How to Save Sharper Image

Dear Friends,

   I was saddened to learn that The Sharper Image shut down all of its retail stores last year. Perhaps their product line was simply too innovative. Or perhaps the customers that could benefit most from the Sleeve Lengthener or the GPS-ready Water Wings are already dead.

   The Hard Taco song for February, "Let's Play Pretend," is only a little innovative, so it might be just thing that The Sharper Image needs to reconnect with consumers.

   Okay, Sharper Image, now that we’ve entered into this partnership, let's take a look at your competition. There used to be a catalog called Hammacher Schlemmer that sold a lot of similar gadgets. Well, when Hammacher Schlemmer came to America, its name was offhandedly changed by an anglophile Ellis Island immigration official. On paper, the company must now go by "Hamburglar.”

    The real giant in the innovative products industry is Sky Mall. They have identified a willing niche: airborne consumers with at least one hand. Their only competition for the attention of these consumers is a half-finished crossword puzzle in the in-flight magazine. I suggest that The Sharper Image change their name to "Mallwings" or “Shopping While High” to help capture a share of this market, and kick off their new product line with the following moderately innovative offerings:

Lawn Sodoku - A delightful square 20' x 20' Soduku board, easy to install. One use, medium difficulty. $39

Thiesman Fracture Replica - Have your own 1:1 scale replica of Joe Thiesman's gruesome compound tibial fracture. $119.

  

Meter-Aid Parking Alarm - The Meter-Aid uses smart technology to predict when your meter is about to expire. It then drops additional quarters directly onto your windshield. When the parking cops arrive to ticket you, they will be safely bribed while you continue your errands. $279

Shoeprint Stencils - Wouldn't it be great to do the Shim-Sham-Shimmy in your own kitchen? But who can remember the moves?! With our new shoeprint stencils and some black spray paint, you can commemorate your favorite dance moves wherever you want. These stencils are also helpful for more mature customers who don’t remember how to get to their own bathrooms. $49

  

Chinese Burr Garden - Ancient Chinese horticulturalists knew that burrs could be arranged in a bed of sand to channel positive energy. While wild burrs are very difficult to capture and dangerous to handle, modern Chinese horticulturists believe that the same affect can be attained by arranging small pieces of Velcro. $69

Engraved Gummi Worm – Have your initials (or favorite three letter word) commemorated forever on a gummi worm. Maximum order: 1. $25

Showers of the World – What would it feel like to shower at the bottom of Lake Ontario or the shores of the Panama Canal? The Showers of the World satellite system continuously updates your shower experience to match the real time temperature and turbidity of any body of water in the world. $499

AccentID - Accents are caused by subtle changes in the shape of someone's palate and tongue. Now you can identify even the most obscure accents. Simply take a plastic/plaster mold of the foreign person saying "em," "voo," unh," and "beef." AccentID will analyze the molds and tell you the origin of the accent from its library of >10000 languages and dialects.

iPod Popcorn Adapter - iPods are great for watching small movies, but it's not truly a miniature theater experience without a single kernel of freshly popped buttered popcorn. Includes 20 individually wrapped kernels with adapter wiring. $49

Handsie Pajamas - We all remember pajamas with hands, but until now they were not available in adult sizes. Hurry, because this fad won’t last long. $69

Baby Jesus Monitor - Now parents can keep close tabs on Baby Jesus, even when they are up to 100 feet outside of the manger. $50

With warmest regards,

Zach

Down with Fruit Bruises

Dear Friends,

   Happy New Year, Sweetie. The first Hard Taco song for 2009, "Never Shake a Baby," is not only a great song, but a great idea for your next New Year's resolution. I'm not going to beat around the bush: 2009 is not going to be a ridiculously great year, whether you stick to this resolution or not.

   There is one resolution I hope we all keep, however. We must resolve to buy more American fruit. This is crucial because, for one, many people aren't buying enough American fruit. Tomorrow, when the supermarkets re-open, you can go scope out the produce aisle and see for yourself. The problem is fruit bruises. If there is one infallible truth about groceries, it is that nobody (Nobody) wants bruised fruit. 

   At this point, you are undoubtedly printing out Mapquest directions to the nearest megaphone rental so you can scream "I agree!" Relax... I can already hear you. If you feel the need to prove it, take this simple quiz about fruit bruise attitudes:

You accidentally pick up a bosc pear with an unsightly brown cavity. You immediately:
A) Avert your eyes. Remember that you were supposed to pick up some yogurt. Announce this aloud to everyone within 20 feet of you, and make it sound urgent. Run like hell.
B) Hold your arms over the broccoli, praying that one of those mist-machines on a timer will activate and cleanse the wicked bruise ichor from your fingers. Afterwards, run like hell.
C) Put the bruised pear in a bag. Use your iPhone to look up the mailing address of that insufferable prick you went to high school with. Think about mailing him the blemished pear as retribution for being so unforgivably loathsome. Realize that this would require you to handle the pear. Proceed, instead, to take a picture of the fruit bruise with your iPhone and email it to him. Run like hell.

