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DO THE MATH
BAY-BEE
BY
BOB ZANY
A fter 34 years on this planet, 12 units of
Junior College, and 16 tax returns, I've learned a few things. You have to do the math in
life. Crunch the numbers; get the beads on the abacus to swing your way. I'm a comedian
and I smoke a cigar on stage. And in the car, and on the patio. And, when my wife's not
home, I open the door of my office and smoke in there. A cigar has become my trademark,
and sure, after a show people want a piece of me. So I stuff a cigar into a plastic bag
with a couple of Bob Zany original postcards and charge five bucks for the package. I call
it the Bob Zany Fun Kit. Maybe they're not the cigars I smoke, in fact I can describe them
in one sentence: "Buy in bulk at Price Club, bay-bee!" The way I look at it, I
keep the fans happy and turn a tidy profit. I did the math. |
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Mine is a simple theory. Life is never as easy as
two-plus-two-equals-four. Because four is a variable. Four can be what you want you it to be.
My "four" is a good cigar. I'm constantly amazed by the people who tell me, "Bob,
those things are going to kill you!" They might have a point, but let's do the math:
George Burns, 100, cigar-smoker, alive.
Marlboro Man, 54, cigarette-smoker, dead.
You don't know who your friends are until you pull out a
cigar. Here in California, land of sunshine, palm trees, city ordinances and militant
anti-smokers, I like to walk into a building with an unlit cigar in my mouth. Why? Because I
love the reaction I get from the stressed-out non-smoker. You know who I mean - the guy with a
carbon-monoxide detector on his lapel who sees my cigar and looks at me like I just murdered
his family.
He corners me and starts sputtering his diatribe... "Hey!
hey! hey! y-y-you can't light that in here! "I look him straight in the eye and say, "That's
probably why it's not lit, Sparky! It's called oral fixation, bay-bee! Now why don't you go
outside and have your stroke! I hear the smog index is at an all-time high today!" This
guy's "four" is a warped perception of the concentration of toxins in the air that
he breathes while jogging behind a bus.
I truly believe that it's not second-hand smoke that'll kill
you, but rather the stress of worrying about it. I learned this from my doctor. He blames
everything on stress. Just last week, I thought I had him. I said,
"Doc, I've got these chest pains!" He said, "Bob, it's stress." I
said, "Doc it's a bullet wound." He said, "I know, the person who shot you
must've been really stressed-out!"
Our whole society has become stressed-out. The crime rate is
down but fear of crime is up. Fear is a lot of people's "four. "And in a
capitalistic society when fear is a "four'," it works well with the genius marketing
executives whose "four" is big bucks.
I love statistics. I read that the making of sperm can
decrease your life span. Talk about taking your life in your own hands! I also read that 60%
of all pregnancies are unplanned. Which means 6 out of 10 of you reading this, shouldn't be. A
study claimed that 8% of the population worry about going to hell. I guess the other 92% got a
pre-approved application in the mail. I don't worry about going to hell. I found it
fascinating that two out of three Americans believe in the Devil. Or roughly 66.6%. (Which
would not make any sense had I not done the math for you.)
It's important to do your own math. Make your "four"
what you want it to be. Next time a kid asks you for help with the age-old "If a train
leaves Chicago at 3:00 p.m" word problem, show the kid how to solve the problem. But
picture yourself in the smoking car of the train, watching the world go by, and not once
asking what time it will be when you arrive at your destination. Your destination will always
be there. So get off the train as often as you want. Maybe you'll wake up in a hellish place
where everybody is telling you, "Hey! You can't do that here!" 0r, maybe you'll wind
up in a heavenly place where everybody is smoking a big, fat cigar.
Reprinted by permission, SMOKE Magazine, Spring Issue, Vol. I, Issue
2, 1996