Holiday Blurbs

So much has been going on lately that I just haven’t had (or taken) the time to write, which is wrong. As you can tell from my title, I haven’t totally committed to one subject, so until I do, I’ll just jot down a few things that have been on my mind lately. I hope you enjoy them.

That Stupid Mating Game
It’s funny how sometimes, when we KNOW we shouldn’t do a thing, we do it anyway. Actually, it’s more sad than funny, but you know what I mean. We try to fool ourselves into thinking that this time it will be OK. And it just doesn’t matter how clear you think your head is because you can still fall into traps that you know you should avoid. I had a torrid one month affair with a woman recently who was absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. Normally, girls like her don’t want anything to do with guys like me, but much to my surprise, she literally threw herself at me. I should have known better, but I got suckered by appearance. You already know how this story turns out: She was a self-centered bitch, and I totally put up with it. Now, in my defense, I knew it wasn’t going to last, but I sure wanted to ride that ride as long as it was open. But I knew, KNEW that it wasn’t a good thing and I did it anyway. It was a cruelty I inflicted upon myself, and I wonder when I’ll learn my lesson. I won’t drone on about skin deep beauty and all that while I whine about my own weakness. In fact, I’m happy to report that I did manage to find someone I can put up with who can also put up with me. I’ll spare you the smarmy details, but suffice to say that I am much happier with the inner beauty than I ever was with the shell. Things are really looking up on the romance front. More on that as it develops.


Our New President
What do I think of Barack Obama? I hope he does a good job, although I don’t expect anything less than business as usual. As I’ve said before, anybody who really wants to be the president must have something wrong with them. But, egomania aside, I hope he is as sincere as he comes across. The guy is a gifted speaker, and we all (should) know that charisma is what gets people elected, not “plans”. Right after he won the election, I checked out a huge white supremacy site to see what they had to say, and they were “temporarily down due to server overload”. The only people who could read the threads were members. I had to laugh, though, because the reason they gave was the recent “obamanation” at the polls. There’s nothing like having the wind taken out of your sails, and in some cases, it’s just hilarious. On a serious note, I really hope that they can go back and sulk without assassinating him. Nothing would convince the rest of the world that Americans are idiots than something like that. It’s scary to think that some people relish the thought of a race war; I really hope they can get with the times. Google “stormfront” to see just how far out of alignment some of these people are, and think real hard about how good it might be to have a gun.

I’m sorry to say I only had two topics for this installment. On the plus side, though, I did come up with an idea I want to ramble about; I’m drafting it right now. I know the suspense is unbearable, but I will post a couple things in the next few days. It’s finally holiday time, and with it comes some time to do nothing but what I want to do. Finally. Happy Thanksgiving.

The M Word

I could have called this an advice column again, writing to tell nieces and nephews (and anyone else who would listen) about the joys and perils of falling in love, but seeing as I’ve had very little success in doing so, I’m afraid my words would ring rather hollow. Still, I was thinking about it today, for many reasons, and I decided that I wanted to pontificate on it anyway. Perhaps I should narrow my focus a bit from love in general to the dreaded “M” word, with the hope that some tidbits of advice (or at least a warning sign that I missed) will shine through.

In our time, marriage is a legal institution, but we all know that it dates back to, well, pretty much the dawn of civilization. In most cultures, religion also plays a key role in marriage. However, legal and moral issues aside, the fact of the matter is that almost universally, the contract of marriage involves two people who promise each other, their families and their gods that they will literally spend the rest of their lives together, forsaking, as it were, all others. That’s a tall order. Now, assuming that you are a good person who doesn’t lie to yourself, you’d better think twice before you agree to such a thing. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t make mistakes or promises in the heat of passion; it’s so easy to do. We also know that half of all marriages (in the US) fail, so that means every other person you meet has failed to live up to a promise they made to someone they claimed to love. Remember that when it’s time to trust someone.

It sounds selfish to say, but each of us really needs to look out for number one. To put another before yourself is indeed a noble gesture and is, in my opinion, the hallmark of being a good human being. There’s nothing wrong with putting your heart out in the open, but make sure your display has an appreciative audience. If the one you love doesn’t treat you exactly the way you want to be treated, move on. It’s that simple. It’s easy to convince yourself that an off word or action from your lover is nothing more than a trivial shadow in an otherwise blinding light, something easily overlooked, but I can guarantee you that what seems like a bit of fluff now will turn into a giant carnivorous lint ball if you ignore it. I don’t mean to sound harsh, and I know that any good relationship is built solidly on a give and take foundation. The point is, only you know how you like to be treated, and a good potential mate will recognize that with little or no prodding.

Don’t get married because it’s convenient. Two incomes, even a lottery windfall won’t make a good marriage. If you feel pressured to get married, don’t. If your lover dangles the prospect of marriage like a carrot or (insert appropriate lure), don’t agree and get out as soon as possible. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that love pretty much equals trust. If you trust someone (see above warnings), and I mean trust them completely, then you’re on the right path. It’s easy to read those words and agree, but remember to watch for signs that they trust you as well; it only works if both sides of the scale are even. A lover that is overly jealous probably has someone else’s shoes under their bed when you’re not around.

I’ve only been married once, and of course, divorced once, but I like to think that I learned many lessons from it. I’ve had several chances to be married again, and I’m almost positive that my reluctance to do so was the root cause of the failed relationships, and that’s just wrong. Maybe I’m a dreamer, but if you’re going to get married, I think you had better be damned sure you’re getting married for the right reasons. Even if you think your boyfriend or girlfriend is the perfect human being (and crazy, cool love can make you think that), you need to stop and think. Really think. Percy Sledge says “loving eyes can never see”, and you’d better believe that’s the truth. (Look to right of screen on linked page for player)

I want to end on a positive note. I don’t want to be accused of being bitter. Marry the woman (or man) who makes you feel like you’re the most important person in the world. Don’t marry them for what they have because possessions will always be just that, and they will never make you happy. Don’t marry them for their appearance because that will fade. Marry the person who can see your flaws as you can see theirs and neither of you is uncomfortable with it. The Percy Sledge song warned of blind love; but if you can relate to this one, by Shades of Blue, then I am envious. When I can hear that song and know that it fits perfectly, I’ll try marriage again.

Kindness of Strangers

I’m kind of a pack rat when it comes to keeping stuff. I sometimes keep things for years before I finally rediscover them, and toss them in the trash, wondering why in the world I kept them for so long. Empty booze bottles, for instance, used to turn up now and again, usually with some long forgotten memento scribbled on the label that seemed really important at the time. In most cases, I couldn’t even remember what my cryptic messages meant. It’s funny how some things that seem so important one day fade to the point that we can’t remember them at all. How many times have you said to yourself, “I’ll never forget this,” and then be reminded years later only to answer with a “Huh? What? Did we?” Good times.

Anyway, as I was going through some old papers not long ago, I came across something I thought I’d lost a long time ago. It was a letter from a stranger, to me, a letter from someone that I do not know, and to this day, have never met. It is without a doubt the oddest letter I have ever received, and I’m willing to bet it is the oddest one I will ever receive as long as I live. I’m so glad I found it because I was beginning to think it never really existed except in my mind. The letter came to me during the most tumultuous time in my life, a time when my usually routine world had gone completely and horribly askew…and I couldn’t remember a thing about it. The letter writer had helped me in my most desperate hour and wished me well; she spoke to me as if we had known each other for years, and offered advice as only a true friend can. Again, I have never met her. I don’t believe I’ve ever written of this (or at least, I can’t remember…good times, huh?). Here’s the story:

Now, in case you don’t know, there is a HUGE motorcycle party in New Hampshire every year. It is the oldest bike rally in the country and any old school biker will tell you that Laconia is second only to Sturgis; many like Laconia better. On Wednesday, June 13th, 1997 I had a motorcycle accident in Gilford, New Hampshire, just outside of Laconia. I don’t remember the accident. We were drinking at a bar called the Broken Antler. I was playing pool with a girl from Connecticut, and I remember being totally smitten with her northeastern accent. She was wearing a yellow midriff-baring tank top and she had great tits. I was winning, and I was hoping that maybe I’d get to take her back to the campground to see if things could get any better. I was having a great time. I was drinking, but I was not fall down drunk; my friends would never have let me ride if I had been. I was playing pool with the girl from Connecticut on Wednesday night…and then…

I woke up Sunday night. As soon as I opened my eyes, I knew something really bad was going on. My dad was there. My ex wife was there. I was in a hospital bed. My hands hurt really, really bad. My legs were on fire. Did I mention I was in a hospital bed? Not really sure how I got from the bar to here, where my dad was, I asked him, “What happened?” He said I had been in a motorcycle accident. I can’t tell you how shocked and embarrassed I was. I thought to myself, “I crashed my motorcycle? I don’t remember doing that!” I looked at my hands, which were throbbing, and they were swollen and bruised; I absurdly thought someone had put purple boxing gloves on me while I was asleep. I looked at my legs and they were both wrapped in a blue plastic bubble wrap kind of stuff that was really warm. And they hurt. Bad. Real bad. My father said I had broken both of my femurs and that I had survived a closed head injury that was so severe the doctors didn’t fix my broken legs for several hours because they weren’t sure if I was going to pull through at all. That’s why he was there. He had come to collect my body.

