A Compendium of Lesser Known Natural Disasters

Dear Friends,

  SENSITIVE TOPIC ALERT. I am going to be talking about tsunamis now. If you aren't ready or not bright enough to discuss tsunamis, read no further, because tsunamis are the subject of this essay. I'm going to start by asking myself, "What, exactly, is a tsunami?" I think we all know enough about common natural disasters to have a healthy fear of earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes and tornados, but tsunamis were never really on the radar until very recently. Thanks to the international media, we are all learning about things like how to tsunami-proof your workplace and why a tsunami is worse for people who live in ravines than people who live on hummocks.

  However, tsunamis are just one of a considerable list of lesser-known natural disasters which should incapacitate us with fear. Go to your file cabinet right now and grab your most recent homeowner's policy, because you're going to want to know the extent of your coverage for each of these Acts of God.

MUDSLIDE: This one is pretty self-explanatory. When you put mud on an inclined plane, such as a mountainside or the roof of a church, it slides down, blanketing everything in its path in warm, relaxing mud. If you see a mudslide headed your way, be sure to wrap your hair in a towel and put cucumber slices over your eyes.

CYCLONE: Thinner than a tornado, but more conical than a twister. As you know, the National Weather Service names hurricanes after people, such as "Hurricane Andrew." Cyclones, on the other hand, are named after concepts. In 2004 there were cyclones named Justice, Ambiguity, and Virginity.

HOT GEYSER: The scariest thing about hot geysers is that you never know where or when they're going to erupt. Sometimes you hear a gurgling noise right before it goes, but by then it's PRETTY MUCH TOO LATE FOR YOU. If Jerry Bruckheimer really started thinking about hot geysers, I think he'd realize how much dramatic potential they have.

WHIRLPOOL: Every year the lives of thousands of poor, inner city kids are claimed by whirlpools, but you almost never hear about it. You can bet that the first time some middle class white girl falls in a whirlpool they'll be forming a new cabinet position to figure out how to stop them. I, for one, want to go on record having said, "George W. Bush, whirlpools have always been here, whether you like it or not."

TYPHOON: A typhoon is sort of the gobstopper of tropical weather patterns. Basically you start with a common eddy. This is surrounded by a cloudburst, which itself is surrounded by a zephyr.  A small typhoon can be easily confused with a nor'wester, but the larger ones often have the ferocity of a line squall with all the stubbornness of a raging Chinook or a low pressure system.

STAMPEDE: While not technically a natural disaster, a stampede can be just as dangerous. Most laypeople think the best way to avoid a stampede is to stay away from large herds of animals. NOT TRUE.  Travelers have been trampled to death by as few as three buffalo if they are pissed/startled enough.

FLASH FLOOD: The main difference between a standard flood and a flash flood is that the latter tends to occur just when you start to relax and think you are no longer in danger. I know people who tied an inflatable dinghy to their chimney, which is wise. They did not, however, inflate it ahead of time, which is unwise. If you think you're going to have time to blow up a whole dingy during a flash flood, you're not just stupid, but stupid and drowned soon.

FJORDS: I think James Michener died in one of these, but that might have been a dust bowl.

MONSOON: When these are far away, they make a pleasing baritone sound like the instrument for which they are named. However, don't get too close because they can cause both wind and gusts.

TARPITS: These have wiped out entire races of civilized prehumans. The more people and livestock a tarpit consumes, the larger it becomes. There is one in Los Angeles that they weren't able to stop for hundreds of years until someone thought of hosing it down for a long time.

  I don't have space to write more, but I also did research on cave-ins, meteorites, sunspots, glaciers, locusts, eclipses, and sleet. Feel free to ask me about any of these topics if we run into each other.

