Jim Nolan's Blog

The 1970s Just Ended

As long as there was Tab Cola, the decade wasn’t over.

You were beautiful to me.

 

I can still hear the jingle in my head.

“Tab, Tab Cola, what a beautiful drink. Tab, Tab Cola, for beautiful people. Tab, you’re beautiful to me. Real cola taste, just one calorie.”

In the commercial, a beautiful bikini-clad woman walks towards camera from the water, wet from the sea but somehow holding a can of… Tab. Apparently, if you drink Tab, one calorie Tab, you will look like her or I suppose the male equivalent. “Promise, large promise,” said Samuel Johnson, “is the soul of an advertisement.” Becoming beautiful because of a soda pop is a large promise.

In my house growing up, we loved Tab. Dad especially. It was the one soda we were allowed to have, maybe because it didn’t have sugar and tasted bitter. No Coke or Pepsi for us. We were beautiful people, becoming more beautiful with each lousy-tasting can.

Occasionally we might drink a Fresca, which was, like Tab, a Cola-Cola Company product. It was another one-calorie drink, and also tasted terrible, which made it acceptable in our house. The cyclamates gave both sodas a weird aftertaste and probably grew polyps as they traveled down into our sugar-free gullets.

“Fresca” means “fresh” in Italian and Spanish. I bet the naming experts had a good chuckle over that one. If you opened a can of Fresca today that had been sitting in the sun on an AMC Gremlin dashboard since 1971, the potassium benzoate, Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid and glycerol ester of wood rosin would have aged it like a fine wine, if they didn’t dissolve the can and the car first.

Both Tab and Fresca were truly representative of the times. The Me Decade, Tom Wolfe famously called it, but it was also a decade when Americans decided that they had missed out on all the fun hippies had in the 1960s, and decided to create their own unique and insane version of it. Even Lawrence Welk decorated his TV set like Timothy Leary had slipped the entire staff peyote. Wunnerful, wunnerful. And if you look at it now, psychedelic. They probably had a lot of Tab backstage in the fridge.

As of December, Tab is as kaput as Shake-A-Puddin’, having outlasted it by decades. Of course, Tab had the advantage of being physically addictive, having caffeine, the only reason anyone would drink it more than once. To me its demise somehow marked the true end of the 70s. As long as Tab was out there, the decade was hanging on, like Marimekko and weed still give life to the 1960s.

But the 70s will never die, even if Tab does. As long as there’s bad taste, the decade will be with us, like the smell of English Leather lingering in your dad’s closet. As long as a double knit suit hangs in a vintage clothing store, the spirit of the 70s is still strong. Until the last orange shag carpeting is ripped out, revealing a wood floor. The last Ford Pinto gets crushed. The last time “Disco Duck!” gets played on Spotify. When the last beaded macrame planter is taken off its ceiling hook.

We won’t have Tab, but we will always have the jingle. Which raises the question, what are the beautiful people supposed to drink now? I can’t imagine anybody emerging from the ocean with a can of Mello Yello. No, our country’s signature Tab beauty will now begin to fade away, like Dorian Gray once his portrait is destroyed. It was a good run.

"Gut Biome" Piece in March Issue of Funny Times

Remembrance of Beers Past

Cartoon by Isabella Bannerman

Once I was in a book club that had only men. I know what you’re thinking: “What did you read about, beer?” It’s just that kind of stereotyping that keeps men from forming book clubs and reading Proust together. Whatever. We read a history book. A history of Guinness Stout.

One of our members worked for the company that owned the brewery, and his idea was that we would all read the book, and then rent a bus and visit pubs to further study this important icon of Irish commerce and culture. I guess you could say we were trying to better ourselves through education.

Not that we all actually read the book. It was more a hands-on learning experience, for most of us.

One nugget I will share with you—because I did read it—is that Guinness is creamy because nitrogen gas is injected into it at the tap. That’s why it looks so lovely and mysterious, and why it’s lighter tasting than you’d expect. It was a gimmick Guinness added in the 1959, when lighter-colored beers began to outsell dark ones. As gimmicks go, it’s a good one, like the prize in a box of Cracker Jacks, Henny Youngman's violin, or the Village People spelling out “Y.M.C.A” with their arms. After hearing the song for 40 years, I recently mastered this, and now I look for opportunities to show off my ability, like the grounds crew at Yankee Stadium does while tidying the base path following the sixth inning.

