The Unger Report

Save the Lapel

It’s a busy time in Hollywood.  Almost every weekend, people with giant teeth dye their skin an orangey color, put on borrowed clothes, and walk down red carpets so they can hand each other gold metal alloy statuettes.

That’s how creatures from outer space see us.

But not even space aliens with their bigger brains and way better public transportation can make sense of our lapel flair - our awareness ribbons. 

I like ribbons and people who make ribbons.  But is it possible to be aware of so much of everything that we aren’t aware of anything?

Here are a just a few ribbon colors and what they mean…I’ve grouped them into 4 categories:  sporting, working, non-sporting, and herding:

The popular red ribbon -- communicates awareness of HIV, disaster relief, alcohol & drug abuse (including inhalants), and something called Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome.  It also means you belong to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, you’re Pro-life, or in love.  So, overall - heart, blood, and blood alcohol levels, including huffing paint, model airplane glue, etc.  And driving drunk to an abortion counselor after sex with a high-risk partner.

The yellow ribbon:  Support Our Troops.  Bladder cancer.  Cholangiocarcinomas.  Victorian Bushfire Disaster, ’09.  Suicide.  And hope, in general.  So, things that are missing, things that are difficult to find or pronounce, or oxymoronic -- except for suicide and Tony Orlando and Dawn.

The blue ribbon represents the most awareness-ies.  In fact, I counted 41 awareness-ies for the blue ribbon.  A few being:  free speech, hurricane support, gout, water safety, second hand smoke, short bowel syndrome, and sex trafficking and slavery. 

All this feels like sensory overload – which is also a disorder symbolized by a blue ribbon. 

There are 4 ribbons in use to show support for Haiti, 5 for Myelodysplastic Disorder, but only one for stalking, Buy a Purebred Dog and Save the Democratic Party? 

I made the last two up.

I think awareness is good.  We need to wake up and be aware of things like need, and suffering, and gout…but in this, the age of awareness, how does anything get noticed?

It relegates all of us and everything to obscurity. 

We need a ribbon for that.

Peter Orszag, Stud.

In Washington, tongues are wagging over a bit of domestic intrigue:  Peter Orszag, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the OMB, released a statement saying he’s having a child by an ex-girlfriend even though he’s engaged to a different woman.  Orszag already has two children by an ex-wife.

Apparently this dude's da b-o-m-b of o-m-b.

3 women.

3 kids.

And maybe more on the way?

How does Orszag stretch his dollar?  For starters, like George Foreman, Peter Orszag should name all his kids the same name.  Foreman’s 5 sons are all named George.  It's less confusing, sure, but on birthdays and holidays, think of the money Orszag will save monogramming the J. CREW shirts, Ralph Lauren towels, and LL Bean suitcases with a simple "Peter."

Orszag is now the King of Nerd Chic in D.C. -- he needs to work it and cash in, first by posing on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine, shirtless, holding a couple of calculators – a moody, black and white image, something that really brings sexy back to the OMB.

Then comes the merchandising.  Some moneymaking gadget -- like an abacus that's also a diaphragm.  He should call it - simply - the Peter OrsZAP! – it adds, subtracts, and stops sperm in their tracks.  

Orszag's going to need to pinch pennies in his own household to cover his growing family - and to keep his ladies happy.  Peter, stick with QVC - for the Joan River’s collection.  Or Susan Lucci facial products.  You can get this stuff in bulk.  And for yourself, pick up the “I Am King” cologne by Sean P. Diddy Combs.

And lastly, you’ve got a wedding coming up – first ask yourself:  do I have a wedding coming up?  If the answer’s yes, how do you manage everyone - your kids, your exes - under one wedding tent, amicably?  Simple:  1-800-MAURY.

UP IN THE AIR, DOWN IN MY PANTS

I’ve been to second base with hundreds of strangers this year:  TSA workers from all over the country. I’m an airport slut:  been patted down, felt up, groped, and manhandled without one bit of romance.  But I’m optimistic, and ready for the next steps:  ball cradling, probing, and underwear searching.  This shit's getting hot.

And people are worried about government getting their hands on their healthcare?  

Well, we are at a far more perilous threshold:  our government is about to tamper with our privates, thanks to some punk who put a bomb in his pants.  It’s embarrassing not getting your panties to blow up the right way.  Thank goodness he failed, but a guy who can’t explode his own undies looks very bad, and sexy, to gang members in prison.  Just sayin’.

I’m gonna cop to it:  I hated the shoe bomber, and now I hate the undie-bomber.  And I’m sure I’ll hate the next knucklehead – the toupee bomber, the root canal bomber, the underarm bomber – whatever.  Because post 9/11, for every action  there’s a new detraction.  Do I put my undies in the same bin as my computer?  Or do they go right on the belt with my shoes?

Already we can see the future, and eventually the outline of your fellow passengers’ buttocks.  Yes, here comes a new age of awkward:  machines that see through our clothes and contraptions that sniff our threadbare boxer shorts.  My dog Honey does this to strangers, and it is embarrassing.

We’re all forced to submit to new stringent screening.  But submit to the same TSA workers at Dulles I watched high-five each other after making lewd comments about a woman’s breasts?  Hey, I know it’s a monotonous job, but c’mon guys…eyes, down.

Despite our best technology and billions spent to smell, see, and feel up the enemy, we the citizens of Troy continue to pull the Trojan horse past our own gates by ignoring the memos and mismanaging the lists.  If screening at airports is the front line, then what the hell is the front office doing? 

We paid for the dot connectors.  The anti-stovepipers.  The inter-agency communicators.  And threat-leveler, assessing, whatchamacallits.  So where are they?

Since we’ve spent almost a decade showing the world what kind of offense we have, could we please play some intelligent defense?  And leave our underwear out of it.