Me and Angela Merkel

When I learned that Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, and me, Downtrodden Middle-Aged Family Man, were close enough in age to have dated in high school, I practically had a cow.* How could it be possible? I can understand that the President of the US is younger, looks younger, probably feels younger (hard to say - I've never touched him) because the US is a young country. The people may be old, or more accurately the bulk of the population may be getting old, but the country relatively speaking is just a baby. Actually I can understand why many countries, regardless of their age, would have leaders younger than me. Given my diminished mental capacity, shrinking vocabulary, lack of the most basic arithmetical skills including the completely forgotten multiplication tables, begrudging acceptance of virtualization along with the fact that personal computers did not exist when I went to college (for you younger folks that would mean smart phones, iPods, GPS, video games - well just about everything we now rely on to manage our existence), and declining physical condition, the details of which we need not delve into at the moment...it makes perfect sense that electorates the world over are choosing younger candidates. Except in Germany.

But to imagine that had I been a German, or more specifically a West German, I could have at some point in my younger days had relations with Angela Merkel - that is a sobering, depressing thought.

As I cogitate on the possibilities there is a creeping anxiety that perhaps, just perhaps, I did have relations with Angela Merkel.

Jesus could it have been her?

The bossy, sweaty little porker that was always telling the rest of us what to do in that all-too-familiar "Sound of Music" German accent?

It was 1978 and I was "studying abroad", pretending to teach English to little brown bunnies in Jalapa, the capital of the state of Veracruz, nestled in the mountains between that coastal city and the megalopolis of Mexico (which is how Mexicans refer to the city: not Mexico City, just Mexico.) About 3 weeks before I was to return to Boulder for graduation, I decided to see the sights. I headed straight for the island of Isla Mujeres off the coast of the Yucatan, where it was said college kids, mostly girls, from around the world gathered to snorkel, drink, dance and have relations. (Had I known a gangly American kid with a blonde Jewfro didn't stand a chance next to the French, Italian, British, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Australian, West German and all the other fellas not behind the "Iron Curtain", I would have just toured the Mayan Ruins and gone home.) But there was one night, Cinco de Mayo festival it must have been because the party lasted all night long, night after night, for about a week, when a pudgy little German with a cute little Page Boy hairdo got so drunk that all I had to do was figure out how to roll her into my sleeping bag. Of course she  had yet to take on the appearance of a seasoned yet perennially tired head of state. No. She was in fact rather perky, even when she was barfing all over her German touring sandals (if she had only taken those black socks off!). And smart as a whip, when I could make out what she was saying, which was hard enough not speaking German and damn near impossible when the German became unintelligible. But I can recall that even on all fours I could tell she had a future in politics, just by the way she grunted and squealed. Or course I can't remember her name but Angela would have been just as good as any.

Oh lord tell me it couldn't have been her. Tell me we couldn't possibly be the same age, that I am far more youthful, vital, and refreshing than the Chancellor of Germany. Tell me before I go to sleep tonight, if I can go to sleep tonight, that the Euro Debt Crisis is not my wife's problem to solve (man that would put her is such a baaaad mood). Even if it's inevitable that Angela and I are almost the same age - just one measly year apart (she is older - yay!), tell me lord that it wasn't her in the fleabag Mexican hotel with cucaraches the size of a Luftwaffe bomber.

If the good lord can't grant me a reprieve then I ask you, gentle reader, to at least understand my reaction to the very thought of being the same age as Angela Merkel. Seriously. Who wouldn't have a cow?

*Is "having a cow" considered cliche? Maybe it was in the sixties, but I would venture to say that very few people are still having cows, though it may feel like it to them. Of course the idea of a human giving birth to a cow is outrageous, which is perhaps why the phrase still has such appeal to cultural hicks like myself. When my children get upset, even now in their 20s, I love to tell them "well don't have a cow about it!", which invariably shuts them up. For obvious reasons.

Crunchy Roasted Nibs

Greetings and Welcome to "Humdiddy", where you can revel in uninformed opinions, half-baked epiphanies, insensitive observations, inaccurate reports, boring proclamations, and bombastic pontification on whatever is yanking my chain, getting my goat, bunching my panties, frosting my balls, getting my dander up, wrong-treeing my bark, or hummin' my diddy. Unlike my other blog, "Various and Sundry", where I tell stories both real and imagined but always in equally poor taste, the only fiction you'll find in "Hummin' the Diddy" is when my brain gets abducted by aliens in the middle of blogging (which I've always thought sounded like a dirty, perhaps even scatological activity).