 

  The Hard Taco song this month is called "Accidents Happen," and it's another chapter of the Hard Tack Medicine Show. If you haven't been keeping up, here is the back story. Osric the Fop has vowed to kill Good King Stereotypies (rhymes with "carry lot o' peas") because of something unsavory the king did a long time ago. However, Osric is distracted from his task by the King's unprincipled wife, the Exotic Queen Stasia. He is so distracted, in fact, that she becomes pregnant. Osric soon realizes that this predicament could actually be an opportunity to recruit the Queen to help him with his mission.

  If you are too worried about typhoons and magma to download the new song, I don't blame you. When you're ready, it will be there for you.

With warmest regards,

HT

The Dangling Horseshoe

Dear Friends,

    Have you gotten the email about the girl who falls out of a ship after eating too much Spanish Fly? 

    How about this one? A man misses his flight because he sees a ghost in his bathroom. Later, he finds out that the plane he was supposed to be on crashed. The ghost was just trying to warn him! 

    How about this? A couple of teenagers are "parking" when they hear on the radio that a psychotic horse has escaped from a nearby farm and may try to kill people. Frightened, the boy decides to take the girl home right away. When they drop her off, they find a horseshoe dangling from the door handle of the passenger seat!

    The people sending you these emails will swear up and down that the stories are true, but they aren't. Here are a few red flags to help you pick out the urban myths:

1. They always happen to "a friend of a friend." No one actually knows the person in the story by name.

2. There is always some kind of moral or lesson (i.e. you shouldn't take Spanish Fly when you're on a boat, or you shouldn't put your lap dog in the microwave to dry its fur.) 

3. There is often some kind of unheeded warning, (i.e. "Whatever you do, don't turn around while the Lord is smiting Sodom and Gemora!")

    I want you to know that the Hard Taco Digest is a source you can trust. I write five to ten completely different emails every month and only send out one. Why? Because if my fact checkers can't verify every single statement with at least two sources, I throw out the entire email and the computer it was written on. 

    With that in mind, I want you to know that the story I'm about to tell you is absolutely true. My friend Roni told me this, and she was directly related to the person who told her the story. 

    Apparently during World War I the United States government employed an elite team of scientists and pseudoscientists to develop a machine that emitted a very specific low frequency... a frequency that caused everyone who heard it to instantly lose control of their bowels. The intention was to unleash this terrifying device on the battlefields of the western front, paralyzing the enemy ground troops. The brave American foot soliders would then come swarming out of their trenches and swiftly neutralize the dumbfounded Germans, who would be rendered completely defenseless by their recent pants-soiling. 

    It was a great idea in theory, but the scientists and pseudoscientists who co-invented this awesome machine were not able to devise a means for using it without exposing themselves to the frequency, as well. In fact, everyone in the Pentagon testing facility lost control of their bowels, including Secretary of State Robert Lansing and a group of Chinese ambassadors touring the facility. The nearby US Mint facility was also affected, and all of the paper money was soiled and had to be cleaned (very carefully, without ripping it.) 

    In the bloody wake of the Battle of Neuve-Chapelle in 1915, the bodies of 11,000 dead British and American soldiers were found, all wearing clean diapers. This led to rumors that Wilson was intending to deploy the machine in combat, after all, but it could never be proven.

    That was the last that anybody heard of the machine. Most people believe that the government is still hiding it somewhere in Los Alamos. They are biding their time, waiting for another ground war or perhaps a race riot to unleash this ungodly device on anyone... and everyone! 

    The Hard Taco song this month is called "Despair." It's part of the Hard Tack Medicine Show and it features Good King Stereotypies and his hairdresser, Benlolo. In case you're not caught up with the plot, the King's first two wives died in shipwrecks greater than twenty years ago, and he is still overcome with grief after all this time. Benlolo is not only his hairdresser, but his most trusted advisor. See how it plays out between these two!  

With warmest regards,

Zach

A Severance Package for the Knocker Up

Dear Friends, 

I would be the first to admit that rock stars get all the attention, but the real excitement takes place behind the scenes. I'd like to dedicate this, the 30th Hard Taco Digest, to the world's most amazing crew. Here are some of the jobs held by our indispensible backstage supporting cast... (I don't know any of their names, but they are all fantastic people!)

