A City Divided by a Thin Blue Line

  Over the last few days, my facebook feed has been filled with friends and relatives posting about the situation that's developed between Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYPD in the wake of de Blasio's comments about the Eric Garner tragedy and the tragic murder of two New York City police officers.  It would be an understatement to say that there has been some disagreement amongst my friends and relatives regarding this situation.  There's genuine anger out there, and while I've seen bigger disagreements among my friends/relatives about other subjects, I don't think I've ever seen a more emotionally charged disagreement about a public issue.  Of course, this goes well beyond the people I know.    Even though I haven't lived in NYC for more than 12 years, I can feel the tension emanating from my hometown.  Lots of people are angry on both side of the issue, and I'm sorry to say that I don't think the tension will subside any time soon.

As much I'd like to offer a magic solution that would make everyone in NYC join hands and sing Kumbaya, that's not why I'm writing today.  All I want to do today is voice my opinion.  It's an opinion I know many of you will a disagree with, and I'd lying if I told you that my feet weren't firmly planted on one side of this divide.  However, I'm hoping that if I present my case is a way the respects the feelings of those on both sides of the issue, I can build a bridge between at least some of the disagreeing parties who happen to read this.

While I'd like to do my best to keep emotion out of my discussion, I'm afraid I'm going to have to start with the most emotionally charged comment I've heard over the past week.

“There’s blood on many hands tonight. Those that incited violence on the streets under the guise of protest that tried to tear down what NYPD officers did every day. We tried to warn it must not go on, it cannot be tolerated.  That blood on the hands starts at City Hall in the office of the mayor.” - Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch

OK, so now we've reached the point where I'm forced to shed any remaining veil of impartiality and admit that I completely disagree with the statement above.  I've know I've probably lost half my audience with the last sentence, but I implore anyone who disagrees with me to keep reading just a little bit more, because the rest of this post is directed at you.

Assuming you agree with the sentiment of Mr. Lynch's statement above, can we at least admit that he was engaging in a bit of hyperbole when he said "The blood on the hands starts at City Hall in the office of the mayor"?   I don't think you can interpret "The blood on the hands starts" as anything other than a phrase trying to point to the person most responsible for the tragic murder of those police officers.  The statement above ( whether Lynch actually meant it or not ) is basically saying that Mayor de Blasio is more culpable than anyone else for the deaths of those two police officers.  Considering that Ismaaiyl Brinsley drove from Maryland to NYC and executed two NYPD officers, it's clear that the the blood on the hands starts with Brinsley, not Mayor de Blasio.

Now, I understand that despite the hyperbolic nature of Mr. Lynch's statement, the general sentiment expressed in his statement ( and felt by many in NYC ) is that the protests about Eric Garner and Mayor de Blasio's statements about the subject made it more likely that a deranged person like Brinsley might try to harm an NYPD officer.

I can understand that sentiment, and I'm even willing to admit that protests and comments about the Eric Garner situation certainly did make things slightly dangerous for the NYPD than if everyone had just kept quite about.

However, you know what would have made things even safer for the NYPD than people keeping quite about the Eric Garner situation?

Things would have been a whole lot safer for the NYPD if Eric Garner has not died while being restrained NYPD officers.

That's really the elephant in the room here.  Anyone who blames the protesters or de Blasio for the murders of the NYPD officers is conveniently forgetting that there would have been no protests and no comments from de Blasio if Eric Garner had lived.

The NYPD does a great job and all New Yorkers should be proud of the department as an entity.  However just because the NYPD does noble work and does a great job on the whole, doesn't mean that we should make a blanket assumption that all members of the NYPD are great police officers.

No organization can reach its full potential unless it is willing to admit its weaknesses and correct them.  Look, anyone who knows me knows that I love the Jets and root for them no matter how badly they play.  However, even I can admit that Geno Smith sucks, is a detriment to the team, and the team would be better off if they got rid of him.

Well, even those who love the NYPD most should be willing to admit that there are bad cops who no longer deserve to wear an NYPD badge.  In fact, those who love the NYPD should want to take sub-par cops off the force, because the NYPD will be better, and all NewYorkers will be safer if cops who cannot meet the high standards of the NYPD are replaced by those who can meet those standards.