So to help you decide whether "Humdiddy" is a blog you mistakenly might want to follow, let's just start bloggin'. All together now: Do a little blog, make a little blog, get blogged tonight, get blogged tonight! (See I told you this would be bad.)

Some of you may have stumbled across a little video I made with my good buddy Sock Monkey last week, where the monkster sings the praises of "crunchy roasted nibs". This was inspired by the label on a Bolivian "Alter-Eco" dark chocolate bar" Dark Chocolate Cacao with Crunchy Roasted Nibs". On that day my brain must have been seeking relief from the mind-numbing drudgery, dark seriousness, and shameless ass-kissing that comprises my corporate gig with Big Fucking Company (BFC in my 2nd novel, "American Corporate"). To counter the relentless pressure to quickly perform senseless administrivia, my brain will latch onto a phrase like "crunchy roasted nibs" and turn it into a melodic mantra, (aka "brain worm" Thanks DeeDee). Then, with desperate desire to do something at least nominally creative, and with Sock Monkey sitting not two feet from the computer where I live, we (sock monkey and I) decided to skip the next conference call and make a video for Facebook. Regardless of how shitty, stupid, and silly it came out, we were going to post this thing and see if we could get a few laughs. (Now I realize that it may have been the chemicals unlocked by crunching on those roasted nibs that inspired this manic silliness). The idea to suggest that the painting, or a painting like it, might make a good holiday gift, was entirely Sock Monkey's idea. He felt that just singing the little song, which he made up on the spot, lacked purpose. "What good is it to just sing a song about crunchy roasted nibs?" he complained.

"Yes,  but if you throw a plug for the paintings in there you will lose the pure existentialism of the experience!" I countered.

"Horseshit!" shouted Sock Monkey. And that was that, because as soon as Sock Monkey starts talking about shit you run the risk of having it all over the place. He is, after all, a monkey.

I must admit I was a little disappointed by the general lack of an intelligent reaction to "Crunchy Roasted Nibs" by the audience, the media and the blogosphere in general. Here was a breathtakingly original, raw, primitive and uncontrived film promoting the benefits of fair-trade Bolivian chocolate. Indeed, there are few if any Bolivian food products out there promising to make the consumer "get down and get funky", at least not in English. My suspicion is that most Americans do not understand the significance, or the mental health benefits of crunchy roasted nibs. 

So let's pause and consider the spiritual significance and possible mental health benefits of crunchy roasted nibs. Let me suggest that the secret lies not in the nibs themselves, nor in their roasted crunchiness, but rather  in the rhythmic, drone-like quality of the phrase itself: "crunchy roasted nibs". It is the creation of the sonic waveform in the brain that in turn, through auto-suggestion, produces the profoundly deep meditative state. I bet that if you sat in some sort of yogic position in a temple high in the Himalayas with several hundred scarlet-robed, shaved-headed Tibetan monks chanting "crunchy roasted nibs" in their famous throbbing hum, you would experience the ecstasy of nirvana. Or you would get so hungry thinking about the chocolatey crunch of a roasted nib you might bite one of the monks (as some of them are similar in color).

So now you know why I made that stupid, irritating, silly little video, holding Sock Monkey in my left hand (he still hasn't learned how to walk on his own) and my iPhone in my right. First there was the trigger: the compelling yearning of the brain to break free of it's corporate shackles to dwell in the abstract chaos of the unfettered mind (and get down and funky in the process).  And then the realization that our purpose was not simply to create a childlike, sophomoric diversion but to actually share this simple yet powerful mantra with as many suffering souls as possible in the interest of individual enlightenment and ultimately world peace.

So let's try it one more time. Repeat after me:
Crunchy roasted nibs (yay!)
Crunchy roasted nibs (yay!)
Get down and get funky with some
Crunchy roasted nibs (yaaaaaay!) 

Ahhhhhhh. Ommmmmmm. See?

Just goes to show ya: it's not what you say, it's how (and how often) you say it!

Amen!