Mud: It's for Slinging

Dear Friends,

The Hard Taco song for November is called, “The Penny Seats Are Nothing But Trouble.” These Penny Seats apparently are a theatre company in Ann Arbor, and let me tell you something… they are bad news. If you look up “Up to no good” in the dictionary, you will find that it’s not there, because it’s more of a phrase than a word. If you squint, however, you can imagine a picture of those Penny Seats crammed in the tiny space between “uptight” and “uptown.”

Listen to “The Penny Seats Are Nothing But Trouble,” because Merriam and Webster agree: these lovely Hard Taco songs are the very definition of the word, “Up to Some Good.”

Poll-ish Mustard: How to Forget Not to Vote Tomorrow

This may be the last thing you read before mid-term elections, so I feel obligated to volunteer my endorsements for the Michigan gubernatorial race. I am in a unique position to provide coverage of this race, because I have access to my answering machine. The rest of the year, when I pick up the phone and there’s a long pause, it is usually followed by heavy breathing. But come October of an even-numbered year, that pause is invariably precedes an attack ad against one of the candidates (or if they really want my vote, heavy breathing followed by an attack ad.) Here is what my answering machine has to say about our gubernatorial candidates, Virg Bernero (D) and Rick Snyder (R).

Virg Bernero wants to write a blank check to the same career politicians who spent the last four years trimming the thumbnails of Big Insurance.

Rick Snyder wants the tears of the hard-working working class and occasionally-hard-working upper middle class families to smear the mascara of his right wing agenda all over the dirty hands of the Lansing mandatory abortion lobby.

It's More of a Science UNfair, if You Ask Me

Dear Friends,

Last weekend, I was driving around Boca Raton in a rental car, flipping through the Miami radio stations. Normally, I would be the last person to belittle the artistic value of pop music, but I was feeling inexplicably cantankerous. The ubiquitous octogenarians must excrete some kind of pheromone that makes passersby disparaging and close-minded. Every time a new song came on that I didn’t recognize, I said to myself, “Pffff. This could have been written by a 5 year-old.” By time we reached our destination, my eyes were sore from rolling so much.

On the plane ride home I took a few deep breaths and began to think clearly again. (Thanks, Delta Airlines geriatric miasma-removing air filters!) The reason great songs sound like they were written by 5-year-olds is that 5-year olds write great songs. With that premise, I immediately set Scarlett to work.

The result is “I’m on a Plane,” the first Hard Taco song in over a decade with co-authored lyrics. I think you will agree that it contains intangibles.

The Making of an Evil Scientist

I was one of a few students in my 9^th grade class chosen to represent our school at the regional science fair. My project, entitled “Up and Add ‘Em,” offered groundbreaking evidence that subjects could complete more math problems in 60 seconds if they were standing up rather than sitting down. Upon closer inspection, I actually proved that standing subjects could do more math problems in 70 seconds than sitting subjects could do in 60 seconds. Also, the smarter kids were placed in the standing group. These were just details, though, and there wasn’t enough room on the poster for details.

To this day, I believe I could have beaten Katrina Sopkovich in the Behavioral Science category if I hadn’t muddled the oral presentation. After I elegantly expounded on the mind-blowing significance of my fraudulent conclusions, a tiny white-haired judge asked me, “What are your dependent and independent variables?”

My what? Seconds ticked by. I heard myself mumbling something like, “Well, it depends. It varies, it’s all variable, actually.”

Ladies and gentlemen, the blue ribbon goes to Ms. Sopkovich for her study on smell memory!

I vowed that I would never make that mistake again. When the time came to devise a 10th grade biology project, I was an authority on scientific methodology, and I was ready to get back to what I did best… fudging data. Ms. Kolb surprised us by announcing that we would each have a $30 budget to cover supplies. (Yes, this was a public school, for those of you feeling nostalgic for the days of adequate educational funding.)

She passed around a 500 page catalog of biological supplies, and it was all in there. Petri dishes with blood agar, Petri dishes with chocolate agar, live fruit flies with different colored eyes, ether for sedating them and cover slips for squishing them. And what do you know? They sell dissection specimens. Fetal pig... $22. Sheep brain... $6. Monkey heart… $11.

