The next US Presidential campaign field is heating up. As of today 683 people have declared their candidacy. Wait, what? Out of those, currently twenty-two candidates are considered notable elected officials and public figures. One of those noted notables is US Representative Seth Moulton, of Massachusetts.
As always, I will preface any further discussion with the disclaimer that this is not a political post and I do not currently endorse any candidate or political party. This is a post about one person, irrespective of any topic other than, you guessed it, aliens.
Today in the news, Representative Moulton is being quoted about his plan for how to handle alien contact. The man has a plan. Well, somewhat. The details of that plan are secondary to the fact that the Congressman actually acknowledges that aliens are real and our government should have plans for interacting with them. Score one for the Rep from Massachusetts.
Rep. Moulton just declared his candidacy this week but he is already stirring up a media storm with his words about aliens. A Buzzfeed reporter asked what would Moulton do in response to an alien invasion, if he were president.
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| Seth "Beers & Burgers" Moulton |
Moulton took the question seriously, as one should, and provided a clear and dignified response. He started off with a light-hearted joke, "I would not build a wall between here and Mars." Then Moulton got real, “I would not do that. No, you got to start — and this is serious, guys — you got to start with diplomacy. You always have to start with diplomacy.”
So far, so good. Moulton went on to say, “What I would do with this alien, I’d give him a classic American meal." Food? You have my attention, sir. "I’d serve a beer and a burger.” Huh? Yes, that is right, a beer and a burger.
I reached out to Representative Moulton's office for some comments but they did not return my calls and emails. So instead, I will have to make some inferences and projections on my own. Maybe next time he will call back, if he is still in the race. Buckle up, folks.
Hopefully the burger is from In-N-Out, the best burger joint on the planet. The meeting might not go so well if he had as little taste as the current McPresident.
Again, not taking sides here - just how do you serve McDonald's and brag to everyone that you got burgers? Why not just get a suitcase of White Castle? Yes, White Castle may be lower on the burger pecking list than Micky D's as far as taste and quality go, but when it comes to the coolness factor it is White Castle all the way, baby.
Do not believe me? One time I went to a party. It was a class party; it was in Queens. I wanted to impress so I wore my DEA hat, which is always good for a laugh, and carried in a suitcase full of White Castle burgers. Everyone did indeed laugh at me, for the White Castle though, not for the cool hat. But five minutes later, there was nothing left but an empty box, a few reconstituted onions, and smoke. I think someone even licked the box. He was on something. Later on he peed in a house plant.
Bear in mind that everyone at that party was already drunk when I got there. (I was in my twenties.) When you are drunk, there is nothing better than a few dozen White Castle burgers. When you are the President of the United States of America, you should serve In-N-Out. "That's what a hamburger is all about," as they say.
Unfortunately, we do not have In-N-Out, here on the East Coast. Moulton has probably never even heard of it. They do have 5 Guys up in Moulton's neck of the woods. 5 Guys ain't no In-N-Out, but it beats The Golden Arches any day.
Do Aliens Like Beer and Burgers?
Wherever the burgers are from, what would aliens think of being served beer and burgers? They might think we are cheaping out on them. In a way, meeting aliens for the first time would be kind of like going on a first date. I have had lots of first dates, back in the day. I was a pioneer in online dating, plus I was a young professional in New York City during the Dotcom Boom. I was always out. I know a few things about first dates.
There are two approaches for a first date. You go big or you go cheap. Each has its merits.
When I first started dating I would go cheap. This was because I was new at it and I lacked the experience and imagination to do anything other than meet a girl out for a beer. This took a wrong turn when I arranged to meet a crazy woman from Staten Island. They say Staten Island is the Florida of NYC.
I wanted to check out this bar in Greenwich Village, I had heard about, which I was told had a cool and funky vibe. My date was paranoid about meeting strangers through online dating so she refused to give me her cell phone number. That should have been a red flag. The trains were messed up that day so I had to take a cab. I hit mad traffic on Flatbush Avenue, heading towards the Manhattan Bridge. I should have been at least twenty minutes early but instead was twenty minutes late. Since I could not call my date she thought I stood her up and she left.