In a way, police unions reminds me of teachers unions.  While I firmly support teachers unions in general and think that teachers are drastically underpaid, it's clear to me that teachers unions have a tendency to close ranks and reflexively protect the interests of the worst teachers, just like police unions close ranks and protect the interests of the worst cops.  I think the teachers unions believe it is a moral imperative to protect the interests of even the worst teachers because teaching is such a noble profession.  Well, teaching is a noble profession, and because is it, the teachers unions should help the teaching profession to be as good as it can be allowing policies that reward great teachers and eliminate bad teachers.

The same sort of thinking should apply to the NYPD, and police departments in general across the country.  I don't know anything about the NYPD officers who were involved in the incident that led to Eric Garner's death.  I have no idea what they were thinking that day, so I won't make any assumptions.  However, I don't think anyone can look at the Eric Garner situation and say things went as well as they could.  I don't think any of the cops involved in the incident wanted to be involved in an incident that day that led to an unarmed man's death.  The fact that an unarmed man did die that day means that something went terribly wrong and at least some of the people involved should be held accountable.

It's at this point that I'm sure some of you are saying "If Eric Garner had not resisted arrest, this never would have happened."  While that's certainly true, it's also unquestionably true that most arrests of unarmed people resisting arrest do not result in the death of the resisting person.  So, if somebody does die in such a situation, it's probably because somebody making the arrest made a big mistake.

I'm not going to speculate on what that mistake was or who was most to blame, but I do think these questions are something that needed to be investigated in a trial.  The fact that no indictment was handed down means we may never get to the bottom of this.  The NYPD, and the police union seem to be fine with that, but I would hope that those who love and care about the NYPD would want to get to the bottom of this incident.  If it becomes standard operating procedure to not have a trial when an unarmed person dies at the hands of the cops, sub-par cops who bring down the rest of the NYPD will feel emboldened to continue practices that put both the citizens of NYC and the NYPD in danger.  That's not good for the city, and it's not good for the NYPD.

The bottom line is, all New Yorkers should want the NYPD to do the best job it can, for the sake of both the citizens of New York and the NYPD itself.  Asking for some accountability and investigation when the NYPD is involved in the death of an unarmed man is not anti-cop, it's pro-cop.  Anything that will make the NYPD better and build trust between the NYPD and the community it serves is pro-cop.

Anyway, while I no longer live in New York, I'll always be a New Yorker, so I hope the city I love can work through this and have a happy and safe holiday season.

Rich

What's the Matter with Millennials?

The generation known as "Millennials" ( loosely defined as those from about 18 - 29 years of age ) are the most socially liberal American generation yet.  This probably isn't a claim that most would dispute, but if you need some evidence, take a look at the poll results below.

( Note, I couldn't find a graphic from a 2014 poll for all of the examples below ( one is from 2010 ), but as the same-sex-marriage poll below indicates, it seems that the young-adult generation is getting more socially liberal as time goes by. )

Considering that the social policies supported by Millennials are generally supported by Democrats and opposed by Republicans ( Regarding the interracial marriage poll above: Clearly there is no official Democratic or Republican position on interracial marriage, and the vast majority of Republicans are in favor of it.  However, the interracial marriage poll above does show that Republicans are roughly twice as likely to oppose interracial marriage than Democrats ), you might think that more Millennials voters would support Democratic candidates than Republican candidates.  However, a Harvard University Institute of Politics poll released right before the 2014 midterm elections shows that this may not be the case.

I couldn't find a nice chart with the poll results, but the article reporting the poll states the following:

While more 18- to 29- year-olds (50%-43%) surveyed in the IOP’s fall 2014 poll would prefer that Congress be controlled by Democrats instead of Republicans, the numbers improve dramatically for the GOP when only young people who say they will “definitely vote” are studied. Among these likely voters, the IOP’s latest poll shows the preference shifting, with slightly more than half (51%) preferring a Republican-run Congress and 47 percent wanting Democrats to be in charge – a significant change from the IOP’s last midterm election poll in the fall of 2010 when Democratic control was preferred among likely voters 55 percent to 43 percent.

According to this poll, the members of the socially liberal Millennial generation are more likely to vote for Republicans than Democrats.  So what's going on here?

Well, the first thing we need to consider is that this is only one poll.  The 4% difference between Republican support and Democratic support is almost certainly within the margin of error, so if this poll was conducted again, it's quite possible that the poll might show the majority of Millennial voters support Democrats.

