When I was a kid in Manhattan, one thing I learned fairly early was, there are good napoleons that are an exquisite pleasure to enjoy, and there are the rest of them, which are a total waste of time and money. The same thing goes for eclairs, by the way. Now, anybody who can tell a croissant from a cruller knows what I’m talking about – good napoleons and eclairs are filled with sweetened egg custard and the rip-offs are filled with God knows what, but usually a mixture of sugar and air. The fact that anyone at all would pay any money whatsoever for the latter kind of confection placed considerable doubt about the mind of the man in the street (or, I suppose, these days, we should say, “the person in the street” or something similar) in my young psyche. It was only when, a bit later, I learned that philistine values date back to, well, the Philistines, and I heard my father use the Latin phrase “de gustibus non disputandum est” to get an appreciative laugh from my mother, it became evident to me how greedy and unprincipled pastry cooks could do such a thing in the first place. That was, of course, immediately followed by the terrible realization that the world contains such things as greedy and unprincipled pastry cooks. Thus is youthful innocence lost – and as it is today, so it has always been.
But Fate took me to Rosslyn, Virginia, last night, where can be found, if one chooses to look, the Tivoli Gourmet. They have real napoleons and real eclairs, and I bought two of each. Later, at my home in Great Falls, my girlfriend Cerise and I had the eclairs for dessert after a dinner of braised organic grass fed New Zealand South Island lamb shanks, served alongside wild rice with morels and roasted pine nuts, accompanied by goblets of Chambertin Clos de Bèze. After which, we had some 1999 Salvatore Murana Moscato Passito di Pantelleria with the eclairs.
Then, this morning, I brought the napoleons to work and put them in my office fridge, happily contemplating having one at 10:15, where my incredibly busy election-year schedule had developed a highly fortuitous gap, just large enough for a coffee break. So at about 10:05, after bidding my 8:30 appointment a fond adieu, I fired up my office coffee grinder, followed by my office espresso machine, and brewed rich, creamy-headed double shot – no, I won’t say what brand, because I already pay forty-six bucks a pound for it, and the last thing I want to do is drive the price up even more by telling everybody how good it is. Sorry.
On the other hand, why don’t you thank me, because we both know your S.O. would kill you for paying that kind of money for a pound of coffee in the middle of the Great Recession, wouldn’t they? No? Really? I guess the Great Recession must actually be over, then, just like the economic experts tell us! Wow, okay! That’s the kind of readership this Web log deserves! In that case, if I get more than 100 e-mails requesting further information on my favorie espresso, I’ll reveal everything about it in the next Quarterly Mailbag.
So, anyway, there I was, in the company of a top-notch cup of java and a world-class pastry, about to dig in and relax for a quarter of an hour, taking a well-earned respite (if I do so say so myself) from the travails of October, 2010, and contemplate that oh-so-memorable view of the White House out the picture window behind the couch by myself for a change, with this year’s truly dazzling fall foliage colors and all the rest – when my brother-in-law Hank poked his head in the door.
“Gretchen tells me you’re free for a few minutes,” he declared.
“True,” I ruefully admitted. “What can I do for my beloved sister Rose’s husband?”
“How about one of those,” he requested, pointing at my napoleon, “with a cup of that incredible coffee you’ve got there, that I can smell all the way out in the reception room?”
“Of course,” I shrugged, rising to respond to Hank’s demand while my own coffee got cold. That’s me – Tom Collins Martini, true Italian; family is everything, and this guy’s married to my only sister, so even if he’s actually Polish, he nevertheless receives my full measure of filial duty.
“Now,” I asked Hank as I set another double espresso and my only remaining Tivoli napoleon before him, “how can I be of assistance?”
Before replying, and very much true to form, Hank took a sizable bite of his napoleon, followed by a respectable sip of espresso. “Man,” he chortled, savoring the experience, “it sure is nice to have money!”
“Can’t argue with that,” I conceded.