While sampling the stout with the Book Club, it recalled an earlier time in my life when I drank my first Guinness in Dublin. It made me remember the sawdust on the floor, the crackling fire nearby, the small but spirited band playing “The Wild Rover.” Proust’s famous madeleine, the taste of which brought back to him a rush of memories, had been replaced by a pint.

My wife is in a book club that has only women participants. They have read My Brilliant Friend, the first of four books by Elena Ferrante about two friends growing up in postwar Naples, Italy. The series is loosely based on The Lord of the Rings. It takes place in a strange, far-away land, there is a lot of fighting, and men are the Orcs.

The men’s book club lasted but one meeting, as it was always meant to. But as brief as its existence was, it may have been the greatest book club of all time. We learned a lot. About Guinness. About friendship. About nitrogen.

It made me want to learn so much more. Like, do they serve Guinness at Yankee Stadium? And, how can I get on the grounds crew there?

Godzilla Vs. Liam Neeson

Illustration by Josh Roepe

While the New Year promises many good things, we must keep in mind that certain human behaviors never evolve. I’m talking about our stubborn and unhealthy habit of underestimating Godzilla and Liam Neeson.  

This was made obvious to me while watching two new movie trailers: Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and Cold Pursuit. In both, mankind continues to make the same mistake over and over again. Fools!

Let’s start with Godzilla, who has to be the most misunderstood creature on the planet, and has been for over 60 years and 33 films. He has been patient with us. Like Frankenstein’s “monster,” we judge him because of the way he looks, rather than acts. He has pulled our bacon from the fire time and time again against the biggest and baddest Kaiju out there. Yes, he may clumsily destroy a city or two while doing so, but when you put this up against the destruction of life as we know it, losing San Francisco doesn’t seem so bad, and maybe real estate prices there will come down to more affordable levels.

Even the government seems to harbor some resentment towards Godzilla, perhaps because it has proven so unable to protect us without his aid and assistance. In the trailer, we witness this exchange:

Haughty congressional panel: “So, you’d want to make Godzilla our pet?”

(laughter)

Ken Watanabe: “No. We would be his.”

Watanabe is from Japan, and has the proper respect for the monster that Americans are sadly lacking.

By the way, Godzilla, despite his late middle age, is looking good. As people point out in the comments section of the online trailer,

“Godzilla definitely didn’t skip leg day these past five years. Damn.” Even more tellingly, someone writes, “Godzilla is a friend, not the Monster!!!” The three exclamation points indicate a frustration we all have with those who do not understand this.

Like Godzilla, Liam Neeson tries to live a quiet life but is constantly called to resolve a situation not of his own making. His antagonists are human monsters. People who make the mistake of messing with his family. And this happens regularly, like clockwork, as the Cold Pursuit comments section makes plain:

“If Liam Neeson is your father, you are sure to die soon or be abducted.”

“Still, they dare to kill or abduct his children?”

“When will these people learn?”

They will never learn. Not as long as such behavior continues to pay off at the box office again and again and again. As one commentator writes,

“Taken” on a “Cold Pursuit” through “The Grey,” he’ll “Run All Night” “Non-Stop” because he’s “The Commuter.”

If any of the villains were film fans, they would know to steer clear of the gentle-appearing Neeson, as he has “a certain set of skills.” Bad guys, you are going to get your just desserts. And a theater-full of people will applaud your richly deserved demise.

Godzilla Vs. Kong is up next in 2020. King Kong as an opponent? That’s fine, but why not Liam Neeson? That’s what the public wants to see. An unstoppable force meets an immovable object.

Since neither can be defeated, I recommend a plot like this: Godzilla’s child, Little Godzilla, is kidnapped along with Liam’s daughter, who was babysitting. Only by overcoming their initial animosity and combining forces can the two hope to get their kids back. It’s a buddy movie between a Japanese monster with an atomic heat beam and an Irish nice guy who can kill you with a sharp glance.

Liam will have to cover most of the dialog.

The Daddoni Movement

Illustration by Isabella Bannerman

Maybe you’ve heard of the Italian word “Mammoni,” which means “Mamma’s boy” in Italy. It refers to men in their twenties and thirties who live at home with their parents and are lavishly tended to by their adoring mothers. Some of the recent statistics about the Italian economy will tell you that it’s all about unemployment, lack of affordable housing, and the collapse of the social safety net. Blah, blah, blah. I am trying to turn my sons into Daddoni, because I don’t want them to leave.