1. Manager

2. Sound engineer

3. Brow girl

4. Foister (joiner)

5. Ballaster 

6. Puggard

7. Blentonist (water diviner)

8. Fanwright

9. Shanty Man

10. Bowlminder (where would the band be without well-mided bowls?)

11. Knocker-up

12. Chaff cutter

13. Mangle keeper (will use a mangle for a fee)

14. Inspector of Weights and Measures

15. Cratch maker (Makes ALL cratch including mangers, cribs, and frames)

16. Decoiner

17. Master Lumper

18. Cape beater

19. Scullery maid

20. Loblolly boy (who assists the ship's physician)

21. Jiggerman

22. Bone button turner (makes buttons on a lathe)

23. Zitherist

24. Paling man (seller of street eels and crockery)

25. Arkwright

26. Flax wife (the old maid who rets and dresses flax)

27. Alabasterer (not to be confused with the alabastere, who wields a crossbow but does not work with alabaster.) 

28. Rack maiden (Dresses the ore in tin mines)

29. Checkweighman

30. Dragoon (mounted infantryman)

31. Higgler (tender of fine higgle)

32. Mustard phrenologist

33. Slubber doffer (removes bobbins from spindles) 

34. Groundsel and chickweed peddler (streetseller of common weeds, used to feed songbirds)

35. Cod placer

36. Fancy man

37. Stuff gowsman (junior barrister)

38. Butter carver (makes imprints in butter pats)

39. Hemp and Anchor Smith

40. Daguerreotype monger

41. Plumer (makes or sells plumes, often confused with a plummeter, who operates plumb bobs or unfinished plumbum)

42. Damster

43. Feather beater (cleans feathers by caning them)

44. Gummer (improves old saws by deepening the cuts)

45. Buckle tongue maker 

46. Frobisher (removes rust from armor)

The Hard Taco song for November is called "Margot Dupris," and the lyrics page for this song comes with a special featurette::: (It's cool, but not quite cool enough to be called a feature, but I put three colons to give it as much emphasis as three exclamation points!!!) All of the tough words I didn't know are linked to dictionary.com so simpletons like me can look up what they mean while listening to the song. I haven't personally looked up any of the words, so I still don't know what the song is about, but I heard that it made the Queen of England say "Oh my!" and blush a little. 

Okay, time out. Where the hell is that guy when I need him? I need my fine higgle tended NOW! 

With warmest regards,

Zach

Take the 75 cents, Samurai. You earned it.

Dear Friends, 

Congratulations to Mike Delodnick from Geneva, PA, the winner of our Heroes in Action children's poetry contest. Mike will receive a $50 gift certificate to Pier 1 Imports and have his poem published at the bottom of this newsletter. Congratulations, again! 

I'd like to take a few moments to tell you about my personal hero, a hemiparetic nun who preaches on the open access Christian TV station. Sister Morgan (as I'll call her) has been the host of the popular "Visions of a Lamb in Christ" for many years.  I changed her name to "Sister Morgan" because I'm about to tell you confidential medical information.

A few years ago, Sister Morgan had a major stroke and was left with a facial droop and misaligned eyes. Now I've seen some sad saps with some tough breaks, but I have never witnessed this kind of determination from a stroke patient. Sister Morgan went back to her televised pulpit less than a week after leaving the hospital. For a few months, every time I would turn the TV on, she would be there in her eye-patch, drooling and slurring through her Hail Marys. 

How best to honor such a bastion of spiritual fortitude and constancy? It turns out, there is some archaic bylaw that prevents her from being canonized into sainthood while she's still alive. (If your Load-of-Crap Meter just went through the roof, I'm totally with you.) Unfortunately, no one even told me about the stupid rule until after I had already gone door-to-door and collected over 30 signatures! 

Then I got to thinking... maybe the best way to honor her would be to do what I do best, and help other people with strokes!

