Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 7 seconds
Looking out on a sea of lights under a blazing moon nearly full, his country’s greatest city silently calm from above, but racing nonetheless just before midnight. This was to be the enduring impression, the lasting memory The Guy would savor of his maiden trip to New York.
It was 10:45 p.m. and the last elevator to the top of the Empire State Building would leave in 45 minutes. It was an elevator he had intended to be on.
And he would have been, had he not heard from a gathering of gawkers that Samuel S. Schooner was about to make a brief appearance outside the grand-opening of the Clair de Lune New York, a way-cool night spot talked up as the merd nouveau.
Judging by the budding spectacle, Mr. Schooner would have to be quite the breath taker, The Guy supposes.
“I know him from that movie about the future where people’s thoughts are tried in court,” says one guy in a red jacket. “He’s the young appellate lawyer. The young one. You’ve seen the movie.”
The Guy sheepishly shakes his head.
“Aw you’ve seen it,” the man demands before returning to his Sam Schooner lookout, losing interest in the conversation.
The Guy eavesdrops two young fashionistas, likely on a break from their quest to hook up.
“He’s the one going out with that redhead from Saturday Night Live,” says one of duo. “The one with the glasses. She’s hilarious . . . really, really hilarious.”
The Guy stands with his hands in the pockets of a jacket he picked up on clearance. It only takes eye contact for people to spill their pent up excitement.
“You know he’s got that instructional dance video!” says a woman toting three kids.
“I didn’t know that,” The Guy says, choosing to indulge her.
“Yeah. He’s the one who choreographed all of NSYNC’s videos. My kids just love ’em.”
“The videos or the choreographer?” The Guy asks.
The woman thinks for a moment, harder than The Guy intends for her.
“Both, I guess,” she says. “Yeah, definitely both.
“They love Sam Schooner. What a great role model. He’s so fit . . . and handsome. Don’t you think?” she says as she grabs The Guy’s arm and playfully jostles it.
He looks at her round face and estimates her to be in her early 40s. He imagines her 15 years and 45 pounds earlier and hypothesizes that she was once something of a vixen.
As more of the curious linger, the crowd begins to swell like liquid backing up in a clogged funnel.
“What’s everyone waiting for?” asks a man dressed for casual Friday.
“Sam Schooner is supposed to be coming,” The Guy says.
“Oh I’ve heard of him,” Casual Friday replies, staking out a spot.
As he stands in the crowd, The Guy thinks of the Empire State Building. Everyone knows someone who’s been there, that is, if they haven’t been there themselves. They’ve at least seen the pictures from the top. Who wants to hear about it from another person?
But think about how many can say they’ve seen Sam Schooner. There’s probably less than 100 people in the world who have seen him, not including his maids and nannies and family.
As they wait, the crowd swells, the buzz grows. Everyone trades stories of celebrities they had seen. That guy from Lynyrd Skynyrd on a plane, Malcolm Jamal Warner at a restaurant, Hal Sparks shopping.
These are the types of stories people want to hear, The Guy confirms. A brush with fame, a close encounter with a superstar.
Samuel Schooner finally arrives. He and his entourage walk just 15 feet away, creating a feeling one part nervous, two parts excitement. Just the rush The Guy expected.
Once home, The Guy searches the Internet to see who Samuel S. Schooner is.
He looks to see who he gave his final New York night for.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Friday, July 28, 2006
Too depressing to talk to
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 59 seconds
The self-serve e-ticket kiosks stood guard, protecting the airline's full-time customer service representatives from travelers.
The man stepped up to one of the machines as he fumbled paperwork. His index finger made circles on the screen, searching for something to make sense to him, for something to jump out and walk him through the daunting mechanical process that stood between him and a boarding pass.
He donned a red tank top, perfect if his goal was to highlight the wisps of hair that could have been glued to his shoulders during some sort of prank.
"I never know how these things work," he said, making sure someone could hear him.
Even though the sun was not expected to rise for another three hours, I was in a giving mood.
"Just slide your credit card into that slot and it will pull up all your information," I said, beating the airline's customer service representatives to the punch at no charge.
"Oh I don't have a credit card," he replied.
Guy doesn't have a credit card. No problem, I thought. It's probably a good idea. No credit card, no debt. Others should live as he lives. I don't, however, think the reason this guy didn’t have a credit card has anything to do with responsible spending habits. Perhaps it was his disheveled hair, his ready-for-a-trim mustache, the tank-top-with-jeans look or his inability to work the self-serve kiosk.From my vantage point, everything about this guy was depressing.
And that was before he tried to explain how he got the ticket without a credit card.
"The only reason I got this ticket was because of a family emergency," he said with a tone of voice that begged me to reply with interest. Not sympathy, just interest.
That's too bad, I thought, using the time as an excuse not to indulge the poor fellow in conversation.
"And I'm unemployed so I get to go," he added.
I'm sorry to hear that, I respond in my head although I just made a painful face and shook my head sympathetically.
At this point, the man had spoken three times to me and was an efficient 3-for-3 in depressing sentences.
I wondered what was next. What else was falling apart in this guy’s life? Had he just put his dog to sleep before coming to the airport? Did his family emergency involve him needing a liver? Did the government have him on false child pornography charges?
In my callousness, I did not request any additional information. After all, I had a gate to sit in front of for the next hour.
As I headed down the terminal, I thought about the man. I thought about how much he had going on in his life. I also thought of how easily it was for him to divulge information to strangers like me.
With my luck, the only thing I was sure of was that he would likely be seated next to me on the plane.
I was never so glad to be so tired.
The self-serve e-ticket kiosks stood guard, protecting the airline's full-time customer service representatives from travelers.
The man stepped up to one of the machines as he fumbled paperwork. His index finger made circles on the screen, searching for something to make sense to him, for something to jump out and walk him through the daunting mechanical process that stood between him and a boarding pass.
He donned a red tank top, perfect if his goal was to highlight the wisps of hair that could have been glued to his shoulders during some sort of prank.
"I never know how these things work," he said, making sure someone could hear him.
Even though the sun was not expected to rise for another three hours, I was in a giving mood.
"Just slide your credit card into that slot and it will pull up all your information," I said, beating the airline's customer service representatives to the punch at no charge.
"Oh I don't have a credit card," he replied.
Guy doesn't have a credit card. No problem, I thought. It's probably a good idea. No credit card, no debt. Others should live as he lives. I don't, however, think the reason this guy didn’t have a credit card has anything to do with responsible spending habits. Perhaps it was his disheveled hair, his ready-for-a-trim mustache, the tank-top-with-jeans look or his inability to work the self-serve kiosk.From my vantage point, everything about this guy was depressing.
And that was before he tried to explain how he got the ticket without a credit card.
"The only reason I got this ticket was because of a family emergency," he said with a tone of voice that begged me to reply with interest. Not sympathy, just interest.
That's too bad, I thought, using the time as an excuse not to indulge the poor fellow in conversation.
"And I'm unemployed so I get to go," he added.
I'm sorry to hear that, I respond in my head although I just made a painful face and shook my head sympathetically.
At this point, the man had spoken three times to me and was an efficient 3-for-3 in depressing sentences.
I wondered what was next. What else was falling apart in this guy’s life? Had he just put his dog to sleep before coming to the airport? Did his family emergency involve him needing a liver? Did the government have him on false child pornography charges?
In my callousness, I did not request any additional information. After all, I had a gate to sit in front of for the next hour.
As I headed down the terminal, I thought about the man. I thought about how much he had going on in his life. I also thought of how easily it was for him to divulge information to strangers like me.
With my luck, the only thing I was sure of was that he would likely be seated next to me on the plane.
I was never so glad to be so tired.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
The Mannequin Experiment: Fund Raising
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 55 seconds
We’ve all seen the exhausting movies or television shows: A family will lose something if they don’t raise money quickly to pay it off. This something is usually the house to a foreclosure, the family business to taxes or Dad to his gambling debts.
Well, something like that happened to me, only it wasn’t lapsed payments or taxes for which I needed the money. I had gotten myself involved in a series of experiments involving mannequins and performance-enhancing drugs. I needed cash for some anabolic steroids, a horse tranquilizer and a few amphetamines. But given the illicit nature of its use, the money had to be undetectable.
I needed to be creative. But most of all I needed to be discreet and inconspicuous.
Operation Stampout
During this operation, I jumped the neighborhood mailman, taking his uniform and his mail sack. I peeled off all the stamps, then delivered the entire sack of mail postage-due. I managed to collect $11 before the authorities seized the remaining mail and shut down the operation.
I managed to keep the uniform, but ultimately returned the mailman’s hair piece. We’re friends now.
