Mother's Day Gift Suggestion Meme

Dear Friends,

The Hard Taco song for May is called, "Love Is In the Very Air."

Now that you're pondering the month of May and the institution of Love, let's solidify some Mother's Day plans!

I'm not going to argue against the allegation that Mother's Day has become too commercialized. It's easy to forget that Mother's Day is, of course, a religious holiday... All Hedon's Eve. It's nice to have a standing phone date with our parents, but we must also remember that the true meaning of this day is to consecrate the deflowering of the pagan fertility daemon Eostreg in the glow of spring's first gibbous moon. When we get caught up in the spending, wrapping, and visiting, we forget that the Eostreg the winged womb wraith chose this day among all others to lay her inverted pentacle at the base of the holly maypole and birth the two-headed druid of the gate, Scrotus the Excrete-agog.

Perhaps Mother's Day has turned into more of a "Hallmark Holiday," but is that so bad? I look around and I see families spending time together and showing genuine gratitude to their wives and mothers. That is how All Hedon's Eve should be celebrated, if you ask me. If we don't appreciate each other, the tradition of invoking the chaos magick of fur and feather by splattering a blindfolded virgin with hot beeswax loses meaning.

So I suppose there's nothing wrong with a little gift-buying this Mother's Day. In fact, I'd like to help you pick the perfect one for your mother, wife, or baby mama, in one simple step.

Step 1: Stop giving her personalized coupon books.
This coupon good for a 12 hour calf rub.
This coupon good for one new palindrome that starts with, "Partyboob." 
This coupon good for a high five, and guess what! It's double coupon day!

Epic yawn. Do you want your mother to leave you nothing but a coupon book in her will?
This coupon good for one guilty memory about your dead mother.

All you need to know in order to select an original personalized gift for your mother, wife, or baby mama is how much you love her, her first initial, and her birthdate. This is still part of Step 1. Check out how easy this system is:

Level of Love for Mother/Wife/Baby Mama (On a 32 point scale.)

1. Army surplus
2. Halfway House Made
3. Gingham and rhinestone
4. Gently used
5. Beer-battered
6. Cleveland Browns
7. Distressed balsa
8. Single use
9. Bacon-wrapped
10. Gryffindor
11. Celery-scented
12. Cut down a little belly fat each day with this one weird old
13. Bose
14. His and hers engraved
15. Hands free
16. Navajo
17. Electrolyte-infused
18. Shiatsu
19. Free trade
20. Micro fleece
21. Wrought iron
22. Helen Keller autographed
23. Airplane grade
24. Seahorse hair
25. Cuban
26. Two Tickets to Cirque du
27. Motor Trend's Most Dependable Mid-sized
28. Vice Presidential
29. Yeti hide
30. Actually tasteful
31. Self-aware
32. Hope Diamond-encrusted

First Initial of Your Mother/Wife/Baby Mama
A. Loose leaf tea
B. Clutch
C. Zumba DVD
D. "Massager"
E.  Nanny cam
F. iPhone skin
G. Book of Dirty Mad Libs
H. Amazon gift card
I. Burnt offering
J. Moccasins
K. Hip flask
L. Fashion scarf
M. Nude sculpture of you
N. Wind chimes
O. Gary Coleman skull
P. Hand juicer
Q. Claddagh ring
R. Skin whitening system
S. Photo collage
T. Water feature
U. Spa basket
V. Wine decanter
W. Gargoyle
X. Dog tags
Y. Hangover serum
Z. Tote

What day of the month was your Mother/Wife/Baby Mama born on?

1-20. (no suffix/modifier)

21. Groupon

22. Cozy

23. 40th Anniversary Edition
24. Of the Month Club
25. Labeler
26. As Originally Envisioned by Frank Lloyd Wright
27. -Opoly, the Board Game
28. In Pink with a Portion of Proceeds Going To Fight Breast Cancer
29. Shipped in a genuine kangaroo pouch
30. Shipped in a genuine Shroud of Turin
31. With certificate of authenticity

Now there's a present that will keep you in good standing until the next nativity of Scrotus the Excrete-agog. Good work!