   Now that we are, as they say, tethered to the same psychological zip-line, let's talk through a solution to the problem by examining the facts.

Fact: Nobody (Nobody) would intentionally purchase bruised fruit.
Fact: Every piece of fruit has a little sticker on it. This is called a fruit sticker.
Fact: The location of a fruit sticker on a given piece of fruit is entirely arbitrary.
Fact: If a piece of fruit is 95% healthy and 5% bruised, a sticker placed over a healthy area will drop the percentage of visibly delicious fruit to 90%. The likelihood that the fruit will be sold will plummet!

   Now imagine, if it pleases you, a device* that identifies the largest bruise on each piece of fruit and puts the sticker directly over it. Now the fruit from our example looks 95% healthy, 0% bruised, and 5% mysterious!  Folks, we just increased the chance of that fruit being sold (using math.)

   When people buy more American fruit, you guessed it: everyone wins. Suddenly, grocery stores will find themselves with a budget surplus, which they can spend on more fruit stickers. Soon, every fruit bruise in America will be concealed. With no more smashed, rotted fruit to camouflage, grocers will be forced to meet burgeoning demands by pulling handfuls of whatever out of the dumpster and covering it with a monolayer of fruit stickers.

   At this point, the buyers are going to catch on, right? People won't actually purchase wood shavings and amputated ankles just because they are encapsulated in small adhesive ovals... WILL THEY? 

   I can't predict that, but I'll be prepared for any contingency, because my plan has a PHASE 2. Instead of smothering a decayed piece of produce* with unattractive identification labels, we use stickers that are stylin'. I'm talking about stickers everybody (Everybody) wants. Of course, the licensing fees for branded images like Princess Jasmine or the ReMax balloon would be prohibitive, but there is one sticker that is highly desirable and absolutely free…

   I will not lie to you about this: I don’t know anybody (Anybody) who can resist this sticker. I recently stood in line for over an hour just to get one. Now imagine a banana wrapped in fifteen "I Voted" stickers, each with a little American flag on it. Would you buy that banana? Would you campaign on that banana's behalf? Would you stand behind that banana, even if it turns out to be rotten? I believe you would.

   I believe you will.

With warmest regards,
Zach

* or migrant worker

Good Afternoon, Cruel World

Dear Friends,

   At only 37 seconds, the Hard Taco song for December, "Giant U-Shaped Magnet," is the shortest piece to ever qualify as a monthly offering. From now on, Hard Taco will get in, tell you what you need to hear, and get out.

   As you know, the most popular topic of conversation for several years now had been The Case of the Runaway Bride. For those of you who have been living underneath a particularly heavy sound-proof rock, there was a woman named Jennifer Wilbanks who disappeared shortly before her wedding in the Spring of 2005. She reappeared in New Mexico, where she told police that she had been kidnapped and molested by a rotten-toothed Hispanic man. Eventually she confessed that she had invented the whole story, and simply had pre-marital jitters. This story was so captivating that nobody I know has been able to talk about anything else for nearly four years. You see, cases like this never really close. Will Wilbanks remarry? Will she issue a written apology to the rotten-toothed Hispanic community? Have the dogs in her search party been rendered useless for future rape-victim sniffing? If so, should Wilbanks have to pay to train some new dogs?

   This month, all interest in the Runaway Bride was suddenly and inexplicably supplanted by a new conversational nugget. The topic that has been on everyone's minds these days is financial uncertainty, and in particular "Depression-era suicide rates."  Unless you've been living in a particularly air-tight collapsed mine hole, you've seen headlines such as, "How to Talk to Your Children About Depression-Era Suicide Rates," and "Will Depression-Era Suicide Rates Change in the Next Five Years?"

   Many media outlets have been displaying grainy black and white images of disheveled businessmen standing on high ledges. What they don't tell you is that these pictures were all taken at the end of the Great Depression. You see, there were not nearly enough high-rises in 1929 to serve as suicide perches for the large influx of destitute businesspeople. Most corporate establishments were "ranch style" and had only one story*. Despairing white collar workers who jumped from the ledges of their workplaces would occasionally twist their ankles or damage a flower bed, but they rarely ended up dead enough to keep them from returning to work the next day.