“And that [expletive] Obama,” Hank insisted as he slammed down his coffee cup in frank anger, “he’s the [expletive] reason I don’t have any money anymore!”
“Hank,” I responded in as level a tone as I could manage, “there are a number of reasons why the American economy went down the toilet, but despite what you TEA Party enthusiasts insist, Barack Hussein Obama isn’t one of them.”
“No time to debate that,” Hank harrumphed ostentatiously, as if he or any of his cronies would have an ice cube’s chance in Hell of winning a debate against anything superior to an inebriated gibbon, “I’m here on urgent business that speaks to the very heart of America’s burning issues.”
“Hank,” I admonished, “the suspense is killing me. Which American heartburns are you talking about?”
“Unemployment!” Hank shouted. “Mortgages! Socialism! Drugs! Homosexuals! Terrorists! Anchor babies! Afghanistan!”
Outside, Gretchen dropped her copy of the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary on her desk, which is how, when there’s nobody out there in the reception area with her, she lets me know she can hear my interlocutor yelling, despite the twenty-three sixteenth inch thick solid oak doors. Not that Hank noticed, of course.
“Inflation! Government deficits! The United Nations! The Second Amendment! Black Helicopters,” Hank continued, his face growing a shade more red with each word, “and an illegitimate [expletive] President from [expletive] Kenya!”
“If,” I assured him, “I had half the paranoia and one quarter the imagination you and Glenn Beck have, I’d be writing demented screeds that outsell the ‘Left Behind’ series. Hank, we’ve got eleven minutes before I have to meet with five Japanese diplomats to discuss the international rare earth metals market, into the works of which, in case you haven’t heard, the Chinese have recently flung a big, fat spanner.”
“[Expletive] the [expletive] Japs,” Hank hissed, “and the [expletive] Chinks, too! They took our jobs!”
“Spoken,” I congratulated, “like a true member of the TEA Party. And if you think American jobs are hard to find now, just wait until we don’t have any neodymium, dysprosium, ytterbium or promethium to make the few high-tech products we still manufacture in this country instead of writing video game software, making 3-D movies or selling each other pizzas and T-shirts. Now spill.”
“Look, Tom,” Hank grandly proclaimed, “a great American is about to be robbed of an election he deserves to win.”
“Oh yeah,” I groaned, “as if it’s the first time that’s going to happen. Who?”
Hank leaned forward for emphasis, “Joe Miller,” he angrily barked, inadvertently spraying me with a mouthful of Tivoli’s best flaky, buttery pastry dough and fresh, mellow and sweet vanilla egg custard. “He won the Alaska Republican Senate primary, fair and square – but now, the liberal media is doing everything they can to make him lose the general election!”
At that, I ignored Hank for three minutes while I quickly ate half of my napoleon and finished the coffee before it got cold. Granted, I pretended I was thinking, considering what Hank had just said, when, in fact, I didn’t need to, but damn it, I really wanted some hot coffee with my Tivoli napoleon. Then, figuring I could always put the other half of the napoleon in the fridge and brew another cup of espresso to go with it later, I turned back to Hank in order to address his issues.
“Joseph Wayne Miller,” I informed my dear, benighted and highly disturbed brother-in-law, “may have won the Alaska Republican Senate primary election, that’s true. But you must realize, that to win a Republican primary for anything, and I do mean anything – dog catcher for instance – all a person needs to do these days is invoke the general sense of outraged indignation which lurks in the recesses of every frustrated, inhibited, confused and fearful Republican subconscious; play shamelessly upon the culture of materialistic greed to which every good Republican has been raised; relentlessly goad the stubborn jingoism that beats in every Republican heart, where it amorally masquerades as the soul of a patriot; and, of course, promise them concurrent delivery of unbridled federal government largess with a generous side order of unprecedented tax cuts.”
“Okay,” Hank panted, nodding with barely controllable enthusiasm, “what’s wrong with all that?”
“What’s wrong with it,” I explained, “is that not every voter in the typical general election for US Senate is a Republican.”