Operation Paper Boy
With this plan I made my rounds of the neighborhood at 6:05 a.m. sharp to collect the day’s newspaper off each driveway. I then headed straight to one of a number of street corners to sell the papers at full price. This was by far the easiest and most profitable scheme, dropping a sum of $414 in the mannequin fund. I considered using this as full-time employment until I was accosted by a newspaper subscriber.
Apparently he had been watching me from the top of his flag pole for a couple of mornings. I was picking up his paper as usual. Taking advantage of my vulnerable position at the base, he repelled down the pole and performed a leg tackle that he later claimed to learn in the United States Marine Corps.
Operation No Parking
In my final attempt to raise funds, I decided to help the city, pad my pockets, and teach people a sound lesson at the same time. For three days, I patrolled the city streets looking for illegally parked cars and issued replica parking tickets. The only difference between my parking tickets and the city’s was the part that said who to make the check out to and where to mail it. Whereas the real parking tickets said to make checks payable to “County Clerk,” mine said to make checks payable to “Mannequin Steroid Fund” and to send it to my home address. An amazing 49 people went for it.
Sadly, it was busted up when I inadvertently ticketed the county clerk’s car. He paid the parking ticket, but later realized his error through a series of letters I sent him making fun of his checks (they featured Richard Simmons in various sports themes).
Sometimes you just need to let things go, but it’s not every day that you can hassle someone in a respectable government position over their Richard Simmons checks.
Did I ever complete the mannequin experiment? The short answer is no. The money I managed to raise I used to pay off gambling debts. I was glad I had the cash on hand because I was 24 hours from being put through a wood chipper.
We’ve all seen the exhausting movies or television shows: A family will lose something if they don’t raise money quickly to pay it off. This something is usually the house to a foreclosure, the family business to taxes or Dad to his gambling debts.
Well, something like that happened to me, only it wasn’t lapsed payments or taxes for which I needed the money. I had gotten myself involved in a series of experiments involving mannequins and performance-enhancing drugs. I needed cash for some anabolic steroids, a horse tranquilizer and a few amphetamines. But given the illicit nature of its use, the money had to be undetectable.
I needed to be creative. But most of all I needed to be discreet and inconspicuous.
Operation Stampout
During this operation, I jumped the neighborhood mailman, taking his uniform and his mail sack. I peeled off all the stamps, then delivered the entire sack of mail postage-due. I managed to collect $11 before the authorities seized the remaining mail and shut down the operation.
I managed to keep the uniform, but ultimately returned the mailman’s hair piece. We’re friends now.
Operation Paper Boy
With this plan I made my rounds of the neighborhood at 6:05 a.m. sharp to collect the day’s newspaper off each driveway. I then headed straight to one of a number of street corners to sell the papers at full price. This was by far the easiest and most profitable scheme, dropping a sum of $414 in the mannequin fund. I considered using this as full-time employment until I was accosted by a newspaper subscriber.
Apparently he had been watching me from the top of his flag pole for a couple of mornings. I was picking up his paper as usual. Taking advantage of my vulnerable position at the base, he repelled down the pole and performed a leg tackle that he later claimed to learn in the United States Marine Corps.
A brief scuffle ensued but ended when I forced the newspaper bag over his head as he was stuffing the entire comics page into my mouth. I spit out the page, worked the Jumble, then fled.
Operation No Parking
In my final attempt to raise funds, I decided to help the city, pad my pockets, and teach people a sound lesson at the same time. For three days, I patrolled the city streets looking for illegally parked cars and issued replica parking tickets. The only difference between my parking tickets and the city’s was the part that said who to make the check out to and where to mail it. Whereas the real parking tickets said to make checks payable to “County Clerk,” mine said to make checks payable to “Mannequin Steroid Fund” and to send it to my home address. An amazing 49 people went for it.
Sadly, it was busted up when I inadvertently ticketed the county clerk’s car. He paid the parking ticket, but later realized his error through a series of letters I sent him making fun of his checks (they featured Richard Simmons in various sports themes).
Sometimes you just need to let things go, but it’s not every day that you can hassle someone in a respectable government position over their Richard Simmons checks.
Did I ever complete the mannequin experiment? The short answer is no. The money I managed to raise I used to pay off gambling debts. I was glad I had the cash on hand because I was 24 hours from being put through a wood chipper.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
The day I crapped out Chewbaca
By Hellion
They never would have found out had Chewbaca’s head and Han Solo’s DL-44 blaster pistol not surfaced in my crap. But there they were – Han’s weaponry and what was left of Chewy – lodged haphazardly in my feces.
Never had my waste been brought to my attention. I crap and usually every week someone comes along and scoops it up and pleasantly discards of it. It was during this duty that what I had done was discovered.
I don’t know why I did it. I was probably just being young and stupid, as I was so often back then. It’s what got me my name, after all. But as I recall, there was a whole box of this stuff, a whole cast of characters. There was Andre the Giant, Kermit the Frog, E.T., one of the guys from Reservoir Dogs, Carmelo Anthony, Popeye, one or two Hot Wheels cars, Han Solo and, of course, Chewbaca. And as I remember, there were also two Pez dispensers – Batman and Robin – each with a package of candy.
It was the candy I was after. I don’t know how Han and Chewy got thrown into the mix but once I started I couldn’t stop. For fun I dragged nearly all the carnage out to the backyard through the dog door. The plastic and most of the cardboard from the boxes I buried, not so much as to hide the evidence, though. More out of instinct than anything.
How can I prevent this from happening next time? To start, when I destroy something – Star Wars figures or otherwise – I should take the time to thoroughly chew it beyond recognition. However, candy should never be left where a dog can get to it, much less in a box full of valuable collectibles.
Make it be known, I was after the candy. Han and Chewy were unfortunate collateral damage. But if candy is left out again, there’s no telling who might get in the way, although I can’t imagine crapping out Andre the Giant’s boots.
They never would have found out had Chewbaca’s head and Han Solo’s DL-44 blaster pistol not surfaced in my crap. But there they were – Han’s weaponry and what was left of Chewy – lodged haphazardly in my feces.
Never had my waste been brought to my attention. I crap and usually every week someone comes along and scoops it up and pleasantly discards of it. It was during this duty that what I had done was discovered.
I don’t know why I did it. I was probably just being young and stupid, as I was so often back then. It’s what got me my name, after all. But as I recall, there was a whole box of this stuff, a whole cast of characters. There was Andre the Giant, Kermit the Frog, E.T., one of the guys from Reservoir Dogs, Carmelo Anthony, Popeye, one or two Hot Wheels cars, Han Solo and, of course, Chewbaca. And as I remember, there were also two Pez dispensers – Batman and Robin – each with a package of candy.
It was the candy I was after. I don’t know how Han and Chewy got thrown into the mix but once I started I couldn’t stop. For fun I dragged nearly all the carnage out to the backyard through the dog door. The plastic and most of the cardboard from the boxes I buried, not so much as to hide the evidence, though. More out of instinct than anything.
How can I prevent this from happening next time? To start, when I destroy something – Star Wars figures or otherwise – I should take the time to thoroughly chew it beyond recognition. However, candy should never be left where a dog can get to it, much less in a box full of valuable collectibles.
Make it be known, I was after the candy. Han and Chewy were unfortunate collateral damage. But if candy is left out again, there’s no telling who might get in the way, although I can’t imagine crapping out Andre the Giant’s boots.
Friday, July 14, 2006
The Gambler
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes, 42 seconds
I was standing in line at the Asian market, that’s where I get all my collared greens.
I was wearing a fake mustache, just like the old days. The only problem: Since I had last worn the fake mustache, I had grown a real mustache and had forgotten to shave it off. The glue was beginning to irritate.
A stranger entered the line behind me and set a pair of blue jeans on the checkout line conveyor belt.
“I didn’t realize they sold jeans at the Asian Market,” I thought to myself, although I suspect the clerk overheard me.
Then I looked down and noticed the man wasn’t wearing any pants. I was appalled, although I did admire his high-tops.
I made the mistake of making eye contact and the man proceeded to engage me in small talk. I politely replied that I was not a fan of small talk and suggested such topics as The Death Penalty, Labor Issues, and Campaign Finance Reform.
That’s when he asked me for my autograph. With encouragement from the clerk, I signed one of the store’s comment cards and handed it to the man.
He told me to sign my real name. I asked him what my real name was.
“Bob Barker,” he replied.
“Bob Barker, I am not,” I snapped.
He looked disappointed so I did my best Rod Roddy impersonation.
The man asked me if I was making fun of his sequin jacket, then stormed out of the market, opting not to pay for the head of lettuce in his hand. He was accosted by security.
On the way home, I thought of sheep.
Day 2
If it hadn’t been for the man screaming as he fell past my window, I never would’ve woken. It was 10 past 2 and I was wearing a mailman uniform which was odd because I work for UPS.
Something was bothering me but I couldn’t put my finger on it. To calm my anxiety I sat behind my drum set and did my best to play Drum Solo #5 from Pat Sajak’s album “Drummin’ Fool”. It’s one of his lesser known albums but a groundbreaker nonetheless.