Months of excruciating pain followed; I have never been so down in my life. I couldn’t walk down stairs for four months. I couldn’t walk at all without a walker. I lay in a bed in my house, my prison, and cried alone in the dark. I cried because I hurt and because I couldn’t walk like a man and because I could hear my unfaithful ex wife cavorting downstairs with any number of boyfriends. It was awful. But, like all things, it passed, and within 8 months or so I was able to function by myself again. As soon as I could walk I threw my ex out. I had kept her around because I needed someone to help me, and I felt a little guilty for that, but one does what one has to do. But anyway, once I was up and around, I found the box where my dad had stashed all my belongings from the accident. It had languished in my garage, next to my broken motorcycle for nearly a year. Here was a pair of bloody jeans, there the remnants of every article of clothing I had been wearing, and all kinds of stuff that was familiar. It was my stuff, but from another lifetime. I looked at each thing and tried to remember why I had it, and some of it was a complete mystery. At the bottom of the box, though, was an envelope with no address, and I could tell when I picked it up that there was a note in it, and I could feel that it was several pages, folded up to fit. I took it out of the envelope and looked at it. It was printed and I did not recognize the handwriting. What follows is the letter, exactly as it was written:

June 13th, 1997
Dear Jeff –
Me and Ximius was ridin round aftah the weird beech slowded down totha nite and by gawd we went out ta see the guvnah on his eyeland afta werds on the way home and thar were this assident rite aftah the guvnahs place – well by gawd this wooman was a hoppin rownd and we seed lites and sumbody liftin a hed offen the side the road and we stopped and popped our skyroof opened and yelled hollered “Doyou knead help? and them didn’t answer – now Jeff – we knowd yew couldn’t ansah and we seed nother cah comin and was gonna hit us so we got going – now we did not speed or nuthin and we thunk – hell – we’s paking milk now and we wear short shorts and wiggle and put ginger bread and p-nut butter dog shits on bykes an all – take pichas of theese bykes – cuz we like em!! So we said hell – mebbe they don wan nobody ta know thet them packin licka but by gawd a DWI ain’t as bad as a ded guy so we wen fassass we could and fownd a poe leeceman and tole him bowt ya cuz we ain’t got no phone in cah – him took off and got help so fass you would beeleeve it – now we ustah be alkeeholic and we ustah ride byke too and we knowd bowt them DWI’s real close up like cuz we got one – long tyme ago but we got one sure as shit – we still drank a while afta but we was glad we could hep you – now ifn you kneed hep – we’d be glad to hep you – ain’t got nun money but we sureas hell live in NH and would hep you in court if necessary. hope we did right thang by yah and hope you ain’t mad none we is care about you guys and we hope yer byke ain’t ded none neetha – Hope them doctah’s down keel ya neetha – they’s bastads they ahe! We jis happened ta bein konkid and we’ll try to git this to yah otherwise we’ll send it to yer hometown!! Gawd bless ye – Paula (smiley face) 10 Shackford Rd Center Barnstead NH 03225 PS – helluva way ta git yer name in the paypa! try not drink none – drink sodee or milk – makes ya laff betta (smiley face) and feels reel goode! (smiley face)


(I think the letter speaks for itself, but just in case, here are a couple translations that may help clear up some confusion: “weird beech” = Weirs Beach, a popular spot on Lake Winnipesaukee where hundreds of thousands of bikers park during the Laconia bike week. “konkid” = Concord, the capital of NH.)

I couldn’t put a finger on how I felt after I’d read the letter, and now, 11 years later, I still can’t. I would like to meet Paula and Ximius and thank them in person for going out of their way to help a complete stranger. I want to tell them that in spite of my general disdain for humans, they represent a shining example of all that is good about people. It touches me that strangers showed concern for another, an unknown, and then took the time to hand write a letter, not knowing if the intended recipient was alive. I don’t know if anybody in New Hampshire reads this blog, but if you do, tell Paula and Ximius that I would like to meet them, or at least hear from them. I am forever indebted to them, and in particular, I want Paula to teach me to capture an accent in print as intimately and accurately as she does. Their thanks are long overdue. Thank you, strangers; thank you, friends.

Jesus, I'm Thirsty!

Weddings, by and large, are happy affairs. Families are joined (so they say), and for the most part, ill feelings are put aside so that all guests can share a slice of the joy that is obviously being shared by the bride and groom. Weddings are so important that Jesus himself chose one to perform his first miracle (although it is mentioned only once in the entire New Testament, an odd thing considering it was the very first miracle, but a story for another time). And what did He do? Why, only the best miracle ever: At Cana, when a wedding party had emptied the keg, so to speak, He turned 6 thirty gallon jugs of water into the “best wine” of the night. I’ll tell you right now that if I saw somebody do that, you can be damn sure I’d follow them for the rest of my life. The point, of course, is that if alcohol at a wedding is good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me, and everybody knows that open bar weddings are the best. A case could be made, in fact, that to not emulate Jesus at a wedding is, well, a snub to the almighty. Say it ain’t so!

I went to a wedding this past weekend, and heard the phrase “in Jesus’ name” more often in six hours (over two days) than I’ve ever heard it in my entire life. At a rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding, I complimented the host on his collection of model cars. By way of making small talk after a mandatory prayer over catered Olive Garden, I said that it must have taken a great deal of patience to construct the hundreds of models he had on display throughout his home, and he responded by saying that he could not have done it without the blessing of Jesus, through whom all creativity and patience flows. Not five minutes later, one of my sisters complimented the man’s wife on her home, and, like a recording of her husband, she said that Jesus had seen fit to bless them with the house they own, and that they were very thankful. To hear them tell it, they had no talent or, for that matter, no control over anything that happened in their lives. Feeling rather out of place, I sat quietly, and realized that in the snatches of conversations I could vaguely overhear, all lips praised His name. I kept a careful yet discreet eye out for an aquarium filled with snakes; if I had seen one, I would have bolted. Jesus was manifest in all they did, and the only thing I could think of was “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”.

I was relieved when the wedding itself did not have any speaking in tongues, poisonous snakes or mason jars of cyanide. In fact, it was surprisingly short, with no kneeling or stinky incense. It was over in about 15 minutes, and before I knew it, I was standing outside in the Florida sun next to a cracker box church on a postage stamp parcel of land that had a huge “For Sale” sign in the driveway. Evidently, it is Jesus’ will that they move. In any case, we left the church and went to the reception which was being held in the clubhouse of a golf resort. Imagine my joy upon entering and seeing off in the corner the warm glint of sunlight reflecting off the smooth glass of liquor bottles, lined up neatly in a row and gently cooing my name. I sauntered right over (there was no line) and told the bartender I wanted a bloody mary that would blow my face off, and I’ll be damned if I wasn’t cut off before I started. It seems that the bar was closed at the request of the bride and groom. The people who claimed that Jesus ruled their lives had somehow seen fit to second guess Him and not allow alcohol at their wedding. Seemingly every aspect of their lives is ruled by scripture, yet Jesus’ first miracle is ignored, even hidden. Amazing.

Is this essay a knock on Jesus? No, it’s not. It is, however, a mild diatribe about those people who claim to know the will of God and have no problem foisting their beliefs on everyone they can. An argument could be made that the wedding day belonged to the bride and groom, and they should have the right to conduct their wedding as they see fit. Moreover, why would anyone attend a wedding if they knew it was going to be dry? Well, I didn’t know it was going to be dry. I didn’t know I’d have to sit so close to the bar I could smell it and not be able to taste it. And I am (obviously) flabbergasted at the audacity of people who pick and choose pet parts of the bible to follow while ignoring others, especially the born again New Testament evangelical crowd. Like I said earlier, if booze at a wedding is good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for us mortals.

Do I have to have a drink to have fun? No. Do I have a drinking problem? No. As long as nobody tells me I can’t have it, I’m fine. I get to decide what I want to do, and as luck would have it, Jesus is on my side. So there.

I'll Have the Racism With Nuts, Please

I have a friend with whom I have the most interesting conversations. We have a good deal in common and have spent many hours discussing everything from politics to religion to food to women to the stupid things we did while growing up, and although we often play devil’s advocate to each other, we are always civil and able to agree to disagree.

My friend is a black man who grew up in South Carolina; I spent half my youth in a lily-white Illinois farming community and the other half in a suburb of Detroit. We both have degrees and we are also both veterans. One of our favorite subjects is racism, and with America on the cusp of an historic presidential election, it’s never too far on the back burner to be easily moved front and center, no matter where the conversation starts. So you know, my friend is a republican, and in spite of his proud nature, he is not professing fealty to Obama. I believe he will make a choice based on rational thinking and not blind racial allegiance. As I’ve stated before, I always listen to all candidates, then vote for the one I’m most comfortable with when they lie to me. So, now that I’ve told you that, let me tell you this:

We were talking the other day, and my friend told me that he’s very keen to find “hidden” racism in everyday situations. I wanted to know how, given the virtual castration of political correctness, such a thing was possible. “It’s everywhere”, he said. I wanted a specific example. He cited Blue Bell ice cream, a very popular brand in the southern American states. “How”, I asked, “do they purvey discreet racism?” He said they have a package that contains both chocolate and vanilla flavors in one carton. The chocolate, he said, is divided right down the middle, separate from the vanilla. “Yeah”, I said. “So?” He said it’s not two flavors swirled together. It’s black on one side, and white on the other. I had a hard time suppressing a giggle here, but he went on to say that the company slogan was “Tastes like the good old days”, which meant that the presentation of the two flavors in the package was a subtle reminder of how wonderful America was when we had separate drinking fountains. I laughed out loud at this point, convinced that he was pulling my leg. We both eventually agreed that there really are people who would believe such nonsense, although I don’t believe that he totally discounts it. I shouldn’t be too hard on him, though. If I’m not mistaken, it was a white person who claimed the Virgin Mary appeared on a grilled cheese sandwich (that she sold ten years later for $28000 on Ebay).

