A hangover from days gone by.

Chuck Taylors used to be made in Massachusetts. Now they make them in China. As far as I'm concerned they're not even real Chuck Taylors. They're replicas. Knockoffs. And PBR? Don't talk to me about PBR. The actual, real Pabst Brewery in Milwaukee closed somewhere back in the mid '90s. What they sell now is Pabst Brand beer, contract-brewed to meet a specific price point and skillfully marketed to a target demographic. And just who is buying this incredibly accurate reproduction of a humble working-class pleasure of decades past? They're young folks from the suburban middle class, mostly. Seeking authenticity.

Satsuma season

I have been told that in the 1920s in my family's home village, my Great-grandfather would bring home an annual Christmas orange. The old man would sit and solemnly, with great care, peel the orange. The kids would stand watching, waiting. And he would distribute single sections of orange to one kid at a time until it was all gone. That was it for oranges for another whole year. If they'd been here, now, he could have got sacks of oranges cheap from the supermarket to snack on till dinner was ready. But you can't get the mythic kind anymore.

Showing Some Class

Imagine a fellow who mostly listens to country music but sometimes Classic Rock when he's on a ladder because there's something about perspiring heavily while scraping window frames that makes a guy want to hear "Mississippi Queen" from a paint-speckled boombox on a milk crate. On his birthday, does this guy suddenly figure, "Hey, I'll break out the Schoenberg?" Does a lady who reads those Harlequin romances every day of her life suddenly on Independence Day crack the spine on Finnegans Wake? No. So how come on special occasions I'm suddenly expected to appreciate the complex subtleties of fancy food?

Think simple, elegant furniture

Did you even know there was such a thing as the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement? The idea is, you join the movement through a firm commitment to avoid reproducing yourself. Which, if you think about it, is no way to build a sustainable constituency. See kids, by taking yourselves out of the gene pool, you're actually giving the species a stronger than ever tendency toward procreation. The name's Mendel, baby. Gregor Mendel. Still, they do get a thumbs-up from me for pissing off the Catholics. Not that it matters much. Terms like "voluntary" simply do not apply to the inevitable.

Doubleplusgood Duckspeakers

You can detect them from half a house away, without even really discerning individual words. When one of the Opinionators is on, their strident confidence is audible in every syllable. It doesn't matter which side they're on- like soldiers or point guards, they have more in common with one another than with their teams. And here's the thing; they are not like you and me. We may often find ourselves conflicted, or unsure, or sometimes simply apathetic. But there is no topic upon which an Opinionator does not have a powerful position. I'm not sure what I think about that.

Autobiography

Sometimes when I'm eating something, let's say a sandwich or cookie, I'll get near the end and perceive that the remaining portion is less than two full bites and rather than accept two moderately undersized bites -- or worse, one normal bite followed by a woefully minuscule final bite -- I'll put the whole remainder, nearly two bites worth, in my mouth all at once, which makes me feel kind of piggy and also my food is gone sooner than I'd like. It is not in my nature to be so confessional and self excoriating, but I needed this catharsis.

Mondays could start after lunch.

Wait. Wasn't the 20th century supposed to be all about creating technology to release people from the need for ceaseless backbreaking toil so they could enjoy the best things in life? And the best things in life are free, right? So 10 percent unemployment should mean 100 percent of us happily working a 36-hour week. Unless they were lying to us about the 20th century. They wouldn't do that, would they, the folks with the money and power? Cause if they would, it's like we've gone to the movies and left the kids at home with a convicted cannibal pedophile.