Then I remembered that there is nothing that can be done for those people. In fact, I think I'm going to hold on to those signatures.

Finally, I decided that the best way to show my profound respect for Sister Morgan would be to make a disabled nun a major character in my musical. The Hard Taco song this month, "Twylla's Song," is the ribald yarn of a crippled woman-of-the-cloth, modeled very loosely on Sister Morgan. The principal difference in their respective handicaps is that Twylla is missing four fingers on her left hand, while Sister Morgan suffers from a wedge-shaped brain infarct. Also, Twylla's handicap stems from an ancient curse, while Sister Morgan's handicap stems from high blood pressure and red meat. 

With warmest regards,

Zach

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"Hats off to Heroes." by Mike Delodnick, age 13

A hero can be 

A big furry dog who helps someone find a manhole, 

A hero can be

A very small boy who's smart enough to tattle on his friends (who are vandals.) 

Heroes are everywhere, like 

A train conductor who gets busy workers home on time

Heroes are everywhere, like

A scientist who knows more about lava than anyone else 

He uses that knowledge to help people. 

Hats off to this hero:

A Samurai who eats worms to win a bet, 

Hats off to this hero:

The guy who pays up to the Samurai without being all grumpy about it.

True heroes are

Jim Varney, Gene Hackman, etc.

False heroes are

Randy Moss, the Coast Guard

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Silly Manfolk!

Dear Friends,

  I have enjoyed working on the Hard Taco Project these last few years, but hopefully when I'm dead I will be remembered not as a second-rate musician, but as a great playwright. I took a playwriting course once, and I think I have a decent eye for it. Actually, the course was on Modern English Literature, but part of it was about plays and I took pretty good notes that day. Here are the basics...

1. A good play should have lots of flashbacks, or at least some scenes that are out of order. A great example of this is "The Crucible," by Arthur Miller. In the first scene, you see Danforth staring fearfully at a poppet. In the next scene, there's a flashback to the previous winter when he goes into the woods and sees a creepy witch named Tituba carrying a poppet.  That explains why he is so afraid of poppets in the first scene. 

2. Realistic dialogue and good grammar are often mutually exclusive. For example, real people say things like "Um, I could eat a whole nother Clark Bar." Nobody would sympathize with a character who says, "I could eat a whole other Clark Bar" and never says "Um" or "Eh."  You almost want that character to go hungry, or at least have to share the second Clark Bar with someone.

3. Most importantly, a good drama has characters who are deeply troubled, but (and here's the tricky part) they never come out and say so directly.  The audience has to infer that the character is troubled based on his actions (and to a lesser degree, his poor grammar.) I find that drawing on painful personal memories helps me create a more vivid tapestry into which many-layered characters can be delicately woven. 

  Here is the first Act of a play that I have been workshopping on. (That's playwright-speak for "working on.")  Please let me know if you have any constructive feedback.

"IRON RATIONS" by Zach London

(ACT I: Spring of 1989. My basement. Five awkward boys are gathered around a table, but in such away that they all on the same side of the table so that they are all facing the audience. They are playing Dungeons and Dragons. Excuse me, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. They each have their own 20-sided die. The table is covered with Swiss Cake Roll wrappers. I am the only one who hasn't gone through puberty yet.)

ZACH: The gnome leads you through a passageway into a little circular area where there's a bunch more gnomes. One of them comes up to him and whispers something into his ear. Then the main gnome... the first one, turns to you guys and says, "Glarg has decided to challenge you to a rousing game of Sprottle!"

JEFF: Okay, but it better be rousing! I'm not playing if it's not rousing.

DARREN: I shoot Alex with my Crossbow plus one! 

ALEX: Cut it out, you're such a baby.

DARREN: (Imitating Alex) You're such a baby!

ETHAN: We ask the gnome what Sprottle is.

ALEX: (Face reddens) I don't have to take this! Really!