Oh my God Monkey vagina… $4 for one or $20 for six.

There wasn’t a picture. Why wasn’t there a picture? They had a picture of the fetal pig. And did that say $20 for six? It was baffling beyond reason that this unusual commodity was in the catalog at all, let alone with an incentive discount. I imagined that somewhere in Germany, a bearded man in a lab coat was ripping the page out of the catalog and shouting to a roomful of collaborators, "True, we only need one to complete our study, but a deal like this can not… must not be ignored!"

I tried very hard to think of an experiment that would justify this purchase, but I just wasn’t that creative. More to the point, I wasn’t that brave. I couldn’t see myself standing by my poster, telling the judge, “Well, Ma’am, for starters I randomized the monkey vaginas into two groups of three.”

“And before I go further, let me just point out that the independent variable is which of these two groups a given monkey vagina is in.”

 
No, in the end I spent my $30 on milkweed bugs and sulfuric acid. The project is not worth explaining, but I will tell you this: many bugs died, and my improbable hypothesis was overwhelmingly supported by pages and pages of made up numbers. I’m sure Ms. Kolb was on to me, but she, like every other teacher, was a sucker for neat handwriting and a clear plastic binder.

With warmest regards,

Zach

You Can't Make Atonement without Mentos

Dear Friends,

There is a short list of things you have been waiting for you whole life, and the September Hard Taco song, “Jumex Flow,” is certainly on it. It’s somewhere towards the middle of that list, right in between ‘a car with revolving doors’ and ‘never to feel lonely, even for one second.’

Listen to “Jumex Flow” right now. Don’t make me come over there and listen to it for you.  

This month, Jews all over the globe will observe Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. In the weeks leading up to this holiday, it is customary to seek forgiveness for any bad behavior in the last year. I like the idea of rectifying my wrongdoings, but I’m still a little behind on my payments, apology-wise. To begin with, I have a couple transgressions from when I was in 5^th grade that I would like to get off my chest.

Apology #1: I’m sorry I engaged in an imbalanced Garbage Pail Kid trade with a cognitively disabled classmate.

Nikki was a girl in my grade who had been collecting Garbage Pail Kids longer than the rest of us. It was rumored that she had several of the coveted first series cards, including ‘Adam Bomb,’ the crown jewel of the GPK collection. Of possible relevance to this story, Nikki had Down syndrome. One day I cornered her at recess.

Me: Hi, Nikki. Do you want to see my new Garbage Pail Kids? I’ve got ‘Bruised LEE’ and ‘Glandular ANGELA.’

Nikki: Hi, okay. I’m playing with this one… ‘GARRET-ed.’

Me: That’s a cool one. Do you have the other one that looks like that, ‘Garrote-TED?’

Nikki: No. I do not.

Me: Well, check this out… I have two copies of ‘Garrote-TED!’ Hey, you know what would be fun? We should make a trade. I’ll give you one of them for one of your cards, like maybe… ‘ADAM Bomb.’

Nikki: I’ll have to ask my parents.

Me: Come on! You don’t need to ask your parents. Just look at this card I’m holding. It’s a chubby toddler being garroted. His eyes are bulging out and stuff. It’s totally rad!

Nikki: Yeah, it is pretty rad! Okay.

And so went the most lopsided deal in trading card history. As of this morning, ‘ADAM Bomb’ is going on eBay for over $15.00. I could sell it and use the cash to get a haircut… a haircut that should have been Nikki’s. I’ve felt lousy about this for a while, so a few years ago I took steps to assure that I would never forget that I exploited a vulnerable individual. I threw away all my Garbage Pail Kids except for two: ‘ADAM Bomb’ and ‘Special ED.’

Apology #2: I’m sorry I abused the audience-participation privilege at a ComedySportz game by insulting my sister, Sari.

“My sister got glasses and braces and now she’s really ugly!”

I was at an improv comedy club with my family, and when the emcee asked for suggestions from the audience, I shouted out the aforementioned sentence. I think the specific request was for a newspaper headline, but I probably would have yelled out the same thing if he has asked for an emotion or the name of a fictional salad dressing. In my mind, it was just too funny to go unsuggested for a minute longer.

