Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus by Dave Barry Read Free Book Online Page A

then picked up my electric guitar, which I keep close to mycomputer for those occasions when, in the course of my research, I develop an urgent journalistic need to sing “Mony Mony.” Using this guitar, I figured out which key I had chanted “Air Ball” in: It was F.
    Still skeptical, I called my office at the
Miami Herald
. The phone was answered in a spontaneous manner by a writer named Meg Laughlin.
    I said: “Meg, I want you to do the chant that basketball fans do when a visiting player shoots an air ball.”
    And Meg, with no further prompting, said: “Nanny nanny boo boo?”
    Meg is not a big basketball fan.
    Continuing my research, I called Charlie Vincent, a professional sports columnist for the
Detroit Free Press
, who claims he has never sung on key in his life, and who immediately, without prompting, chanted “Air Ball” smack dab in F. Then I called professional musician and basketball fan Al Kooper; he not only chanted “Air Ball” in F, but also told me that, back in the 1960s, he used to spend hours eavesdropping on people and painstakingly writing down the musical notes that they used in ordinary conversation.
    “Hey, cool!” I said. “What did you do with this information?”
    “I lost it,” he said.
    Finally I decided to try the acid test: I called my current and former editors, Tom Shroder and Gene Weingarten, who are the two least musically talented human beings on the face of the Earth. These guys could not make a teakettle whistle; it would indicate that it was ready by holding up a little sign that said “tweet.”
    Because Tom and Gene are severely rhythmically impaired, neither one could actually
chant
“Air Ball;” theyboth just nervously blurted it out a few times very fast—
airballairballairball
—and there was no way to determine, without sensitive instruments, what, if any, musical key they were in. But it
could
have been F.
    Anyway, my research convinced me that Professor Heaton is correct: Something is causing Americans to chant “Air Ball” in F. But what? I believe that the most logical explanation—you probably thought of this—is: extraterrestrials. As you know if you watch the TV documentary series
The X-Files
, when anything weird happens, extraterrestrials are almost always responsible. In this case, beings from another galaxy are probably trying to communicate with us by transmitting powerful radio beams that penetrate basketball fans’ brains and cause them to “spontaneously” chant in the key of F. I imagine that eventually the aliens will switch the fans to another key, such as A, and then maybe C, and so on until the aliens have musically spelled out some intergalactic message to humanity, such as “FACE A DEAD CABBAGE.”
    Or it could be something else. I have no idea what they’re trying to tell us; I just know we’d better do what they say. And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m feeling an overpowering urge to do “the wave.”

READY TO
WEAR

Today’s Topic Is: Fashion Tips for Men

    T his topic was suggested by a letter from John Cog of Norfolk, Virginia. Here’s the entire text:
    “How come when I’m standing in front of a full-length mirror with nothing on but socks, white socks look OK, but dark-colored socks make me look cheap and sleazy?”
    This letter was passed along to me by my Research Department, Judi Smith, who attached a yellow stick-on note that says: “This is true.” Judi did not say how she happens to
know
it’s true; apparently—and I’m sure there’s a perfectly innocent explanation—she has seen John Cog of Norfolk, Virginia, wearing nothing but socks.
    But the point is that dark socks, as a lone fashion accessory, create a poor impression. This is a known fact that has been verified in scientific experiments wherein fashion researchers put little white socks on one set of naked laboratory rats, and dark socks on another, then exposed both groups to a panel of leading business executives such as BillGates, who