A Wisconsin Yankee in Walt Disney's Court

As usual, I’m consumed with Scrabble. Lately, not so much with fruitlessly trying to learn new words (what the hell’s a QUADRAT?) but with my new products I’ve mentioned here before. The wife is sewing constantly on the Tilecans, my new type of bag, and I’ve been sculpting and pouring mold rubber for my Tilecouch, my all new tile rack.

I just put up a site for them at tilecan.com and I’ll be selling them at the National Scrabble Championships up in Dayton, Ohio next week. As glamorous as it sounds, flying into Dayton might be a little stressful, with 31 games of Scrabble and dealing with this side venture.
I’m rooming with a guy named Stu Goldman, who I didn’t realize is the proverbial “old man of Scrabble” until after I met him and agreed to share the room. He’s played more tournament games of Scrabble than any other person, from the 1960s or ’70s until today, and still attends just about every major tournament. I hope he wins the big one this year, or some year.
I’ll try to blog my results and anything else that happens from Dayton, so keep posted…

See what I mean? There’s no market for jarred tamales, but somebody’s buying this? See more at The Museum of Snack Foods, along with other great things like the canned whole chicken.

In past incarnations I’ve written about Derby tamales, the anachronistic Mexican food in a jar that was a long-time favorite of mine. I never found them down here in Florida, and in my last couple of trips up north they were gone from the store shelves. I’ve confirmed the worst, now– they’ve been officially discontinued by whatever conglomerate owned the brand, no longer to be found anywhere.
The paper-wrapped treats surely weren’t “the real thing,” but really they weren’t that far off from the southern US type and in their processed goodness were way more consistent than the homemade tamales my dad would bring home from his Mexican buddies at work. Between biting into a big gob of fat in one once and the rumor that they were occasionally made from stray cats, I haven’t in years and may never again eat a corn husk-wrapped traditional tamale. The Derby tamales were always perfect, whatever kind of meat it was, whether it was really “meat” or not, I don’t care as long as I don’t have to know about it. As an aside, it’s not like I ever liked or ate crab much but I’ll never touch crab legs again after seeing that TV show with the smoking bums handling them and not getting washed overboard fast enough. I’ve got news for ya, you’re not a Great American Hero for taking a suicidal job in hopes of scoring a quick buck and loafing between fishing seasons, no matter what the Discovery Channel may think.
Anyway, there’s a Hormel canned version that’s probably not all that far off, but they’re just not the same. It’s hard to see how Derby Tamales weren’t a viable product, having no real competition and a long history of brand recognition. Other crazy antiquated products line the store shelves, like deviled ham in little paper-wrapped cans and weird jars of weiners and fish parts that I can’t identify. Lovers of those items may want to watch out; you know the cliché, “First they came for the tamales, and I said nothing…”

I couldn’t help but be thrilled by the recent story of the woman who tried to sue Cap’n Crunch because after 4 years of eating Crunchberries she realized they weren’t real fruit. A judge was forced to write a non-condescending opinion in dismissing the case that sounds like something from The Onion. My favorite line, from the Consumerist write up: “This Court is not aware of, nor has Plaintiff alleged the existence of, any actual fruit referred to as a ‘crunchberry.’”
Simply classic. But what could the mentality of the person who brought the lawsuit be? And how could any being who’s supposedly smart enough to pass a bar exam represent them? There’s apparently a legal precedent from another nutball who tried to sue Toucan Sam because Froot Loops don’t contain any real fruit. You’d think “Froot” would’ve nipped complaints like that in the bud, but you can’t be sure anymore. In a world where most people can’t spell “fruit” they must’ve seen it coming eventually. I knew a guy who didn’t learn how it was spelled until sometime in his forties, and went around pronouncing in “froo-itt” like everybody else in the world was an idiot.
It’s a personal favorite, the naive moron tale. The best may be the story of the numerous people who complained about one of those animatronic dinosaur exhibits at a zoo because the dinosaurs weren’t real. I’m pretty sure that was in Tennessee, but still. And Texas was beset by reports of giant flying pteradactyls after a famous find of a pteradon fossil in the 1970s. Bible belt anti-evolutionists thought they were under siege and mistook every small aircraft they saw for a monster chasing their car.
Anyway, the good Cap’n survived another hit. They took away his Jay Ward commercials, cool little plastic toys in the box, and made him look bad by making every other cereal on the planet “healthier.” They’re even adding fiber to Apple Jacks, the quintessential sugary emptiness for Saturday mornings. But Cap’n Crunch hasn’t given in, and the legal system and America’s morons won’t be the ones to take him down.

My bout with the Swine Flu is over, but a recurring malady still has me sidetracked: possibly the most inane repetitive stress injury ever, Dr. Seuss Elbow.
The best I can figure is that when I read books to the 3-year-old at night, I sit on the floor and lean on her bed with my left arm so she can see the pictures. Lately it’s painful to get past the first volume of illustrated rhymes or Elmo-loses-his-blanket nonsense, and we usually do 3. It aches for a while after we’re done, but goes away eventually. It recurs when I move my arm a certain way, but as Henny Youngman used to say, “Well don’t move your arm like that anymore.” I’ll have to get used to it.
I was only vaguely aware of Dr. Seuss and a lot of children’s literature before the little one came along, really, since the only kid’s books I remember having when I was young were those crummy little Golden Books. My mom always insisted I was too young to read, and I’m pretty sure they never read to me, so I don’t even know why we had them. By the time I figured it out myself I was getting kicked out of the young adult section at the library and had no interest in The Cat in the Hat.
I was a little disappointed that a lot of these things have no narrative to speak of, and sometimes barely a unifying theme. If Red Fish, Blue Fish wasn’t merely cobbled together from leftover sketches I’d be surprised. And isn’t it a cheat when you just make up words and names in order to rhyme? In his ABCs book, a “Zizzer-Zazzer Zuz” is the subject of the letter Z! What kind of a cop-out is that?
Still, the classics like Seuss, Goodnight Moon, and Where the Wild Things Are play second fiddle to blatantly educational “how to count” books and uninspired Muppet and cartoon spin-off fare. But the “real” books still have some appeal, which is good because I’d hate to have sacrificed my left arm for a bunch of Dora the Explorer adaptations.