I miss my sons terribly when they are away. When we are together, they seem perfectly happy to listen to my keen insights on topics including the proper ranking of Jimmy Page guitar solos, (“Heartbreaker” takes the top spot), snow shoveling strategies, and the primacy of thin crust pizza. These are all topics we agree on—happily debating them for the 10,000^th time—which, in my book, is a good thing.

So, while they are home, either on school break or visiting from the city, I spoil them mercilessly, in hopes that they realize the sweet life is found right here at home sweet home. Their laundry barely hits the floor before it’s washed and folded. Let me iron that shirt for you. How ‘bout a turkey sandwich, the way you like it with lots of pepper and mayo? Chips? They protest, knowing it’s a trap.

It’s said that kids leaving home is “the natural order of things.” But until fairly recently, it used to be natural for all the generations of a family to live together. We have replaced those family members with electronics, trying to alleviate the loneliness we feel. Alexa has replaced Nonna, and Facetime, real time.

We were meant to live like the Neapolitan families in Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, crowded into an apartment building surrounded by other families, everybody within screaming distance. Nobody lonely there, but they did want to kill each other a lot of the time. Okay, maybe there’s something in between. Like a big, roomy apartment in Rome overlooking the Trevi Fountain, with a restaurant down below where you can sit outside and have a plate of Spaghetti alla Carbonara and a nice Chianti. If we lived there, I can assure you our kids would not move out. I wouldn’t even have to do their laundry.

Being a Daddoni would be simpler in Italy, and more accepted. “Jim does such a good job with the boys’ laundry—their shirts smell like a fresh spring day—how could they ever leave?” My example might even spur other fathers to join my Daddoni movement, relieving the unfair burden of pampering our offspring from the moms.

But who knows. Maybe it’s best they do leave and experience new things before they learn that it’s better to find one good thing—in movies, that would be Mad Max: Fury Road—and stick with it. These are lessons they have to find out for themselves, like Lenù and Lila in My Brilliant Friend, who learn that the old neighborhood is best, and there’s no reason to ever leave it.

Well, that was my reading of it.

Gold, Frankincense, Myrrh, and Panettone

I know I’m going to get some pushback on this from Chocolate Babka fanatics, and they make a strong argument, but for me the pinnacle of Western Civilization is Panettone. Specifically, Panettone with Chocolate Chip and Coffee Cream Filling.

What about famous works of art, you ask. The Sistine Chapel? The Mona Lisa? The Ninth Symphony? They are all supreme examples human accomplishment, but do you doubt that Michelangelo or Leonardo or Beethoven wouldn’t have abandoned them for even a small bite of chocolate panettone? They would have jumped at the chance. “Mona, come over here, you gotta taste this.” Surely this is the reason for her famous smile.

Panettone is a dessert cake created in the place where all good things come from, Italy, in this case, Milan. It is triple baked to give it a light and airy texture, and often contains candied fruits and raisins. But it is the substitution of the fruits and raisins with chocolate chips and coffee cream that takes it from the sublime to the supreme. When the original baker first tasted it, it is not hard to image a chorus of angels surrounded her and sang hosannas, and then grabbed a few mouthfuls. It is possible they even fought over it.  

Cruelly, panettone is available only during the holiday season. It’s only fitting that something so spectacular is available for such a short time, lest it overwhelm us with its perfection, like Celine Dion’s voice. We would also gain too much weight if it were available year-round, as panettone is, in legal terms, irresistible. There are no leftovers, nothing to have in the morning, not even a crumb too small for a Who’s mouse.

The Milanese, in their wisdom, know that panettone is too powerful to exist for more than six or so weeks of the year, and that its distribution must be carefully controlled. I imagine their bakeries are monitored by a special Panettone Polizia force that looks for unusually large deliveries of candied fruits. The Scar Pier bakery, the one that baked the Panettone with Chocolate Chips and Coffee Cream Filling I had, should be singled out for special attention, as the ne plus ultra of panettone, of cuisine, art, and human expression.

The Italians, they move on after the last panettone is eaten, and so should we. Gelati is almost as good, and it’s possible to limit oneself to one gelateria visit a day. Okay, two. La dolce vita comes in many flavors.

You Can’t Kill the Wilhelm Scream

There are a lot of ways to die. Especially in the movies.

You can be axed to death by an orc. You can be thrown to your death by Chewbacca or Batman. Shot by Luke Skywalker or Howard the Duck. The engine room of the Titanic can flood, with you in it. Your chariot can tip over on you. A giant mutant ant may crush you in its pincers.