I looked at the clock. 3:35. An hour of drumming and something was still eating away at me. As I was typing “cancer” into an Internet search engine, I finally figured out what had bothered me all morning. I’d woken up with Kenny Rogers’ hit song “Daytime Friends and Nighttime Lovers” stuck in my head.
As my folk remedy book suggested, I went to take a bath in tomato soup, only to find my bathtub filled with cream of potato.
I flipped the lever to drain the tub. When I returned, the soup had drained but the potatoes remained so I scooped them out and salvaged a potato salad.
As I left my house to go to the synagogue a man was waiting on my front porch. I greeted him with a “hi” and a firm nod. The man then put me in a headlock. I squirmed out of his grasp only to find myself in the midst of a full nelson.
After 15 minutes of negotiation he let me free and ran off. I could see that he was a slight man but the gimp mask make it impossible to distinguish a hair color.
The event inspired me to write a poem that started out about chocolate cake, but ended up correlating the feeding habits of the North American elk with the mating patterns of domesticated goats.
Still dazed, I decided to attend a random high school graduation. My purpose? To intimidate the key note speaker. I sat in the front row trying to establish eye contact. I made a few pointed stares and aggressive gestures but got no response.
That’s when I glanced at the program and realized the keynote speaker was blind.
“That would explain why he was wearing sunglasses even with the heavy cloud cover,” I thought to myself.
I still didn’t know why they had that dog sitting up on stage or how they got him to sit for so long. They must’ve promised him a bag of chips or a billiards party with his friends.
Remembering that blind people have keener hearing and a higher developed sense of smell, I messed my shorts then stole a trombone from a band member on stage. Before I could honk out the first few lines of the Christmas classic “Do you see what I see?” I was whisked away by three policeman and a vice principal.
I was told that I faced three charges: disturbing the peace, assaulting a member of the brass family (a woodwind would’ve been a lesser charge) and heckling a blind man, which is legal in 38 states. Unfortunately, mine was not one of them.
One of the policemen asked me if I’d like to spend the night in jail and I must’ve though he said Jell-O because I recommended a fruit salad recipe for them to try at their next potluck dinner. The policemen were not amused but the vice principal seemed interested.
As I made my way back home, I couldn’t help but remember the Alamo.
All in all, an exhausting day. And a strange one too. Something had not been right, but at least I could now go home and take off this mailman uniform.
Day 3
The newspaper woke me up when it hit the door. I was anxiously awaiting today’s news. For one, stocks had been continuing to fall (along with the people off my roof) and two, my rubber band ball was nearing 7 inches in diameter.
Before opening the door I noticed a man standing on the porch. Through a narrow vertical window to the side of the door, I asked him what he wanted. It was the man with the gimp mask. Shouting through the glass had gotten his attention. He turned around.
“I need that mailman uniform back”, he shouted “And I won’t put you in a headlock. I need to go to work.”
Sensing he was genuine, I unlocked the door and invited him in. When I returned with the uniform, the man had taken off the gimp mask. This took my by surprise.
“Why did you take off the gimp mask? Now I know your identity.”
“Oh this?” he replied, “I wasn’t trying to conceal my identity. I just wanted that uniform back.”
“Why didn’t you just ask for it?”
“I don’t know.”
“So why were you wearing the gimp mask?”
“I have fair skin. I always wear it when I‘m outside.”
I went on to ask him how I wound up with his mailman uniform. With a few minutes to spare before he started his route, he told me the story.
Apparently it all happened a couple of nights ago. I was in one of the taverns downtown, shooting some pool, drinking some chocolate milk. That’s when Spencer - the man in the gimp mask the next morning - came waltzing around.
He said he was flashing cash and acting like a big shot. First he insulted my red jacket and matching shorts, then said he’d like to hurry up and whoop me so he could get the table.
“You’re not going to beat me, I’m the best,” I reportedly told him.
“You wanna bet?” he challenged.
“Yes I do.” I said.
“What do you want to bet?” Spencer said.
I took a few minutes to think about it, then I responded. “That uniform your wearing.”
As my end of the bet I offered a Jimmy Carter collectors plate set that I had claimed was out in my trunk. This is odd, because I don’t have a Jimmy Carter collector’s plate set. I do keep a Karate Kid plate set in my trunk and some Alex Trebek cutlery in my glove box, but Jimmy Carter?
Regardless, the bet was on.
Needless to say, I won and Spencer produced the mailman uniform. I immediately put it on, then rushed on stage and sang a version of the Kenny Rogers hit “Daytime Friends and Nighttime Lovers”.
Unfortunately, the Gambler was on the premises en cognito and took offense to me “butchering his hit tune.”
A fight ensued and Kenny knocked me out in the seventh round of a 10 round bout. It seems my jab was getting slow and he caught my with an uncontested right hook that dropped me to the canvas.
That Kenny sure can box.
Spencer said he drove me home and dropped me off but forgot to get his uniform back.
Next thing I knew, I was laying in my bed the next morning, awoken by a man screaming as he fell past my window.
But at least that explains it. Now it all makes sense.
(This story originally appeared at The Cafe Irreal. It has a very special place in my heart, just behind the washer and dryer.)
I was standing in line at the Asian market, that’s where I get all my collared greens.
I was wearing a fake mustache, just like the old days. The only problem: Since I had last worn the fake mustache, I had grown a real mustache and had forgotten to shave it off. The glue was beginning to irritate.
A stranger entered the line behind me and set a pair of blue jeans on the checkout line conveyor belt.
“I didn’t realize they sold jeans at the Asian Market,” I thought to myself, although I suspect the clerk overheard me.
Then I looked down and noticed the man wasn’t wearing any pants. I was appalled, although I did admire his high-tops.
I made the mistake of making eye contact and the man proceeded to engage me in small talk. I politely replied that I was not a fan of small talk and suggested such topics as The Death Penalty, Labor Issues, and Campaign Finance Reform.
That’s when he asked me for my autograph. With encouragement from the clerk, I signed one of the store’s comment cards and handed it to the man.
He told me to sign my real name. I asked him what my real name was.
“Bob Barker,” he replied.
“Bob Barker, I am not,” I snapped.
He looked disappointed so I did my best Rod Roddy impersonation.
The man asked me if I was making fun of his sequin jacket, then stormed out of the market, opting not to pay for the head of lettuce in his hand. He was accosted by security.
On the way home, I thought of sheep.
Day 2
If it hadn’t been for the man screaming as he fell past my window, I never would’ve woken. It was 10 past 2 and I was wearing a mailman uniform which was odd because I work for UPS.
Something was bothering me but I couldn’t put my finger on it. To calm my anxiety I sat behind my drum set and did my best to play Drum Solo #5 from Pat Sajak’s album “Drummin’ Fool”. It’s one of his lesser known albums but a groundbreaker nonetheless.
I looked at the clock. 3:35. An hour of drumming and something was still eating away at me. As I was typing “cancer” into an Internet search engine, I finally figured out what had bothered me all morning. I’d woken up with Kenny Rogers’ hit song “Daytime Friends and Nighttime Lovers” stuck in my head.
As my folk remedy book suggested, I went to take a bath in tomato soup, only to find my bathtub filled with cream of potato.
I flipped the lever to drain the tub. When I returned, the soup had drained but the potatoes remained so I scooped them out and salvaged a potato salad.
As I left my house to go to the synagogue a man was waiting on my front porch. I greeted him with a “hi” and a firm nod. The man then put me in a headlock. I squirmed out of his grasp only to find myself in the midst of a full nelson.
After 15 minutes of negotiation he let me free and ran off. I could see that he was a slight man but the gimp mask make it impossible to distinguish a hair color.
The event inspired me to write a poem that started out about chocolate cake, but ended up correlating the feeding habits of the North American elk with the mating patterns of domesticated goats.
Still dazed, I decided to attend a random high school graduation. My purpose? To intimidate the key note speaker. I sat in the front row trying to establish eye contact. I made a few pointed stares and aggressive gestures but got no response.
That’s when I glanced at the program and realized the keynote speaker was blind.
“That would explain why he was wearing sunglasses even with the heavy cloud cover,” I thought to myself.
I still didn’t know why they had that dog sitting up on stage or how they got him to sit for so long. They must’ve promised him a bag of chips or a billiards party with his friends.
Remembering that blind people have keener hearing and a higher developed sense of smell, I messed my shorts then stole a trombone from a band member on stage. Before I could honk out the first few lines of the Christmas classic “Do you see what I see?” I was whisked away by three policeman and a vice principal.
I was told that I faced three charges: disturbing the peace, assaulting a member of the brass family (a woodwind would’ve been a lesser charge) and heckling a blind man, which is legal in 38 states. Unfortunately, mine was not one of them.