DARREN: (Giggling effeminately, waving his hands in the air) Hee, hee, hee! Cut it out! You're such a baby!

(The doorbell rings)

ZACH: He says, "You've never heard of Sprottle? Ha! Silly manfolk. You're not from around here are you?"

ETHAN: No, we are not from around here. We teleported here, I think.

ALEX: I'm serious Darren. It's not funny. Does anyone think this is funny right now? (Darren giggles louder.)

ZACH's MOM: (from offstage) Jeff, your mom is here!

JEFF: (Getting up to leave). All right. Good luck on the PSATs tomorrow, everyone.

ZACH: You, too.

ETHAN: You know what? I should probably go, too. (To Jeff) Can you give me a ride?

JEFF: Okay. 

(Fade to black)

  In the subsequent scenes, I'm going to have ZACH gradually stop hanging out with ALEX and DARREN. Unfortunately, without them, there are not enough people to play Dungeons and Dragons, and the three remaining boys have to give it up forever. Initially, this is somewhat troubling to ZACH, but he does not expressly say so in the play. 

  Towards the end, ZACH realizes that he's more likely to meet girls by trying out for a chorus part in "Grease." 

  Finally, there will be a scene that takes place at the fifty year high school reunion. The five boys are now old men, and they barely recognize each other. This scene is an automatic tear-jerker, because they were so innocent during most of the play and now they've been through so much. They share a Swiss Cake Roll, except for ETHAN, who has diabetes. They reach an agreement that Dungeons and Dragons was not, in fact, a good way to meet girls. They will be busily patting each other on the back when suddenly they will all freeze in place. A narrator will come out and say that this was the last time the five of them met, and that they all died shortly thereafter. Then the curtain will drop. 

  I spent most of August working on that, but I did manage to squeeze out a Hard Taco Song, too. It's called "That's the Way it Goes," and it will be one of the first songs in The Hard Tack Medicine Show. This song is a bit of fast-paced exposition, in which all four main characters get introduce themselves in a cursory way.

With Warmest Regards,

HT

Reign... of FIRE!

Dear Friends,

   It's time for another Hard Taco Scrapbook Moment. Back in the mid-90's, we used psychedelic stage gimmicks in order to harness the growing retail power of the jam band craze. I wanted to post some pictures from the Ground Beef tour in 1994, but apparently none were taken. I asked around, and it turns out that the audience was too high to load film. 

    Anyway, the thing that most people remember was that we had over a hundred fifty different laser beams, almost all of them at right angles to each other. We had big, thick beams, projecting majestically from the floor to the heavens. We also had smaller, more subtle beams hidden discreetly under the chairs of a few lucky audience members. 

    We had a giant rotating screen made out of cascading water, onto which we would project ten disturbing images per second (a record at the time!) For example, when we played "Paper Cranes," we would show this video of howler monkeys sunbathing in a concentration camp. This was superimposed with an image of Asian housewives wearing bonnets and mopping pools of blood off the top of the UN building. This served the dual purpose of creeping people out and rocking them senseless. 

    When the curtain came up for the second act, the stage was covered with giant crates, each one labeled with a stamped-on phrase like "Any End Up" or "Handle Without Care." As the music started, the crates would explode open, blinding the audience with green smoke and asbestos. Giant inflatable tacos would rise from the ashes and soar to the ceiling, periodically showering the first few rows with fake shredded lettuce. 

    We also covered the walls of the auditorium with farm implements, antique sleds, and old license plates. This made the theater look like a family restaurant chain, which was supposed to be ironic somehow. 

    Between songs, a guy dressed as a South American dictator (complete with immaculate beige uniform and enormous sunglasses) would drive onto stage in a convertible limousine surrounded by a motorcade of uniformed motorcyclists. We would play swelling drum cadences, and El Presidente (as we would call him) would shout regimental phrases into a megaphone, such as "This is not a test!" and "Reign… of FIRE!" 