Second, and more importantly, the polls I cited at the top of this post are based on all Millennials, while the 51%-47% result that favors Republicans is based on Millennials who said they would "definitely vote".  It has long been understood that highly motivated voters tends to vote Republican and unlikely voters tend to support Democrats ( Which incidentally, is why Republicans want to make people jump through all sorts of hoops in order to vote. )

Third, it seems that mainstream Republicans have won the Republican civil war against far-right Republicans and have made sure Republican candidates de-emphasized social issues in the 2014 campaign.

However, even with all those factors, it's still surprising that any poll showed so much Millennial support for Republicans, especially because the very same poll from 4 years ago showed Millennial likely voters favoring Democrats by a 55% to 43% margin.  So, while I hate to rip-off Thomas Frank for the second time in two months, I have to ask ...

What's the matter with Millennials?

While Frank tried to explain why people from Kansas vote against their economic interests, I'd like to understand why a majority of Millennials may have just voted against their social interests.

Well, to comprehensively answer that question I would need the resources to do extensive polling of Millennials ( and perhaps even a time machines to poll likely Millennial voters in previous years ).  Considering that I don't have those resources, and my Google searches for relevant polls has mostly come up empty, I have no choice to make a few educated guesses.

I'll start by pointing to to the results of two slightly relevant polls I was able to find ...

Article about AP-GfK poll ( Raw data for this poll can be found here ).
Article about NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll ( Raw data found here ).

These polls show that American voters care much more about economic issues these days than social issues.  With that in mind, I think it's clear that Democrats made a big mistake in this election cycle any time they decided to focus on social issues rather then economic issues.  Rather than running from President Obama's record, they should have been trumpeting how much the economy improved during the Obama administration.

Unfortunately, the results of the two polls above are not broken down by age, so I can't be sure that Millennials are focusing on economic issues rather social issues.  However, considering the general trend in the polls and Millennials' positions on social issues, it seems clear that Millennial voters were focused more on economic issues.  I would like to think the Democrats would be able to convince Millennials that Democrats have better economic policies than Republicans ( especially considering the economy was great under Clinton's watch, crashed under George W. Bush's watch, and has improved tremendously under Obama ), but Democrats are clearly having trouble selling their economic accomplishments to voters.  When Democrats do a poor job selling their economic policies, voters will often gravitate to Republican candidates who promise to put more money in their pockets by lowering taxes.

However, even if we accept that Millennial voters are supporting Republicans for economic reasons, that still doesn't really explain their shift in support from 2010 to to 2014.  After all, back in 2010, the economy was doing much worse than it is now.  So, if economic issues were going to drive Millennial voters away from Democrats, you would think it would have happened to a greater extent in 2010 than in 2014.  However, the polls show the complete opposite of that, so I'm not convinced that Millennial voters' support has shifted toward Republicans because Millennials care more about the economy now that they did in 2010.  Instead, I think that their passion for Democratic candidates has decreased, because Millennials care less about social issues than they did in 2010.

I can't prove this without a polling firm and a time machine, but consider the following ...

- Back in 2010, Gay marriage was legal in 5 states; now it is legal in 35 states.

- Back in 2010 recreational marijuana use wasn't legal in any state; now it is legal in 4 states.
- Abortion has been legal for 41 years, and there hasn't been a serious Supreme Court challenge to Roe v. Wade since Planned Parenthood v. Casey back in 1992.

The truth is, while the culture wars certainly aren't over, during the lifespan of Millennials the Left has been winning the culture war in a rout - especially in recent years.  I believe the recent success of the Left in the culture war may have made Millennials complacent about social issues.  I don't think Millennial have any doubt that they'll one day live in a world in which gay marriage and recreational marijuana are legal in practically all states.  I don't think socially liberal Millennials can conceive of a USA in which abortion isn't legal.  While most Millennials disagree with with social policy positions of Republicans, I don't think they believe that Republican can actually put those policies into practice.  Thus, if Republicans do a better job selling their economic policies than the Democrats do selling theirs, a lot of Millennials could be persuaded to vote Republican.