I can see you shaking your head and saying, “Oh, that poor girl!” I admit it was rude, but try to put yourself in my shoes for a moment. Declaring that your sister is ugly is not supposed to be hurtful, nor is it based on empiric observation. You’re nine years old, and you have a limited arsenal of phrases. If you’ve already used, “Give me your Little Debbie,” and, “He who smelt it, dealt it,” the only other combination of sounds that your mouth is capable of generating is something about the repulsive appearance of your siblings.   

At any rate, Sari didn’t think it was very funny, and neither did anyone else in the audience. In fact, several people booed, including some of the performers. Unfortunately for all of us, they were bound by the improvisers’ code to use the suggestion, and grudgingly ad-libbed a hilarious sketch about how the 11-year old girl in the audience was ugly because of her glasses and braces.

Anyway, Sari has probably forgotten about this incident, but I wanted to ask her forgiveness for being such a terribly insensitive younger brother that one time. (As far as I know, there were no other such incidents.) Also, I was hoping she could dig up some old pictures, just to see if the glasses in question were as hideous as I had implied, because maybe that would partially absolve me. Just a thought.

Merry Yom Kippur, everyone!

With warmest regards,

Zach

"Why I Defect" By Oleg Chernyaev

Dear Friends,

I’ve been on a government watch list for a couple of years now. I trace it back to the time I searched for “pipe bomb parts” on eBay and then clicked “sort by price: high to low.” The only thing that alarms the Department of Homeland Security more than a random guy shopping for pipe bomb parts is a random guy shopping for stylish, brand name pipe bomb parts.

Here is your opportunity to join me as one of the FBI’s most hounded. The delightful new Hard Taco song, “Make a Mint,” contains explicit instructions for counterfeiting U.S. coins. If you download this song or read the lyrics, you will undoubtedly find yourself subjected to cavity searches at airports and bus stops for the rest of your life. Instead of calling you Stephanie, journalists will refer to you as The Radical Cleric Stephanie, because they believe you to be capable of extraordinary anger and beard growth.

I hate to brag, Steph, but this song is worth it.

Here’s something unrelated. (I’ve been working on my segues.)

Why I Defect

By Oleg Chernyaev

As child in Soviet Union I learn squeeze fish. When in old country, men squeeze many many fish. But Oleg, I squeeze fish best.

Impress many women.

Impress Russian Federal Strategic Defense Ministry Space Force Commandant. “Oleg,” he say, “I make you kosmonavt. You squeeze fish for foremost glorious space program.”

So I do. Twenty two month I float around Mir space station squeezing on fish for research. I fill forms, I make on documents, I run system checkings. Not always glamorous. Still, I squeeze fish some few hours a day, and is important work. Know this… number fish I squeeze is highly classified, but Oleg tell you absolutely truth… is enormous number.

After twenty two month, Soyuz craft return me to Earth. To Moskva. Oleg get welcome of hero! Father meet me at base, and bring my girlfriend, Irina, who is very plain but with foremost major endowments.

Father say, “Oleg, you are most welcome back to planet. For gift I give you fish wrapped in nyewspaper. Is Pravda nyewspaper, Oleg, not left-ving Pravda online veersion your Babushka read.” Father hand me fish, I unwrap. Is whole beluga, eyes still on. Very appetizing.

“Go stand next to Irina, Oleg,” he say, “Squeeze fish. I take peecture.”

I smile for picture, I try squeeze fish, but is big struggle. I try and some more try, but hands feel weak. Then I have flashback. I think of words of Pavel Vinogradov, who serve as flight engineer on Mir 24. One day while making on documents together, Pavel say that kosmonavt who squeeze fish in environment of no-gravity have probably troubles with squeezing of fish back on Earth. Ha! I laugh at Pavel, of course, for he is brainless fool flight engineer.

But Pavel not so styupid. Flashback is over, and Father is saying, “What is matter, Oleg? Big fish squeezing man not so big now?”

Girlfriend Irina say, “You’re not big, big squeezing fish man. Oleg go home! You can not even dream of squeezing Irina’s foremost major endowments.”

