Crime of the Century

I have never been one to imagine myself as a master criminal who could outsmart the police at every step of the way. I got my taste of that through the thousands of novels, television shows and movies over the years to satisfy any craving for that sort of notoriety. When even that wasn’t enough, I came up with a game show years before the onslaught of reality based television shows became the staple of everyday entertainment. I had envisioned a show called Crime of the Century, where an individual or a team of people would try and crack a safe house that had security measures in place to try and prevent them from stealing the treasure held within. A heady combination of the Thomas Crown Affair and The Pink Panther. Their task was to out-squirm, out-smart, out-do, out-plan and bamboozle anyone in anyway to make off with the goods. I even had the theme song selected which was the title cut of an album by Supertramp (a great cut if you have never heard it www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdXU_M9t004 ).

I don’t know if there is a similar show out there today, I started to look out of curiosity but stopped when I realized that there are literally thousands of reality shows on the air around the world. But if it hasn’t been done, now might be the time to do it. With the economy tanking, it seems more and more people are turning to the dark side when it comes to establishing an income stream. Some cloak their thievery in white collars and some just rob in plain sight.

After reading about the many investment brokers and advisors that have either swindled or willfully turned a blind eye to problems, I have come to only one solution as to why this happened. They are stupid, let me repeat that, they are stupid. I had always thought that if someone is making multi-millions on Wall St. or Bay St. there must be a gem of a mind behind that accomplishment. Now, it turns out that just like the wizard behind the curtain, there is no gleanable intelligence going on behind those whitened smiles. Their rise to the top of the wage earners of the country was a matter of RPRTRP (right place, right time, right parent). The Madoff sons appear to be prime examples of this. Their defense seems to be, “Sorry, we were too stupid to realize that there was this massive fraud occurring before our very eyes by our own father”.

I am sure I could pull hundreds of names out of the hat, the Madoff kids aren’t the only guilty ones, and point out that most of them would rather plead stupidity over savvy when it comes to market machinations and getting arrested. Rather than thinking with an independent mind, they would rather put on the blinders and focus on the pot of gold at the end of the bank vault. They seem to believe or maybe it was beaten into their heads that free thinking is verboten to the worthiness of any investment.

Of course, the in plain sight thief isn’t much better. With the Darwin Awards (http://www.darwinawards.com ) which among other things highlight the serial stupidity of most criminals and the reality television shows like Cops, America’s Most Wanted and The First 48 (I always wanted to do a Canadian version of this show called The First 24, where cops try and solve a crime before they finish a case of beer) which show us endless reels of the dumbest, stupidest criminals ever assembled. On that evidence we can easily formulate their thinking. Without a doubt, they all think they can outsmart the cops. They seem to think that every police force or intelligence operation around the world is comprised of deputies like Barny Fife and Enos Strates. The bubble only seems to burst when the cuffs hit the wrists and they then realize that cops are not dumb. The moment you start to believe you can outsmart someone, is the moment when you start to fail. That lesson is universal, from the street to the boardroom and from your marriage to your career, but unfortunately no one seems to acknowledge it, let alone appreciate it.

Food for Thought

I have been a picky eater all my life. If it wasn’t for peanut butter and jam sandwiches, I am quite sure I would have starved to death as a child. I always said that I liked what I liked and no one could tell me what I liked better than myself. I am not sure where this came from, whether I was born with genetically sensitive taste buds or somewhere along the line I learned not to like certain foods. The genetic argument has fallen by the wayside as my kids will eat almost anything put in front of them. However, I do have one child who is mortal fear of a “breach”, as she calls it. That is when one of her food items touches another on her plate. It is an exercise in civil engineering when we have any dinner that involves runny gravy.

Some people have no tolerance for picky eaters. Mrs Belcher, who was the nurse at the school I went to, was one of those. When we sat done for dinner (that being a hot lunch; as opposed to supper, which was what you call dinner), we had to eat everything on our plate. It didn’t matter if it was still moving, growing hairlike follicles out of it or just plain looked or smelled unappetizing. I think she lived through the Blitzkrieg or something and lived by the adage, “waste not, want not.” However, all it took was one well placed regurgitation on the table and that stopped her nagging. Unfortunately for a week or so afterward, I was forced to sit with a bucket at my side. It is kind of hard to carry out any sort of social interaction with a puke bucket beside you. People have a tendency to sit a little farther away from you at that point. Usually just out of projectile range.

Often my explanation took on a religious slant. “If God had meant a hotdog to taste like mustard, He, in all his wisdom, would have made it taste like mustard.” I would solemnly incant. Of course, what I didn’t realize was that God had nothing to do with the creation of a hot dog and that condiments were there to mask the horrible realization of what a hot dog was actually made up from.

I wasn’t trying to be difficult. I would studiously examine what the food item was and took many things into consideration before even deciding to sit at the same table as it. Smell, texture and appearance all were part and parcel of my testing. However, one of the biggest tests was also one of the simplest. What was it called? I guess this is why chefs often couch the name of something with a more pleasant sounding thing. Like calamari or escargot, these are things that in English would cause anyone a second thought. Squash was one food that needed a new name. Often food carries a descriptive nature to it. Mashed potatoes are one that comes to mind. What do you do with the potatoes? You mash them, hence mashed potatoes. Now think of squash. What do you squash? Bugs, of course. How in the world is a child to make that distinction? The same with yogurt. Yogurt is the sound your cat makes in the middle of the night when it is throwing up. A delectable taste treat? I think not. George Carlin famously said he didn’t eat tomatoes because they don’t quite look finished yet. Tapioca was great until a cousin of mine called them fish eyes. In my mind, if people could call squid, calamari, then I wouldn’t put it past them to call fish eyes, tapioca.

The marketing of food is one of the areas that had a profound effect on me. One time when I was quite young and had just watched a Popeye cartoon on a Saturday morning, it came upon me to try spinach. In all my youthful logic, I figured if I opened a can of spinach, poured a healthy amount of the green stuff in my mouth, like Popeye did, I would be blessed with the strength of a hundred men. I ran into the kitchen opened a can, popped the contents in my mouth and ran outside and tried to lift our house. All that happened was I covered the side of the structure with green vomit.

As I have aged, my taste buds seem to be dying off a bit as I now eat a lot of the things that would have mortified me in my younger days. But also as I have aged, I have found out that any food drenched in any combination of butter, salt or pepper or garlic will usually end up passing the gag reflex. I do now enjoy a good meal and I will often venture off into the unknown and untested culinary delights that is put in front of me. And I do this bravely without the puke bucket beside me, albeit within running distance of the washroom. You can never be too sure about these things.