   It was soon recognized that crest-fallen industrial tycoons had become an underserved population. The Roosevelt administration restructured the New Deal to include generous government skyscraper-building contracts, hoping to fill a much-needed role for woebegone day-traders and large business owners. These costly office spaces were quickly snatched up by companies whose self-destructive business executives needed high windows. The construction of these skyscrapers greatly increased the suicide rate among people with suits, while creating thousands of new jobs. This provided the economic stimulus that heralded the end of Great Depression.

   70 years later, it appears that we may have learned nothing from history. Unless you've spent the last several months suspended in thick foam, you would know that new skyscraper construction projects, such as the Chicago Spire, have halted due to the subprime mortgage crisis.  Friends, we need to prevent this from happening. Today's despondent billionaires are not satisfied simply to jump 100 feet to their doom. Warren Buffet, Alice Walton, Michael Dell, and others have declared that they would be "better off dead" and demanded that the government build them a 200-story building from which to hurl themselves. (This request has often been referred to as the Forbes 200.) Microsoft's Bill Gates has reportedly stated, "I cannot consider suicide a legitimate option to end my [expletive] misery unless I can plummet at least 250 stories." Gates added, "I doubt anyone would miss me."

   Please join me in urging our new administration to continue building supertall buildings. We need our nation's richest men and women to end their own lives so we can go back to talking about the Runaway Bride some more.

With warmest regards,

Zach

* As opposed to "dude ranch style," a type of architecture in which weight-bearing walls were reinforced with belt buckles and buttressed with lassos.

Top Ten Sad Horse Stories

Dear Friends,

   The Hard Taco song for November is called, "The Night That Eight Belles Died." If you watched the 2008 Kentucky Derby, you may be familiar with the doleful tale of Eight Belles, the filly who inexplicably fell and both broke her front ankles immediately after passing the winning post.

   Sad horse songs have always been my emotional Achilles heel. I actually get a lump in my throat when I hear, "Old grey mare she ain't what she used to be." I mean, my God, that poor mare! That said, you can imagine what I was going through when I found out that the only filly in the Derby was put down mere seconds after running the race of her life. Honestly, it's got to be number one on the top ten list of sad things that could happen to a horse. Here are other scenarios that round out that list.

2. The roof of the barn is about to cave in, and everyone knows it. At the last minute, a brave horse volunteers to martyr himself so that the other animals can make the glue they need to fix the roof.

3. A horse falls in a well, and he is too heavy to be pulled out by conventional means. The whole town has to chip in to raise enough money to buy a 50 foot syringe so they can euthanize him from above.

4. A Clydesdale has to take chemotherapy, and it makes the glorious tassels of hair around his hooves start to fall out. The other Clydesdales all shave their hoof tassels, because of solidarity. Budweiser films an inspirational commercial with the shaved horses pulling a sleigh and pledges to donate $10,000 in the fight against horse cancer. Veterinary scientists are so inspired by this commercial, they spend all of the grant money on beer.

5. Mr. Porter has to take poor Cinnamon back to the ranch after he discovers that his daughter's recurring birthday wish was actually for a peony.

6. A gallant bay named War Criminal is going to retire from racing after the Belmont Stakes. Unfortunately, he ends up losing because the rule book enigmatically refers to "racing animals" rather than "horses," and as such does not specifically exclude dart frogs from the competition.

7. Two wild appaloosas are captured and put in a zoo. At first, they spurn their realistic plains-like environment. Eventually, they realize that they have an opportunity to showcase their proud appaloosa heritage. They make a pact to never look back, but yeah, right. The next day a famous zoo critic writes a review with the headline, "Crappy Local Zoo Fleeces Public with Boring Horse Exhibit." The horses get completely depressed and start sleeping in way too late.

8. Benjamin Katz has a Dungeons and Dragons character named Borthwain Golf-raven (also known as Borthwain the Vigorously Renowned.) Borthwain uses a bag of electrum pieces to purchase magical barding armour for his steed, Strifeheart. The horse is delighted to discover that the armour is made out of flax mail +1. This story is more pathetic than sad, but I thought it was worth including.

9. A miniature horse is sick of being typecast in comical roles. In his heart, he's just like every other horse, but he happens to be small. Tell me what's so goddamned funny about that.

10. Ole Myrtle has been proudly straining at the plow for over twenty years, but now Farmer Delmar has a tractor, and she isn't needed anymore. He pats her on the nose and puts her out to pasture with the other nags, Ole Mamie, Ole Beulah, Ole Jennie, and Ole Claribel. One day, the tractor's engine breaks. Farmer Delmar is out of his mind with not knowing what to do, but the horses look at each other and nod. They harness the tractor to their backs and pull it through the fields, tilling and tilling until the sun goes down. For one last day, they feel alive again.