I asked my buddy a few minutes later if he had been keeping up on a developing story here in Florida that involves a young woman currently in jail on suspicion of having something to do with the disappearance of her 6 month old baby girl. (I won’t go into details; you can read about it here.) We were looking at an internet article on the story which featured a large picture of the missing child. The missing white child. My friend opined that the story wouldn’t be getting the coverage it is if the missing child was black. I disagreed. In fact, through a grisly coincidence, I pointed out the case of the woman in Pennsylvania who was arrested last week for killing an 18 year old pregnant girl, cutting her unborn infant from her womb and taking it to a hospital, claiming it was hers. (Read details here) Both victim and perpetrator in that case were black.

My point should be obvious: horrific crimes get the attention they get because they’re horrific, not so the media can portray thugs or rednecks in a bad light. Whether you’re from the hood or from the trailer park, you are just as apt to commit an atrocity. No rational person wants to see an infant, any infant disappear. To hear of their slaughter is an anathema. If ever there was an innocent victim, it is the child caught in a maelstrom of adult emotion.

Do black people have a history of mistreatment? Of course they do, but so does everybody else. Name one race throughout history that hasn’t subjugated others (as well as itself) and I’ll kiss your ass. We’ve been hurting each other since time began, and until we learn to get along, we’ll keep on doing it. Bad people come in all colors, and they all leave the same red stain.

OK, that’s enough for now. Watch for an upcoming essay on news bias and religious intolerance. And with that, I think I’m going to have a treat: A bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup sounds like just the ticket. I don’t care about the presentation. Call me crazy, but food is for your mouth, not your eyes. And by the way, my dad makes the best ice cream in the world. So there.

Devil May Care

Regular readers of this blog know that I often use this space to rail against the evil television. It can suck your life away, lulling you to the point where mindless drivel can seem like compelling entertainment. Like a drug, it is insidious in its ability to make something stupid seem fun; it’s a little devil on your shoulder telling you that Brett Michaels’ love life really IS interesting. As you may have guessed from the title of this essay, I use the “devil on the shoulder” analogy for good reason: The Prince of Darkness was on my television this past weekend. And I liked it.

I love horror movies, even bad ones, although I do all I can to avoid the tripe that passes for horror on the Sci-Fi channel. “Mansquito?” Flying half-man, half bug? Give me a break. No, the Sci-Fi channel isn’t very good…until they have their holiday “Twilight Zone” marathon. Then it’s good. I got sucked into it for a couple hours this weekend, waiting for the best episode of the series. “The Howling Man” (written by Charles Beaumont) is about a traveler who unwittingly unleashes Satan into the world. Lost in a storm, the traveler arrives at a monastery of sorts, populated by terse and less than friendly monks of an obscure order. They deny him shelter, and he collapses, earning a dry spot in spite of the monks’ inhospitable demeanor. Upon awakening, he hears a mournful howling and happens upon a haggard man in a cell who tells the traveler that he has been imprisoned unjustly for kissing a girl that the monk was sweet on. (I’m not making this up.) The traveler goes to the head monk (John Carradine) and demands to know why men of God have a prisoner that they’re trying hard to ignore. The monk tells the traveler that it is no man in the cell, but Satan himself, father of all lies. And that, of course, is the rub. Who’s lying, the crazy guy with beard in the cell or the crazy guy with the beard and the staff? The traveler listens to both arguments and sides with the prisoner. Now, the only thing barring the door to the cell is a “staff of truth,” not much more than a broomstick. There’s a window in the cell door that allows the prisoner to get an arm out. He could easily reach out the window, lift the bar and walk out, but he doesn’t. The traveler asks him why he doesn’t, and the prisoner utterly ignores the question, imploring the traveler to remove the bar…which he does. And, you guessed it, once freed the prisoner transforms into the classic Beelzebul, complete with goatee and horns. Before the traveler passes out (after being “zapped” by Satan), he realizes that he has been fooled. In an epilogue of sorts, we see the traveler years later, and he himself has captured the devil, after a couple wars and nuclear weapons proliferation, all consequences of his foolishness years earlier. He is explaining to a maid that he has the devil trapped in a closet and that she must not open the door (also barred by a “staff of truth” not much bigger than a pencil) while he is out. Does she let him out? Of course she does, and it starts all over again. Great stuff, huh?

My fascination with things macabre aside, I think what I like most about this story is the ease with which our hero is fooled. The concept of an evil presence is hard enough to swallow, but evil incarnate? Why, that’s just nonsense. Isn’t it? I once heard a priest say “The devil’s greatest trick is to make you think he doesn’t exist.” Now, I’m no logician, but there’s really no way to win an argument with that kind of reasoning. It’s akin to “everything I say is a lie.” In the words of the immortal William Dozier, “it’s a confounding conundrum!” It is the perfect story.

I’m digressing. I got to wondering why the devil would want to make you think he doesn’t exist. The obvious answer would be so that he could go about his malevolent business undetected, but what good is that? If he doesn’t get to laugh maniacally at the mortals he has corrupted and enslaved, why bother? By all biblical accounts (and there aren’t many), Satan just doesn’t figure in the big picture. In fact, he is mentioned only a few times in the old testament as Satan (a being), and should not be confused with Lucifer, a different entity altogether. In fact, it wasn’t until around the second or third century that he came to be considered by Christians as the antichrist. In spite of his popularity (?) today, he wasn’t a very big deal in the beginning. No wonder he’s so pissed off. But you know, the whole good versus evil thing just doesn’t work without him, and, much like God, we have created him in our image to explain away our responsibilities for acting like…God’s creatures. He is all of the things that are the worst in men and he bears the blame for all men’s sin. Research the etymology of the word “scapegoat”, and you’ll find one of his names. Nobody likes to have their name forgotten, and I’m sure the devil, full of pride, wants to be remembered.

I love the concept of Satan. I hope he lives on for centuries in films and stories. May we continue to keep him alive in our imaginations and invoke him to scare the shit out of children and the gullible. He frightens us for good reason: we can see ourselves in him. No matter how much we vilify him, we need him. In fact, I believe that he takes a great deal of delight in our aspirations of divinity. I offer this quote from Mark Twain: “But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most, our one fellow and brother who most needed a friend yet had not a single one, the one sinner among us all who had the highest and clearest right to every Christian's daily and nightly prayers, for the plain and unassailable reason that his was the first and greatest need, he being among sinners the supremest?”

By thinking that we are above or different than he, by claiming a “golden rule” mindset but not living it, we prove ourselves to be that which we profess to hate. Rock on, Evil One.

"So I'm Sittin' In This Bar..." Vol. I

In the past, I’ve written essays on the same subject, such as television. In fact, the last one I wrote only generated one comment, and it was from a relative who told me I needed to get a life. Thanks. Anyway, I decided to start another series, an idea I’ve been entertaining, but have never actually played with. I want to welcome you to my bar stories. I’m going to relate some of the things that I’ve seen in bars from all over the world. Some are recent and some are decades old. I hope you find them interesting.

So I’m sittin’ in this bar in Baltimore. I was in town for a week for work with several other people, and I wasn’t driving the car, and that sucks. If you’ve ever been traveling with a group, you know what I mean. Anyway, one of the guys who had been there before had a few places he wanted to show me, and this was one of them. I’ve been in a lot of bars. I mean, a lot, but I have never been in one like this. It was an old building. It was a banquet hall on one side and a tavern on the other. I noticed the sign when we pulled in the parking lot. It said “Welcome Class of 49”. Really. Anyway, we went in the tavern side and right into what might as well have been “The Shining”. The walls were cream colored and lit entirely with recessed lights, the kind where the lights are hidden by plaster balcony-looking soffits that spanned every wall a foot or so below the ceiling. In every corner, there was a large faux marble, urn-shaped planter with fake red flowers spilling out of it. There was a large U-shaped bar and an area at the bottom of the U that was behind us. It had four or five booths and as many tables, all covered with lace tablecloths. All the tables were populated with senior citizens dining quietly. In fact, it was the quietest bar I’ve ever been in. We sat at the bar and waited for the bartender, who had make up on like Morticia Addams and was dressed like Dean Martin, complete with an impossibly white shirt and a black bow tie and a black vest. She was young, but had a drastic, old lady hairdo stretched into a little bun. It was pulled back so tight on her head it made my teeth hurt. There were two large flat screen TVs behind her with no volume. When I ordered my drink every person in the room could hear it. I half expected to see a sardonic Jack Nicholson behind her shoulder raising a glass as the skin on his face fell off. I made some small talk with the guys I was with, and didn’t show my fear. They had a KENO game going and I spent three dollars for three games every three minutes so I could concentrate on the monitor and not have to look at the diners who were, I was sure, tossing bones on their plates that weren’t chicken. I actually won a dollar back and managed to finish my drink without any social interaction at all. I looked at the guys I was with who had the “another?” look and I said, “Nope, I’m tired, let’s go,” and we left. I didn’t feel safe until we got back out into the sunlight. As we walked to the car, we passed the entrance to the banquet hall where two elderly people were walking down the cement stairs. I said “Hello” as I passed and they said nothing. Yup. Got out of there before the sun went down and the monsters came out.