There’s a sound effect for that. It’s called the Wilhelm Scream, and it’s been an inside joke among sound designers and film buffs for decades. It is a flexible, good-for-what-ails-you sound effect, fine to accompany virtually any manner of untimely end.

It came to life in 1951, when a soldier in the movie Distant Drums gets killed by an alligator. An actor later recorded different takes of his scream, one of which they added while editing. The scream became part of the Warner Bros. stock sounds library, and it was used again in 1953’s The Charge at Feather River, when a Private Wilhelm gets pierced by an arrow. After that, the scream appears now and then, when someone bites the dust and feels chagrined about it.

Twenty-five years later, sound designer Bill Burtt notices the scream, tracks it down and renames it after Wilhelm. Then he starts using it in Star Wars movies. Now, Burtt is a remarkable guy. He designed the sounds of R2-D2, the lightsaber, and Darth Vader’s breathing, and is no doubt held in high esteem by others in his trade. They began using the Wilhelm Scream, too, and to date it has appeared in close to 400 movies.

There are other famous sound effects. They include the bold cry of a red-tailed hawk. It is substituted for the chirp of the Bald Eagle, a sound you’re more likely to more associate with a chickadee.

“Castle Thunder” is a great bang and rumble first used in 1931 when lightning illuminates Dr. Frankenstein’s castle. Ka-boom! Mel Brooks used it in Young Frankenstein as well. Blucher!

 There’s the “Universal Telephone Ring,” used countless times in movies and TV shows, including the opening of The Rockford Files. “This is Jim Rockford. At the tone, leave your name and message, I’ll get back to you.” I hope it’s not Angel. That guy was always getting Jimbo in trouble.

There’s even a sound effect called “Howie’s Scream,” which is even longer than Wilhelm’s. You’d use it if someone was falling into an abyss, screaming all the way down. It’s a nice option for a long goodbye.

Wilhelm’s likely voice actor was Sheb Wooley, who also wrote and sang the 1958 hit “Purple People Eater,” and played scout Pete Nolan—no relation—on the TV show “Rawhide.” Sheb never got credited, and in spite of how many times it was used, never earned any royalties. So his scream also functions as a commentary on one more actor being ripped off by Hollywood.

In some ways I believe the scream has become not only part of the soundtrack of a film, but of our lives, a sonic representation of how we react to current events. If the 1960’s were the “Wonder Years,” we’re in the “Wilhelm Years.” Every other post on Facebook is a Wilhelm Scream. Cable news, it’s a Wilhelm scream. Politicians campaigning. Pundits pontificating. Parents on the sidelines of their children’s games.

It’s the sound you make when you open your cable/wifi/phone bill. When your job is replaced by a robot, algorithm, or millennial.

Our national conversation has become a giant yawp of anger and fear. What is talk radio but a Howie’s Scream?

So maybe it’s good Burtt has decided to retire Wilhelm from future Star Wars movies. Maybe we should retire it, too.

Unless a giant ant clasps you in its pinchers. If that happens, you know what to do.

Zambonis of the Gods?

It’s a two-mile-long, flat plane of ice floating in the Weddell Sea off Antarctica, shaped like a perfect rectangle. It’s so big it contains enough water to fill every swimming pool in California several times over.

It’s a tabular iceberg, broken off from the Ross Ice Shelf. Scientists, who think they know everything, say that such a shape—perfectly even on the top with 130-foot high sides that look like they were cut with a band saw—is natural and explained by something they call “physics.” I have another theory, unencumbered by fact: it is an ice rink used by giant aliens to play hockey.

I put this theory forward not to create a sensation or become fabulously wealthy, like Erik von Däniken, the author of Chariots of the Gods?, which has sold over 70 million copies. But publishers, let’s talk.

Von Däniken argues that humanity has been visited by extraterrestrial visitors for thousands of years, providing us with their wisdom. And what a wonderful job they’ve done, helping us create the wheel, the pyramids, Netflix, EZ Pass, Pringles, all of them advancing civilization by leaps and bounds.

The pictures of the iceberg were taken by a NASA research plane, and if you look very, very closely, and squint, you may see what appears to be a giant alien Zamboni, probably brought here from another galaxy that gets NHL games as part of their cable package. Not having water on their planet, the aliens had to travel to Earth, and their great size made the giant Antarctic ‘bergs the perfect venue. They play in the darkness of the polar night, with night vision goggles, explaining why there is no photographic evidence.