One of the policemen asked me if I’d like to spend the night in jail and I must’ve though he said Jell-O because I recommended a fruit salad recipe for them to try at their next potluck dinner. The policemen were not amused but the vice principal seemed interested.
As I made my way back home, I couldn’t help but remember the Alamo.
All in all, an exhausting day. And a strange one too. Something had not been right, but at least I could now go home and take off this mailman uniform.
Day 3
The newspaper woke me up when it hit the door. I was anxiously awaiting today’s news. For one, stocks had been continuing to fall (along with the people off my roof) and two, my rubber band ball was nearing 7 inches in diameter.
Before opening the door I noticed a man standing on the porch. Through a narrow vertical window to the side of the door, I asked him what he wanted. It was the man with the gimp mask. Shouting through the glass had gotten his attention. He turned around.
“I need that mailman uniform back”, he shouted “And I won’t put you in a headlock. I need to go to work.”
Sensing he was genuine, I unlocked the door and invited him in. When I returned with the uniform, the man had taken off the gimp mask. This took my by surprise.
“Why did you take off the gimp mask? Now I know your identity.”
“Oh this?” he replied, “I wasn’t trying to conceal my identity. I just wanted that uniform back.”
“Why didn’t you just ask for it?”
“I don’t know.”
“So why were you wearing the gimp mask?”
“I have fair skin. I always wear it when I‘m outside.”
I went on to ask him how I wound up with his mailman uniform. With a few minutes to spare before he started his route, he told me the story.
Apparently it all happened a couple of nights ago. I was in one of the taverns downtown, shooting some pool, drinking some chocolate milk. That’s when Spencer - the man in the gimp mask the next morning - came waltzing around.
He said he was flashing cash and acting like a big shot. First he insulted my red jacket and matching shorts, then said he’d like to hurry up and whoop me so he could get the table.
“You’re not going to beat me, I’m the best,” I reportedly told him.
“You wanna bet?” he challenged.
“Yes I do.” I said.
“What do you want to bet?” Spencer said.
I took a few minutes to think about it, then I responded. “That uniform your wearing.”
As my end of the bet I offered a Jimmy Carter collectors plate set that I had claimed was out in my trunk. This is odd, because I don’t have a Jimmy Carter collector’s plate set. I do keep a Karate Kid plate set in my trunk and some Alex Trebek cutlery in my glove box, but Jimmy Carter?
Regardless, the bet was on.
Needless to say, I won and Spencer produced the mailman uniform. I immediately put it on, then rushed on stage and sang a version of the Kenny Rogers hit “Daytime Friends and Nighttime Lovers”.
Unfortunately, the Gambler was on the premises en cognito and took offense to me “butchering his hit tune.”
A fight ensued and Kenny knocked me out in the seventh round of a 10 round bout. It seems my jab was getting slow and he caught my with an uncontested right hook that dropped me to the canvas.
That Kenny sure can box.
Spencer said he drove me home and dropped me off but forgot to get his uniform back.
Next thing I knew, I was laying in my bed the next morning, awoken by a man screaming as he fell past my window.
But at least that explains it. Now it all makes sense.
(This story originally appeared at The Cafe Irreal. It has a very special place in my heart, just behind the washer and dryer.)
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Various exchanges involving a white man
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 19 seconds
A white man and a black man pass each other in an office as drab and gray as the short-sleeved dress shirts each man wears.
“How ya doing?” the black man asks, never looking up.
Keeping his stride, the white man appears irritated and grumbles.
The black man stops, lifts his head and thinks of what just happened.
“Racist,” he says.
-------------------------------------------------------
A white man and a woman pass each other in an office, walking on carpet as stained as the burlap walls that separate each cubicle.
“Hello,” says the woman as they pass.
Keeping his stride, the white man appears irritated and grumbles.
The woman stops, lifts her head and thinks of what just happened.
“Sexist,” she concludes.
-------------------------------------------------------
A white man and a Jewish man pass each other wearing business ties as out of style as the desks to which they are returning to.
“Hi,” says the Jewish man, upholding the standard nicety.
Keeping his stride, the white man appears irritated and grumbles.
The Jewish man stops, lifts his head and thinks of what just happened.
“Anti-Semite,” he determines.
-------------------------------------------------------
A white man and another white man pass each in an office, walking under light as artificial as the leather of which their dress shoes are made.
“Hey,” says the first white man.
Keeping his stride, the other white man appears irritated and grumbles.
The first white man stops, lifts his head and thinks of what just happened. Puzzled, he hesitates. He offers the only plausible conclusion.
“Jerk?”
A white man and a black man pass each other in an office as drab and gray as the short-sleeved dress shirts each man wears.
“How ya doing?” the black man asks, never looking up.
Keeping his stride, the white man appears irritated and grumbles.
The black man stops, lifts his head and thinks of what just happened.
“Racist,” he says.
-------------------------------------------------------
A white man and a woman pass each other in an office, walking on carpet as stained as the burlap walls that separate each cubicle.
“Hello,” says the woman as they pass.
Keeping his stride, the white man appears irritated and grumbles.
The woman stops, lifts her head and thinks of what just happened.
“Sexist,” she concludes.
-------------------------------------------------------
A white man and a Jewish man pass each other wearing business ties as out of style as the desks to which they are returning to.
“Hi,” says the Jewish man, upholding the standard nicety.
Keeping his stride, the white man appears irritated and grumbles.
The Jewish man stops, lifts his head and thinks of what just happened.
“Anti-Semite,” he determines.
-------------------------------------------------------
A white man and another white man pass each in an office, walking under light as artificial as the leather of which their dress shoes are made.
“Hey,” says the first white man.
Keeping his stride, the other white man appears irritated and grumbles.
The first white man stops, lifts his head and thinks of what just happened. Puzzled, he hesitates. He offers the only plausible conclusion.
“Jerk?”
Monday, July 10, 2006
Savagely funny unintentional comedy
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 14 seconds
I couldn't believe my ears when I heard it.
We attended a concert for the first time at the Mohegan Sun Arena which lies on the Mohegan Indian Reservation in Uncasville, CT. In addition to the 10,000-seat arena, the complex boasts the nation's second largest casino not to mention a hotel, shopping and fine dining and buffets to match. The reservation was about an hour from our house but Paul Simon is easily worth an hour and possibly up to 3 1/2 hours for my money.
Tickets in hand, we stood in a herd of concert-goers to enter the arena. As we filed through, a recorded voice gave the rundown of the ground rules. No outside food, no bottles, no firearms, no beach balls. Blah, blah blah.
But it was when the voice discussed the policy on reselling tickets at a price higher than one had paid that perked our ears .
". . . and please be reminded," the voice chimed, "Scalping is prohibited anywhere on the reservation."
With eyes a tad bigger and eyebrows a bit higher, we immediately faced each other. "Did I just hear what I. . .Did you just. . .Don't they realize. . ."
SCALPING IS PROHIBITED ON THE RESERVATION!
When else in my lifetime will this phrase be delivered in a more honest, respectable, serious and straightforward fashion? I can't possibly imagine.
I couldn't believe my ears when I heard it.
We attended a concert for the first time at the Mohegan Sun Arena which lies on the Mohegan Indian Reservation in Uncasville, CT. In addition to the 10,000-seat arena, the complex boasts the nation's second largest casino not to mention a hotel, shopping and fine dining and buffets to match. The reservation was about an hour from our house but Paul Simon is easily worth an hour and possibly up to 3 1/2 hours for my money.
Tickets in hand, we stood in a herd of concert-goers to enter the arena. As we filed through, a recorded voice gave the rundown of the ground rules. No outside food, no bottles, no firearms, no beach balls. Blah, blah blah.
But it was when the voice discussed the policy on reselling tickets at a price higher than one had paid that perked our ears .
". . . and please be reminded," the voice chimed, "Scalping is prohibited anywhere on the reservation."
With eyes a tad bigger and eyebrows a bit higher, we immediately faced each other. "Did I just hear what I. . .Did you just. . .Don't they realize. . ."
SCALPING IS PROHIBITED ON THE RESERVATION!
When else in my lifetime will this phrase be delivered in a more honest, respectable, serious and straightforward fashion? I can't possibly imagine.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
The dangers of stuffed animals
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes 17 seconds
Crisscrossed communication led us both to perform similar acts on the same day. I was in Tempe, AZ, the other performer in Kearney, Neb.
The mission was to infiltrate a toy store and blend in as oversized, motion-detecting stuffed animals. As unsuspecting children walked past we would offer phrases using an electronic-sounding voice.
Phrases would be of standard fare such as “I love hamburgers and “reading is fun.” But it was the more specific phrases like, “Hey you in the blue hoodie,” that got the most amazement from passers-by.