So I’m sittin’ in this bar in Holland, Michigan. If you’ve ever visited there, you know it’s a quaint, touristy place. If you’ve ever lived there you know it’s a haven for religious weirdoes who (at the time) decided it was necessary to have a law against mowing your lawn on Sunday. Really. Anyway, I’m sitting at the bar when this young girl walks in with a baby in a car seat, sits next to me and orders a rum & coke. She didn’t look old enough to drink, let alone have a kid, but there she was. The kid with the kid had phenomenal tits, so I overlooked her obvious stupidity. She was wearing a V-neck shirt with laces that were literally bursting. For one brief moment, I was jealous of the infant. If she was my mother, I’d breast feed until I was 20. Anyway, as is my usual custom, I waited for her to start talking to me, and of course, she did. We exchanged mild pleasantries and then she started talking about…something, but I don’t remember what it was. Call me a chauvinist, but I was not hearing a word she was saying. I “uh-huhed” when I was supposed to and it lasted for a while, but eventually, abruptly, I realized it was my turn to speak and I hadn’t been listening. Because I was an honest, non-thinking-ahead sort of fellow, I blurted out exactly what I was thinking. I said, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening. I was staring at your chest.” And just like that, she slapped me. The bartender looked over at us. I set my drink down and said, “Listen, Missy. If you walk with a neon sign around your neck that says ‘Don’t Look At This Sign,’ you’d better not be surprised when someone does.” She didn’t get it, but I had stopped listening again. She started calling me a pervert or something and I looked at the bartender, fully expecting to explain myself, but the bartender scooted up to where we were and put her finger in the busty girl’s face and told her to leave. Now. The girl got up, bitching, obviously angry, and I couldn’t help but notice how great her tits looked, shaking as she was fumbling with her purse and her baby. She stormed out the door and the bartender bought me a drink for my trouble. Ain’t life grand?

Stay tuned for more bar stories. I’ve been meaning to write more often and I will. You’ll have to pardon me when it’s fluffy stuff like this, but these are stories I enjoy telling.

More From the Idiot Box

Way back last year I wrote a little blurb about hockey. (You can read it here.) It’s that time of year again and I’m watching the Stanley Cup playoffs. My team is doing well, although they have, of late, been nail-bitingly difficult to watch. I have faith that they will prevail. Go Wings! (I promise that’s my only hockey plug.)

We should all know that TV doesn’t cater to viewers, it caters to advertisers. It’s hard to find programs that aren’t produced with the sole intent of trying to sell you something, and televised hockey is no exception. Even though the teams playing have changed in the past two months, the commercials haven’t. As much as I love to watch this game, I can’t help but be disillusioned by the companies that bring them to me. Perhaps you’ve seen some of them. Watch out, because I’m getting on my soapbox.

The Good: See it here: Bridgestone Tires
In this commercial, a man and (presumably) wife are driving on a road through a forest when a squirrel that happens to be sitting in the path of the vehicle sees them, and begins to scream. Normally computer generated animals with human voices creep me out, but for some reason, this one is funny. Anyway, as the squirrel screams, other animals in the forest begin to scream, each with a different voice, and finally we cut back to the oncoming vehicle where we see the woman in the passenger seat screaming. We get a full 10-15 seconds of blood curdling howls. The man smirks and calmly misses the squirrel, putting an immediate end to the din. You’d think it would be annoying, but it’s just funny. Maybe you have to love horror movies to find screaming funny, I don’t know. If I’m not mistaken, this commercial first aired during the Stupor, er, Super Bowl, so I guess it’s old hat. Call me crazy, but as far as commercials go, it’s still welcome.

The Bad: Accuvue Contact Lenses
In this one, two men are playing what appears to be “backyard” football (American), complete with matching uniforms, which is kind of weird. One man passes the ball to another, who bobbles, then drops it. The man who fumbled the ball immediately takes off his glasses and blames them for his inability to catch the ball. Once he’s fitted for contact lenses, though, his game is perfect. Now, as a person who has worn glasses since the fourth grade, I can tell you right now that as long as they are on your face, not covered in mud or you haven’t had your prescription updated, you can see. The man in the commercial has his glasses on when he mishandles his catch, so it was in his hands. How, then, did his glasses make him drop the ball? That’s like saying “I was going to kick the ball but my ear was in the way.” What message does this impart? It must be the “What can I blame my shortcomings on” lesson. Ridiculous.

The Ugly: Edge Shaving Gel
There are so many things wrong with this commercial. In the first part of this advertisement, we are asked what makes this shaving gel feel so enjoyable. We zoom down to the size of a dust mite on a cheek that needs to be shaved where whiskers are the size of trees, and beautiful women with tanks on their backs like flame throwers are squirting white foamy aloe and moisturizers all over the whiskers, and, of course each other. I’m OK with a fantasy like that. Women in bathing suits lolling about in a sea of whipped cream isn’t a bad thought at all. But, as soon as that commercial is over, the next comes on for Edge gel, but this time the selling point isn’t the moisturizing aspect, it’s the aroma. In the same vein, we are shrunk again to see an army of beautiful women wearing jet-packs on their backs, blasting off. Trouble is, they are flying up a huge nostril. As they enter, the woman at the center of attention has a look on her face that can only be described as anxiously exhilarated; she can’t wait to get up that nose. In the next scene, there’s a dance party going on in the nasal cavity, complete with music and a disco ball shining a thousand lights on a red mucous membrane wall. I find myself scratching my nose every single time I see it. I know some people have a fascination with various orifices, but the nose just doesn’t strike me as one that a person can’t wait to get into. Whoever thought this was a good campaign is wrong. It’s snot. (Cue drum/cymbal crash.)

Like it or not, television is here to stay, and I suppose I should be grateful to it for providing me endless fodder for “rant” essays. I love to hate TV.

Garden Party

I got lost right outside my door the other day. I was out sprucing up my patio, literally thinking about nothing when my attention was caught by an airplane floating across the sky. It was bright orange against a perfect blue sky, and I couldn’t hear its engines. In that second, I had one of those joyous moments when I suddenly remembered something I hadn’t thought of in years; it was like I could see the past like it had just happened. I remember my grandmother stopping what she was doing to run outside in her house shoes and shade her eyes so she could watch jets fly overhead. She literally marveled at them, and asked that she be buried in a cemetery near an airfield so the planes could fly over her forever. My siblings and I used to laugh when she stood outside in her smock and gawked at the jets. If there were more than two, she was convinced that the Blue Angels were overhead, and would look up in the sky and then back at us to see if we were looking, then back up in the sky, smiling the smile of a person in awe. There were no airplanes when she was a girl. She was born on a farm and bore my father on a farm; she never drove a car in her life. When I was a kid, Star Trek was my favorite television show. The people of the future, as I saw it, had the most wonderful gadgets anyone could think of. Not only did they have spaceships, they had communicators with which they could talk to one another instantly. They could record without film and transplant organs. Absurdly, I thought, “Wow.” I’ve turned into my grandmother.

I wouldn’t have had any of those thoughts if I hadn’t been outside in my little garden.

It’s a small patio with a few flowerbeds that, until last weekend, was populated only by weeds. Now it has freshly hoed (sandy) soil, a damp, earthy aroma, and seeds for impossibly colorful flowers that I hope are germinating as I write. But what it lacks in size it makes up for with a relaxed, cordial atmosphere. It is a place to let my mind flow freely. I can almost hear Louis Armstrong singing “What a Wonderful World” as I daydream, wondering if my flowers will look like the ones on the package. Nothing is urgent in the garden. Unless you’re an ant.

Even though I know better, I put out food for a couple stray cats that also seem to enjoy lounging about on the patio. Being outdoor cats, they don’t seem to be as dainty as indoor ones, and often scatter bits of food around the plastic plate I put out for them. I was on the patio, smoking and assessing the garden, wondering what sort of improvement I should make next, when something caught my eye. I had to look twice to make sure I wasn’t relaxing to the point of hallucination. As I watched, an errant piece of cat food, the size of a pea, maybe, was moving by itself across the bricks. A closer look revealed four tiny ants carrying what to them must have seemed like a miracle from the gods. As I looked, I saw a second piece of cat food being carried to a small pile of sand dug out between the cracks of the patio floor. It was only about eight feet from the cat food to the anthill, but I got to thinking that what they were doing was akin to four humans lugging a cupcake fifty yards wide to a cave twenty miles away. I had to smile as I admired the ants. I saw that they had reached the entrance to their home, but had encountered a problem: The piece of cat food was too wide to fit in the crack. They tried it from every angle but it wasn’t going to fit. I imagined myself as a great benefactor, and reached down, picked up the piece of cat food and broke it so the crumbs would fit the doorway. The ants scurried about when I put the pieces back down but it didn’t take them long to get the smaller loads delivered. As I watched, one of the stray cats wandered back and stepped directly on the ants’ receiving dock. I shooed her back, but she was persistent and came again, only this time, she must have smelled the tiny piece of food, because she inhaled it, ants and all, and crunched it away. She looked up, smacking her lips, oblivious to the frenzy she had caused among the ants. I put a little more food on the dish to distract the cat, and my cell phone rang. I talked for a few minutes and when I hung up the phone, I realized I was standing on the anthill.