With warmest regards,
Zach

Bridal Party Contest Part 2

Dear Friends,

The Hard Taco song for April is entitled, "Drinking and Sailing." Is this song an instant classic? Maybe, maybe not, but you can't stop me from putting in a hashtag. #instantclassic

Thank you to everyone who participated in last month's Hard Taco Wedding Toast Contest and lost! You are free to resent the big winner, Carina. She was the only contestant to recognize that a roomful of Nazis was the only thing missing from our otherwise perfect Jewish wedding.



The Winning Toast. I'm not sure who Will O'Hare is.

Although this is wrong for so many reasons, Carina has been retroactively awarded the title of 7th Groomsman and her image has been inserted into the back row of this photo of our bridal party, which is now in the Library of Congress.

When you're done with this picture, please put it in the

Library of Congress after-hours drop box.

I have also retroactively added her to this thank-you speech which I gave the night before the wedding. Even if you don't know these people, I hope you can appreciate the sentiments... friendship and brotherhood are universal!

Zach and Lauren Groomsmen Speech March 10, 2001 (Final draft)

I want to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt gratitude to my groomsmen. You are my brothers, my best friends, my most trusted confidantes. Sometimes, life can dole out some cruel hiccups, but I know that whatever happens, the seven of you will always be there for me. I think it would be fair to say that the likelihood of any of us ever growing apart is about the same as the chance of a terrorist attack on American soil. It's just never going to happen!

Brian. When I first heard you were dating my sister, I thought, "Who is this guy?" Then I found out that you could belch the alphabet in nine languages! Or is it always the English alphabet, but with nine different accents? Either way, come on, get up here and show us. Bri-an! Bri-an! Yahhh! Wooo!

Jeff K. A lot of people don't know this, but you used to have so many pimples. (Pause for laughter and applause.) To commemorate our friendship, here are dozens of tubes of zit cream. Just kidding, Bro! I'm just giving you a hard time... because of the zits!

Ethan. What can I say? I've known you since fourth grade. Sometimes, when people accuse me of not having any black friends, I lie to them and tell them that you are black. Is that weird? Maybe, but I'm sure you understand better than anyone why I do it. Anyway, interesting fact about Ethan... he's the only person in Wisconsin to ever get trapped inside of a riding lawn mower on live TV. True story.

Other Jeff. Let me share an amusing anecdote. Last year, Other Jeff and I went to a performance by Carl the PG-13 Rated Hypnotist. The gimmick is that Carl hypnotizes volunteers from the audience and makes them do and say things that may be inappropriate for children under 13. It's a riot. Anyway, Jeff volunteered, and once he was fully hypnotized, he started telling the audience that he was a Crib Death Survivor! I hadn't known this about him, but his parents later confirmed it for me... he suffered from a bad case of crib death when he was a baby, but at the last minute he made it. I have so much more respect for him now that I know what he's been through. Clearly, he never would have opened up like that for the PG-rated hypnotist we usually go to.

Josh. What's up, Roomie? This guy (pat Josh's head, if available) is the king of elbow grease. One time in college, there was some calypso music playing at our dorm party, and Josh yells, "Conga Line!" Then suddenly everyone else is like, "Did somebody say CONGA LINE?" It was unreal. I guess you had to be there.

Carina. Where are your yarmulke and bow tie? I hate to call you out in front of everybody, but frankly, it's disrespectful. All the other groomsmen are wearing yarmulkes and bow ties, and you're just wearing some kind of fuzzy scarf. If this is your passive aggressive way of getting back at the rest of us for not inviting you to the bachelor party, congratulations, it worked. The wedding pictures are ruined. I hope you're happy. 

Russell. To my new little brother, I only have one thing so say: "Beep! Beep! Initiating startup sequence! Beep! Beep!" That's a private joke between Russ and I, and there's no way I'm going to explain what it means to the rest of you!

Here's another one: "Officer down! Officer down!" Hilarious.

Or how about this one: "Who wants to play some KENO? Anyone? Keno?" That one's an instant classic. #instantclassic

So that's it. My only question is, who is going to be my wingman tonight and dance with the other brides so I can hit on the hot one? (Pat Lauren's head, if available.)