The mix up between us would have gone undetected had he – posing as a giant stuffed chimpanzee – not sent a panicked third-grader to the emergency room. After the chimp advised the boy to pull his finger from his nose, the child attempted to pummel the great ape.
Sustaining a shot to the midsection, the chimpanzee subdued the boy with a figure-four leg lock, pinning him on the floor even as he tried to escape. Seeing an oversized stuffed toy suddenly become animated sent the kid into hysterics and ultimately to the ER.
It was a story made for the wire services and local newscasts looking for odd national news for filler. Only after seeing the absurd story in the national press did shoppers from the Tempe store come forward with reports of an “oversized stuffed panda acting suspiciously human-like.”
This set off a media frenzy with dozens of other similar reports. Whether there was any truth to these reports I doubt. Thankfully I and the Nebraska performer, whose name I never learned, retained our cover and no substantiated human connection was ever made to the cases.
However, overwhelming news coverage began to cite “a growing trend of out-of-control stuffed animals” and an “epidemic of crazed plush toys.” A widely circulated study, commissioned by a prominent electronics manufacturer, offered reams of anecdotal evidence of stuffed animals choking, strangulating, tripping, mocking and blinding youngsters in Japan, England and throughout North America.
It wasn’t long before Congress introduced legislation barring all stuffed animals and/or plush toys standing 4 feet, 6 inches or taller.
And who says Americans don’t fear all the wrong things?
(This bit was edited out completely from a short story I am currently working on. I thought it was sort of funny but it was extraneous from the story. Look for a story with similar feats sometime in the future.
By the way, this piece was inspired by the book by Barry Glassner called The Culture of Fear. I highly recommend. I also highly recommed Butterball turkey bacon and Polaner All-fruit fruit spread. Strawberry is my favorite. Low in calories but packed with serious flavor.)
Crisscrossed communication led us both to perform similar acts on the same day. I was in Tempe, AZ, the other performer in Kearney, Neb.
The mission was to infiltrate a toy store and blend in as oversized, motion-detecting stuffed animals. As unsuspecting children walked past we would offer phrases using an electronic-sounding voice.
Phrases would be of standard fare such as “I love hamburgers and “reading is fun.” But it was the more specific phrases like, “Hey you in the blue hoodie,” that got the most amazement from passers-by.
The mix up between us would have gone undetected had he – posing as a giant stuffed chimpanzee – not sent a panicked third-grader to the emergency room. After the chimp advised the boy to pull his finger from his nose, the child attempted to pummel the great ape.
Sustaining a shot to the midsection, the chimpanzee subdued the boy with a figure-four leg lock, pinning him on the floor even as he tried to escape. Seeing an oversized stuffed toy suddenly become animated sent the kid into hysterics and ultimately to the ER.
It was a story made for the wire services and local newscasts looking for odd national news for filler. Only after seeing the absurd story in the national press did shoppers from the Tempe store come forward with reports of an “oversized stuffed panda acting suspiciously human-like.”
This set off a media frenzy with dozens of other similar reports. Whether there was any truth to these reports I doubt. Thankfully I and the Nebraska performer, whose name I never learned, retained our cover and no substantiated human connection was ever made to the cases.
However, overwhelming news coverage began to cite “a growing trend of out-of-control stuffed animals” and an “epidemic of crazed plush toys.” A widely circulated study, commissioned by a prominent electronics manufacturer, offered reams of anecdotal evidence of stuffed animals choking, strangulating, tripping, mocking and blinding youngsters in Japan, England and throughout North America.
It wasn’t long before Congress introduced legislation barring all stuffed animals and/or plush toys standing 4 feet, 6 inches or taller.
And who says Americans don’t fear all the wrong things?
(This bit was edited out completely from a short story I am currently working on. I thought it was sort of funny but it was extraneous from the story. Look for a story with similar feats sometime in the future.
By the way, this piece was inspired by the book by Barry Glassner called The Culture of Fear. I highly recommend. I also highly recommed Butterball turkey bacon and Polaner All-fruit fruit spread. Strawberry is my favorite. Low in calories but packed with serious flavor.)
Friday, July 07, 2006
Small Talk
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 20 seconds
I sat in my study, inspecting my socks as I put on my shoes before work. The socks – which I had thought of as one of my good pairs, two of my go-to guys, a pair I still considered in my starting lineup – were wearing out. The bottoms had worn thin and a hole had opened near one of the ankles, too low to hide behind the guise of a pant leg.
After I stood up and walked a few steps to the window, I could feel the sock tops beginning to lose their grip on my lower calf. A few more steps and they would have fallen to my ankles, unable to hold themselves up any longer.
Standing at the window, I opened the blinds enough that it would be easy for me to see out but require someone to go out of their way to look in. On the inside looking out, the neighborhood was silent. A man mowed his lawn down the street; a 9-year-old tossed a football to himself at the end of the cul-de-sac. Two women conversed at the bottom of a driveway. All from a distance. That was how I liked it.
I had considered buying a garage door opener.
Not because I didn’t want to get out of my car and lift the garage door myself, I usually don’t mind the task. I can appreciate the physical activity. I often wonder if that’s why we’ve become such an obese society. Too many garage door openers.
No, I bought a garage door opener to avoid my neighbor. I can press a button a block away and my garage will be open and waiting when I arrive, my driveway like the palm of a giant concrete hand that carries me into the garage then slowly closes, shutting me in from the annoyances of the neighborhood. With a glance into the rearview mirror, I escape direct contact with nothing more than a polite wave.
In his defense, my neighbor is not a bad person. He does not disturb me or cut down my trees or deflate my tires. He is not “up to no good.” His kids do not play ball on my lawn; his dog does not use my yard as if it were a Port-O-Can at a rockfest.
But my neighbor likes to chat.
Last week I pulled into my driveway and got out to open the garage door. My neighbor was out with the hose watering his shrubs. I inadvertently made eye contact.
“Hey there, Larry,” he said.
“Hey!” I shot back, unexpectently enthusiastic. As is usually the case with people, he knew my name and I did not know his. I was pretty sure it was Ed, but it could have been Ted and I had a small suspicion it was Arnold. But I think I would’ve remembered Arnold if it were Arnold.
Regardless, it was too late to clarify, as there had been at least eight conversations since he had moved in three months earlier.
The problem with Ed is that the only thing we have in common is the 12-foot patch of grass between our houses. The main topics available under these circumstances are terribly limited and inevitably gravitate to watering the grass and the general upkeep of our respective landscaping. Following that, it’s news and comment on how hot it’s been lately.
“How about this heat? It’s something else, huh?” he once asked.
“Whew! Is it hot enough for you?” he demanded on another occasion.
For one, and to be completely honest, it’s not hot enough for me. I’m cold natured. When others are uncomfortably warm in T-shirts and shorts, I’m relaxing casually in jeans and a fleece pullover. And two, it’s summer. It’s hot. I get it.
I’ve always tried to keep weather off limits in conversations with people I hardly know. It’s weather, we can’t control it, let’s move on.
Now, if it snows 4 ½ feet overnight, fine, let’s discuss the oddity of the occurrence. We can repeat all the records and superlatives we heard on the local news that morning. And if golf ball-sized hail plummets from the sky in a moment’s notice, we can gripe about how we normally park our cars in the garage but we happened to leave them out that afternoon only to see them damaged. We can compare insurance quotes and swap techniques we read on the Internet about how to repair hail damage yourself for a fraction of the cost. Otherwise, there are other activities I’d rather do and anything else I’d rather chat about if forced to chat.
One evening, Ed went after another standby: The Job. “How are things down at the newspaper?”
Before I understood the rules of small talk, a less-than-mild acquaintance asked me how my job was going and I actually told him.
I spoke of how we were down two copy editors while having to battle an overbearing managing editor and mediate arguments between the design director and the photo editor. My mouth sprawled about how we had more space to fill in the newspaper because of the declining number of ads sold and how that was consistent with a nationwide trend in the industry. Couple that with the rising cost of newsprint . . .
I realized I had lost person back at “Oh, wait’ll you hear this.” He had not cared about my employment situation, much less the state of newspapers in the United States. He probably just wanted me to ask him how his job was going so he could tell me how the local chamber of commerce was honoring him and 15 others later that month at the Outstanding Merchants banquet. He probably wanted to discuss his sales figures and the number of employees he now had working under him, which was most likely three but he would have said seven.
“How’s work going?” required a response along the lines of “Oh just fine,” or at worst a “Don’t even ask,” followed by a muted guffaw and a rolling of the eyes. “Don’t even ask” tends to strike a chord with most people, as I have found that hating your job is not uncommon.
But when Ed asked me about my job, maybe he was different. Maybe he really wanted to know. At least he knew what job I had.
“It’s going alright,” I said, shrugging my shoulders as if I had nothing to complain about.
Sensing my answer had been too short, I blurted out a phrase I had never used before, heard once in the midst of small talk, perhaps.