And that is whole story. Is why I never marry girlfriend. Is why I immigrate here at Indianapolis and get whole new job as health fair coordinator at mall. Now I tell you absolutely truth… I miss Father and Babushka. I like American rally of monster truck, but I miss Moskva. I miss innocent days when Oleg squeeze fish in bath house with many old men watching.

I not really miss Irina. Plenty Indiana women impressed totally with big health fair coordinator man.

With warmest regards,

Zach

The Adventures of Mr. Smartapple

Dear Friends,

You can’t solve crimes without clues, and there are no better clue-finders than 6^th grader Sarah Blevins and her younger brother, Tyler. But in the town of Plaincroft, Vermont, nobody is going to give valuable clues to a couple of meddlesome kids. That is, not until Tyler sits on Sarah’s shoulders and they put on their dad’s overcoat. Now they aren’t just two nosey kids. They are “Mr. Smartapple,” a distinguished gentleman in an ill-fitting bowler hat who knows one thing… it’s clue finding time!

(Scene 1: At the gas station. “Mr. Smartapple” weaves in and makes his way to the checkout counter.)

Tyler: Excuse me, Shopkeeper, I would like to purchase some cigarettes.

Attendant: Are you sure you’re old enough to buy cigarettes?

Tyler: (Guffaws.) Old enough to…? (Guffaws again.) Oh, young Miss, you flatter me. Old enough to buy cigarettes! No, sadly, I am far older than 18, as you can see by the fact that I am over 7 feet tall. Plus, my brow is furrowed.

Attendant: What kind of cigarettes would you like?

Tyler: Oh, whatever you’ve got. Listen, friend, have you seen a man with a handlebar mustache and one abnormally large hand?

Attendant: Hmmm. I do remember a man who looked like that, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. He was in here, oh, just a few days ago. He mentioned something about getting ahead… at the off-track betting facility.  Oh, and he dropped this matchbook from the Burlington Opera House.
Sarah: The mysterious man wasn’t talking about a gambling parlor, but a mattress store… Off Track Bedding on

8^th Ave.

He wasn’t trying to get ahead, he wanted to get “a head”. A headboard for a bed! But why?

Attendant: Did your abdomen just say a whole bunch of things?

Tyler: No, all of that was just my ringtone. Good afternoon, fellow grown one. (Into his coat.) Time to get some more clues!

(Scene 2: “Off-Track Bedding” Mattress Shop.)

Tyler: Why hello, Miss. I have recently voted in a local election.

Shop girl: Are you sure you’re old enough to vote?

Tyler: (Guffaws.) Amazing! The vitamin cream really works! No, sadly, I have been over 18 years old for longer than I care to remember. Anyway, if you’re curious, I voted the straight party ticket. But let me get right to the point. Have you seen a man with a handlebar mustache and one abnormally large hand?

Shop girl: Definitely not. Although, now that you mention it, there was a man like that in here yesterday. He wanted a particular headboard made out Philippine mahogany. He said he needed it by Friday or none of this would matter anymore. We had a headboard that was similar, but it wasn’t an exact match. He was very angry and rude, but eventually bought it.

Tyler: Was he wearing a shark-tooth necklace?

Shop girl: No, but he was carrying a library book. It had such a strange nonsensical title that I couldn’t help but remember it. It was entitled, “Come Coltivare Le Piante Tossiche.”

Tyler: Thanks you, Miss. I am strongly considering one of these box springs, but I need to discuss it with my wife and many children. We’ll be back! (Into his coat.) Time to get more clues!

(Scene 3: The Library)

Tyler: (Talking into imaginary phone) Yes, I too prefer soft core pornography to crinkle-cut carrots. Goodbye.

Librarian: Excuse me?

Tyler: Oh, I was just finishing up a common conversation with another adult man on my mobile phone. Do you have any more copies of the book, “Come Coltivare Le Piante Tossiche?”

Librarian: No, it was checked out two days ago. But we do have the English translation, “How to Grow Poisonous Plants.”

Tyler: Did the person who checked out the Italian version borrow any other books?

Librarian: Look, I’m really not supposed to tell you that.

Tyler: You can trust us. I mean me! You can trust me. I’m over 7 feet tall.

Librarian: Well, okay. He checked out a book called, “Intermediate level Whittling.”