With warmest regards,
Zach

Please Join Our Bridal Party

Dear Friends,

   The Hard Taco song for March is called, "Down at the Berl." The crawfish boil, or "berl," is the classic Louisiana seafood gala. Cajuns cannot pronounce the sound oi, which is why so few of them are Jewish grandmothers. (Er! My daughter could have married that lerer, but her new berfriend is an unemplered ger! Maybe I should person his sermilk?)

The Turquoise Badge of Top Sellerness

Moonspotcollectibles101
(29303 rankings) 
100% positive feedback

Unless you have applied 20 cumulative miles of packing tape to cardboard, you are one of the millions of eBay users who can only sigh wistfully at the unattainable turquoise shooting star.

I've made an eBay bid or two in my time, and I'm happy to say I still have 100% positive feedback. I can't really claim to be proud of this, though, because everyone has 100% positive feedback. There is a bylaw on eBay's Terms and Conditions page that states that real feedback is only permitted when it is quietly sandwiched between screamed compliments.

"Great job great AWESMOE PRODUCT great communication!!!! gene hackman autograph never arrived A+++++++ THANKS!!!"

Seriously, dear friends. The A with seven plus signs after it used to mean something. The only institution with worse grade inflation than eBay is karate class. (See prior rant.)

That's why I renounced online auctioning about 10 years ago. My last serious eBay purchase took place just before my wedding. It is traditional for a groom to give his groomsmen a modest token of gratitude at the rehearsal dinner... either a monogrammed flask or any product made by Victorinox. Rather than saddle my besties with yet another swarm of Swiss Army Ants, I decided to go with autographed pictures of their favorite celebs. 

  

My third groomsman is/was a Harrison Ford fan. He likes to dress like Indiana Jones, insomuch as he always wears his belts diagonally instead of horizontally.

Third best groomsman.
(It's not only okay to rank them, it's necessary.)

I went on eBay and got him this signed 8"x10" glossy, but soon after it arrived, I started having second thoughts about giving it to him. Indy isn't even looking at the camera. Without seeing his face, how could I be sure it was really Harrison Ford?

The enclosed certificate vouches for the authenticity of the autograph,
but it does not say anything about the authenticity of the photograph.

I couldn't fathom why Harrison Ford would sign a fake picture of himself, but it didn't seem right to give a tainted piece of memorabilia to my fourth best groomsman. (Sorry for the demotion, Jeff, but those diagonal belts look really stupid. Tell Brian he's #3 now.) In the end, I found him a nice autographed picture of a Star Wars extra from a "top seller" with 110% positive feedback. The Raiders of the Lost Ark photo stagnated on my desk, and over many months it was sucked into the undertow of deep storage documents.

Then, a couple weeks ago, I was cleaning out a file cabinet and found it. Here's the dilemma... I don't want to keep the photo, but it's too valuable to throw away, and I'm certainly not going to sell it on eBay. I realize just now that the only way for this picture to fulfill its destiny is for us to recruit one more groomsman (or groomsmaid), and give it to him/her!

I would like you to apply to be that groomsman/groomsmaid. To be eligible, all you have to do is write a toast for our wedding. The only details you need are that the bride's name is Lauren and it is March 2001. (Also, everyone is excited because one of the actors from "The Usual Suspects" is hanging out in the hotel lobby, but you don't have to use that.) Feel free to make your toast sappy, funny, or embarrassing... it's your call, Groomsperson!

Send the text of your toast to znlondon@hotmail.com by the end of March, and you may be chosen as the winner. The prize package includes the Harrison Ford autograph, a doctored picture of you with the rest of the bridal party, and a personalized thank you note on original wedding stationery!

You've always been there for me and I just want to say I love you, man/woman,
Zach

Dear American Baby

Dear Friends,

It's time to crack open a bottle of Lemon Pledge...  Hard Taco is 20 years old! Multiply 20 x 12, and that's very close to the number of opportunities you've had to ignore the song of the month and scan the rest of the digest for pictures of politically subversive onesies. Shall we find out if you still have what it takes to pull this off? Okay, here's the new song, "Animal Feet." It's a fun, frenetic folk-rock ditty that sort of reminds me --

Oh! You're on to the next paragraph. Amazing! 20 years and you've still got it.

