Dystopia: [dis-toh-pi-a], n. a future in which loafers have no pennies

Dear Friends,

   I spent most of my early years in the icy shadow of the magnificent Quincy Mine, a defunct copper mine outside of Hancock, Michigan. The Quincy Mine closed its doors in 1945, but trust me, Honey, there are still plenty of copper deposits left in "Old Reliable." All it would take is someone, someone like you who already has a flashlight taped to his or her head, to ride the Quincy hoist elevator to the floor of the deepest shaft and pluck the loose copper nuggets off its sweet, fertile ore bed. 

   Wait…did you hear that? If I am not mistaken, that is the sound of coppertunity knocking.

   The Hard Taco song for July is called "The Quincy Steam Hoist." This song celebrates the Yooper’s dream, in which there are two saunas in every basement and the streets are once again paved with amygdaloid lower-grade strataform copper orebodies.*

  

Getting Down to Brass Tacks

   Rather, get down to this alarming fact: Without copper, there would be no brass tacks, which are a 70/30 copper/zinc alloy. Like fossil fuels or Vitamin Water, copper is a finite resource. We now have synthetic copper substitutes for most electrical applications, but musical science has not yet found a way to make a timpani without native copper. The popularity of the timpani is increasing at unsustainable rates in both India and China. Within 25 years, the earth's copper supply will be all but depleted, and within two generations there will be no more songs that go BAHM BOHM BAHM BOHM bubbita bubbita bubbita bubbita BOHM!

   If you think that a future without timpani music is grim/chilling, try to visualize a world without pennies. The U.S. one cent piece is only 2.5% copper, but this modest proportion is crucial to maintain the weight and the yaw of the coin. Those of us who wear penny loafers depend on a perfectly balanced penny with consistent yaw, parity, and drag. A penny with less than 2.5% copper, when inserted into the slit of one's Weejuns, disrupts the equilibrium, causing one to tumble about on the deck of one's pleasure boat.

   I pray every night that, before our copper surplus is gone, a hero will arise with a system of counterweighted argyles, chinos, and tennis sweaters that can compensate for penniless loafers. If they don't, I fear that our grandchildren will inherit a bleak tomorrow in which dreary closets are stocked with miserable brogues and tassel loafers.

With warmest regards,

Zach

*  Most Yoopers just dream of having roads that are paved, period.   

Smackdown: Natural Childbirth vs. Reality

 Dear Friends,

The Hard Taco song for June 2009 is called, "Denmark Needs Rock Stars." If you don't love this song instantly, check your control panel to make sure that the speakers aren't on mute.

Our Childbirth Class

The brochure uses a restaurant analogy to highlight the difference between the two Lamaze courses. There is a six day course, for couples "who want and need a tablecloth, real napkins, and real silverware." Then there is the half-day "drive-through" version of childbirth classes. We agree, drive-through sounds good.

When we arrive, we sit in a circle with about ten other couples and our instructor, Gretchen. The first thing Gretchen does is apprise us of her credentials. She is a mother of three who spent over 10 years as a lactation consultant. She is also a registered doula, which I'm pretty sure means she knows how to lead explorers around the Himalayas and carry their camping gear for them. I miss the rest of her introduction, because I'm imagining Gretchen explaining to a team of British adventurers that the mules refuse to go down that pass, because they sense a great evil there.

When I start paying attention again, it is only because I note an inkling of hostility between Gretchen and my wife.

Gretchen: The Lamaze method is about promoting wellness. Many women find interventions like painkillers and epidurals to be superfluous and really invasive. Doctors may try to pressure you into a troubling intervention when you're at your most vulnerable. I will teach you how to make informed choices and be politely assertive.

Lauren: I want to have an epidural.

Gretchen: And that's perfectly... I mean, that's certainly a choice some women make. But you should know that it's your right as a mother to empower yourself to avoid the routine use of unnecessary interventions as part of your transition to parenthood if that's what your inner wisdom guides you to do.

Lauren: I'm definitely getting an epidural. Like, as soon as I possibly can.

Gretchen: (gritting her teeth) Fine.

