on Project Puffin territory. Some pencil pusher at the Audobon Center has decided to save money by repopulating the same island with Common Terns! For those of you who haven't had the great displeasure of meeting a tern, allow me to describe these filthy creatures. Terns are the ornithological equivalent of yipping lap dogs. They are small, hideously ugly, and have annoying high-pitched chirps. They do not have any adorable behaviors like "billing" or "loafing," and their chicks are called "hatchlings" rather than the infinitely cuter "pufflings." Basically, the Common Tern is only an endangered species because of its own stupidity and complete lack of any useful purpose whatsoever.  To make matters worse, these terns consume massive amounts of herring, white hake, and sand launce fish, the three dietary staples of the Atlantic Puffin. In just a few short years the terns already outnumber the puffins on Eastern Egg Rock with nearly 1600 chicks fledged! 

  I have also heard that terns come up a lot more often than puffins in crossword puzzles. Unfair.

  Now is the time for men and women of conscience to take action.  I'll be damned if I'm going to see one more of those gentle, loveable puffins crowded out of her ancestral nesting grounds by some brainless hake-stealing waterfowl. Please help me send the Audobon Society a strong message that we have zero tolerance for their shameless tern-promoting policies. Let the terns live, I say, but let them live somewhere else. Contact them at puffin@audubon.org or visit them on the web at http://www.projectpuffin.org/ 

  The January Hard Taco song is called, "Dr. Fenwick's Snake Oil." Any and all profits I make off this song will be earmarked for disseminating my birdist propaganda. Enjoy. 

With warmest regards, 

HT 

A Three Piece Iron Hand Fluter

Dear Friends,

  Gather round, children, for I have a story to tell.  A story that will capture your imagination and lift your spirits. Be careful, though, or you might learn something along the way... about antiques!

  The story of Harris's Fiddle Tune dates back to age of the Old South, to the days when aristocratic jack dandies lazed away hot summer days, resting their mint juleps on the backs of hard working cotton gins. Legend has it that the greatest fiddle player in Kentucky in the early 19th century was a man by the name of Harris, and he was about as far from an aristocrat as you could get. Fiddle players in that particular time and place weren't exactly what you or I would call law-abiding, and Harris was no exception. He did it all. Gambling, petty theft... Why he even robbed a stagecoach or two.  I guess you could say that crime was his day job, and fiddle playing was more his hobby. Nobody would want to run into him in a dark alley, even if there were any back then, I'm telling you. But in the dance halls and in the juke joints of the Shallow South, Harris was a bona fide hero. His signature piece was a blazingly fast solo number that became known simply as "Harris's Fiddle Tune."  

  One night after a particularly raucous show in a Louisville cat house, the local sheriff caught Harris beating an old grocer with a three piece iron hand fluter. 

  Harris tried to escape, but his feet were no match for the sherrif's 31" antique lead tricycle. 

  Harris was immediately arrested and sentenced to hang the next day. The good judge sat down with Harris to draw up a will, but it wasn't really necessary - the only thing Harris owned was his old wooden fiddle. (The hand fluter belonged to the grocer, and Harris gave it back after the beating.)  Harris' fiddle, however, was nothing to be sniffed at. It had a tone so rich and so pure that every fiddle player in Appalachia coveted it more than an intricately detailed shoe made of pure gold.

  Harris promised to leave his fiddle to anyone in the county who could match his skills at his signature tune. The day of his execution, the sheriff led Harris down from jail to the town square, sat him on the back of a horse and tied the noose around his neck. Dozens of fiddlers lined up single file and took turns performing their renditions of Harris' Fiddle Tune. Harris listened patiently, but when the last fiddler put down his bow, he realized that none of them had the skills or the passion to carry on his legacy. He could never bequeath his magical figgle (as he called it) to a two bean imitator. 

   As the crowd watched in awe, he hoisted the instrument high above his head, as if he was about to hand it to one of the fiddlers. Suddenly, he brought it crashing down on the horse's rump with a wild crack. The fiddle was smashed to pieces and the horse took off running, leaving Harris dangling like a rare bronze stirrup.

  Harris' ashes was placed in an antique copper urn, the predecessor to the modern day Thermos. The fiddle's ashes were placed in a tin one. Legend has it they were never buried, but left beside a horsecart somewhere south of Owensboro. 

  Over the years, the fiddle tune itself was lost.  No one could play that song like him, you see, so it was long forgotten by time you and I were born. This month's Hard Taco song, "Harris's Fiddle Tune," is not actually a rendition of that forgotten tune, but rather a tribute to the story of Harris and his legacy. I recorded a low-fi version of this song in 1996, which has also been lost somewhere in the archives of history. Since then, I have become related by marriage to a gentleman named Harris, who by pure coincidence is both the most gifted fiddle player and fearsome criminal mastermind I have had the pleasure to know. Ain’t life a funny roll in the mud, sometimes?

With warmest regards,

Zach