Throughout my childhood, publishers sent my dad free magazine subscriptions, hoping he would display them in his office. Most of these were mailed to the office address, but for some reason, American Baby came to our house. Maybe it was because Bush Sr. was in the White House, but there was just something about that magazine title that filled me with nationalistic pride. I had to give it a quick look, and soon I was hooked.

 

Would you like to purchase a subscription to Un-American Baby for just three easy installments of your freedom?

According to their own market research, 100% of American Baby's 6.1 million readers are adults, and over 90% of them are women. Nevertheless, when I was 13, I was obsessed with this magazine, and it had nothing to do with the cute babies. Frankly, I've always found homely babies more interesting, because their personal narratives are so real. What drew me to American Baby, however, was the advertisements. I knew it was wrong, even then, but I used to get a strange sense of nostalgia when I read ad copy about toys that nurtured infant development.

This brightly colored fabric bag is full of surprises that will stimulate cognitive development. Set of 9 musical rings are textured for a richer stacking experience!

Lump in throat.

The cheeky frog-shaped blocks are made of German beech wood and provide fun sensory stimulation that promotes the two most important forms of early exploration: grasping and probing.  Now she can grasp and probe throughout those crucial first 0-6 months and beyond!

Tears welling up. I know it's just an ad, but that baby's brain is growing so fast, and this toy is filling her little mind with so much wonder! Waaah!

The other highlight of American Baby, of course, was the sex column by Dr. Pepper Schwartz.

Time out. Let's just agree that Pepper Schwartz's graduate degree was not just a career move. Fate has a way of driving people with certain first names to seek doctorates. That is why medical school admissions committees have such a hard time turning away any applicant whose first name is Jay, Dre, Who, Doom, No, Evil, Octopus, Feelgood, or Assisted Suicide.

Time in. As much as I loved her name, Dr. Pepper penned the least sexy sex column ever. After all, her target demographic was the readership of American Baby magazine, and we've already established that only one of the magazine's regular readers was a 13-year-old boy. The other 6.1 million felt that the best way to address the topic of sex was shhhhhh, the sound of your footsteps is disrupting my baby's sleep-wake cycle and I can't shut up about what happens if he's 10 minutes late for his nap.

A classic reader question for Pepper Schwartz was, "Dear American Baby, My body is so different and I'm too tired for intimacy. What should I do?" There was also,  "Dear American Baby, My wife is always tired and thinks she is overweight, but I still find her attractive. What should I do?" Every now and then, a reader would simply write, "Please, please, please let me go to sleep. I promise I'll read your column tomorrow if you just let me go to bed now."

Her stock answer to all of these questions was cuddle a lot and be patient with each other. Nice, proper advice. Fast forward two decades and let's find out where Dr. Pepper Schwartz is now. Yep, she's writing a sex blog on the AARP website, and this new demographic expects a much smuttier dialogue.  "Dear AARP, I never imagined anything like this would happen to me..."

With warmest regards,
Zach

The Tourist's Secret Window to the Magic Kingdom

Dear Friends,

  The premier Hard Taco song for 2013 is called, "September Wedding." This song has words, but strangely, they are not rhyming words. Writing a song without rhyming lyrics is like setting a teacup on a saucer without an opulent paper doily. It's a little risky, because the guests are more likely to storm out of the house and say, "Why, I never!" But if the tea is good enough, patrons may view the absence of the doily as charmingly droll.

  Last Fall, we took a family trip to Orlando, and spent a couple days at "the happiest place on earth." That's my nickname for The National Vietnam War Museum. I knew the kids would love it, but the lines were terrible! Just to leave at the end of the day, we had to contend with this:

Next time I go to the Vietnam War Museum, I'm getting Fast Pass tickets.

  We also managed to squeeze in a brief visit to Disney World. I discovered that there are two types of attractions at the Magic Kingdom: those based on Johnny Depp movies, and those not yet based on Johnny Depp movies. Here is my guide to the former.

Johnny Depp movie: Pirates of the Caribbean
Attraction: Pirates of the Caribbean
Come see some of the saltiest dogs who ever sacked the Spanish Main! This ride is not yet available at Tokyo Disneyland, but they do have a refreshment stand that claims to serve some of the saltiest dog.