Democratic politicians and their liberal supporters should be proud of the work they've done moving the country to the left on social issues, but they shouldn't rely on social issues for their future electoral success.  The Todd Akins, Richard Mourdocks, and Christine O'Donnells of the world helped the Democratics hold on to the Senate in 2010 and 2012, but you didn't hear nearly as many socially conservative Republican voices during the 2014 campaign.  Considering how well things went for Republicans in 2014, I see no reason why this Republican trend of de-emphasizing social issues won't continue.

I'm sure it won't happen in 2016 or 2020, but I'm convinced that Republicans will nominate a pro-Gay Marriage presidential candidate within a generation.  As women continue to gain power in society ( American women are far more likely to earn a college degree than American men these days.  Men still hold the bulk of institutional power that makes sex discrimination possible, but that will surely erode over time considering that the average college-aged women is far better equipped to contribute to society than the average college-aged man. ), sex discrimination against women will decrease, and women may have less motivation to vote for Democrats on the basis of women's rights issues.  Considering that whites will no longer be the majority race in the USA within a generation ( The Census Bureau predicts this will happen by 2043, and it is already the case that the majority of people being born in the USA are non-white. ),  Democratic policies to fight racial discrimination will become less relevant to people over time.

The bottom line is that Liberal Democrats are victims of their own success.  It won't be long before Democrats will no longer be able to rely on the social issues that have brought them so much electoral success in the past.  If Democrats want to compete with Republicans going forward, they need to make a better case that their economic policies and tax policies are better for Americans than the policies of the Republican party.  They need to make a case that they can employ the nation's military might more wisely than Republicans.  They need to make the case that they care about the average American, while Republicans primarily care about the rich and powerful.  In short, the Democrats need a few hundred more Elizabeth Warrens.

Unfortunately for Liberals like myself, it seems that Democrats only have one Elizabeth Warren in the spotlight, but I'm hoping that if we see a lot more of her in 2016, a lot more potential Elizabeth Warrens will be inspired to step out onto the political stage.

Rich

Sidewalks of New York

I hadn't been to Manhattan for a couple of years.  Well, actually, I do travel into Manhattan 5 times a week for work, but the only parts of the the city I see on those days are the areas around my office and Penn Station.  When I go to work, it doesn't feel like I'm going to "the city"*, it just feels like I'm going to work.

* Sorry, Queens/Brooklyn/Staten_Island/The_Bronx folks.  As a native outer-borough person ( from Queens ), I have to admit that we outer-borough folks have always referred to Manhattan as "the city".  Don't get me wrong, Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx are great parts of of New York City ( Staten Island is a lovely place, but it's pretty much an extension of New Jersey.  I'm sorry, but if you can't take the subway there, it's not really part of New York City. ), but nobody in NYC refers to them as "the city".  If a New Yorker tells you, "I'm going into the city tonight", they don't mean they are heading into Brooklyn.

When the forecast called for beautiful weather last Saturday ( October 18th ), I decided that we should take advantage of what might be the last nice day of the year and have an outdoor family outing.  We talked about a couple of options, but ultimately we all decided to have a family outing in "the city".  What follows is a photo-essay of that outing.  

As always, the boys were excited to be on the train.

( Actually, now that I think of it, we actually do travel into the city once a year to see the Big Apple Circus ( My company has a Big Apple Circus Day each year as a holiday event ), but I don't really consider that "going into the city".  When we go to the circus, when generally head right home after the circus is done. )

Our plan was to walk from Penn Station  ( 32nd St. and 7th Ave. ) to the Gramercy Park neighborhood Ruth and I lived in from 1998 - 2002 ( Ruth was doing her residency at Beth Israel at the time. We lived on the 23rd floor of an apartment building on 290 3rd Ave., between 22nd and 23rd St. ).  On the way, we were hoping to stop at the original Shake Shack location in Madison Square Park ( Note: The Shake Shack kiosk in Madison Square Park didn't open until after we left the area ( in 2004 ).  Shake Shack was preceded by a cart that was in Madison Square Park starting in 2001, but we never tried food from the cart while we were living near there. ).  I've tried In-N-Out a few times on trips to California and I've had Five Guys burgers plenty of times on the East Coast, but any In-N-Out versus Five Guys debate became irrelevant to me after I tried a Shack Shack burger a few years ago at Citi Field.  Since then, Shake Shack has become as much of a Citi Field outing tradition for our family as Mets victories.