“So?” Hank took another bite of his napoleon while awaiting my reply, emphasizing his skepticism by arching his eyebrows as he chased the morsel with a sip of espresso.
“So,” I continued, “other voters aren’t quite that gullible.”
“Why, they ought to be ashamed of themselves!” Hank slammed down his coffee cup for emphasis. “That’s downright un-American! What’s the matter with those people, anyway?”
“I really can’t speculate on that,” I admitted, “but it’s the truth, nonetheless. Couple those basic political axioms with how Miller behaved after he won, and…”
“Like what?” Hank demanded. “What did he do, huh?”
“Well,” I said, with just a slight touch of condescension, since Hank does, after all, fancy himself a politically savvy individual, “first of all, he pulled a dirty trick where he delivered a bag full of unmarked twenties to a certain person involved in the production of political advertisements who made sure that the TV commercial urging Alaska voters to write in his independent opponent, Lisa Murkowski, misspelled her name.”
“Big deal,” Hank snickered, “like they say, ‘All’s fair in love and war.’”
“Maybe,” I allowed, “but which of those two things is politics – love or war?”
“Maybe,” Hank mocked between another bite of his napoleon and another sip of espresso, “it’s a little of both.”
“Perhaps,” I averred, pressing on resolutely. “Then it came out that he had committed what a lot of people might call wire fraud by using his co-workers computers at the Fairbanks North Star Borough to dishonestly vote in a computer poll in order to oust Randy Reudrich, the head of the Alaska Republican Party, employing fake URLs to make it look like a lot of people, not just him, wanted Reudrich to hit the road.”
“Hey, what the [expletive],” Hank excused, “he was on his lunch hour!”
“After which,” I persisted, “Joe Miller attempted to cover his tracks by deleting the Web site caches on the affected computers.”
“All perfectly understandable,” Hank rationalized, “since Sarah Palin wanted Reudrich out, too! I mean, really, are you suggesting that George Washington should have sent the British a telegram saying he was crossing the Delaware?”
“Under no circumstances,” I assured him, “would I ever suggest that. And by the same token, I would never have expected Benedict Arnold to write the Continental Congress a letter announcing his intentions at West Point, either.”
“Exactly right,” Hank confirmed with an emphatic bang of his fist on my desk. “And Joe Miller is a true patriot, just like Benedict Arnold and the rest of them!”
“Your grasp of history,” I observed, “like that of most TEA Party adherents, is truly… remarkable.”
“Yeah,” Hank beamed, treating himself to some more napoleon and coffee, “I guess we are pretty special.”
“’Special,’” I assured him, “doesn’t do you the least justice. But in any event, after having that… issue about using government computers to conduct covert political action came up during the campaign, Joe Miller decided that the best strategy was to stonewall.”
“It worked for Nixon,” Hank pointed out. “Why not for Joe Miller?”
“Be that as it may,” I dryly replied, “when stonewalling didn’t work as he expected, what with his ability to engage in denial and implement obfuscation being considerably inferior to Richard Nixon’s, Joe Miller’s next step was to refuse any contact whatsoever with the press.”
“Hey,” Hank glibly vouched, “nobody is legally obligated to talk to the media, not even candidates for political office.”
“Sometimes,” I told him, “you are too clever by half.”
“Damn straight,” Hank proudly proclaimed, wolfing down the last piece of his napoleon.
“Then,” I reminded him, “it came to light, in various archived e-mails and memoranda, that a lot of people at the Fairbanks North Star Borough had commented with sincere concern on what they perceived to be Mr. Miller’s… ah, shall we say… lack of mental, emotional, psychological and/or cognitive… um… cohesion…”
“There are far too many sane people,” Hank insisted, “with far too much power in Washington these days!”
“Spoken,” I acknowledged, “like a true TEA Party supporter.”
“And damn proud to be one!” Hank exhaled with an exuberant stretch as he rose to pace the oriental rug in front of the couch in a grandiose manner, his absorption in mighty TEA Party thoughts all too evident.