Johnny Depp movie: Finding Neverland
Attraction: Peter Pan's Flight
There is also Peter Pan's Beer Flight, which you can order during the monorail pub crawl.

Johnny Depp movie: Alice in Wonderland
Attraction: The Mad Tea Party
Learn from my oversight of judgment... if you must go on this spinning tea cup ride, do so before drinking Peter Pan's Beer Flight.

Johnny Depp movie:  Sleepy Hollow
Attraction: Sleepy Hollow Refreshments
This is in the part of the park formerly called Liberty Square, which will soon be renamed The Libertine Square.

The upstairs offices are leased by Ichabod Craniofacial Surgeons

Johnny Depp movie: Public Enemies
Attraction: The Hall of Presidents 
Ooh snap! But seriously, Walt was an anarchist.

Johnny Depp movie: The Ninth Gate
Attraction: The entrance to the Magic Kingdom parking lot

The gate on the far right, the ninth one, is usually not that crowded. 

Johnny Depp movie: From Hell
Attraction: It's a Small World
There must be some kind of arcane invocation that will send them back.

Johnny Depp movie: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street 
Attraction: Mr. Todd's Wild Ride
There is also the Harmony Barber Shop in the Main Street U.S.A. area. Apparently, they actually cut hair there, but that doesn't explain why the building has a smoke stack.

Johnny Depp movie:  Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Attraction: Cinderella's Castle
My kids waited in line to have this picture taken with Seen-dare-AY-yah.

Hola, princesa. Me llamo Malcolm. Eres tan hermosa como la puesta de sol.

Johnny Depp movie: The Corpse Bride
Attraction: The Haunted Mansion

Possibly also based on The Astronaut's Wife.

A large area of Fantasyland was blocked off when we were there, because they were building new rides and exhibits which should open later this year. Here are my predictions!

Johnny Depp movie: 21 Jumpstreet
Attraction: One Hundred and One Jumpstreets

Johnny Depp movie: What's Eating Gilbert Grape

Attraction: What's Eating Gilbert Gottfried, Who Played the Cranky Loud-Mouthed Parrot from Aladdin.

Johnny Depp movie: Blow

Attraction: Dopey the Dwarf's Rock Bottom Plunge

Johnny Depp movie: Don Juan DeMarco

Attraction: Mulan Juan DeMarco

Johnny Depp movie: Benny and Joon

Attraction: Benny and Jonas Brothers

Johnny Depp movie: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Attraction: Wreck-it (The Hotel Room) Ralph

Sincerely,

Zach

Hooray Luuuuucifer

Dear Friends,

My fellow miracles, there is a new Hard Taco album out today, and it is called Vainglorious.

This is an album of nice wholesome songs. What makes them wholesome? The BPM (beats per minute) is considerably larger than the FBPM (F-bombs per minute.) 60 FBPM, or one F-bomb every second, is really the upper limit of good taste. After that, listeners may become desensitized to high-frequency rhythmic cursing.

I've played this album in public on a few occasions, and each time I sensed energetic disapproval from the people around me. Were they actually booing? Maybe. Or maybe they were watching football games on their phones and cheering for a player with an "oo" sound in his name. John Kuhn, Isaac Bruce, Deuce McAllister, Victor Cruz... Maybe somewhere, one of those guys scored a touchdown. That would certainly make more sense than hundreds of people booing my CD, which as I mentioned, is both nice and wholesome.

And yet, if I took anything away from my freshman world history class, it's that you have to be very careful about how you interpret crowds of people going, "ooooo." Perhaps one of the more egregiously misleading statements ever made was, "Your Majesty, they're not booing.... they're cheering Looooooouis the 16th! You should just keep doing your thing. It's working!"

And Louis XVI was not the only historical figure who failed, because of the vowels in his name, to realize he was being booed. There's John Wilkes Booth, Mussolini, Shaka Zulu, Caligula, and Tupac Shakur, to name a few. Most likely, none of these men knew how terribly unpopular they were until they were being executed or assassinated.

Seriously! Stop shooting me! Wait, does that mean that all this time you guys were saying Boooo and not Raspuuuuutin?