Unfortunately, the night before our trip, I found that the Shake Shack kiosk in Madison Square Park had been shut down for renovations and would not open again until 2015.  I came up with a few new plans for lunch in our old neighborhood, but we still thought it would be fun to let the boys enjoy Madison Square Park for a while.

After the boys built up an appetite at the playground, we headed over to Frank's Pizza on 23rd Street.

Frank's is a hidden gem that serves the best pizza I've ever had in Manhattan. *

* BTW, if you're not from New York, I should let you know that New York City's great reputation for Pizza is not based on Manhattan pizza.  Manhattan pizza is usually quite poor compared to the pizza of the outer-boroughs.  I had never tasted Manhattan pizza that was in the same class as the best pizza from my Queens neighborhood until I tasted Frank's pizza.  

Being in the same class as the pizza in my old Queens neighborhood is no small feat.  The best pizza shop in my part of Queens was good enough to get a shout-out in the popular New York City tourist guide video below ( New Park Pizza is mentioned in the section starting at 3:55 ):



I'm apparently not the only person who was impressed by Frank's pizza.  The shop proudly displays the following review on their wall ( granted, the review is 23 years old, but the pizza really is as good as the review indicates ).

And most importantly, the pizza got Peter's stamp of approval!

After having our pizza ( just a slice each, to leave room for the food to come ), we took some pictures in front of our old apartment building ...

... and our old church.

The boys also took some time to have fun with some of the city pay phones.

However, the main reason we headed towards our old neighborhood was to have what many consider to be the best bagels in New York City.  Back when we lived in Gramercy,  trips to the original Ess-a-Bagel shop on the corner of 21st and 1st was a Sunday morning tradition.  They are still as good as I remember.

Of course, now that we were this close to 15th Street, there was no way we were not going to visit the original site of our old high school on 15th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue.

There were having some kind of event in the building, so we actually got to step inside the front door and take a few pictures.

We also took a picture next door in front of Beth Israel Medical Center, where Ruth did her residency.

Considering that Ruth and I had been indulging our nostalgia all day, we figured it would only be fair if we took the boys someplace were they could have some fun.  So, soon after we left the Stuy area we found ourselves at Forbidden Planet.

The location of Forbidden Planet has changed since I used to go there during my Stuyvesant days ( I don't think I actually ever bought anything there, but I was there plenty of times when friends were shopping. ), but it was still roughly in the same area ( about 2 blocks south of Union Square ).  The boys had fun and we bought them a "Teen Titans Go!" book, a Minecraft book, and a set dice that are generally used to play role-playing games ( The boys don't actually play role-playing games, but Michael was fascinated by the different kinds of dice ).

After Forbidden Planet, we headed to Pommes Frites.  The place is supposed to have some of the best fries in the city.  Ruth and I heard about the place on the Food Network after we had already left Manhattan, and we had always wanted to try it out.  We were not disappointed.

After Pommes Frites, we walked over to some of Ukrainian restaurants near 9th Street and 2nd Avenue.

As much as I craved some of those delicious Veselka pierogies ...

... we needed to save room for some desert at Veniero's.

The boys had some gelato,

and Ruth and I shared some Italian cheesecake

and tiramisu.

After desert, we indulged the boys again by taking the subway to the Rockefeller Center area and going to Nintendo World.

We decided to have dinner before leaving the city.  While we seriously considered showing the boys Grand Central and trying the Shake Shack location there, we instead headed to the last Baja Fresh in Manhattan ( after taking Peter to McD's, because he wasn't about to eat Mexican food ).

Ruth I and both became big fans of Baja Fresh after we discovered a location near our Jersey home back in 2003.  There soon were several location near our home, but they've all closed in recent years.  I've also noticed that they've been closing in Manhattan, and how there is only on Baja Fresh there.  The last Baja Fresh in Manhattan was nearly empty when we got there, so I don't think Baja Fresh is going to survive in the New York metropolitan area for much longer.  That's a shame, because I've always found their stuff to be much tastier than Chipotle.  Unfortunately for me and my Mexican food cravings, most people like Chipotle better, and it looks like Baja Fresh may not be around for much longer.

In any case, those Baja Fresh buritos were a great way to end our day.  After that, we walked over to Penn Station and took the train home.  We were all worn out by the time we got home, especially Peter, who passed out on the couch about 5 minutes after we got home.

We all slept well with full tummies that night.