We are then handed a workbook. There are five chapters, which I would summarize as follows:

Chapter 1: In through the nose, out through the mouth.
Chapter 2: Pain medication during labor preemptively annuls any natural bond between mother and baby.

Chapter 3: If your inner wisdom is trying to tell you to give birth while squatting on a large rubber ball in your bathtub at home, listen to it! If your inner wisdom sounds like it's telling you it prefers a sterile hospital bed, you're not listening close enough.
Chapter 4: The health benefits of breast-feeding are doubled when it is done in public.
Chapter 5:  Commercial baby formula has been linked to autism and pediatric gambling problems.

Gretchen then tells us that the next activity is called, "The Alphabet of Support." The men go to one side of the room and the women to the other. I am handed a blank sheet of paper and a Sharpie and asked to scribe for our team. Our charge is to come up with a list of things that the husbands or boyfriends can do to show support during labor. We need one item starting with each letter of the alphabet, and we have 45 minutes to do this. It went like this:

A. Let's see. Affection. Answer her questions - questions she might have.

Applicators. Do women use applicators when they're in labor?

For B we can do Be Nice or Be Supportive.

I like Be Nice. Put that down. And let's put Massage for M.

C. Considerate. Show consideration,  or Consider her feelings. Or just be there for her Considerably.

C could also be talk about Church. 

Let's put Lamaze for L!

No, L should be Love. 

How about Labor, comma, help with?

Labor... help with.... got it. But we're still at D.

Seriously, I've done this before when my sister had her son. The best right answer for L is Love. Are you going to change it?

Okay.

D... Dahhh... Dehhh....

Druhhhh...Drum... Darm... Denmark. Danish! Bring her a Danish! 

As the morning winds down, we hear from a woman in our class named Meredith, who I can only describe as huffy. Her husband is a heavy, balding man with swatches of thick black neck hair bursting out around his collar, narrowly set eyes, and a look of learned helplessness on his face. "Isn't it true," Meredith says, "That people should just leave you alone after you have the baby? That new parents shouldn't have any visitors at all, even family, for a good 8-10 weeks?" 

Gretchen pauses and then says something about every woman making the choices that are right for her.

I glance at Meredith's sad puppy staring-at-the-floor husband and imagine the two of them taking swimming lessons. "Isn't it true," she would say, "that it's best for a wife to hold her husband's head underwater for a good 2-3 minutes after he stops struggling? That she should, at the very least, throw away his personal mail without letting him read it?"

And I'm thinking, I am so grateful for the woman I married. When our big day comes, I will make sure that she gets her pain medicines. I will definitely Be Nice, and I will definitely bring her a Danish.

With warmest regards,

Zach

The Best Lore in Canandia

Dear Friends,

     

The Hard Taco song for May is called, "Blankety Blank." Don't be afraid to listen to it at double speed. 

MYTHS AND FOLK TALES OF CANADA

In my travels, I found myself deeply moved by the rich folklore tradition of our neighbors to the North.  For the digest this month, I am reprinting excerpts from my favorite compendium of Canadian folk legends ("Grandma, Where Do Igloos Come From?") and my favorite book of Canadian ghost stories ("The Bloody Puck").

The Newfoudland Bull Moose: Twenty miles west of St. John's, there is sinkhole that is believed to be the home of a spectral bull moose named San Yarnford. Once every hundred years, San Yarnford emerges from the recesses of his dank basin to let children stroke his antlers and to warn them of the perils of playing too close to sinkholes. 

The Leaning Trapper: There once was a trapper who roamed the vasty wilds of Labrador. He was a simple man, and he believed that iron snares were an indulgence. Instead, he would sleep at a 45 degree angle, propping his shoulders with a stick. Inevitably, a beaver would brush against the stick and knock it over, causing the sleeping trapper to fall on the animal. The more the beaver struggled, the sleepier and heavier the trapper would become. In honor of this legendary trapper, it is now customary for every trading post to be guarded by two sleeping men propped on sticks. 