I had a beer by myself. No biggie. The place really was cool and funky. I thought it would have been a good first date. But apparently my date did not think so. When I got home later that night I turned on my modem and dialed up my Internet Service Provider to send the girl an apology email, explaining my situation. She would not hear it. Apparently I was a bad guy for experiencing MTA problems and traffic in the largest city in the country.
I was even more of a scoundrel for choosing to meet my date in what she described as a "dive bar." She said that usually guys would take her out for a nice dinner on a first date. The email thread then digressed into some nasty back and forth retorts. It got ugly. I think I won but really, who wins in those situations?
What would aliens think of this? It depends if aliens are more like Staten Island girls or like normal people. They might look at a greasy burger and be like, "I few 90 light years for this dreck?" Surely, by the time everyone sat down the burger would be cold and the beer would be warm and flat. But on the plus side, given that Moulton is from the Boston area, there is a good chance the aliens would be served a Sam Adams. I am not a huge Sam Adams fan but at least it is not Bud or Heineken or God-Forbid, some kind of IPA, so there is that.
First Date with Aliens
After my Dive-Bar-with-a-Staten-Island-Chick fiasco I started taking a different approach with first dates. I would go to a nice-ish place for dinner or I would ask my date if there was a place she wanted to go to. This got expensive. I had to stop doing this when one date chose a place with white table cloths, chandeliers, and waiters in tuxedos carrying silver trays. It turned out she had more interest in a free meal at a fancy restaurant than in me.
When you are actively dating you go on more first dates than second dates. Dining at Five Star restaurants all the time can put a crimp in your budget. If you can afford it then who cares, you are having a nice time. But it should be something you do with someone whom you can share the memories with, later on. When you are playing the field you never know how things will turn out long-term and chances are you will never see that person again after the first date. So I learned to not spend a lot of money on the first date. If the girl has a problem with that it is telling; that first meeting should be about getting to know each other not about how much you spend.
What if the first date was an alien? An alien delegation comes down to meet with the President and we have to pick a restaurant to meet them at. On the one hand, you would not want to be accused of being cheap or trashy so you would want to pick a place that befits the image you want to project. That rules out any burger joint, no matter how nice it is. On the other hand, you would not want to go too fancy either. We do not know if this first alien delegation is "the one." Maybe if we play a little hard to get and make these aliens work for it (if you know what I mean) some better aliens will come along, a few weeks later, and we will want to meet with them. If that were the case, we would have wasted a lot of time and money on a first delegation with some aliens who just wanted a free dinner. It would have been better to go less formal until we got to know them better.
Obviously, I am mostly joking. Mostly. There is a middle ground, as there is in most situations. The choices are not between greasy burgers and fine dining. We could just meet the aliens between meals and go for a walk in the park. If things go well, we could move on to drinks or coffee, which could be very nice but not too expensive. If the conversation continues to flow then you make a second date, er uh, summit meeting and choose a nice mid-range place. Not a chain restaurant, definitely not Applebee's, but not a five star place either.
And that is how you set up a first date with aliens, or delegation, as it were.
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| Forget'em, we'll have beer and burgers |
Seth Moulton's approach? I think what Moulton was going for with his beers and burgers comment was his attempt at appealing to the American Everyman - Joe and Josey Six-pack. Hoo-wah! 'Merica!
Ya, nice attempt Moulton, but our alien visitors were unimpressed and they got back in their spaceships and took their gifts of technology and medical advances with them. On the way out, they do a few donuts on the moon, which are visible to us at night. They lay on the horn and flip us the bird.
One comments, "I can't believe the guy served us Boston Lager."
The other alien guy says, "Yeah, but at least it wasn't an IPA."
Here is the Buzzfeed interview in its entirety:
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