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What soda? Diet Coke bubbles up.

March 17, 2011 /

It was bound to happen.

Diet Coke

Movin' on up. Diet Coke.

My wife delighted in pointing out that I found it impossible to drive past a QuikTrip store without stopping for a bottle of Diet Coke. Hey. I had a thirst.

I don’t do that so much anymore, but it’s mostly because I don’t have so many children-related driving expeditions.

My soft drink conversion came during the early days of dieting, a lifelong battle that saw me switch from regular sugar-based drinks to low calorie counterparts. Pepsi had been my carbonated choice, but Diet Pepsi? Sorry, could not do that.

I never liked Coke. At a young age, I had already become such a connoisseur of soda that I could rattle off the subtle differences in half a dozen brands. Diet Coke lost the harsh and stinging quality of its sugary predecessor.

The low-cal version has overtaken Pepsi as the #2 selling soft drink. The official numbers are expected out Thursday, but indications are that Pepsi has lost its easy chair among the nation’s couch potatoes.

Proud as I am to be a difference-maker, there are other factors that led to the change. Soft drink sales are down overall (I told you I didn’t drive as much), and the sales of various other beverages cut back the Pepsi market share, along with that of top-selling Coke. Number one just didn’t lose as much.

So, raise your can of Red Bull and celebrate, and let the sodas battle for top-ranking drink. It’s a soda fountain of youth.

Sure’n I recall a fain eve full o’ St. Paddy.

March 16, 2011 /

The night was party-perfect and I was helping host one of the bigger celebrations in Tulsa. It was Eire-crazy, enough so that we had to post an Irishman at the front door. There was a line outside.

St. Pat's hats

For the US Irish: a BIG day.

A man and his daughter worked their way to the front, and Robbie says in his fain Dublin brogue, “Aye, the fire marshall says we’re full-up.”

“I see you are,” the man answered. “I’m the fire marshall.”

I was summoned immediately, the words “fire marshall” shouted into my ear over the blaring Irish music. Yikes, I thought, in an adopted Irish brogue. I ran to the front.

Well, ‘ran’ is an overstatement. I leaned and elbowed my way through the human-carwash to where Robbie stood. The man in front of the podium introduced himself and said he was happy to see that we were limiting entry.

The way he said it made it clear that – in his scanning of our happy crowd – we were clearly over capacity. I hadn’t counted but I figured it was a cinch we were. As fire marshall, the man had the option of marching everyone outside and then counting the re-entry until our maximum seating capacity was reached.

He didn’t.

He leaned in and said to me, “My daughter has never been to a St. Patrick’s Day celebration before. I thought we’d try your corned beef.”

I was nodding my head and smiling like a fool.

“If you can find us a table,” he continued, “we can eat a quick meal and you can get back to your little party.”

I told him I’d be back to escort him there presently.

Seating had been a premium since before noon, and those standing about were eyeing potential tables like Irish-vultures. Amazingly, I found a group just starting to push back their chairs.

I grabbed a waitress and had her stake a claim while motioning for another to quickly come clear away the dishes. Another run through the robo-wash and I directed the fire marshall and guest to their sparkling spot.

St. Paddy’s Day continued uninterrupted: the Irish music blared, the bagpipers paraded, the green beer poured, and corned beef was consumed.

I covered the cost of the meal. It was the least I could do. He realized we were trying to do the best we could in a crazy situation. After a smile and wink, the fire marshall went out the door.

I hope his daughter enjoyed her first St. Paddy’s. It was quite the party for us.

A decade later, I think about donning the kilt and finding a celebration… but the bad knee won’t hold up standing too long, and the workday Friday begins at the usual hour.

The restaurant business is a tough way to make a living, about as tough as profiting from book sales.

But there are days I miss the raucous, happy bleeting of bagpipers making their way through my establishment.

Trickery, no Treat

October 26, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Ready, set… oh, Man! Now ya’ tell me! Get all geared up for something special only to find out it isn’t nearly what you expected. Remember your first taste of Guinness? Your first 3-D movie (actually, these days some of them ARE pretty special!)…

I was deciding on a book to read and picked up Harlan Coben’s Play Dead. After scanning the back cover and all that marketing prose designed to get me to buy the book, I thought, “why not?”

Got home and cracked opened (figuratively speaking) the front cover. The first page offers “A Note from the Author.” Coben admits “this is, for better or worse, the exact book” – his first novel, written while he was in his twenties. It’s repackaged, and shaped into a $9.95 paperback. His publisher also has an audio version, and maybe a hardback to boot.

It’s all designed to take advantage of the popularity of Harlan Coben and make money for the publisher.

As a first novel, it isn’t bad really. Some of it is admittedly preposterous, but his writing – even back then – compels the reader to forge onward. Where was the editor?

From the Prologue: “…he felt something metallic against the back of his head.” Later (p. 124), a witness recounts, “I saw the gun pressed against my dad’s temple.” Still later (p. 505), the killer recalls “I placed the gun against his forehead.” It is the same crime, recounted by an author who cannot remember his own details. Should have been caught before publication.

Those aren’t the only mistakes in the book, but are certainly among the most obvious. When I hit the second reference to the murder and the gun, I had to stop, turn back the pages, and re-read the first account to clear up my confusion. Only it wasn’t my confusion.

Imagine if Labron James disappeared and then six months later somebody with the same height, weight, basketball skills, and habits showed up and tried out for Cleveland (or Miami). His face looks different, but other than that you’d swear he was Labron James, maybe with plastic surgery. Same friends and everything. The new guy has no past. Never seen before, high school or college. Now he’s breaking NBA records. Where’s Labron?

Where do you think?

Note to Harlan Coben (at age twenty-something): you’ll be much better at plot development and detail later, and your skills at providing a twist ending will go off the chart. In Play Dead, if you’d been playing basketball like your protagonist, your telegraphed moves so early in the game would have cost you the win. Practice, practice, practice.

Note to Harlan Coben (current age): shame on you for allowing this to be released as something new. The disclaimer – even on the first inside page – isn’t enough to offset the disappointment of a recycle. It’s a great look into the progress of a successful writer, but little else.

If you want to buy this one, get the First Edition 1990. That book, at least, has redeeming values.

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