Rich

Who lives in a pineapple ...

Last Sunday, we had Michael's 11th birthday party at our house ( he actually turns 11 a few days from now ).  Ruth wanted the party to have a SpongeBob Squarepants theme, and for the occasion, we put on a SpongeBob play in the backyard ( Actually, we put it on twice, because Ruth accidentally has the video camera off for most of the first show. ).  This wasn't our first trip to this kind of rodeo.  For Peter's 4th birthday party, we put on a Wiggles show ...



... and for Peter's 7th birthday we put on a Phineas and Ferb show ...

I never posted the Phineas and Ferb video to YouTube because one member of the cast didn't want to video to be publicly available on YouTube.  I probably could have posted the video to a smaller facebook audience, but it's really not worth doing now.  We lost some footage due to technical errors with the camerawork, and there were all sorts of glitches with the production ( people forgetting lines, people forgetting their cues, and technical problems ( Craig was playing two roles, Ferb and Major Monogram.  His moustache fell off while he was playing Major Monogram and then we had to delay a scene because I had trouble untying the knot of his Major Monogram costume right before a Ferb scene. ).  We didn't have time to practice together because it was drizzling all day and we figured the window of sunshine would not last long, and we couldn't really reshoot the play because the final scene involved breaking open a "rocket pinata" prop that played a major roll in the production.

The SpongeBob production went a little better, so I'm going to post the video to my facebook page.  I'll post some photos from the production below, as well as the script.

BTW, Michael wrote the original SpongeBob script.  I "punched it up" with lots of extra dialogue after he wrote it, but the basic elements of the plot were in his original script.

Spongebob skit!

( In Squidward’s house, Squidward is in the shower singing )

SQUIDWARD : At the Copa, Copacabana!  The hottest spot north of Havana!  Here, at the Copa …

PATRICK ( Barging into shower, and cutting Squidward off immediately after he sings the second “Copa” ) : Hey Squidward!

SQUIDWARD : AHHHH!!!!  What are you doing here???!!!!

SPONGEBOB ( Barging into shower ) : We have to go to Michael’s birthday party right away!

SQUIDWARD : I don’t even have my pants on!

SPONGEBOB ( pulling Squidward by the hand ) : We’re running late, we don’t have time for pants!

SQUIDWARD : THERE’S ALWAYS TIME FOR PANTS!!!

( Patrick ponders this for a few seconds and then … )

PATRICK : Uhh, I thought Squidward didn’t wear pants.

NARRATOR : Meanwhile, at the Krusty Krab ...:

MR KRABS:Where’s SpongeBob?  Every minutes he’s away from the grille is costing me money!

MICHAEL ( sitting in front of a laptop ) : He’s out making sure that everyone comes to my birthday party.

KRABS : Oh, that’s right, he’s gonna bring plenty of potential customers here, but I can’t make any money unless we got some krabby patties to sell.  Those patties aren’t going to make themselves, you know.

MICHAEL ( still looking at laptop ) : Gee, that’s too bad Mr. Krabs.

KRABS: Yeah, too bad.

( Mr. Krabs looks at a spatula, then at Michael, then at the spatula, then at Michael. )

KRABS: Err, Hey Michael, you ever wonder how how a spatula works?

Michael ( not looking up ) : Um, not really.

KRABs: Cause ya know, as long as you are not doing anything else, you might as well get on the grille and make some krabby patties.

MICHAEL : But I wanted to watch YouTube videos.

KRABS: This aint no Starbucks boy, get on the grille!

NARRATOR : Meanwhile, out on the road …

SPONGEBOB : We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere - I think we’re lost.

PATRICK : Umm, if you say so SpongeBob.  Umm, I think we’re suppose to go that way ( points stage left ).

SQUIDWARD : How can you guys be lost?  Patrick, you eat at the Krusty Krab every day, and SpongeBob, you work at the Krusty Krab!  Both you morons should know that the Krusty Krab is that way ( points stage right )!

SPONGEBOB : Gee Patrick, I think Squidward might be right.  I think we should listen to him.

( SQUIDWARD nods smugly )

SPONGEBOB : After all, I’m sure Mr. Krabs is waiting for us and has a lot of work for us to do.

( SQUIDWARD’S face drops )

SQUIDWARD : Lead the way Patrick!