“Then,” I related, “at a public gathering where Mr. Miller was delivering a speech, certain members of his security detail handcuffed and roughed up a reporter who was attempting to get Mr. Miller to respond to some to the questions he had refused to answer.”
“Listen, Tom,” Hank admonished with a mighty wag of his finger, “desperate times justify desperate means! This is Joe Miller! This is his quest! This is his struggle! And Joe Miller’s struggle is our struggle! Joe Miller’s struggle is the struggle of the American people!”
“Believe me, Hank,” I promised, “there is not the least scintilla of doubt in my mind that you know exactly what you are saying. Okay, so after that, there was the release of the correspondence with the ah… various… medical redactions…”
“Democrat smear tactics!” Hank roared.
“Sure,” I sighed, “what else could they possibly be? Then, Ben Stein, of all people, denounced Joe Miller as a ‘dangerous idiot…’”
“No!” Hank screamed back at me, “that’s wrong! Stein called him a ‘dangerous stupid clown!’”
“Well…” I contemptuously pleaded, “excuse me! All right, after that, then, Joe Miller runs a political TV advertisement where he says that Lisa Murkowski is not a witch.”
“Well,” Hank agreed, waving his arms widely, “she isn’t, is she?”
“Hank,” I slowly intoned, “Lisa Murkowski isn’t an cannibal, either. So now tell me – why are you here advocating for Joe Miller? What’s in it for you?”
“For me?” Hank tried his best to appear surprised.
“Hank,” I chided, “this is Tom, your wife’s kid brother, okay? Once upon a time, and not too long ago, either, you were a big-shot executive at an upscale infant products company. Then the folly of a bunch of moronic bankers screwed up your life, and now you’re running around with these TEA Party lunatics, looking for a solution to your predicament…”
“That’s easy for you to say!” Hank interjected. “You have no idea what it’s like…”
“Save that for your door-knocking ward-heeling, scrounging votes for the TEA Party!” I interrupted. “You want me to tell you what Joe Miller should do, so he wins the senate race?”
“Yeah,” Hank hung his head, blushing. “That’s what I want. That’s what I’m here for. Please, help me.”
“Help you?” I sneered. “How can cutting Joe Miller’s Gordion knot help you? And why should I?”
“Please,” Hank begged, “for the sake of my family. I’ve got a contact in the Miller campaign. If I can give him a solution to this mess… if I can be one of the… operatives… who gets Joe Miller into the Senate… then Joe is bound to give me a job on his staff. Think about it, Tom! That’s six solid years of income for Rose and the kids! Come on, man! Give me something I can work with here!”
“All right then,” I muttered in resignation, after which I took a couple of minutes to finish my napoleon. When I was done, I looked Hank straight in the eye. “Here’s what you do. Tell Joe Miller to call a press conference – tomorrow. Tell him to announce that (a) he has definite, irrefutable proof Barack Obama is the Islamic Manchurian Candidate; that (b) he has a secret plan to end the war in Afghanistan which will assure American victory with honor; that (c), he has a secret plan to create jobs and prosperity; that (d) he has a secret plan to eliminate income tax forever; that (e) he has a secret list of Al-Qaeda agents in the State Department, and that (f) if elected, he will reveal them to the American public and (g) see to it that justice is done.”
“But… but…” Hank stammered, incredulous. “Won’t the biased and unfair liberal media try to… I donno… uh… substantiate all that?”
“What,” I implored, “are you kidding? Between tomorrow and next Tuesday?”
“You really think,” Hank pondered, bewildered, “that the Miller campaign will buy off on doing something as… crazy as that?”
“If they don’t,” I predicted, “at this point, there’s no way Miller could possibly win.”
“No [expletive]? Hank exclaimed. “In that case, I’m outta here! No time to lose!”
“On the contrary,” I murmured as Hank rushed out, “as far as Joseph Wayne Miller, Esquire, is concerned, this is the perfect time.”