I Want Candy
When I was younger, my favorite treat at the candy shops in the malls was the red licorice shoelace. I’d tie them into knots and gobble them up before I’d make it to the parking lot. I have been craving them for some time, and I think I may never taste them again.
The problem is that, a number of years ago, some genius and his focus groups decided to change the formula for the red shoelace licorice, making it taste like Twizzlers. Extensive field research has brought me to the conclusion that all shoelace licorice throughout the malls of America is produced in the same factory, by the same Oompa Loompa gulag, because it all tastes like Twizzlers. If I want a Twizzler, I’ll buy a goddamn Twizzler. I really don’t understand this switch, as a business decision. Why be just like a ubiquitous, multi-million dollar product?
Two years ago, I discovered at Penn Station a candy from Necco called Danish Ribbons that, lo and behold, tasted just like shoelace licorice. I bought a roll just about every day on the way home to the Long Island Rail Road. Unfortunately, this only lasted a few weeks before Hudson News stopped carrying it. My recent internet sleuthing has revealed that the candy has been discontinued. Curse you, candy oligarchs!
It’s a bitter reminder of another traumatic candy loss: the original Good and Fruity. Good and Fruity is the sweeter sequel product to the candy covered black licorice product, Good and Plenty. The original Good and Fruity was candy covered red licorice, but many years ago, before shoelace went Twizzler, Good and Fruity replaced its licorice filling with jelly bean-like goo.
So, I’ve been on the search for another candy with that old licorice flavor. I have tried Kookaburra licorice (tastes like gelatinous fruit snacks), Panda licorice (tastes like prunes), Finska licorice (tastes like fruit roll-ups). I’m running out of options. I’ve been searching various “olde tyme candy shoppe” websites, but flavor is a hard thing to describe. One promises red licorice laces that are “not the shiny red ‘licorice’ laces that taste like those famous spiral red licorice sticks. Instead ‘Old Fashioned’ tasting laces from our youth.” I have my doubts. In any event, I can’t figure out how to order them.
I’m intrigued by Red Vines, since some descriptions have hinted that they might be the flavor I’m looking for. Besides, I have heard that Red Vines plus Mr. Pibb equals crazy delicious (of course, neither of those products can actually be purchased in New York on a lazy Sunday or any other day).
It has been suggested to me that perhaps the only way that I will ever taste real red licorice laces again is to launch a campaign, but I think I have my hands full with other, more pressing campaigns. So get to work, Internet! Launch the online petitions. Start the blogs. Let’s get some banner ads. You can do it!
And if you can’t, then hopefully my crazy pregnant woman cravings will switch back to pickles in a few days.
Bill O’Reilly’s Flying Circus
Four years ago, I was a guest on the “O’Reilly Factor,” part of a panel discussion on the income gap. It was a wonderfully surreal moment that, alas, I have yet to repeat. I just stumbled upon a transcript of the show. Below is a pretty funny bit that I believe is short enough that I can legally quote it.
Missing here is O’Reilly’s assertion that Cornell University is a socialist plot, “Parade” editor and DNC Treasurer Andrew Tobias inviting me to join the Democratic party, and, finally, Mr. O’Reilly brusquely ending the segment and announcing that Mel Gibson would be next after the commercials.
O’REILLY: OK, but here’s the deal. And you ought to know this, too, Shaun, is that for many years, I didn’t make any money. OK? And I lived in my younger time in a very frugal environment. OK? So I don’t believe that the government has the right, now that I’m successful, due to hard work and some luck, to come into my house and take my money and give it to other people, and they don’t even know what these people are going to do with it. That’s wrong, morally wrong.
…
RICHMAN: Are you living in poverty as a result of this 50 percent [tax rate]?
O’REILLY: Am I living in poverty? No, but what right do you or anybody else have, even in France, to take other peoples’ money and give it to somebody you don’t know? What right do you have, morally?
RICHMAN: It’s a basic system of fairness. Now when you weren’t making that money…
O’REILLY: Yes.
RICHMAN: When you were living in dire straits, wouldn’t it have been nicer to have a system where…
O’REILLY: No, I wouldn’t have taken a dime.
RICHMAN: You wouldn’t have taken a dime?
O’REILLY: No. Absolutely not.
RICHMAN: You would have died of tuberculosis?
O’REILLY: That’s right. And I wouldn’t have kids unless I could support them. That’s right, because I don’t believe in taking other peoples’ stuff and giving it to me. I won’t even take Social Security when I’m older. I’ll give it back or I’ll give it to charity. You see? That’s where you guys are wrong. You’re taking stuff, you’re making value judgments. You’re giving it to other people and you don’t know what those other people are going to do. That’s wrong. Am I wrong?
Why did they never invite me back?
“…the lines sag heavy and deep tonight…”
So, Friday, March 3 is my birthday. I’ll be turning 27. If I were a rockstar, I’d be about to die, but I’m a union organizer so I’ll merely get balder and fatter.
I’d like to see my friends, particularly those of you that I have not seen much lately (those of you that I have seen, I’m frankly getting sick of you).
Being an extensive party planner, I’m probably just going to go to Botanica at happy hour and hope to see you at some point.
More Cat Charity
The Stony Brook Cat Network is a group of students, faculty and staff at SUNY Stony Brook who humanely trap, neuter and vaccinate feral cats on the campus. They try to find homes for the tamer ones, and release the others back into colonies in the woods behind campus, where the cats are fed and live healthier lives than before.
I’m awfully sympathetic to this project since my own duck was a rescue cat, herself (coming from the grounds of an retirement community), and I have my own heart-wrenching run-ins with the stray cats of Kew Gardens.
If you’re in the market for a mouser or lap cat, please take a look at these needy kitties, and if you have your checkbook open, support the SBU Cat Network financially.