Tyler: Thank you. I would love to talk further, but I have an appointment with my geriatrician in 15 minutes. (Into his coat.) Time to close this case!

(Scene 4: The police station. The overcoat and bowler hat are on the floor.)

Officer Whelon: Slow down, slow down, kids! Are you telling me you’ve solved the Leonara murder?

Sarah: Yep.

Officer Whelon: And that the killer is none other than the great tenor, Carlo Bergonzi?

Sarah: That’s right!

Officer Whelon: But that’s impossible. Carlo Bergonzi is famous!

Tyler: But Leonara was more famous, so he decided to take her very life.

Sarah: The Burlington Opera House is putting on Verdi’s Oberto this season. Bergonzi’s character is supposed to kill Leonara’s character in the second act by suffocating her with a wreath of bluebells. But Bergonzi replaced them with home-grown mountain laurels. Poisonous mountain laurels. When she inhaled them, she blacked out and cracked her head on the stage bed.

Tyler: In front of a packed house of 1500 unsuspecting audience members! None of them knew she was really dead!

Sarah: Everyone was fooled.

Officer Whelon: Even us?

Sarah: Even the police. All Bergonzi needed to do was replace the bloodstained headboard and he would get away with it.

Tyler: But the headboard was made out of a rare wood, and when he couldn’t find an exact replica, he had to buy the closest match and whittle it to look like the original.

Sarah: Exactly, but in his impatience to finish the job before the next performance, he skipped “Whittling for Beginners” and went straight to the intermediate level lesson. In doing so, he would have missed the basic tenet that a whittling knife needs to be sharpened after every hour of use, or the carvings become rutted and uneven.

Tyler: Bergonzi’s right hand is abnormally large, so he would have carved left-handed, and that means he would have whittled the headboard from left to right.

Sarah: We’re willing to bet that the replacement headboard will have uneven carvings on its right half.

Officer Whelon: That sounds crazy, but I’ll call the opera house and ask. Hold on. (Dials.) Yes, are there rutted or uneven carvings on the right half of the headboard that you use as a set-piece in Oberto? I see. Don’t let Bergonzi leave. I’m coming to arrest him! (Hangs up.) What can I do to thank you kids?

Tyler: (Getting back on Sarah’s shoulders and slipping into overcoat) Kids? What kids? I am Mr. Smartapple, and I was hoping you could direct me to the nearest winery that offers free tastings for fully-developed adults.

Officer Whelon: Your secret is safe with me!

The End

With warmest regards,

Zach

P.S. The Hard Taco song for July is called, “Dance Your Life Away.” 

Down with Comic Sans

Dear Friends,

I hate Comic Sans. I really can't stand it. It’s immature, repulsive, and absurdly inappropriate in every context. It is eye-raping. It's like water torture... each letter is like a harmless droplet, but as they relentlessly fall on the page they become a sledge hammer bashing me rhythmically into madness. I find that font entirely loathsome, and I'm not alone. I’m a member of a Delaware-sized society of outraged citizens (a term I prefer to “hate group”) that stands united on this issue.

Download the Hard Taco song, “I Hate Comic Sans,” and see if you have what it takes to be an outraged citizen.

Let me put it another way… if I had a time machine, I would travel back to 1995 and find Vincent Connare, the man who was about to invent Comic Sans. I would give him a choice: A) Go to sleep forever, or B) Take the keys to the time machine. I assume he’d go with B, and with that kind of power, he’d forget all about typography. Either way, we’d be saved from Comic Sans, and although I'd be stuck in 1995, at least I wouldn’t have to wait very long to see the Packers win the Superbowl.

People, Comic Sans is obscene. If the Hard Taco song has not been enough to win you over, I regret I have no choice but to teach you this lesson, Guantanamo Bay-style. Here is the first chapter of an autobiographical novel I’m writing, presented in Comic Sans MS 12 pt. Before you read this, I urge you to contact the nearest hospital and get the pager number for the ophthalmologist on call, because no one gets through this much Comic Sans without developing corneal ulcers.