    Anyway, we've decided to scale back the stage show for the next tour. In lieu of the laser beams and flame throwers we are only going to use simple machines, such as inclined planes and levers. All you'll get is us, our instruments, and maybe a few basic wedges or pulleys. I am confident that this will help people concentrate more on the music, and more specifically the soul of the music, which is the part of the music that makes you feel emotional. I also understand that pulleys may reduce the amount of force required to something off the ground by up to 50%. 

    I apologize to those of you who have come to expect all the doohickeys and disco balls from Hard Taco. We're still the same band and we're still out there busting our butts to give you the best damn show we can. Also, we still have over three truckloads of fake shredded lettuce, so if you come to the after-party backstage, I would be happy to throw a few handfuls of it in your face.

    The Hard Taco song for August is entitled, "Everybody Loves the Queen." As you know, I am working on a musical called "The Hard Tack Medicine Show". This song highlights the ribald exploits of one of our principle characters, a young queen named Stasia (rhymes with Eurasia). Stay tuned for more Medicine Show songs soon!

With Warmest Regards,

HT

Dear Friends,

One of the few advantages of working in a hospital is FREE Plastic Surgery. I was against it at first, but everybody in Michigan is so freaking perfect I can't even get a reservation at a nice restaurant with my natural looks. After living in the eighth circle of self-esteem hell for three years, I finally broke down and hired an Image Transformation Consultant.  She asked me to make a list of what I hate most about myself and give a copy to everyone I know. We then implemented her "outside-in" plan, which involves multiple surgeries in the first three months, followed by a rigorous half day of emotional nurturing by a third party consultant.

Here is my schedule for the first month:

July 3: Nipples and armpits surgically darkened

One of my mom's friends had this, and it's done miracles for her self-confidence. For some reason, both procedures have to be done at the same time. I'm hoping that the coloration will give me a perpetual Don Johnson 5 O'Clock shadow vibe, except not on my face. 

July 16:  Eyebrows drawn on

This was popular about twenty years ago, and 80's plastic surgeries are making a huge comeback. They will remove my current eyebrows using hot electric wax, and tattoo newer, more elegant ones in their place. We are still discussing whether to actually have them placed on my face (the more conventional route) or on my hands. The advantage of the latter would be that every time I would raise an eyebrow, people would think I'm trying to ask a question. 

July 19th:  Calf Implants

Anyone who saw "The Triplets of Bellville" knows how sexy enormous calves can be. Here's the key: I will get two separate implants with a huge divot in between them. My doctor assured me that a real gastrocnemius muscle has a good-sized divot. She says people with smooth, rounded calves look like they have muscular dystrophy.  If you were the hostess at the Mongolian Barbeque, would you give me a reservation if you thought I had muscular dystrophy? I thought not. 

July 26:  Botox the Backside

This was news to me, but apparently the derierre a place where you don't want the divot. Deep, well-defined butt cracks are a sign of premature aging. A few injections right around the edges will smooth away that entire crack and leave me with a single, perfectly smooth buttock.

I just picked all my surgeries for the second and third month, but we don't have specific dates yet. I will get my knuckles sharpened, my gums sanded down, and my eyelids removed. I will have collagen injected into my tongue for a fuller, come-hither look. I will have my nasal septum enlarged and stapled to one side, webbing placed between my fingers, and my throat surgically sealed off. I will have my scalp rotated (this has to be done every 90 days), and real mink fur will transplanted onto the backs of my hands and feet. I will have my elbows straightened, my intestines shaved, and my irises dusted with real gold leaf. 

After all that is complete, I can't imagine I will need any emotional nurturing from the third party consultant, but it's part of the package deal, so I guess I'll give it a try. I am about to start the next chapter in my life, and I'm looking forward to doing it without eyelids.

The July Hard Taco song is called, "Nancy." Some people see national tragedy. I see an opportunity to score with California's most eligible bachelorette. If you're reading this right now, Nancy, I hope you know I mean it...

With Warmest Regards,

Zach London