With warmest regards,
Zach

Finding Mr. Smile

Dear Friends,

  The Hard Taco song for October is called, "Seasonal Affective." This song is so good, if you play it in your car, all of the manholes will explode into the sky you drive by. Ka-Woosh!*

   Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a well-characterized mood disorder in which patients suffer from symptoms of depression during periods of inadequate light exposure. This usually happens during prolonged periods of dimness, such as the winter months. However, there are severe forms of SAD in which patients can feel hopeless and deflated after brief periods of inadequate light, such as when their eyes are covered during a game of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey." Tragically, hundreds of Mexican children take their own lives every year when they are blindfolded and handed a piñata bat. 

   There are several other forms of stimulus-induced depression, including Latitude Affective Disorder (LAD), Euclidean Geometry Affective Disorder (EGAD), Queen Affective Disorder (QUAD) or a subset of that, Bohemian Rhapsody Affective Disorder (BRAD). Some people also suffer from Thinking Outside Of the Box Affective Disorder (TOO BAD) or even Midcourse Architectural and Terminal Tier Review Expeditionary Sustainable Solutions Program Affective Disorder (MATTRESS PAD).

   Finally, there is an uncommon syndrome in which feelings of anger and frustration are caused by confusing "Affect" and "Effect." This condition has been called People Incorrectly Spelling Seasonal Effective Disorder (PISSED).

   The most effective therapy for these conditions is the four-pronged combination treatment of chinning up, hunkering down, finding Mr. Smile, and tucking away all the blues into an invisible envelope that can't be opened.

With warmest regards,
Zach

* While "Ka-Woosh" is certainly an appropriate sound effect for exploding manhole covers, it is also falafel wrapped in lamb and grape leaves. 

No Diets Ever Work for Anyone Except That These Diets Work for You

Dear Friends,

The Hard Taco song for September is called, "Jelly IA." This song is not about a city in Iowa or an NCAA sports division, as the name may suggest, but a celebration of the seafaring life! You may notice that the lyrics are inspiring, but nonspecific enough to serve as a rallying call for all nautical peoples, from merchant marines and whalers to Argonauts and high school crew teams. Shanty on, my friends!

Are you ready for some foosball?

I raised a few eyebrows in my fantasy foosball draft last week by picking The Row of 3 Foosmen ahead of The Row of 5 Foosmen. Some of the ESPN pundits have predicted that The Row of 2 Foosmen has "deep sleeper potential" and "plenty of upside." Is this possible? No, because it is The Row of 3 that has all of the sleeper potential and upside. Smack.

Your Neighbors at Hard Taco Want to Help You Make Healthy Choices

For years, I've harbored a nagging sense of guilt about the prevalence of obesity in America. Have I been surreptitiously endorsing the consumption of tacos, thereby encouraging my adolescent readers to become or remain fat? Some have suggested that I should remove this subliminal impetus by changing our band name to Hard Fiber Supplement or perhaps, Flax Taco. No, my dear chubbies, that's just the kind of thinking that made you fat in the first place. Rather, I will take a page from the Philip Morris playbook and provide my audience with dieting strategies, while continuing to openly plug the smooth, satisfying taste of the hard taco.

Here, then, are three infallible ways to shed those kilos without having to sacrifice taste (or volcano virgins.)

1. The 51 Cent Stamp Diet

This one is easy, but requires patience. All you have to do is eat lots of salad greens, and replace the dressing with generous portions of 51 cent stamps.  Top nutritionists agree that this diet will be so effective that we can all let ourselves go until 2014 when these stamps are first printed. In the meantime, you can spend the same amount on postage by sprinkling a 3:1 admixture of 3 cent stamps and 42 cent stamps on your salad greens. This practice will not affect your body weight in any way, but it will enable the restaurant to ship the leftovers to your house so you don't have to carry a doggie bag around all night.

2. The Oelectrolyte Diet

Her Majesty's Registered Dieticiaries have long known that the secret to maintaining a healthy weight is a daily allowance of essential oelectrolytes. Not surprisingly, the richest sources of essential oelectrolytes are English traditional foods, including:

• Pea meal
• Bladder treacle
• Blood crisps
• Kidney Tea
• Clotted eels 'n gravy
• Mutton batter

3. The Iron Chef Diet

A stoic Japanese chef will take whatever food you crave most and prepare a perplexing five course meal using it. Do you feel like a slice of pie before bed? Iron Chef Chen Kenichi wrest that pie from your hands and return one hour later with a crispy sunburned pork in a pie reduction sauce, roasted spicy pie over skordilia, flash-seared pie and cantaloupe terrine, and a marinated soft-shell turtle in a pie weave dressed with a veal-tongue champagne. Allez cuisine!