The Silent Howls: A wealthy French furrier offered a woman nine pure white huskies for her hand in marriage. When she accepted, the huskies immediately set upon her, and tore fissures in her trunk and limbs. She slowly regained her constitution over many months, during which time her only companions were the wretched ice chiggers who spoon-fed her a slurry of nutrient plaster. When she was finally strong enough to lift her head, she slew the nine huskies and fashioned a fanny pack from their nine snow white dewlaps. If you walk the shores of Port Alice on a still night, you can still hear the spirits of the nine huskies, trying in vain to howl without their dewlaps.

The Wendigo: The Algonquian Indians believe that there are feral people with unnatural size who live in wooded areas and eat other people. It is believed that this is based loosely on the Winnebago Legend, in which the feral people park recreational vehicles in wooded areas and eat other people. 

The Purloined Skull: In the early days of McGill University, a heady young chess enthusiast wrote in the margins of his journal, "I have discovered a rook that can travel diagonally as well as linearly. I must share this with the scientific community at once before they com..." The last word trailed off at an angle, almost as if the author's skull had been taken mid-sentence. Nobody knows who purloined his skull. Was it an anatomy professor?  A spurned lover? A Fraternal Order of Ivy League Chess Reactionaries? Could I convince you that the true answer is... all three, working in cahoots?

The Golden Chin: A Micmac warrior lost his chin in battle, and replaced it with a chin of gold. His four younger brothers were envious of the golden chin and used guile to wrest it from him. The warrior saw through their deceit, however, and never removed his chin. One day, the youngest brother handed the warrior a piece of parchment enumerating the deeds of their ancestors. So afraid was the warrior that the document would blow away that he placed his golden chin on top of it as a paperweight. At once, the younger brother seized the chin, and ran off into the gulches. To commemorate his own folly, the humbled warrior commissioned a replacement chin made of Atlantic cod.

The Fox and the Magic Clasp: It is said that Glorious Jim the Prospector was tracking an elusive ingot through the marshes of Fort George when he came upon an axe wedged in a tree trunk. He knew that if he removed the axe, he would be crowned King of the Loggers, but he was not strong enough to do so. He stayed with the axe through the winter's night, neglecting shelter, neglecting food, and forgetting the precious ingot he had been following for so many days. When his fellow prospectors found his frozen body the next morning they gave him a traditional prospector burial, which consisted of sifting his remains through a pan. To this day, nobody knows why this legend is called "The Fox and the Magic Clasp."

With warmest regards,

Zach

Hot New Additions for Your Girl Scout Trophy Sash

Dear Friends,

   Assuming that you keep your iTunes playlist arranged alphabetically, and assuming that you're tired of ABBA, this may be the happiest day of your short life. Seconds from now, you will have access to the exhausting new jam from your favorite group, Aardtaco. Oh yes, little readers, this is not some puzzling brand of April Foolery. We are, in truth, creating new music under the moniker Aardtaco in an effort to appeal to our base. (I believe that our base consists mostly of pirates.)

   If you're thinking, "Toooooo cool!" I certainly can't stop you. To do so I would need to take mind control lessons and who has the time?

  So here you have it, the first Aardtaco song, "A Life of Crime." Again, this is a topic that is of interest to our base.

   As you may remember, The Hard Taco Digest usually focused on topics of broad interest such as Disney Sequels and Germs, but the new Aardtaco MyGest is personalized, using cookies from your computer to identify your areas of interest. Based on your search history, your custom Aardtaco MyGest this month is:

"Most Desirable Girl Scout Badges"

WEBESOS - Not to be confused with WEBELOS, this badge is worn by Girl Scouts who are not yet potty-trained. It is short for "We Be Soiled Scouts." By convention, these girls are typically referred to as "Brownies."

Purple Heart - To qualify for this badge, you must sustain an injury that results in the loss of your right arm and shoulder, such that you cannot wear your sash without it slipping off. 

Sew Simple - Earn points towards the Sew Simple badge by fixing a Purple Heart-wearer's sash to her shoulder-stump. You need to fix 3 sashes to 3 different shoulder stumps to qualify.

The Red Badge of Storage - Similar to the Purple Heart, but the injury must occur while stocking Tagalongs into their plastic cookie cozies.

Volunteer Dog-Sitting  - To dog-sit without being paid is the most selfless thing a girl scout can do.