In spite of the onslaught of technology, or perhaps because of it, there just isn’t anything like digging in the dirt, planting seeds, and daydreaming. No matter how bad we may think things are for us, they could be much, much worse. Giant monsters could appear in the sky, eat us and crush our dwellings, and never think once what they’ve done. Yup. I can get lost in my garden.

From Beyond

I had a conversation the other day about ghosts. OK, to be honest, I butted into a conversation that was already going on about ghosts. One co-worker had said to another, “I think there’s a ghost in my new apartment. I turned off my alarm and fell back asleep, but suddenly, inexplicably, my bedroom light turned on all by itself!” The other person readily accepted this explanation, and proceeded to tell her own story of other-worldly hijinks, as if it is a common occurrence for the spirit world to help or hinder us as they see fit. I simply cannot sit idly by while topics like this are discussed. I try to mind my own business, but the temptation is too great. “Why,” I asked, “would a ghost take time out from his or her incorporeal activities to make sure you don’t oversleep?” The answer, of course, was that it was a “good ghost.”

Can I say for certain that there is no such thing as a ghost? No, but by the same token, we cannot automatically attribute peculiar happenings to the supernatural. There are, though, those who claim not an unseen visitor, but a visual apparition. You know somebody who tells that story, often made to seem more plausible because a child saw it too, and why would the little darlings lie, or, to be fair, make up a story? They stand firm in their belief that they “saw” a ghost, and no amount of logic or alternate (read: plausible) explanations will make them change their minds. I suppose if I saw one, I would change my tune, but until then, I stand firmly in the realm of the explainable, always keeping in mind that the person who tricks you the best is yourself.

Anyone who knows me knows I can’t get enough of horror movies, stories, and supernatural fiction, so it’s not like I’m unfamiliar with spooky stuff. There are times when I wish there were monsters. (One of my favorite fantasies involves gorgeous female vampires that look a lot like Elvira, but I don’t think I should write that down.) I can’t say I’ve seen a ghost, but there have been times I have felt that things just weren’t quite right, like I wasn’t alone. Every time this has happened, I’ve been outside. I hope, if I ever find myself wandering the earth after I’m dead, that I’m in a forest somewhere, and not trapped in some skittish girl’s bedroom. Anyway, there’s something about being in nature that lets me allow the possibility of ghosts, or at least, another consciousness. Just the other night, in fact, I witnessed a scene that, if ever there was one, infused me with the feeling of other-worldliness.

The sliding patio door of my (new) apartment faces west, so every night I get to see the sun go down. That may not seem like a big deal, but I’ve always been a bit partial to sunsets. So, a couple days ago, I walked past the slider just in time to see the sun go past the huge live oak tree it always shines on before it goes away. This, of course, was nothing new, but a couple minutes later, I walked into the bedroom of the apartment, which faces east, and was more than a little surprised to see the window lit up with the deep orange glow that only comes from a sunset. Well, now, as you can imagine, this just wasn’t right at all, so I walked back to the other room and went outside to see just what was going on.

When I stepped out onto my patio, it was the same view I always see, but it was lit from the wrong side. It was surreal and fascinating. Everything was as it should be, except it was wrong. What had happened was that the setting sun had illuminated a huge blanket of clouds that hung to the east; they looked like they were on fire. The reflected light from these clouds shone down upon my little corner of the earth and lit the dusk for a second time, except from the opposite direction. All the buildings, the trees, the grass, everything glowed in an unearthly seeming scene, except that it was earthly, the same scene I see every day…only different. It was like being high, only better. It lasted about ten minutes, the time it took me to have a smoke, and then it was over. Right as it ended, a cat meowed at my patio door. Still marveling at the backwards sunset, I let it in into the patio area and it wrapped around my legs, greeting me like I was an old friend. Weird, huh?

Perhaps what I saw is what people who see ghosts experience: They see the world, for just a moment, in a different way. Now, I don’t mean to imply that the weird lighting and the meowing cat were signs from Mr. Kitty (see previous post) stranded in feline limbo, but it was really weird. I still don’t believe in ghosts, but it did cross my mind. In any case, the nub of my gist, I guess, is that ordinary things seen in a different light have a way of firing the imagination. And that’s good.

Dumb Animals

I watched a show about animal intelligence this evening, and it got me thinking. One story in particular, about dogs, featured a Doberman that had been living homeless, eating garbage and fending for itself. It was adopted by a woman who took it home and, after gaining its trust, noticed that it had a very odd behavior: It would arrange toys in very specific ways, and the woman, who was not a scientist, keenly noticed this trait and notified someone who did know about such things. After taking great pains to ensure the dog wasn’t coached or was being inadvertently cued by hovering humans, films of the dog showed that it did, indeed, place toys in carefully “thought out” arrangements. Triangles were a favorite, and straight, often parallel lines were also in the dog’s repertoire. Many times, the dog would place the toys (stuffed bears or frogs) in piles of three or four. You might say any dog could do that, but this particular dog would arrange the toys so that all would either be face up or face down. Random you say? Possibly. But the dog had a trick that, in my opinion, exhibited a human-like quality that is simply impossible to ignore. Here’s what happened.

Because the dog had been taken from a solitary life, the woman who adopted it had to have a good deal of patience, especially when it came to common human/dog interactive behavior such as petting. The dog was skittish at first with the woman, and wouldn’t allow her to touch him very much, but he did put his decorating skills on display. Gradually, the apprehension faded, and there came a time when the woman was able to put her arm completely around the dog, giving it a hug, as it were. The amazing arranging dog then added a new flair to its toy placement the very next day: The woman noticed that it had placed several toys in groups of two, and without fail, one of the arms of the random toys was wrapped around the other, as if hugging it.

It’s easy for humans to associate their emotions with that of a dog (Awww, he’s sad, or he’s thinking about dinner), but I found it utterly fascinating that a dog would manipulate its toys to mimic behavior. What was the dog trying to do? Communicate?

We just don’t give animals enough credit sometimes. The last line of the program, spoken about dogs, said “They know us far better than we know them”, and I cannot argue with that, but I wouldn’t confine it to just dogs. I believe the same can be said for cats, and I’ll make my case for it. As usual, I have to tell one story to tell another, so bear with me.

My cat died recently. I’d had him for fifteen years, but I have no idea how old he was. My ex wife brought him home one day, and he looked the same then as he did the day he died, albeit minus a few teeth. I won’t bore you with how wonderful he was; there were times when he pissed me off to no end. He wasn’t nearly as expressive as the artistic dog, but he got his points across. If I left for a week at a time for vacation, or even for a day or two, he would make his statement by pooping in the shower stall. Not a wet, messy spray, but one well-placed little turd left lying on the drain strainer told me that while he could fend for himself for a couple days, he didn’t really like it. He also didn’t like riding in the car, but he resigned himself to it and didn’t freak out. I don’t think he ever communicated as clearly, though, as he did in the last minutes of his life.

In spite of being clawless from the day I first saw him, he was an excellent hunter. He could dispatch mice, crickets, other cats, even dogs nearly 20 times his weight. (Well, not dispatch the dogs, but he could sure back them down.) If another animal was in his territory, he made it known who the top cat was.

It was both interesting and heart-wrenching to see him confront another cat as he lay dying. I’ll spare you my feelings at the time and instead share what I saw. I had taken Mr. Kitty to an emergency vet. He was obviously in great distress, and I knew what was happening. He lay on an exam table, awake but breathing laboriously. The vet had already examined him and confirmed that death was imminent. I agreed that she should give him a shot to put him to sleep, and then she would administer a lethal injection. As we waited for her to return with the first shot, a resident cat at the clinic, which obviously had run of the place, sauntered into the room. Mr. Kitty couldn’t see him (he was busy dying), so I didn’t do anything. Much to my surprise, the “house cat” (a huge animal) jumped right up on the exam table and went nose to nose with my cat. I thought, “Oh, great! He’s dying and he’s going to think he has to fight one more time,” but he didn’t. Mr. Kitty moved his front paws a little, and croaked out a meow, but the other cat just kept on sniffing him. And then, as I watched, both cats closed their eyes and shared a gentle nudge, as if one knew and sympathized with the other. The resident cat then curled up right beside mine, silently waiting, as if at a friend’s deathbed to wait for the final visit.

I was a mess while this happened, and when the vet finally returned, she pooh-poohed the mourning cat who got off the table, with a disgruntled look. She told me the needle she had would put him to sleep in about five minutes, and then she would come back and give him the real one. She injected him and then left us alone. I stroked Mr. Kitty’s head and tried to be soothing in spite of my halting voice. His breaths grew farther apart and within two minutes, he was dead. I sat there for another five minutes with my dead cat waiting for the vet, and when she came back, I told her I didn’t think he’d need the final shot. She felt his pulse, and said, yes, he was gone. I already knew that.

Did the cats share a moment of understanding? I don’t know. But I do know that it’s been a long time since I felt so moved, and we would be foolish to think that only humans are capable of sensing impending death, and more importantly, consoling (in their own way) the dying. I miss my Mr. Kitty, and I could write reams about what I feel when I think of him, but anyone who has ever had a pet already knows that story. We know that our pets (and, of course, family) will all die one day, any day. Just not today.

Finally Back

I've been offline for six grueling months. It's been a living hell, although I did get lots of fodder for future entries. I've got a couple I worked on and should have up within a couple days. I don't know if anyone even checks here anymore, but I promise I'll be back in touch very shortly.