With warmest regards,

Zach

Getting Into a Good Dojo

Dear Friends,

If you’ve ever wondered what Hard Taco sounds like LIVE and IN PERSONS, you may enjoy the new song for August, "Rotisserie.” It was recorded at a dojo party in 2001.

On the Subject of Dojo Parties

By definition, a martial art is any codified system of combat in which the combatants yell "Hi-YAH!" during a strike. To begin the path towards mastering a martial art, you must first select a dojo. This is sort of like picking which fraternity to join. Everyone tries to get into the "cool" ones, such as Jujitsu or Tae Kwon Do. 

But remember this: the dojo has to want you, too! At the end of Rush Week, there will undoubtedly be a roomful of drunk ninjas throwing shuriken and empty sake cans at the projected pictures of the less desirable candidates. These candidates will inevitably end up in a Tae Bo or Acupressure dojo. They can still make lasting friendships and learn a lot of valuable life skills, but no one will ever come to their parties except, perhaps, girls who do yoga.

Here is a summary of some of the most common martial arts, to help you pick which dojo is right for you.

Judo

A Mandarin word for "Two of (something)." A martial art is considered to be Judo if it consists of any combination of two different attacks, such as:

1. Kicking and hair-pulling

2. Suffocating with a pillow and teasing

3. Identity theft and growling

4. Telling half-truths and decapitating

Jujitsu

Jujitsu is a form of combat that takes place while lying on a floating pool mat, usually between bouts of intense tanning. A modern adaptation of jujitsu has been embraced by the military in Japan, where entire companies of armed soldiers recline comfortably in pools, waiting for their orders to paddle lazily over to the deep end and shoot someone.

Aikido

Aikido is not a form of fighting, but a notion of harmoniousness that unites the nine elements of the corporeal world (or Qiuouii) through ethnic jokes. For instance, I could describe a scenario in which a rabbi, a black Canadian, the Pope, and some gay persons are all in a rowboat when something tragic and amusing occurs. The punch line is not relevant. What is important is that all of those people were in that rowboat, fishing together, working together to catch fish, and enjoying each other's company. This togetherness has been referred to as the Qiuaiaa, or transcendent concordance. Aikido derives from the desire to attain this state for the self and for humankind. It also emphasizes the importance of stretching.

Ninjitsu
Ninjitsu is a form of combat practiced by the Ninja. (Likewise, Moose-jitsu is the form of combat practiced by residents of a particular city in Saskatchewan.) Ninjas are known for making warfare using unorthodox methods that have been forbidden by the Samurai code, such as assassination, espionage, and sweeping the leg. Ninjitsu, in fact, is not technically a martial art, since the black scarf wrapped over the mouth prevents the ninja from articulating the phrase, "Hi-YAH!" This muffling face wrap was imposed by the 16th century Samurai authorities who determined that Ninjas had been screaming "Hi-YAH!" at inappropriate times, such as when putting two pieces of bread together to make a sandwich.

Acupressure

Acupressure applied to the wrist of an attacker may quell a motion sickness-induced rage, which could theoretically pave the way for further attempts at diplomacy. Otherwise, acupressure is so poorly-suited for self-defense that people will want to be your enemy just to have an easy ass to kick. (See "A note about Ultimate Fighting Championships" below.)

Karate

This is the most popular martial art among children for one reason: grade inflation. There is so much grade inflation in karate that practically every 9-year-old in America already has a black belt. If you need to boost your GPA to get into med school, this might be the right dojo for you.

French Kicking

I included this one to drive home the point that not all martial arts are Asian in origin. French Kicking is popular among teenage couples who often refer to it as "Tongue Kicking" or "Slipping the Foot."

Shaolin Kung Fu

This martial art was developed at the Shaolin monasteries in the 11th century. The Shaolin monks developed ways to punch people that were literally a hundred years ahead of their time, giving them an enormous technological advantage over their foes. As you can imagine, a monk that is equipped only with an 11th century punch is going to be no match for a monk with a 12th century punch in his arsenal.

Finally, a note about Ultimate Fighting Championships:

Ultimate Fighting is a sport in which people from different dojos compete against each other. If you are ever involved in some sort of Ultimate Fighting Championship, try to arrange your opening match against an acupressurist. All you have to do is punch them in the stomach once, and they will spend the rest of the match pushing on their own earlobes to quell the pain.

With warmest regards,

Zach