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THE 49TH ANNUAL ISAACS RATINGS OF ESOTERIC DISTINCTION  This solemn lady is ranked No. 1 among the wives of Henry the Eighth. Makes you wonder what the others looked like, right? |
You've waited a year, so
come and get 'em, folks!
By STAN ISAACS
of TheColumnists.com
There is no escaping it. This is the time of the annual Isaacs Ratings of Esoteric Distinction (IRED ) a highly esteemed by some, yet often pilloried by many, enterprise. File it under the listing, “Fools Rush in Where….”
The ratings were launched upon an unsuspecting world in Newsday in 1960 and moved to these www.thecolumnists.com precincts in 2001. They were conceived as a loving spoof of the trailblazing The Ring Magazine ratings in the long ago before ratings cropped up like crabgrass on the media and internet landscape.
New rating categories achieve the dubious honor of a place in the IRED, but there is one staple--the chocolate ice cream ratings. Early on I declared myself an authority on chocolate ice cream--ever on the lookout for tasty new finds--and people dutifully accept my findings. I admit that when people who don’t know my name say, “You’re the chocolate ice cream, nut, aren’t you,” I nod modestly. A big development in chocolate ice creams this year is the fall from the top 10 of Bud’s Northern California; a trusty scout has put the kibosh on it for anemic (new word) chocolateness.
There are some keen-eyed IRED fans who have pointed out that the ratings have morphed into nonsensical listings as well as actual ratings. We plead guilty to the charge and lamely plead that the rating game is a tough mother.
The 49th annual ratings:
Chocolate Ice Creams: (1) Bertillion, Ile de St. Louis, Paris; (2) Douglas & James, Port Washington, NY; (3) Haagen Dazs; (4) Dr. Mike’s, Bethel, Conn. (5) Basssett’s, Reading Terminal Market, Philadelphia; (6) Godiva; (7) Olympia, Mountain, Washington State; (8) Merci’s, Vienna, Austria; (9) tie, Edy, east coast, Dreyer, west coast.
Henry VIII Wives: (1) Catherine of Aragon; (2) Anne Boleyn; (3) Jane Seymour; (4) Anne of Cleves; (5) Catherine Howard; (6) Catherine Parr.
Robinsons: (1) Jackie; (2) Sugar Ray; (3) Edward G.; (4) Frank; (5) Brooks; (6) Rachel; (7) Bojangles; (8) Crusoe; (9) Eddie (Grambling); 10) Smokey.
Paul (Dr. Z ) Zimmerman’s Guest Ratings of the Tenses: (1) Past; (2) Future. (only entries considered).
Catchers: (1) Mickey Cochrane; (2) Johnny Bench; (3) Bill Dickey; (4) tie, Roy Campanella, Yogi Berra; (6) Ernie Lombardi; (7) Josh Gibson; (7) Gabby Hartnett; (8) Carlton Fisk; (9) Ray Schalk; (10) Gary Carter;
People Who Now Own the War In Afghanistan So They Better Hope It Is Not a Quagmire: (1) President Barack Obama; (2) Gen. Stanley McChrystal; (3) Gen. David Petraeus; (4) Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; (5) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: (6) Sen. Joseph Lieberman.
Scandinavians: (1) Swedes; (2) Norwegians; (3) Danes; (4) Icelanders; (5) Finns.
Overrateds: (1) Mark Rothko; (2) Martin Scorsese; (3) Jordan River; (4) David Beckham; (5) Nike; (6) tie, William Faulkner, John Updike: (8) Dodger Stadium; (9) tie, Johann Santana, Cole Hamels; (11) tie, Oaklawn and Del Mar racetracks.
Perks Given Jack Welch as GE President: (1) free postage stamps; (2) millions of dollars; (3) free lifetime use of company Boeing 737: (4) free use of helicopter; (5) Manhattan apartment; (6) box seats for Red Sox, Yankee games, (7) doorman tips; (8) golf club memberships; (9) internet service: (10) security systems for four homes he owned; (11) dry cleaning.
1920s Americans in Paris: (1) A.J. Liebling; (2) Ernest Hemingway; (3) Gertrude Stein; (4) Isadora Duncan; (5) Alexander Calder; (6) F. Scott Fitzgerald; (7) William L. Shirer; (8) tie, Cole Porter, George Gershwin; (10) Josephine Baker.