Holiday Blurbs

As much as I grouse about Christmas, I secretly get a little bit giddy when this time of year rolls around. Rude, crazed shoppers and endless sales telling us to “buy, buy, buy” always put a big damper on my holiday feelings, but I know that on Christmas morning there will be squeals of delight from wide-eyed children sitting in seas of wrapping paper admiring something they don’t know how they ever survived without. The children who have no Christmas temper my warm fuzziness, and I do what I can to help (but don’t tell anyone). Please enjoy my Christmas blurbs. I have nothing but time this weekend, so don’t be surprised if I post again here very soon. I’ll be spending the holidays alone, by the way, so if you’re in the Tampa area (all you females) and don’t have anything to do for Christmas, find me. I could use some Christmas company.

Christmas Wars

That nativity scenes have come under fire in the past for promoting Christianity is nothing new. It has been a cultural icon for Christians around the world for centuries, and you would think that people would be used to it by now, but in these days of people behaving like soft-shelled turtles, we are evidently too worried about other people’s feelings to the point where we begin to curtail our own. (If you’ve been here before, you know my feelings about religion, especially Christianity, and I don’t want anyone to think I’ve “seen the light”, but I’m going to stick up for them this one time.) The word “Christmas” has been around for an awfully long time. Every person in America knows what a Christmas tree is. Now, however, it seems that there is a growing movement to phase out the term “Christmas tree”, and replace it with “holiday tree”, so as not to offend non-Christians. I gotta tell you, I can’t remember the last time I heard something so utterly ridiculous. It is akin to saying that we’re not going to call movies “movies” anymore, because Hindus protest that the “moo” sound in the word makes them think of all the poor cows raised to be eaten, denied the glory of reincarnation. We will discard the term “movies” and call them “fleegles” and nothing else. Now that’s ridiculous, isn’t it? If they want to call it a Christmas tree, I say let ‘em! It’s been “Christmas Tree” for centuries, and it’s only now becoming offensive? If I hear someone say “Christmas tree”, I know exactly what they mean. You would think, though, that when some people hear the word, what they really hear is “Jesus Christ is your lord and savior and you must repent and follow only Him because your religion is dumb you godless bastard.” And that kind of thinking only bolsters the Christians, because they somehow figure that if you don’t like the word, you must be feeling guilty because you know deep down in your heart that you’re a sinner. See what I mean? I don’t get all upset and offended when I hear “Hanukkah” or “Ramadan” or even “Kwanzaa.” In fact, I really don’t think I could care any less what any group wants to call their holiday, unless they have a holiday phrase like “Happy Jeff’s An Idiot Day!” I’d have an issue with that one. The point is to just relax and let each group call their holiday and all of its trappings whatever they want to call it. The pissers and the moaners seem to forget that to make a word unpopular is to guarantee that it will never go away.

Beltway Holiday Bullshit

In keeping with the holiday theme, let’s look at a blatant attempt by Republican hopeful Mike Huckabee to lie to anyone who will listen while invoking the name of Christ. Huckabee has a Christmas message for you (available on any television) in which he specifically wishes everyone a Merry Christmas by reminding us that it is the birth of Christ that we celebrate. It’s a real “Jesus is the reason for the season, oh, and by the way, vote for me” plug. In it, he speaks to the camera as it slowly pans from left to right. In the background of the scene is a white bookcase whose shelves and supports form a distinct cross pattern that seems to float behind him. Pundits and analysts immediately pounced on what they thought was an attempt to sneak in a religious symbol. Why this is an issue when he’s talking about Christ is beyond me, but here’s the rub: Huckabee says he didn’t realize the bookcase formed a cross until after the ad began to air. Now, I don’t know about you, but I find that very difficult to believe. I may not be a Hollywood director, but I’d bet my bottom dollar that any number of editors and advisors not only noticed the cross, but oohed and aahhed at how good their presentation looked. They noticed it because it was supposed to be there. Huckabee insists with a chuckle that “it just happened that way”, but I’d sooner believe the Virgin Mary could miraculously appear on a grilled cheese sandwich. Oh…wait…never mind. Who does Huckabee think he’s fooling? Nothing happens in a professional commercial by accident, especially a political ad, and for Huckabee to shrug and say “Golly, it just happened” is a slap in the face to any thinking person (voter). Remember that when it comes time to choose, or suffer the consequences. On a side note, we won’t see that kind of thing out of Mitt Romney, but you know there are factions out there who will fault him for not mentioning Jesus. Even on his birthday, Christ is a double edged sword and it’s hard to tell which edge is keener.

Christmas Spirit

I met a person this year who does a truly thankless job each Christmas: She buys miniature Christmas trees with battery powered lights, and hand cuts literally hundreds of strips of red velvet from which she fashions tiny bows. She puts the bows on the trees (one on every branch), and on Christmas Eve, she takes the trees to various cemeteries where friends and family are buried, places them on the gravesites, and spends a moment remembering them. She also takes along a supply of all kinds of alcoholic beverages and has a shot of whatever that deceased person enjoyed drinking. This seemed to me, at first, to be an utterly pointless practice. Dead people don’t know you’re remembering them, and she does an awful lot of work for, well, nothing. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that she doesn’t do it for the people she’s lost (although she would argue that point with me for eternity), but for herself, even if she doesn’t realize it. This may seem a bit like self-stroking, but you know what? If it makes her happy, who am I to begrudge that? With all the bloated hype over Christmas with its relentless commercialism, it’s nice to know that some people don’t use this time of year to buy trinkets for the living, but to reflect and remember those whom we have lost. My hat is off to you, LuRae, for your selfless Christmas spirit.

Wars, Tips and Dying Squirrels

I’m willing to bet that most people are happy to be home for the Thanksgiving holiday here in the United States, and I’m guessing that most countries have a similar day set aside for family feasting. Smart people everywhere know the value of friends and family, and most of us tolerate even the idiot relative we all have, if only for a day. You just never know what you’re going to hear at gatherings like that, and sometimes even the most mundane of conversations can evolve into a discussion that everybody wants to weigh in on. I had a few interesting conversations this holiday that I’d like to share with whoever reads this, so here they are in no particular order.

The War in Iraq: No matter how much you try to avoid this subject, it always pops up. Many people feel many ways about this issue, and I only wish a solution were as simple as some make it seem. I’m not sure how many points I scored with my argument (which, trust me, was pretty much forced out of me), but I present it here. You can say what you want about the Middle Eastern morass, but I urge all who vehemently oppose the war to consider this: Shiite Muslim extremists in Iraq have been targeting women for the crime of…being women. In the last couple years over 50 women have been murdered in the street for refusing to wear veils, and for wearing makeup. A prominent Iraqi television journalist (female) has had death threats as well as promises to be raped, beaten to death and thrown into the street with labels pinned to her body denouncing her as a whore. If you are an attractive woman with western tastes, you are a less than human. It doesn’t really matter if the big picture (the war) is seen as political or economical, what matters is that, left alone, Iraq could become as the Taliban controlled areas are in Afghanistan. Not our problem, perhaps, but would you feel the same if it were you or your sister or mother? One of the people I spoke to about this said “We are not the world’s police.” Fair enough, but are we not our brother’s keeper? If not us, meaning everybody else in the world, then who? If the people of the world ignore unjust behavior toward other human beings, we will have no business complaining when it happens to us, and if we leave it unchecked, we ensure that it will. Nobody should die for money or oil, but some things are worth fighting and dying for.

Fortunately, the conversation about the war with the armchair generals didn’t last very long, and we moved on down a very winding road that eventually led to the practice of tipping. I remember when tipping was reserved pretty much for waitresses, caddies and barbers. In today’s world, everyone expects a tip. Fast food places in Florida have tip jars on the counter prominently displayed near the cash register for maximum exposure to those easily guilted into giving up their money. I have a problem with that, and here’s why: A tip is a gratuity, and a gratuity is a gift. We give gifts to those whom we feel deserve them. For instance, a smiling, efficient waitress deserves a tip, as does an attentive bartender. The pizza kid who gets your order to you quickly should also get a little extra bump, as should a good caddy. In short, anyone who does above and beyond what is expected deserves a gratuity. To have a tip automatically added to a bill (say, for large parties at dinner) removes the impetus for the server to do their best. To call an automatic extra charge on my bill a “gratuity” insults me and demeans the word, because it’s not a gratuity. Let’s call it what it is: it’s a handout, like money you would give to a bum on the street. It’s something for nothing, a reward for no services rendered, a bonus for…nothing. Now, you waitresses don’t get me wrong: Unless I see gross negligence or a poor attitude, I always tip. I know there are tightwads out there who don’t tip, and for that I’m sorry, but if you work in the service industry, you (like everyone else who works) should be prepared to do your best and expect the worst. It’s hard to appreciate a good tip unless you know what it is to be stiffed.

Since I recently moved to Tampa, some of my holiday compatriots asked me what I thought of the city, and I said I liked it, save for the traffic woes. It can take upwards of 45 minutes to travel 15 miles, and I’m not wild about that at all. Many of the drivers behave as though they are the only people on the road, and drive with an utter lack of consideration for other vehicles. Their flagrant inconsideration makes me think that they simply don’t care if they cause an accident or hurt someone because of their disregard for anyone but themselves. I know this is a symptom of the human condition, so I was very surprised last night on my way home from work when I saw the oddest thing. There was a squirrel in the opposite lane from me that had been hit by a car, but wasn’t dead. It was flipping about, unable to move except to jerk spastically up and down. It looked like a puppet on a string, flailing but unable to move anywhere except up and right back down. Do you know what the odd thing about this was? Nobody wanted to hit it again. Cars approached and slowed, then veered to one side or another so as to avoid it. The everyday drivers who pull out in front of other vehicles, unmindful of the potential for a serious accident wouldn’t hit the squirrel again to stop it from suffering. They slowed to look, but did nothing. For the record, I was in another lane, so I couldn’t do it myself, but you can bet that if I had, someone would have seen me do it and thought me cruel or hollered obscenities at me, or worse. Amazing.

