It has been twenty years since I led them, but I still know them all by name: aiming long rifle guy, grenade lobbing guy, lying flat sniper guy, kneeling bazooka guy, charging bayonet guy and machine gun aimed sideways guy. The sounds of their valor still echo in my dreams. The way they cheered for me, applauded my every decision. After the Great Bedroom War (1986-1987) and the Invasion of Cabbage Patch (Summer, 1988) I installed a suggestion box for my men. It is with great shame that I admit to only looking over these dispatches and communiqués now, almost twenty-five years later. I have failed my brave men, but hopefully their words will inspire and enliven this aging man they once so joyously called Ol’ General Radical.

My dining partner (a young man whose most singular talent is an ability to laugh-snort milk through his nose virtually on demand) and I entered the dining establishment hungry and eager for a pleasant midday culinary experience. The restaurant was “cafeteria” style, meaning that we chose our meals from a steam-shrouded and ambrosial variety of possibilities, effulgent in their pristine stainless steel serving containers.

Mad Men is a popular show on {previously obscure acronym} about Madison Avenue during the industry’s golden era: the early {decade often portrayed using broad generalizations and hackneyed, one-dimensional stereotypes}. The show has received much acclaim, particularly for its verisimilitude and perspicacity in capturing the zeitgeist of the period, which is a phrase that the {synonym for “affected pedants”} who watch Mad Men would understand but you probably don’t.

To All Employees in our Shelton office:

In recognition of the hard work and excellent business performance results of our Shelton employees, we are pleased to announce that our dress code for the summer will be casual attire from Monday, July 2nd through Friday, August 31st.

Acceptable Casual Attire includes:
– Blue jeans or jeans of any modest color (not green). No ripped, torn or bedazzled denim please. Jean shorts are acceptable only with a doctor’s note. Acid-washed denim must be of Bon Jovi quality or higher.
– All polo shirts. As outlined in our corporate mission statement, polo shirts are the highest exemplar of the business casual ideal. Through polo shirts, all things are permitted and all transgressions are made right.

New York was invented in 1825 as a settlement for skydwellers—otherworldly beings that could only acclimate themselves to ground existence by gradually living lower and lower in altitude. This “Great Migration from the Skyspace” as discussed by Dr. M.J. Fox in his L’Hommes Lunare Et Skie was carried out through many of the tallest buildings still standing in New York today, just as they were in the year 1825.