So if you play this new album and immediately hear 100's of decibels of sibilance, be sure to ask the crowd: Are you hissing or just saying Vaingloriousssss?

Finally, I should mention that there is a new song this month, and it's called, "If I Wanted Your Opinion (I Would Beat it Out of You.)" You love yachting, so I know you'll find that this song to be a perfect companion to a quiet afternoon kicking back on your 115 foot yacht. You can close your eyes, let the music wash over you, and feel smooth and satisfied like you're kicking back on a 220 foot superyacht.

What other song can promise to double the length of your luxury watercraft?

With warmest regards,
Zach

Hard Taco homepage: http://hardtaco.org/

Child Piercing. Pros. Cons.

Dear Friends,

The Hard Taco song for November is called, "Pale Mama Jones." The goal here was to make a tune that would work with a slow-motion action sequence in a Resident Evil movie.
A Place to Put Your Decorative Baubles
Last month, I came home and found a sign taped to the door handle. "Girls Rule, Boys Drule, except when dads let there daughters get there ears pearced."

I recognize that a young daughter who wants pierced ears is not high in the canon of fatherhood tribulations. It's not like she's smoking grapefruit peels or dating a nerd. She just wants to wear earrings. So why is this so hard for me? Part of it is that I've never set foot inside a tattoo parlor or piercing joint, and when I try to imagine what goes on in there, every scenario frightens me.

Scenario 1: A woman with a Mohawk and ripped fatigues presses the end of a coat hanger into her cigar until the metal glows, and then thrusts it into your earlobe, screaming, "Just wiggle your finger when you can't hear me anymore!"

Scenario 2: A misunderstood teenager with eyeliner that is so thick that it forms a contiguous black smear between her eyes sneers at you for thirty straight minutes, but you can't tell, because her face is droopy and expressionless.

Scenario 3: A witch doctor with a bone through his nose blows smoke rings into your face until you hallucinate that a big-eyed hyena is beckoning you to follow it to a white tree. You suddenly wake up from this spirit quest three days later when someone says the code word, "monkeyshines," and find yourself standing above the corpse of a foreign dignitary, holding a bloody twig.

Maybe my kid would have a different experience, but there's simply no denying that ear piercing is a barbaric custom.  If you were a Martian comparative sociology major, and you learned that the dominant organism on Earth condoned poking hooks through the earlobes of their children, what would you think? You would be shocked at the brutality of this primitive ritual... almost as shocked as you would be by the fact that these creatures have earlobes, rather than regular old burrowing insectoid soul matrix-lobes.

I've heard all the arguments against circumcision, but let's be honest here. Ear piercing serves no purpose other than fashion.  Circumcision, well, that's the double threat... it's for health and for fashion! As far as I can tell, the only other difference is that distant relatives don't usually inquire about a boy's circumcision status when choosing him a birthday gift.

I talked about this with some of the soccer moms last week, and apparently none of them get the same icky JonBenet Ramsey vibe from child-piercing that I do. In fact, one of them said that it's better to get girls pierced when they are just a few months old, because they don't have the motor control to reach their earlobes and pick at the holes! That makes sense, I guess, but then when is a good time for children to get their breast implants? My babies were able to touch their chests from day one, and I really don't want them to get infected. Should we pin their elbows in inflexible casts while the breast implants heal, or is it better just to remove the arms all together?

For a few minutes after that comment, everyone seemed really interested in watching the soccer game again.

Then one of the moms mentioned that she was going to take her daughter to a kiosk at the department store where they can pierce both ears at the exact same time. I like that idea, because it reminds me of dining at a fancy restaurant, where a whole parade of waitstaff sets down your entrées in unison. Maybe at the Piercing Pagoda, nine cosmetologists rappel down the walls, ninja-style, and shoot needle guns at your earlobes, nostrils, nipples, navel, eyebrows, and everything else, all at the same moment. Bammity, bam, bam! Now just hold still for a few more seconds while we connect them all with chains. Zippity, zip, zip! All done! Would you like a sucker?

It's a lot to think about, and I'd appreciate any advice, especially advice with the word "clip-ons" in it. The problem is that if I say no, there will be all kinds of fallout. Then next thing you know it's my fault that Boys Drule.

With warmest regards,
Zach