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 America'sCriminalsThis Advice Emergency goes out to America’s Criminals. Listen up you bad guys! Don’t think you can do a crime and then eat
your way to innocence. It ain’t gonna work! Or at least that’s what a jury in New Jersey told a 285-pound guy
who said he was too fat to have committed murder. Edward Ates—that’s ATES;
A-T-E-S; the plural past tense of EAT—told the court that his obesity made him innocent. He was too fat to run up a
set of stairs….shoot his former son-in-law six times…and then run down the stairs and make a getaway. The jury, however, did not eat up his story…or swallow his fat-man
defense. Ates was convicted of murder. Our
advice: Don’t think you can get fat and then get away with murder. And don’t
even think of taking French fries off our plates.America's Bad Drivers This Advice
Emergency goes out to America’s Bad Drivers. |
America's Naked People Hey, you Naked People, stay away from our sporting events! We don’t want you streakers, flashers, and other bare-assed pranksters interrupting our beer-drinking and booing. Especially if we miss the whole thing because we’re waiting in line at the urinal to recycle that beer. Consider the case of 38-year-old New York plumber Craig Coakley. According to the Associated Press, his boss said he’d give him a week’s pay if he’d run naked across the field at a New York Mets Game. Well, Coakley did it. He had a stuffed monkey tied around his waist. (Who knew our monkey was a Mets fan?) He was arrested, had to pay a $1,000 fine, $2,000 in civil penalties, and was sentenced to 20 days of community service. (What kind of community service can a naked electrician with a monkey tied around his waist do? We don’t know, but we're sure it involves federal health care.) But the judge took mercy on Coakley, and limited his suffering by banning him from Mets’ games for a year. Our advice: Listen, you naked people—stay home!!! And stay away from our stuffed monkey; he’s trouble. Walmart: Get A Truck
Okay, Walmart, now that you’ve taken over almost every aspect of American retailing, it’s time to branch out into wheels. How about a Walmart truck? A nice, basic, midsized pickup that everyone could afford. Import it from China or India, sell it in one model, one color, one trim level—sort of a modern-day Model T. It would be cheap to buy, and cheap to keep—after all Walmat has service bays with batteries and tires at most stores, as well as gas pumps. This could be the greatest Walmart product since $1.97 salsa. Our advice: C’mon, Walmart sell a Sam’s Choice Truck. Electric Car Nuts This Advice Emergency goes out to all those electric car nuts. (Hello, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, anybody home?) We know you love the idea of electric cars—everybody driving around all clean and green, with just batteries, no fossil-fuel-burning engines. We love the idea of jetpacks and flying motorcycles, but know they aren’t realistic. If you knew anything about cars, you’d know that electric cars aren’t much more realistic. The technology simply isn’t there. About 100 miles is the most anybody can expect on a charge. That’s just enough to leave us stranded in the middle of nowhere. Plus, having to plug in your car for hours each day just ain’t gonna work. Neither are the prices. Right now, battery-powered cars are far more expensive than some wonderfully efficient gasoline cars. Yes, battery technology is evolving. But let’s come up with a super-battery for cell phones before we put them in our cars. In the meantime, our advice: Don’t push the dream too far too fast. Face it, today’s electric cars are just a big green PR stunt. Efficient gas-powered cars—and gasoline/battery hybrids—are the only real choice. America's Retailers Hey, you retailers: Put self-service check-out on the shelf. We speak from experience: Self-service check-out at the grocery store sucks!
Self-service gas is okay…though not always cheaper; self-service banking is okay; even self-serve travel planning—good-bye agents—can work. But in retail? That's supposed to be a service business. If a cashier costs $20 an hour (with benefits), and it takes 5 minutes to check me out, that is $1.67. Now, the new self-service units must cost more than the traditional. And there must be more theft and loss—and certainly more frustration. So what are you—and we—really saving? Anything? We say, screw it!!! Self-service retail isn’t there yet. Someday, when we walk out the door and the scanners automatically and accurately charge our credit card for everything, we’ll go for it. But until then, no! Next thing, it will be self-service health care. And we’re not letting any scanner at the supermarket check us for testicular irregularities. On second thought….
TV To Sing For This Advice Emergency goes out to America’s Television Industry. Remember when TV shows had theme melodies with lyrics? It’s amazing how those songs still stick in your head. Remember the words to the opening of The Jeffersons, The Flintstones, or Mr. Ed? “A horse is a horse, of course, of course, And no one can talk to a horse of course That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed.…” Or Green Acres? “Green acres is the place for me. Farm livin' is the life for me. Land spreadin' out so far and wide Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.” Can you think of a TV show today that has a theme song with lyrics? We can’t either, and maybe that’s just one thing among the many things wrong with TV today. Our advice: Listen up, Hot-Shot TV Producers. Want to create a show that's memorable, or at least as memorable as
The Addams Family (snap your fingers twice)? Have a theme song with lyrics, and give America something it can
wrap its collective memory around. It's the kind of stuff that makes us Americans.
Bob Dylan This Advice Emergency goes out to Bob Dylan. The singer/songwriter reports that two automobile companies are in talks with him to provide the voice for their
in-car navigation systems.
America's 12-Minute Miracle  You’re not going to hear this kind of good news from the Obama Administration. But it’s official! America is the best place in the whole world. According to the Swiss Bank UBS, workers in Chicago have to labor just 12 minutes to buy a Big Mac. Tokyo, Toronto, and London are about the same, but none of those cities have The Cubs. Meanwhile, in Nairobi, Kenya, they have to work more than two and half hours to earn a Big Mac. And in Paris, it’s 20 minutes of being uppity and surly to get a Royale with Cheese.
Directory Resistance Please, please, please...When leaving a telephone number, speak slowly and say the numbers a couple of times. Like you're speaking to a stupid person who doesn't understand English. Or Joe Biden. Don’t you just hate it when you get a call like this delivered at the speed of light… “Hi, John and Randy. This is Barry. Gimme a call back at 202-456-1414 or 202-395-2020. Tootles.” A message like that requires us to hit "replay" until our index fingers bleed. And that’s an easy number. It’s not like it has fractions or French words in it. (“Hallo? Du quatre, oonze, twa, doublavay, bidet, quarter-pounder avec fommage.”) When we hear a high-speed message coming in we freeze. And we're not alone. An estimated 20 percent of all Americans have some form of dyslexia. Which means they get numbers and letters all mixed up. And we often we lose track of how much we’ve had to drink. (Though we're not sure that has anything to do with dyslexia.) Our advice: When you’re leaving a message, speak slowly and repeat the number. Remember, a lot of us have a hard time even with English. Merci beaucoup.
America’s Rich Guys America once was a contender when it came to stupid and stupidly expensive cars for rich people. How else can you explain the $110,000 Tesla Electric Roadster? (Even Smart Cars laugh at the Tesla.) The Tesla’s basically a $45,000 Lotus Elise with a lot of batteries...and one hell of an extension cord. To prove how stupid it is, the Federal Government has given this goofy electric-car company $465 million of taxpayer money. As further proof of how stupid the Tesla is, Hollywood is loaded with them. But now, our stupid American rich-guy cars are being overshadowed by the Russians. We won the Cold War, but it looks like the Ruskies are gonna kick our ass when it comes to Stupid Rich Guy Cars. Meet the $1.5-million Dartz Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition. This Russian SUV has diamond-encrusted white-gold gauges, gold-plated bullet-proof windows, and best of all, a Whale-Penis Leather interior. There's also a built-in cell phone with a special "alert" button What's the "alert" for? Just in case you’re suddenly surrounded by a bunch
of very angry whales. |