I see by my site meter that I’m getting hits from all over the world. Please feel free to comment on anything I’ve written in this blog, or just say hello from wherever you are. Thank you, and I’ll be posting again very soon. Ciao!

Cheap Suit

Other people may have been able to see hope in the sunshine shimmering off the waves, but the man with the cheap suit could see only despair. He had come from the north, confident that the warmer climes would bring him good luck, yet as he sat on a bench at the beach, he was all too aware that he had not only failed to make any money, but had actually lost some. He hadn’t lost everything, but he had lost enough to know that his wife was not going to be happy, no, not at all. He could already almost hear her chiding him for being too trusting. She always said that people were no good, and he had always argued otherwise. She was a good wife, but he didn’t have anything to compare her to. He thought to himself that maybe she was right after all. Nobody cared about anybody; they only thought of themselves.

As he looked out from the beach the sun was a ball in the sky and a line on the water; both glared at him, making him squint, and as he did, he could not convince himself that it was the sun responsible for his expression instead of the disappointment he felt. He had had such high hopes for this trip and it had turned out to be a dismal failure. He’d even spent a little money on the cheap suit he was wearing, thinking it might make him a little more impressive. It was supposed to be an easy money deal; he and the friend of a friend had put some money together to buy some old southern muscle cars that they could sell for twice the money back home up north. The trouble was, his “partner”, whom he barely knew, and who had all the money, never showed up to pay for the cars. He had trusted the wrong person, and in doing so, earned himself another dose of reality. He had a little money left, but not much. Within a week, he would have to return home empty handed and hear for the umpteenth time what a sucker he was.

He pulled a crumpled cigarette from a tattered pack and lit it. When he threw his spent match on the sand, a passing gull swooped down to investigate it, and then immediately flew off with a disappointed screech that sounded to the man like sarcastic laughter. He watched it fly off toward an old building that sat on stilts about a hundred yards off the shore. It was little more than a large box with windows long broken. It had the remnants of a ceiling and the floor must have still been somewhat intact; the side boards were weathered and gray where the guano hadn’t covered them. Oysters clung to the stilts like fuzzy socks on spindly legs. It didn’t sit straight up in the water, but leaned to the right. The man wondered how long it had been there, and how much longer it would be before it went totally off balance and slid into the sea. He took the final drag off his smoke and thought that he was much like the building. He, too, was askew, and in danger of slipping beneath the waves of disappointment that constantly lapped at him. How he stayed standing was sometimes a mystery to even him. He stubbed out his smoke and got up to walk to the town to get some dinner and a room before heading back tomorrow.

He was in a very small fishing village that attracted tourists who were willing to spend big to get away from the weather up north, if only for a little while. It seemed like every other house he passed had some sort of small business operating. One local merchant made his living renting golf carts, although the island was small enough to walk the entire circumference in about twenty minutes, but the tourists who wanted rustic didn’t want it so rustic that they had to walk. Another house offered watercolor paintings and another proffered jewelry made from shells. He could see a sign hanging a couple blocks away for an inn, and he was making his way there when he heard a clattering noise to his left that overcame the sound of the surf to his right. As he looked he saw an impossibly old woman bending to pick up the old crab trap she had dropped. The trap looked far too heavy for her, so he trotted up her walkway asking if she needed any help. She didn’t seem to hear him as he approached, and he thought he might startle her when he asked if he could help, but she behaved as though strangers appeared on her porch at any time; they were as common an occurrence as birds or bugs. She accepted his help in a matter-of-fact manner.

He stayed on her porch for a good half hour helping her arrange her antiques (as she called them; to the man in the cheap suit it was junk) and when she was finally satisfied with the display, she walked back into her house without a word. For a minute or so, the man was unsure if he should stay or go, but the woman came back out with a tray of lemonade and two glasses. The man gladly took a glass and was surprised when the woman produced a pint of bourbon from her apron pocket with a wink and a wry wrinkly smile. She offered him a seat on a rickety looking porch swing and they sat down side by side to drink their drinks and gaze out at the sea. The woman told him she had lived in this town all her life. She had been married for nearly fifty years when her husband passed and now she made a meager living trying to sell the junk he had collected to curious tourists. He told her how he came to be sitting here, although he left out the part about losing money. He had a feeling, though, that she already knew that. They made small talk about the fishing village, and he even heard some gossip about the other merchants as the sun fought a losing battle to keep itself up.

There came a time when the conversation stopped, as if it was too much effort to talk and watch the sun fall below the horizon at the same time. It was time for the man to be moving on; the conversation had dwindled beyond pleasantries and it was about to die completely. With his drink nearly empty, the man asked the old woman why no one had bothered to tear down the slanting stilted building that sat alone off the shore. He expected to hear about some fool who had started something he couldn’t finish or that it was a fish cleaning shack, but his words had sparked the woman’s tongue again. She looked out at the building for a moment, then back at the man, and as she did so, he felt that she could see everything he tried to keep hidden, like a mother looking at a lying child. The bottle of bourbon appeared again and the man listened to the old woman’s story.

The shack had been built in the fall of 1918 by Mister Douglas Llewellyn Pratt. He wasn’t a gentleman by birth, nor was he wealthy, but he had been born on the island and had lived there all his life. The man knew that Pratt’s title wasn’t “mister”, but the old woman seemed to think he deserved it. She said she was just a girl when the shack was built, and she remembered it as though it were yesterday. Mister Pratt had been, like most of the local men of the time, a fisherman. The woman remembered the men leaving at the break of dawn and not coming home until nearly dark every single day, as long as it wasn’t storming. They would take their catch to the mainland to sell it, and it was there that Mister Pratt had met a girl he was very sweet on. He wasn’t a rich man by any means, but he was determined to prove his love to his sweetheart. While he wooed the mainland girl, he spent every hour he wasn’t working and every dime he didn’t absolutely need to build a honeymoon house on the water. Of course everyone on the island knew what he was up to, and they all managed to keep it quiet from the mainland folks. Pratt had told his friends that he was going to marry the girl in January, right after the New Year arrived, and everyone pitched in to help him because that was the way things were done back then.

The old woman recalled that the whole island could feel the love that Pratt had, and they wanted to be a part of something that was almost like a fairy tale. Their lives were sometimes difficult and almost always mundane, and Pratt’s love for his woman brought a spark to the island that hadn’t been seen in some time. Everyone remembered what it was like to be in love. On the day that Pratt came home and announced to the islanders that he had asked his woman for her hand and that she had accepted, there was a boisterous party, with much well-wishing and a multitude of stories of how other loves had come to be. Some even told stories of loves lost, but all were told with a hearty laugh and a lesson learned, even if it was painful at the time. For a night, it seemed, love ruled the island and every married couple thought in their hearts of how they had felt when it had come to them. The man watched the old woman as she spoke about Pratt and his wedding. Her eyes were fixed on the shack in the water, but what was behind them was miles away.

The date was set and the islanders as well as the mainlanders made preparations to help Pratt and his girl get off on the best foot possible. The honeymoon house on stilts was finished. Some of the island women had gotten together and made huge quilts of bunting to hang from the roof and there was a day not too long before the wedding when wine and rowboats were employed to wrap pink ribbons around the stilts all the way to the high water mark, and more than a few island women got wet. Back on the mainland, a feast was prepared and it was going to take no less than five boats to get just the food over to the island. The local fishermen all had lists of who was going to ride on which boat to the ceremony which was to be held on the island in a gazebo at the park. The day before the wedding, there came word that the bride was feeling a bit ill, and it was assumed that the wedding day jitters were upon her. There was a flu that going around on the mainland and lots of people were under the weather, and the most jovial talkers said that if she’s too sick to be married now, then they would wait until she was well. Some even joked that the thought of marrying a fisherman who spent long days at sea would make for a wife who would constantly worry herself sick. The islanders went to bed still joking about Pratt and his woman, and each was giddy about the following day’s event. As a young girl, the old woman knew that love would bloom in the shack on the sea and all would catch its bouquet, if only for a day.

The woman stopped talking and stared out at the gray leaning shack. The man looked too, and was curious to know how the wedding went and what kind of revelry took place on the day that love visited the island. The woman stood mute as she looked at the shack; the faraway look she had earlier was even more pronounced now. After a couple minutes the man asked if she was alright, and urged her to finish the story. He had forgotten his own troubles for a while and didn’t want to break the reverie. The love story she told, even though it was second hand and generations before he was born, captivated him and made him feel as though he was living in the past and sharing in the joy that people have always felt. The old woman finally shifted her gaze from the shack to the younger man, and he could see that she was crying. She wasn’t bawling, but her eyes were full and a wistful tear snaked along her wrinkled, leathery cheek. The woman said people were dying everywhere. The Spanish Flu pandemic was at its height, and millions the world over were dying. Of course he wouldn’t have known that; it was years before he was born, but it surprised him that he had never heard of it. She said Pratt’s bride died the morning she was to be married.