These are theories I intend to explore in Zambonis of the Gods?, an evidence-free look at these unsolved mysteries, which deserve greater understanding, government funding, and a cable TV series with a concerned-sounding narrator raising questions like, “Has Bobby Orr been contacted by the aliens to play on one of their teams?” I don’t doubt that he has—aliens are intelligent, as we have seen time and time again in movies. By the way, it is well known that E.T. had a wicked slapshot. Spock, believe it or not, spent a lot of time in the penalty box for tripping. On Vulcan, he was known as a dirty player, ready to drop his gloves at the slightest provocation.

Could the Zamboni be a stunt by the Zamboni company to get publicity? No, I don’t think so. The Zamboni’s presence on the iceberg is more, how to put this, theoretical in nature, which is why I have put a question mark in the title. It could be there, it’s just hard to prove it, except by bravely claiming it is there, like that book on advertising’s “hidden persuaders” that hid the persuaders so well it turned out they didn’t exist. It sold a million copies. Perhaps the Zamboni is subliminal, that’s why you can’t see it.

The photo NASA took of Bobby Orr on the iceberg waving back at them, however, that’s as real as it gets. I will dedicate the book to him.

Illustration by Isabella Bannerman

From Factory Town to Olfactory Fame: Cheerios Is on the Breeze in Buffalo

Illustration by Isabella Bannerman

While Buffalo has many reasons to visit, like its famous chicken wings, world-class art and architecture, and nearby Niagara Falls, it may one day be known for another reason altogether: Cheerios are cooked up in the Queen City.

When the wind is right, the smell of baking Cheerios wafts over the city, bringing delight to all. Buffalo is considered one of the friendliest cities in America, and surely this is a contributing factor. It’s hard to argue with someone when your sense of smell gives you a sense of bliss.

Buffalo didn’t always smell like Cheerios. The wondrous scent was masked by more noxious odors from steel factories. They are gone now, and the jobs that went with them. But their absence revealed something Buffalonians had not known, that underlying the fog of pollution was a note of happiness waiting to be revealed.

Over a billion dollars worth of Cheerios are sold each year. It is an American icon, and wholesome, too, made from oat grain. It is the Tom Hanks of cereal. Even toddlers love it. Chocolate Cheerios has been available since 2010. Imagine a chocolate-covered Tom Hanks. He’d be more popular than ever, but not, like Cheerios, gluten free.

To create the unique Cheerios shape, a round ball of dough is sent through a pumping gun at speeds of 100 MPH, puffing it up. Lester Borchardt came up with the idea in 1941. They probably thought he was goofing off, playing with his food. Which, no doubt, he was.

“Let me get this straight, Lester. You’re going to take the dough, send it through a thin metal tube at 100 miles an hour, and see what happens?”

“In the name of science.”

“Can I help?”

You’d want to be careful around that gun. It’s easy to imagine engineers after the holiday party turning it on each other, as another “experiment.” A visit to the ER to get Cheerios embedded in your skin removed would be embarrassing. The hospital might tweet a photo for the publicity.

Much has been made of the Cheerios smell in Buffalo, but not so much the scent of magically delicious Lucky Charms. I haven’t witnessed it, but I imagine its effect would be different on people. I think people who inhale its aroma would begin to speak in an Irish brogue, like “Lucky,” the cereal’s leprechaun character implanted in our brains by TV advertising. “Always after me Lucky Charms,” Lucky says. He seems good humored about it. If people were continually trying to steal my foodstuffs, I might not be so gracious. But the Irish, I suppose, are used to it.

So for your next vacation, involve all five of your senses. Visit Buffalo. Taste authentic wings. See a Frank Lloyd Wright mansion that has undergone a stunning $50 million restoration. Hear and feel the thunder of the Falls just twenty minutes away.

And smell something that may take you to a different place altogether: To the breakfast table long ago, sleepy eyed, asking someone to pass the milk.

Vermont Country Store Audio Essay

Asbach Spirited Chocolates Gift Box from the Vermont Country Store Christmas catalog. 

You can listen to the essay by clicking below. Thanks Josh Roepe for the great job recording and editing it. 

Christmas Arrives With This Catalog

New Piece at HumorOutcasts.com

A screengrab from my latest piece at HumorOutcasts.com. You can read the rest by clicking here.