“Same old same old.”
He nodded, as if knowing exactly where I was coming from. Had he gone as far as he could at his job? Had his once ambitious career dreams completely faded?
Same old, same old?
He nodded because if I had asked him about his job, he would’ve replied with the exact phrase.
And I would have shook my head and said, “Yeah, tell me about it.”
(This story originally appeared in the literary journal Peeks and Valleys)
I sat in my study, inspecting my socks as I put on my shoes before work. The socks – which I had thought of as one of my good pairs, two of my go-to guys, a pair I still considered in my starting lineup – were wearing out. The bottoms had worn thin and a hole had opened near one of the ankles, too low to hide behind the guise of a pant leg.
After I stood up and walked a few steps to the window, I could feel the sock tops beginning to lose their grip on my lower calf. A few more steps and they would have fallen to my ankles, unable to hold themselves up any longer.
Standing at the window, I opened the blinds enough that it would be easy for me to see out but require someone to go out of their way to look in. On the inside looking out, the neighborhood was silent. A man mowed his lawn down the street; a 9-year-old tossed a football to himself at the end of the cul-de-sac. Two women conversed at the bottom of a driveway. All from a distance. That was how I liked it.
I had considered buying a garage door opener.
Not because I didn’t want to get out of my car and lift the garage door myself, I usually don’t mind the task. I can appreciate the physical activity. I often wonder if that’s why we’ve become such an obese society. Too many garage door openers.
No, I bought a garage door opener to avoid my neighbor. I can press a button a block away and my garage will be open and waiting when I arrive, my driveway like the palm of a giant concrete hand that carries me into the garage then slowly closes, shutting me in from the annoyances of the neighborhood. With a glance into the rearview mirror, I escape direct contact with nothing more than a polite wave.
In his defense, my neighbor is not a bad person. He does not disturb me or cut down my trees or deflate my tires. He is not “up to no good.” His kids do not play ball on my lawn; his dog does not use my yard as if it were a Port-O-Can at a rockfest.
But my neighbor likes to chat.
Last week I pulled into my driveway and got out to open the garage door. My neighbor was out with the hose watering his shrubs. I inadvertently made eye contact.
“Hey there, Larry,” he said.
“Hey!” I shot back, unexpectently enthusiastic. As is usually the case with people, he knew my name and I did not know his. I was pretty sure it was Ed, but it could have been Ted and I had a small suspicion it was Arnold. But I think I would’ve remembered Arnold if it were Arnold.
Regardless, it was too late to clarify, as there had been at least eight conversations since he had moved in three months earlier.
The problem with Ed is that the only thing we have in common is the 12-foot patch of grass between our houses. The main topics available under these circumstances are terribly limited and inevitably gravitate to watering the grass and the general upkeep of our respective landscaping. Following that, it’s news and comment on how hot it’s been lately.
“How about this heat? It’s something else, huh?” he once asked.
“Whew! Is it hot enough for you?” he demanded on another occasion.
For one, and to be completely honest, it’s not hot enough for me. I’m cold natured. When others are uncomfortably warm in T-shirts and shorts, I’m relaxing casually in jeans and a fleece pullover. And two, it’s summer. It’s hot. I get it.
I’ve always tried to keep weather off limits in conversations with people I hardly know. It’s weather, we can’t control it, let’s move on.
Now, if it snows 4 ½ feet overnight, fine, let’s discuss the oddity of the occurrence. We can repeat all the records and superlatives we heard on the local news that morning. And if golf ball-sized hail plummets from the sky in a moment’s notice, we can gripe about how we normally park our cars in the garage but we happened to leave them out that afternoon only to see them damaged. We can compare insurance quotes and swap techniques we read on the Internet about how to repair hail damage yourself for a fraction of the cost. Otherwise, there are other activities I’d rather do and anything else I’d rather chat about if forced to chat.
One evening, Ed went after another standby: The Job. “How are things down at the newspaper?”
Before I understood the rules of small talk, a less-than-mild acquaintance asked me how my job was going and I actually told him.
I spoke of how we were down two copy editors while having to battle an overbearing managing editor and mediate arguments between the design director and the photo editor. My mouth sprawled about how we had more space to fill in the newspaper because of the declining number of ads sold and how that was consistent with a nationwide trend in the industry. Couple that with the rising cost of newsprint . . .
I realized I had lost person back at “Oh, wait’ll you hear this.” He had not cared about my employment situation, much less the state of newspapers in the United States. He probably just wanted me to ask him how his job was going so he could tell me how the local chamber of commerce was honoring him and 15 others later that month at the Outstanding Merchants banquet. He probably wanted to discuss his sales figures and the number of employees he now had working under him, which was most likely three but he would have said seven.
“How’s work going?” required a response along the lines of “Oh just fine,” or at worst a “Don’t even ask,” followed by a muted guffaw and a rolling of the eyes. “Don’t even ask” tends to strike a chord with most people, as I have found that hating your job is not uncommon.
But when Ed asked me about my job, maybe he was different. Maybe he really wanted to know. At least he knew what job I had.
“It’s going alright,” I said, shrugging my shoulders as if I had nothing to complain about.
Sensing my answer had been too short, I blurted out a phrase I had never used before, heard once in the midst of small talk, perhaps.
“Same old same old.”
He nodded, as if knowing exactly where I was coming from. Had he gone as far as he could at his job? Had his once ambitious career dreams completely faded?
Same old, same old?
He nodded because if I had asked him about his job, he would’ve replied with the exact phrase.
And I would have shook my head and said, “Yeah, tell me about it.”
(This story originally appeared in the literary journal Peeks and Valleys)
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Sin City
We never had fireworks growing up. That’s like burning your money, he would say.
Gambling is even worse. You don’t even get to see the fire as your money disappears.
He’s happy with his life of modesty. Always has been.
This city is flashy and dazzling. Unlike him.
The allure of winning so much while spending so little is unmoving.
He hates crowds and people aren’t far behind.
He doesn’t smoke and wouldn’t take a free cocktail if you paid him.
He’s not into “Asian massage” and has never had much desire to see the real Eiffel Tower. Much less a look-alike.
Entertainment has never juggled bowling balls.
Or made a tiger disappear.
Or balanced a wheel barrow on its head.
And it never takes place on concrete.
Or indoors. Or anywhere near neon.
I’d always wondered why we never vacationed here while I was growing up.
Now I know. Because my dad never took us.
(I wrote this after my first visit to Las Vegas in 2002)
Gambling is even worse. You don’t even get to see the fire as your money disappears.
He’s happy with his life of modesty. Always has been.
This city is flashy and dazzling. Unlike him.
The allure of winning so much while spending so little is unmoving.
He hates crowds and people aren’t far behind.
He doesn’t smoke and wouldn’t take a free cocktail if you paid him.
He’s not into “Asian massage” and has never had much desire to see the real Eiffel Tower. Much less a look-alike.
Entertainment has never juggled bowling balls.
Or made a tiger disappear.
Or balanced a wheel barrow on its head.
And it never takes place on concrete.
Or indoors. Or anywhere near neon.
I’d always wondered why we never vacationed here while I was growing up.
Now I know. Because my dad never took us.
(I wrote this after my first visit to Las Vegas in 2002)
Monday, July 03, 2006
What is a Patriot?
I was thinking about what my country stood for and what it meant to be an American.
But a Patriot interrupted me.
He reminded me of Freedom and Solidarity. He told me what The Flag stood for. He talked of Unity, Pride, Sacrifice and Evil.
Everything was black and white, with us or against us.
There was no room for question. No room for disagreement. There were not two sides to the story. Not in a time of war. Dissent only aids the enemy and those who hate America. He shouted about Freedom but was the first to try to take it away. I could have free thought, expression and speech, as long as it agreed with his views.
Support Our Troops. Pray for our President. United We Stand. God Bless America. Land of the Free. Love It Or Leave It.
America can be a nation where our only political discourse is simple enough for a bumper sticker. It can be a nation under God, where we are to give unconditional support for Our Leader, a place of one accepted ideology. It can be a country where questioning the government is un-American, where free, critical thought produces sighs and intimidation.
Sounds like a great place to live, like the greatest country on earth.
But a Patriot interrupted me.
He reminded me of Freedom and Solidarity. He told me what The Flag stood for. He talked of Unity, Pride, Sacrifice and Evil.
Everything was black and white, with us or against us.
There was no room for question. No room for disagreement. There were not two sides to the story. Not in a time of war. Dissent only aids the enemy and those who hate America. He shouted about Freedom but was the first to try to take it away. I could have free thought, expression and speech, as long as it agreed with his views.
Support Our Troops. Pray for our President. United We Stand. God Bless America. Land of the Free. Love It Or Leave It.