Alarmist - Have your parents take you to try 1-Alarm Chili.

Advanced Alarmist - Have your parents take you to try 2-Alarm Chili.

Trenchie - For accumulating over 20 hours of experience in trench warfare. As all trenchies know, it is crucial that you never open more than one box of Thin Mints, to hide your numbers.

Money wise - Use your knowledge and your self-esteem to open a bank account.

Moderation - While the teller is looking down to type in your information, grab a hostage and demand a backpack filled almost half-way with unmarked FIVE DOLLAR BILLS. 

Eco-Action - Take a step toward saving the planet by unrolling the cardboard in your Dum-Dum stick, folding it twice, and gently placing it in a recycling bin. 

Influence - Use your powers of persuasion to coax a fish out of your brother's sandbox.

Chicken Sexing - Large industrial egg-producing facilities are only interested in raising female chickens. To earn this badge, you must master the skill of squeezing a baby chick in such a way that you can identify its gender. If it is an unwanted male, your troopmaster will immediately "cull," (which means "kill") the chick. Learn about the various methods for "killing" a male chick (which means "culling" a male chick), including burying it alive or macerating it in a wood chipper.

Hen Rights - Learn about gender equality. Chicken sexing is downright chicken sexist! All the female chicks can do is gaze enviously up through that glass ceiling and see their male counterparts liquefied in a high-speed grinder, suffocated in a plastic bag, or simply have their necks broken. Write to your senator and insist that female chicks are equally qualified for decapitation and asphyxiation with carbon dioxide.

Brash - Whatever it is you are thinking about doing impulsively, just go right ahead and do it without considering the consequences.

The Juliette - Named for Juliette Gordon Lowe, the founder of Girl Scouts of America and a notorious cross-dresser. To earn this badge, put on a Boy Scout neckerchief and shoulder loops, stand in front of the mirror and repeat the phrase, "I'm going to win the Pinewood Derby..."  

With Warmest Regards,

Zach

Praise They Ever Cherished Name, Dear Hapless Crapalope

Hey College Kids,

   Put down Wii Tetherball for a minute and pay attention. The Hard Taco song for March is called "Excelsior," and I'm not going to lie to you: It's pretty swell. But look, I'm not going to beat around the bush: good grades are pretty swell, too. You can listen to the song, but I'm not going to sugar-coat the truth: you really need to study harder, starting right now. You're never going to win a lifetime achievement award at this rate.

On the Subject of Imaginary States, Their Universities, and Their State Birds

Ohio State... Florida State... Michigan State....

Their names evoke images of storied university campuses nestled somewhere within the boundaries of a geographic territory that has attained political statehood. But what about the thousands of undergraduate students who attend imaginary state schools? Wayne State, Kent State, Ball State, Wright State, Appalachian State... the colleges are very real, of course, but they are all located in fictitious land masses.

Students at these institutions face a number of challenges. Foremost, it is rather impossible to visit an imaginary state, which means that the U.S. Postal service cannot deliver care packages to students. If your daughter is a freshman, you have to wait until she is home on break to give her microwave popcorn and Easy Mac. If you're truly intent on getting to campus for Parents Weekend, your only chance is to ride a plane (destination irrelevant), and turn on your cellphone just before landing.  Most of the time, the navigation system will go so haywire that the pilot will lose track of the ground and send the plane careening into the sun. Occasionally, though, the plane may wind up delivering you to your daughter's school in time for convocation.

   But let me answer the question you're really curious about... can an imaginary state have a real state animal? Unfortunately, the answer is no. By convention, most imaginary state schools retain the jackalope as their sports mascot. A handful of teams have taken exception to this precedent, but none have completely abandoned the tradition of mongrelizing antelopes. Examples follow:

The Morehead State Crabalopes

The Grambling State Imapalarangutans

The Ferris State Kangazelles

The Bowling Green State Springboxen (Oxen with the antlers of springboks)

The Empire State Boxsprings (Springboks that offer your mattress the comfort and support of oxen)

The Alcorn State Hapless Crapalopes*

With warmest regards,

Zach

*This is pronounced cra-PAH-loh-pees. However, their mascot is still a piece of crap with antlers.

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