( They all head stage left )

NARRATOR : Meanwhile, back at the Krusty Krab …

( MICHAEL  works the grille as MR. KRABS  watches with his feet up.  MICHAEL accidentally knocks a patty on to the floor. )

MICHAEL ( walking to a trash bin ) : I guess I’ll have to throw this patty out.

KRABS ( jumping to his feet and dashing between MICHAEL and the trash bin ) : No, no, it’s fine!  Gimme that!

( KRABS snatches the patty from MICHAEL’S hand and starts brushing dirt off it. )

KRABS : It’s fine! It’s fine!

MICHAEL : But it fell on the floor!

KRABS : If it looks clean, you can still sell it.  It’s what I like to call, the five dollar rule.

NARRATOR : Meanwhile, in the desert ...

SPONGEBOB:Patrick, we're in the middle of the desert!

PATRICK:What?

NARRATOR : 12 Hours Later at the Chum Bucket...

PLANKTON: This birthday party at Krabs’ is going to get a him lot of new customers.  If that happens, nobody’s ever going to come to the Chum Bucket.

KAREN: Nobody comes to the Chum Bucket now.

PLANKTON: That’s besides the point.  I’ve got to stop this party, and I’ve got a plan!

KAREN: You think this plan will work as well as all your previous plans?

PLANKTON: Of course it will!

KAREN: Great, cause all your previous plans have worked so well.

PLANKTON: What?  You think you’ve got a better idea?

KAREN: Wouldn’t be hard.

PLANKTON; So, give me this great plan of yours.

KAREN: Not with that attitude

PLANKTON: What are you talking about?  You’re my wife Karen, tell me your plan!.

KAREN: You know, Plankton, sometime I think you take me for granted.  I think it’s time you show me some appreciation.

PLANKTON: What! How?

KAREN: You know how.

PLANKTON: UUUURRRRRRRHHHHH!!! Allright!

( Plankton grabs a pair of maracas, puts on a Sombrero, and starts to sing. )

PLANKTON:

Oh, my Karen.  Oh, my Karen.

Oh, my computer wife Karen.

Put down those punch cards,

Put down those punch cards,

And listen to my ode.

Oh. my Karen  Oh, my Karen.

Oh, my computer wife Karen.

What compares to,

What compares to,

Your beautiful diodes?

( Note: If you are a ham, a glutton for punishment, or both, feel free to sing the second half of the “Oh, My Karen” song ( you can find it on YouTube ) ).

KAREN : Oh, Plankton!  That was so beautiful! ( Sniffles, starts to cry ).

PLANKTON : Karen, stop crying!  You know what that does to your circuits!

( KAREN make short-circuiting sounds and her head ( screen ) flops forward to indicate she has shut down ).

PLANKTON : Oh crap!  ( Grabs some TNT ).  I guess I’ll just have to go with my original plan.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, back on the road.

SPONGEBOB:Hey Sandy!  You want to come to Michael’s birthday party?

SANDY: You’re darn tootin’ SpongeBob!  I wouldn’t miss it for all the oil in Texas!

( SANDY sees GARY )

SANDY: Howdy Gary!

GARY: MEOW!

( As they start walking, a hiding PLANKTON throws some TNT at the group. )

SANDY: Hey, what was that?

PATRICK: I’ll check.

( PATRICK picks up the TNT and looks directly at the letters “TNT” )

PATRICK.  Uhh, it look like a rock.  I like rocks.  They’re fun to throw.

( PATRICK throws the TNT in the direction of PLANKTON  ).

( PLANKTON picks up the TNT. )

PLANKTON: You idiot!  This isn’t a rock.  It’s TNT!  If this was a rock, it wouldn’t be about ready to explode in my hands!  ( Pauses )  Uh-oh!

( Cameraperson makes explosion sound-effect.  Actor playing PLANTKON does his best explosion-type spasms and falls down. ).

SPONGEBOB :We need to run,  the party starts in one minute!

( They all run to the Krusty Krab. )

MICHAEL: Finally! You’re here!

KRABS: And they brought MONEY - I mean, customers.

MICHAEL.  I’d like to thank SpongeBob for getting everyone to my 11th birthday party, I’d like to thank everyone for coming, but most of all, I’d like to thank Mr. Krabs for agreeing to provide all the party food for free.

KRABS:  WHAT?!?

-end-

Rich