“Taco Noir”

It was too dark to see out the window, at least not with the half-empty glass of bourbon whiskey tilted back in front of my eyes.  I drained it, and looked out again. They call Ann Arbor the City of Dreams, but I haven't found a dreamer yet, not a real one. Hapless grifters, hardboiled fall guys, aging boxers. I've traced my hand on the walls of every alley, mixed up with characters of every stripe, and let me tell you… they’re all just looking for a way to fill the emptiness between the next two cigarettes.  Not one of them has a dream bigger than tomorrow’s breakfast.

My name is Guy Beakes. Every sap has a story, and maybe yours has a missing sister or a cheating wife. If so, you might know me. I'm a private dick. It’s etched into the glass on my front door. I also have a business card, but I’ve never had to use it. I wish I could say the same about my pistol.

A knock woke me from my reverie. I looked up and saw her leaning in the doorway. A tall brunette framed in a cloud of waltzing smoke. She had lips the color of cheap Shiraz and the saddest eyes I’d ever seen outside of my bathroom mirror. She was worth a stare, but I wasn’t ready to give her the satisfaction.

“Are you the one they call The Beak?” she asked.

Even with my sinus problems, I could smell that she was trouble, and not the kind of trouble I went looking for. She was a silo filled with poison ivy, a dental amalgam made of TNT, a “get well” card dipped in arsenic, and then dipped in chocolate, so you couldn’t see the arsenic. She was here to play me like a second-hand accordion, and all I could do was breathe in and out, trying to make the music she wanted to hear.

“That’s right, Sweetheart,” I said, “I’m Guy Beakes. It says so on my door. I’m a private dick, and a damn good one. That’s on the door, too, but you already knew that, didn’t you, Miss… ?” 

She tapped a Chesterfield out of the box and brought it to her lips. “I’ll tell you that when you're ready to know it, Mr. Beakes,” she said. I offered her a light. She chain-smoked the rest of the pack. “Okay, I think you're ready, now. I’m Tess. Tess Hennnessy.”

Tess Hennessy. Of course. I knew her family. The Hennessy’s were law-abiding insurance investigators. Unless she was one of the South Side Hennessy’s… they were alienated plainclothes policemen. There were also the Midtown Hennessy’s, who ran numbers, and not the good kind. A gruesome lot of bottom feeders and candy striper molls with questionable virtues. I like questionable virtues, because you’re never really sure. Are they good virtues or bad virtues? If you knew the answer, they wouldn’t be questionable anymore.

“Well, Ms. Hennessy,” I began, “there are three types of people in the world…”

“I know,” she interrupted, “but that’s not why I’m here.”

My jaw dropped like a lead pigeon. Nobody cut me off before I could enumerate the three types of people in the world. Nobody. It was practically part of my contract.

“Mr. Beakes, I’ve got a problem, and I’ve heard you’re the kind of guy who makes problems go away.”

"Sweetheart," I said, "that's why they call me Guy." I knew her story before she said another word. “It’s your husband, isn't it? Mr. Hennessey's a snake... comes home late or not at all, and you think he’s two-timing or worse. You want him tailed. Smoked out. You came to me because I worm out double dealers and I don’t ask questions. It says so on my door.”

“Mr. Beakes, I need to know that you can be… discrete.”

She meant discreet, of course. Discrete means distinct or separate, but it didn’t matter. I’m both. (That’s also written my door.)

“Sweetheart, if you’ve got $40 a day plus expenses and a picture of Mr. Hennessy in that purse of yours, I’ll be your bloodhound,” I told her, “It’s like I said, there are three types of people in this world...“

“I know, Mr. Beakes,” she said, caressing a roll of greenbacks onto my desk. Again, she wasn’t letting me say my bit about the three different types of people. It’s a really good bit. This dame knew how to frustrate a guy.

“I don’t have a picture of my husband, Mr. Beakes, but you won't need one. He has black hair and a mysterious past that continues to haunt him, hunting him down with a fatalism that taunts him relentlessly before delivering the final blow. He usually wears a hat. Do you think you can find the man that meets that description?”

“As sure as my name is Guy Beakes, PI,” I told her. I turned around to pour half a glass of Blue Hills Single-barrel, and when I looked back, she was gone.