Players Who Should Be in
the Baseball Hall of Fame: (1) Roger Maris;
(2) Keith Hernandez; (3) Pete Rose.
Sodom and Gomorrah: (1) Gomorrah; (2) Sodom.
Characters in Dickens’ “Bleak House”: (1) Sir Leicester Dedlock; (2) Peepy Jellyby; (3) Prince Turveydrop; (4) Bartholomew Smallweed: (5) Harold Skimpole; (6) Josiah Tulkinghorn; (7) Quebec Bagnett; (8) Mrs. Pardiggle; (9) Phil Squod; (10) tie, Lady Honoria Dedlock and Volumnia Dedlock.
Triple Crown Winners: (1) Secretariat; (2) Citation; (3) Seattle Slew; (4) War Admiral; (5) Whirlaway; (6) Count Fleet; (7) Affirmed; (8) Gallant Fox; (9) Assault; (10) Omaha; (11) Sir Barton.
Baltimoreans: (1) tie, Babe Ruth, H.L. Mencken; (3) Blaze Starr; (4) Edgar Allen Poe; (5) Brooks Robinson; (6) Eubie Blake; (7) Upton Sinclair; (8) Cal Ripken; (9) Johnny Unitas; (10) Francis Scott Key; (11) Nancy Pelosi; (12) Burt D’Lugoff.
People Offered Up as the Real Shakespeare: (1) Shakespeare; (2) Francis Bacon; (3) Christopher Marlowe; (4) Ben Jonson; (5) Edward de Vere (Earl of Oxford); (6) Sir Walter Raleigh; (7) William Stanley (Earl of Darby); (8) Ann Hathaway; (9) Henry Wriothesley (Earl of Southampton).
My All Time Favorite Dishes: (1) Mrs. Spier’s chocolate graham pies; (2) Cookery hamburgers; (3) Dubrow’s meat loaf; (4) Harry Stevens’ clam chowder; (5) Syd & Al’s BBQ spare ribs; (6) San Marino’s cannelloni; (7) Wah Kee’s lemon chicken; (8) Il Sapore’s chicken parmesan (9) Peter Luger’s tomatoes: (10) tie, Bobbie Isaacs’ latkes, matzoh brei. (Full disclosure: many of these no longer extant).
Memorable Sports Photos: (1) Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston; (2) The Four Horsemen; (3) Flight of Bobby Thomson’s epic home run; (4) Chuck Bednarik standing over fallen Frank Gifford; (5) Ben Hogan at Merion golf tournament; (6) Battered YA Tittle; (7) Bill Mazeroski’s home run; (8) Bob Beamon’s Olympic broad jump; (9) Ty Cobb’s slide into third base: (10) Babe Ruth’s final good-bye.
Red Barberisms: (1) sitting in the catbird seat; (2) tearing up the pea patch; (3) rhubarb; (4) FOB (full of Brooklyns); (5) ducks on the pond; (6) oh doctor; (7) back, back, back.
Slightly Revised Proverbs: (1) No husband has ever been shot while doing the dishes; (2) Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity; (3) A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel good. (4) Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you a mechanic; (5) A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.
Presidential Appelations, Real and Imagined: (1) FDR: That man in the White House; (2) Richard Nixon: Tricky Dick: (3) tie, Gerald Ford and Millard Fillmore: The Accidental Presidents: (5) Rutherford B. Hayes: Rutherfraud; (6) Thomas Jefferson: The sage of Monticello; (7) Abraham Lincoln: The Great Emancipator; (8) Lyndon Johnson: Landslide Lyndon; (9) Warren Harding: President Hardly; (10) William Henry Harrison: Old Tippecanoe.
Towns on Martha’s Vineyard: (1) Chilmark; (2) Gay Head; (3) Oak Bluffs; (4) Vineyard Haven; (5) Edgartown; (6) West Tisbury; (7) Menemsha; (8) tie, East Chop, West Chop; (10) Chappaquidick
Bogeyman: (1) Dick Cheney.
©2009 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. This column first posted Dec. 7, 2009.
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