America can be a nation where our only political discourse is simple enough for a bumper sticker. It can be a nation under God, where we are to give unconditional support for Our Leader, a place of one accepted ideology. It can be a country where questioning the government is un-American, where free, critical thought produces sighs and intimidation.
Sounds like a great place to live, like the greatest country on earth.
Death from over-the-counter allergy medication (or Dozing Off A Cliff)
“Hello, uh, Dave?”
“Um, no. This is Erin.”
“Oh, hi Erin. You’re using Dave’s phone?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’s Dave?”
“He dozed off.”
“Dozed off?”
“He dozed off . . . a cliff”
“He dozed off a cliff?”
“Yeah we were hiking along this cliff and he took some allergy medicine and got drowsy and dozed off, the cliff.”
“I don’t understand. He dozed off the cliff or he dove off the cliff?”
“He dozed off but I supposed both would be correct.”
“So he got tired and dozed off the cliff. Where is he now?”
“At the bottom of the cliff.”
“Sleeping?”
“Yes. Permanently.”
“From the medicine?”
“No, from the fall.”
“How did you get his phone?”
“I walked to the bottom of the cliff and took it from his pocket. We’ve paid the cell phone bill for the month so why not use the phone?”
“So you’re calling to tell me that my son dozed off a cliff and is lying dead on the ground at the spot he fell?”
“No. I was actually trying to call our friend Maury about dinner but accidentally hit Mom and Dad when I was scrolling through the address book.”
(Erin and I improvised this simulated conversation today while hiking. I had been drowsy from taking allergy medicine during a hike we took earlier in the week. On the hike today, as we were walking on a ridge lined by a sheer cliff to one side, Erin asked if I was drowsy from allergy medicine again. That’s when the idea of someone dozing off a cliff came up. This is how we pass the time.)
“Um, no. This is Erin.”
“Oh, hi Erin. You’re using Dave’s phone?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’s Dave?”
“He dozed off.”
“Dozed off?”
“He dozed off . . . a cliff”
“He dozed off a cliff?”
“Yeah we were hiking along this cliff and he took some allergy medicine and got drowsy and dozed off, the cliff.”
“I don’t understand. He dozed off the cliff or he dove off the cliff?”
“He dozed off but I supposed both would be correct.”
“So he got tired and dozed off the cliff. Where is he now?”
“At the bottom of the cliff.”
“Sleeping?”
“Yes. Permanently.”
“From the medicine?”
“No, from the fall.”
“How did you get his phone?”
“I walked to the bottom of the cliff and took it from his pocket. We’ve paid the cell phone bill for the month so why not use the phone?”
“So you’re calling to tell me that my son dozed off a cliff and is lying dead on the ground at the spot he fell?”
“No. I was actually trying to call our friend Maury about dinner but accidentally hit Mom and Dad when I was scrolling through the address book.”
(Erin and I improvised this simulated conversation today while hiking. I had been drowsy from taking allergy medicine during a hike we took earlier in the week. On the hike today, as we were walking on a ridge lined by a sheer cliff to one side, Erin asked if I was drowsy from allergy medicine again. That’s when the idea of someone dozing off a cliff came up. This is how we pass the time.)
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Discovering The Tall Club
"Did you know there's a national club for tall people?" Erin asked, sitting in front of the PC, fresh off a Google search. "And they have a local chapter."
The club was called the Hartford Heights Tall Club and Erin wanted to know more. She was excited. Always a tall one, coming in at 5-10 1/2, she qualified for the club, a cool half inch over the mandatory 5 feet 10 inches needed to belong.
"How tall are you again?" she asked, already envisioning the tall club as an odd yet intriguing activity we could do together. We would go and hang out with tall people, take hikes with tall people, ride tall bikes with tall people and tell tall jokes with tall people. We would feel so exclusive.
"6-1," I said. I had clearly let her down as she informed me that the cutoff for men was 6-foot-2. I never felt so slight in my life.
We both agreed that I was almost there. In a joking-but-kind-of-serious-at-the-same-time fashion, we discussed lifts for my shoes or how one could go about concealing platform soles. But was all this worth it? Perhaps. For a moment I was extremely excited when I remembered that former NBA star Manute Bol, who stands at a league-record 7-foot-7 lives just down the road in West Hartford.
“Manute Bol has to be a member of the Hartford Heights Tall Club,” I said. “He probably runs the thing.”
The possibilities of hanging with Manute made my shortcomings that much more difficult to deal with.
The first thing that came to mind with a tall club was the Guinness Book of World Records photo of that freakishly tall guy who had some weird elephant disease that sprouted him to a height of 8 and a half feet. I imagined everyone looked like him, standing around in clothes from Big&Tall with size 19 shoes, holding martini glasses that appeared wee in their mammoth hands.
I wondered what could possibly occur at tall club meetings.
They probably hand out awards for best use of height in an act of kindness. A lanky 7-footer steps forward and receives applause for helping a crying child rescue a balloon off a restaurant ceiling. Later, a guy with a crazy-low voice shares with the group about how his hand got caught in a ceiling fan again while he was putting on a sweater and a woman with a head the size of George “The Animal” Steele’s follows with a story about how she was approached at church to play on the interfaith men’s basketball team. Everyone laughs because it’s all happened to them.
Even if I had the extra inch to meet their tall standards, could I go through with it?
To join a tall club, it seems that being tall would have to be a large part in how you define yourself as a person. You wear tall clothes, you have to duck under doorways, people ask if you played college hoops, short people have their pictures taken with you. These are all experiences that revolve around your height and you want to share them with those of like proportion with similar experiences. It seems only natural. Except that, even though I’m only an inch from joining, I’m far from defining myself as tall.
I don’t even consider the tall cutoff of 6-foot-2 tall for a man. You’d have to be at least 6-foot-4 before you’re tall in my tall book. And I realize my wife is tall for a woman, but 5-foot-10 doesn’t seem tall enough for a tall club either. For me, a woman has to be at least 6 feet before I say “Wow, she’s tall.”
And although I bet there might be one or two 7-footers at the Hartford Heights tall club, I doubt there are any whacky-hormone world record holders. That, of course, I’d pay to see.
In the meantime, you can be sure that I’ll be on the lookout for Manute Bol . . . or any other 7-foot-7, 140-pound men for that matter.
The club was called the Hartford Heights Tall Club and Erin wanted to know more. She was excited. Always a tall one, coming in at 5-10 1/2, she qualified for the club, a cool half inch over the mandatory 5 feet 10 inches needed to belong.
"How tall are you again?" she asked, already envisioning the tall club as an odd yet intriguing activity we could do together. We would go and hang out with tall people, take hikes with tall people, ride tall bikes with tall people and tell tall jokes with tall people. We would feel so exclusive.
"6-1," I said. I had clearly let her down as she informed me that the cutoff for men was 6-foot-2. I never felt so slight in my life.
We both agreed that I was almost there. In a joking-but-kind-of-serious-at-the-same-time fashion, we discussed lifts for my shoes or how one could go about concealing platform soles. But was all this worth it? Perhaps. For a moment I was extremely excited when I remembered that former NBA star Manute Bol, who stands at a league-record 7-foot-7 lives just down the road in West Hartford.
“Manute Bol has to be a member of the Hartford Heights Tall Club,” I said. “He probably runs the thing.”
The possibilities of hanging with Manute made my shortcomings that much more difficult to deal with.
The first thing that came to mind with a tall club was the Guinness Book of World Records photo of that freakishly tall guy who had some weird elephant disease that sprouted him to a height of 8 and a half feet. I imagined everyone looked like him, standing around in clothes from Big&Tall with size 19 shoes, holding martini glasses that appeared wee in their mammoth hands.
I wondered what could possibly occur at tall club meetings.
They probably hand out awards for best use of height in an act of kindness. A lanky 7-footer steps forward and receives applause for helping a crying child rescue a balloon off a restaurant ceiling. Later, a guy with a crazy-low voice shares with the group about how his hand got caught in a ceiling fan again while he was putting on a sweater and a woman with a head the size of George “The Animal” Steele’s follows with a story about how she was approached at church to play on the interfaith men’s basketball team. Everyone laughs because it’s all happened to them.
Even if I had the extra inch to meet their tall standards, could I go through with it?
To join a tall club, it seems that being tall would have to be a large part in how you define yourself as a person. You wear tall clothes, you have to duck under doorways, people ask if you played college hoops, short people have their pictures taken with you. These are all experiences that revolve around your height and you want to share them with those of like proportion with similar experiences. It seems only natural. Except that, even though I’m only an inch from joining, I’m far from defining myself as tall.
I don’t even consider the tall cutoff of 6-foot-2 tall for a man. You’d have to be at least 6-foot-4 before you’re tall in my tall book. And I realize my wife is tall for a woman, but 5-foot-10 doesn’t seem tall enough for a tall club either. For me, a woman has to be at least 6 feet before I say “Wow, she’s tall.”