I never knew Ann Arbor before the war, with its chintzy string quartets, its ersatz glamour, its rose-colored storefronts and echoing sidewalks. I swirled the whiskey in my glass as I watched the door swinging shut, and wondered for the hundredth time why I went to the trouble of writing so much stuff on it. 


With warmest regards,
Zach

Serendipity and Sharin' Da Pity

Dear Friends,

Admit the following: there is something satisfying about a choir of British orphans. Inevitably, one can only blast “Food Glorious Food” and “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2” so many times before otherwise friendly people start pulling one's hair. The Hard Taco song for May is called “Foundling Tokens,” and if you like orphan choirs and mixed metaphors, you can stick this one right up your alley.

Show some mercy, Guv’na, and listen to “Foundling Tokens.”

There is an historical basis for this song. In 1748, the shipbuilder Thomas Coram opened the Foundling Hospital in London as a refuge for deserted children. Mothers could abandon their babies at the door of the hospital, no questions asked, with just one stipulation. The mother had to leave some sort of trinket or token by which the child could be identified if the mother ever decided to come back for it. I learned about the Foundling Hospital because I accidentally ran a web search for "fondling Tolkien," and Google asked me if I meant "foundling token." Yes, Google! That is, of course, what I meant!

To summarize, I did not discover this topic inadvertently while looking up something repulsive. In contrast, a number of great discoveries and inventions have been made by accident. That brings us to this month's topic: Great moments of SERENDIPITY in history.

VULCANIZED RUBBER

Charles Goodyear made this discovery while burning natural rubber with sulfur, hoping to create a pencil eraser that emitted a foul odor when used. The "reeking eraser" had been commissioned by a syndicate of wicked schoolmarms who were looking for a way to make the children of Akron suffer for making a writing error in the first place. To the chagrin of the wicked schoolmarms, Goodyear's new polymer was the key ingredient for making tire swings, which are basically the most fun things ever.

PENICILLIN

One morning, a Scottish dairy owner named Alexander Fleming knocked a cheese wheel into a vat of yogurt, and didn't have time to fish it out before leaving for his 8 am tee time. When Fleming returned to the farm that afternoon, the yogurt was gone and the cheese had expanded to fill the vat. He correctly surmised that the cheese mold had killed the bacterial culture in the yogurt, and that this would usher in a new era of antimicrobial medicine. He verified this hypothesis by demonstrating that he was unable to contract impetigo or syphilis while standing in the vat. 

URANUS

In 1781, William Herschel was tracking a meteorite's descent to the Earth using a telescope of his own design. He was in the process of describing the crater created by the impact when he noticed that it contained a fixed bluish light source with a regular orbit. Hershel was flummoxed, not realizing that his sister was leaning on the telescope, and it was pointing back towards the heavens rather than the crater. When he reported his findings to the Royal Astronomical Society, they wrote him back, stating, "We regret that you were unable to tell Uranus from a hole in the ground."

ReNU

Drs. Bausch and Lomb made this breakthrough in eye care when they accidentally crashed their lab carts into each other. The subsequent conversation was later documented by a bystander.

Bausch: Fool! You got your salt in my deionized water!

Lomb: Moron! You got your deionized water all over my salt!

Bystander: You both got all your stuff on my gas permeable lenses. And they feel... great!

Bausch: Eureka! We'll be rich!

Lomb: I agree: Eureka! Of course, I would have to give up my important research on cosmetically whitening salt.

Bausch: And I would have to divert my attention from my daughter's science fair project, "Does Water Make Subjects Less Thirsty Than Placebo?"

Lomb: Perhaps this bystander will commercialize our discovery, and use our names so this day will live on?

Bystander: I swear I will.

Bausch: To us! (All three raise a glass of water or placebo.)  

AMERICA

Christopher Columbus was looking for the New World, but mistakenly docked his ships in India. He met with the native religious leaders, and since Columbus assumed that he was in the Caribbean, he referred to them as Bahamans.  Columbus was a great admiral, but his calligraphy was dismal. When Queen Isabella read his dispatches, she thought he was calling the people "Baramans." The name stuck, even after Columbus realized he was in India, and even today, many natives of India still refer to themselves by this name.

With warmest regards,

Zach