She said he never sat foot in the honeymoon shack he had built for his bride. In fact, no one ever had. In time, things on the island got back to normal, but Douglas Llewellyn Pratt was never the same. Oh, he still worked, and occasionally he would laugh, but mostly he kept to himself. The bunting and ribbons that hung from the shack that were supposed to be symbols of a new life became instead bright, haunting sentinels that reminded the entire island of the fleeting nature of love and life. In time they succumbed to the weather and the sea, but the old woman said that for weeks after the wedding day they flapped in the breeze, sounding for all the world like tiny claps of thunder that scared her dreams away, leaving her awake and frightened. Sometimes, the old woman would get out of bed and look outside and see Mister Pratt standing on the beach, looking at the shack. She said that in spite of the sound of the flapping, tattered decorations and the surf, she could swear she could hear his heart breaking. She said that once, after she had grown up and Pratt was getting on in years, she had asked him why he hadn’t found another woman, and he told her that he didn’t try to not love another, it just never happened. He said he didn’t want to be alone, but he couldn’t force himself to love. It either happened or it didn’t, and it must have been his lot to have only one love in a lifetime. He smiled a rare smile at the woman, perhaps because he could see the worry in her eyes, and he told her that in spite of his misfortune, he wouldn’t have it any other way. He said he had known a love that quelled the fear that all men have in their hearts, if only for a little while, and he was thankful for that.

The man with the cheap suit looked at the old woman when she stopped talking, and she was looking at the shack, now bathed in moonlight, with guano glowing like strips of a whitewash job that was never finished. She stood silent for a few minutes, and then abruptly thanked him for his help, and bade him good evening. He thanked her for the drinks and walked off her porch toward the inn. He could hear the rattling of the empty glasses on the tray and the sound of her screen door shutting behind her in a house she shared with no one as he walked up the street. When he got to the sidewalk that led to the inn office, he stopped and looked back at the gray shack leaning in water. He thought of his wife at home and wondered if she were gone, would he have the same outlook as Douglas Llewellyn Pratt did? He wasn’t sure, and he went to bed uneasy, unable to stop himself from getting up and looking out at the empty leaning building that sat in the moonlight, never occupied, waiting to collapse.

Communication Breakdown

I’m sorry I’ve not posted in a while. So you know, I have been working on an essay about how it is to be single, but that’s going to have to wait a bit. I felt I was concentrating too much on me, and nobody wants to read that; I need to make it a bit more general. So, in lieu of writing about my mundane lifestyle, I decided to take a break from thinking too much and just rant about something that chaps my ass as few things do.

Unless you’ve translated this page, you’re reading it in English. It’s the only language I know fluently. I’m assuming, though, that the subject of today’s diatribe is not limited solely to English, but afflicts each and every tongue spoken on this planet. It is my sincere hope that I’m not the only person who grits their teeth when the one thing that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom, the most basic tool humans use (and if I may be so bold as to say it), the ONLY thing that allows us to thrive is…utterly ignored. What could it be? Why, it’s communication, of course. I’ve found that while we all do a lot of talking, we are rarely communicating. Let me give some examples.

At lunch today, I got some pizza from a restaurant I’d never patronized before. I’ve only been in this area for a month, so I assumed some of my co-workers would have already tried it, so as a way to make small talk during lunch, I asked one of them if they had ever sampled this particular pizzeria’s fare. My exact words were “Have you ever tried the pizza from (this place)? The immediate response was, “They have excellent pizza.” Do you see the problem here? I don’t mean to sound snotty, but I didn’t ask what they thought of the pizza, I asked if they had ever tried it. The listener in this case assumed that I wanted to know what they thought of the food, which would probably have been my next question. My beef here is the assumption. What if I wasn’t going to ask what their opinion of the food was? And more importantly, why did my first question get ignored? This may seem nit-picky, but I told this story so you would understand when I tell the next one.

Not too long ago, some friends and I were discussing (OK, gossiping) some of our neighbors. During the course of the discussion, I mentioned of one of an acquaintance, “For an ex-cop Jesus freak, he’s a nice guy,” and you would have thought from the reaction of some of those I was speaking with that I had called his mother a whore and kicked his dog. The general consensus was, “Just because he’s a religious ex cop doesn’t make him an idiot!” If you’ll re-read what I said, you’ll see that I said he was a nice guy. I didn’t call him an idiot; in fact I complimented him on NOT being an idiot. Oh, but I had a hard time convincing some others that I was being nice. Evidently, as soon as they heard the words “Jesus freak” and “ex cop”, they reacted to what they thought I meant and not to what I said. And that, my friends, is a very foolish way to get through life. I have found that I can save myself a lot of embarrassment by listening to what is said and not what I think the speaker means. I once heard a saying that has stuck with me since the day I heard it: “You have two ears and one mouth. That means you should listen twice as much as you talk.” Words to live by.

Although conversations with friends can provide endless examples of non-communication, advertisers are, aside from politicians, the absolute worst offenders when it comes to butchering the language and making it seem acceptable to do so. Here in Florida, there has been a radio commercial running lately for female knee replacement. Apparently, male and female knees have subtle differences, which makes perfect sense. In the commercial, a male voice is speaking of knee replacement surgery, and is repeatedly interrupted by a female voice who shrilly blabs what the male voice was going to say anyway, as if hearing about female knee surgery from a female is more convincing. I say, fine and dandy and I agree that women might feel more comfortable hearing it from someone of their own gender. My problem is that by interrupting the male voice, it is implied that those stupid men couldn’t possibly understand a woman’s physiology, and their voices should be drowned out as soon as they start speaking. Well, not only is it just plain rude to interrupt when someone else is talking, but from my (possibly myopic) viewpoint, those who interrupt should be given no credence whatsoever. I wonder what board of executives agreed that rudeness, especially when it comes to medical procedures, is a good way to attract customers.

How I would love to continue to provide examples of our abysmal failure to communicate, but you get the picture. I often wonder how we have managed to get as far as we have given the deplorable state of our spoken interaction. Do me, and more importantly, yourself a favor the next time you are talking to someone. LISTEN to what they’re saying and if asked a question, ANSWER IT. You might think you know what the person wants, but chances are they probably just want to know what they’ve asked. It’s really not very hard.

Advice 101

I read with interest an essay posted by a friend the other day that endeavored to offer advice to the younger generation. Her blog, “This Happy Breed”, is listed in my links to the right, and it’s worth a read. I am a bit of a curmudgeon. I’m not so sure that young people want to hear what we geezers have to say (especially when it comes to sex). I know I spent a good deal of time in my youth ignoring what I later found to be sage advice (and I thanked my lucky stars that no adults ever offered any type of sex advice. I was happy to blunder through that on my own). Why, then, do I feel the need to emulate my colleague and offer unsolicited advice to ears that are most likely deaf? I don’t know. The goal, I suppose, would be to save them from making the same mistakes I have made, but no lesson really hits home like the ones experienced. We can get ideas from reading of others’ misfortunes, but an idea is just that, whereas a rude and often painful awakening is a personal experience that leaves a mark not soon forgotten. And so, with a less than enthusiastic hope that my words will be read by those who need to hear them the most, much less taken to heart, I still want to humbly offer them.

ON RELATIONSHIPS: You have quirks and so does everyone else. The trick is to find someone whose quirks you can put up with while they simultaneously put up with yours. Don’t judge your mate by how he or she looks, but rather by how they react to you, and you to them. Mistrust, harsh words and ill will are the road signs to failure, no matter how beautiful the ride.

ON LEARNING: Strive to learn as much as you can about as many things as you can. Learn a little about a lot of things and you will be an interesting person. Keep in mind that the more you learn, the more you will realize how much you don’t know.

ON FOOD: Taste everything at least once. And by all means, taste with your mouth, not your eyes. If you don’t like it, then don’t eat it again. Never criticize another’s cooking, at least within earshot of the cook.

ON FEAR: Don’t be afraid of things you don’t understand. If you fear something, find out what makes it tick. Chances are you’ll find that it’s not that scary.

ON RELIGION: NEVER let someone else tell you that they know what God or any other deity thinks. This is very important. Beware the people who claim to know what gods want.

ON PEER PRESSURE: Much like the previous subject, don’t let others tell you what you can and can’t do. Keep your eyes open. If your friends are doing something that you KNOW is wrong and they want you to join, or it’s something that you don’t want to do, don’t do it. It really is that simple.

ON PETS: Don’t have one unless you are prepared to: Feed it. Clean up after it on a daily basis. Engage it so it has a meaningful life. Know that it’s going to die and leave a hole in you that will never fully close.

ON LIVING: Every day that you draw a breath is a good day. It beats the alternative.

ON JUDGING PEOPLE: This can be a toughie, and you should know that you’re going to make a mistake and trust someone you shouldn’t. However, keep in mind that people who are nice sometimes and sometimes not are not nice people. Never trust someone who’s nice to you but rude to others.

ON BEING A GOOD PERSON: This should be a no-brainer. The golden rule (or karma, if you like) applies. If you wouldn’t want it done to you, don’t do it to others.

There are, of course, many lessons to be learned in life, and my list is by no means comprehensive. However, if you are of a mind to take advice, check out this page (start with “life” as a topic) to hear what others say are keys to happiness, and what to watch out for. Many of them are clichés, but if they had no value, they wouldn’t be clichés, would they?

NOTE: Thanks, Angie for inspiring me to write this, although I still don’t think it will do any good. If I may quote Willa Cather: “The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young.” I just love that one!