And although I bet there might be one or two 7-footers at the Hartford Heights tall club, I doubt there are any whacky-hormone world record holders. That, of course, I’d pay to see.
In the meantime, you can be sure that I’ll be on the lookout for Manute Bol . . . or any other 7-foot-7, 140-pound men for that matter.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
A shirt and some worries
I bought a collared soft cotton shirt today for the clearance price of$11.95. Aside from the shirt being dark gray instead of dark green, as my color-blind eyes wrongly reported, I was presented with a dilemma at the register.
The clerk offered me free membership in the stores promotional club. Special discounts and coupons awaited me at no charge, he explained. Just supply my name and e-mail on the form they would fill in the rest and off I would go with a plastic card documenting my belonging, as I would head home to anxiously check my inbox for bargains.
That’s when I determined that enough was enough. I already have free membership cards for coffee, submarine sandwiches, the bookstore, grocery store, video store, a Cajun restaurant I can’t even recall existing and a wearhouse where I rented a wedding tuxedo for a marriage that was outlived by my store membership.
I don’t even want to discuss the weight of my wallet, thanks to all the plastic cards, punch cards, cardboard cards and keychain cards.
All these clubs make shopping unnecessarily stressful. Every time I buy I have to ask myself, Am I a member? Do I have a card to prove it? Can I save 10 percent? Do I qualify for special discounts? Is it my birthday? Am I amidst the magical three-day window that falls only once a quarter where I can save big time? I don’t know. Perhaps I am a member and I threw away the card and now that silly act just cost me $3.50.
I opted to decline the latest membership offer that came with my collared soft cotton shirt. Its just one more thing to worry about, one more thing to take up valuable space in my head. I simply don’t have room in my life or my wallet for another card.
Epilogue
The same shirt that came with the enticing store membership offer also came with a spare button. I always keep these buttons for some reason, usually putting them in the same drawer as my socks. I do this despite never having had a shirt that has lost a button. Ever. Even if I had a shirt lose a button, I doubt I would have the wherewithal to find the replacement that came with the original shirt, two years after its purchase.
I decided to lose the spare button immediately this time, directly into the trash. Like the membership, it would be one more thing to stash in the back of my head, if the slim opportunity ever arose for the button to be used. I just don’t have room for that button. Not in my life, or in my sock drawer.
The clerk offered me free membership in the stores promotional club. Special discounts and coupons awaited me at no charge, he explained. Just supply my name and e-mail on the form they would fill in the rest and off I would go with a plastic card documenting my belonging, as I would head home to anxiously check my inbox for bargains.
That’s when I determined that enough was enough. I already have free membership cards for coffee, submarine sandwiches, the bookstore, grocery store, video store, a Cajun restaurant I can’t even recall existing and a wearhouse where I rented a wedding tuxedo for a marriage that was outlived by my store membership.
I don’t even want to discuss the weight of my wallet, thanks to all the plastic cards, punch cards, cardboard cards and keychain cards.
All these clubs make shopping unnecessarily stressful. Every time I buy I have to ask myself, Am I a member? Do I have a card to prove it? Can I save 10 percent? Do I qualify for special discounts? Is it my birthday? Am I amidst the magical three-day window that falls only once a quarter where I can save big time? I don’t know. Perhaps I am a member and I threw away the card and now that silly act just cost me $3.50.
I opted to decline the latest membership offer that came with my collared soft cotton shirt. Its just one more thing to worry about, one more thing to take up valuable space in my head. I simply don’t have room in my life or my wallet for another card.
Epilogue
The same shirt that came with the enticing store membership offer also came with a spare button. I always keep these buttons for some reason, usually putting them in the same drawer as my socks. I do this despite never having had a shirt that has lost a button. Ever. Even if I had a shirt lose a button, I doubt I would have the wherewithal to find the replacement that came with the original shirt, two years after its purchase.
I decided to lose the spare button immediately this time, directly into the trash. Like the membership, it would be one more thing to stash in the back of my head, if the slim opportunity ever arose for the button to be used. I just don’t have room for that button. Not in my life, or in my sock drawer.
The actions of passing motorists
A selection of the ways real-life passing motorists dealt with the narrow yet drivable passage between the semi truck moving van outside my house and some guys pickup across the street while my stuff was being moved in last week:
Gray Minivan
Instruct me to move a pickup which doesnt belong to me and whose owner I am not familiar with.
Short school bus
After claims of illegal parking, hysteric rudeness in front of small school children and a denial of the bus capability to back up, call police.
Silver Volvo
Drive through the tight space faster than if the street were clear.
Red Cavalier
Honk incessantly at no one in particular
U.S. Mail truck
Following careful consideration, drive across pickup owners lawn.
Gray Minivan
Instruct me to move a pickup which doesnt belong to me and whose owner I am not familiar with.
Short school bus
After claims of illegal parking, hysteric rudeness in front of small school children and a denial of the bus capability to back up, call police.
Silver Volvo
Drive through the tight space faster than if the street were clear.
Red Cavalier
Honk incessantly at no one in particular
U.S. Mail truck
Following careful consideration, drive across pickup owners lawn.
Some thoughts on Identity Theft
With my bank-issued debit card set to expire next month, I anxiously awaited a new card, hopefully with a later date imprinted on it. The card finally came with about 10 days to spare. Without my request, the precious-metal level had been upped on my shiny new card from gold to platinum. I was honored and ready to spend. But first, as always, I had to call a special number to activate it, for security reasons I'm sure.
Before activation, I was treated to a brief message about how I should pony up money for credit reports on a regular basis, you know, since we live in this dangerous time of identity theft and don’t you realize your credit is the most important thing in your life? I value my credit as much as the next but somehow tuned this message out.
Then it was on to activating my ATM card. After punching in a few numbers I was finished, but they wanted me to stay on the line for an important message. What was this important message about? Identity theft. For about a minute, a soothing yet firm recorded female voice warned me of the increasing dangers of identity theft. All I had to do to protect myself was sign up for a special protection program that would cost $4.95 a month. They would handle the rest. Press 1 to sign up or press 2 to foolishly pass. I pressed 2. But that wasn't the end. The female voice came back a bit harsher, a bit more urgent, speaking more precise and stern. She repeated her warnings of identity theft, asking if I was sure I wanted to put my sacred and irreplaceable identity foolishly on the line. I pressed 2 again, hung up then went and hid under my covers.
The dire warnings, the pleading, the urging, the attempt to fill me with fear about identity theft got me thinking about this new "crisis."
Identity theft seems to be everywhere. Rather the advertisement of identity theft seems to be everywhere, with credit card companies/banks being the first to warn and ultimately protect you from the identity thieves. (I bet everyone can name a current identity theft TV commercial)
Now the first question should be, when did banks and credit card companies start caring so much about the consumers they have centered their business on screwing over? We all know that there's only one thing they care about. Profit . . . and screwing you over, which to them is redundant.
So the epidemic of identity theft has gotten so bad that it is starting to cut in to the profits of the banks and credit card companies?
I'll go one further. It's all about fear. Who knows who this fear benefits. But just like the war on drugs (hello crack), welfare mothers, stranger crime, terrorism, airplane crashes, monkey pox, SARS, nuclear holocaust, kidnappers, Communism, anthrax, satanic cults, satanic lyrics and so on, identity theft is just the latest thing we have been told to fear. (The whys of fear are numerous but most center on the fact that fearful citizens are a) good consumers/great for business and b) manage to stay pretty orderly. Oh, and politicians know fear equals votes. What's the one issue Republicans still have an edge over Democrats on? Terrorism. They're the ones who will protect you from the bad men. If it were up to Democrats, your commute and your life would be cut short today by a dirty bomb).
With the fear of identity theft, the banks have at worst manufactured it or at best merely piled on, seeing it as a convenient way to take a little more of our money.
Identity theft even has a scary name. Identity theft. Your identity, the thing that makes you you, is being stolen by a faceless, hooded thieve.
But really, as far as I know, identity theft can be someone who came upon your credit card number from who-knows-where and uses it to fill up the car with gas and head on to Best Buy to get some awesome stereo equipment (this actually happened to us). I wouldn’t really say they stole our identity.
Now, I'm not saying that identity theft isn’t real or can't do damage on peoples lives. I'm just wondering if identity theft isn’t a little overblown. I'd also like to know who is profiting from it.
Now I'm going to go check my credit report, then buy a new security system for my fall-out shelter gun closet.
Before activation, I was treated to a brief message about how I should pony up money for credit reports on a regular basis, you know, since we live in this dangerous time of identity theft and don’t you realize your credit is the most important thing in your life? I value my credit as much as the next but somehow tuned this message out.
Then it was on to activating my ATM card. After punching in a few numbers I was finished, but they wanted me to stay on the line for an important message. What was this important message about? Identity theft. For about a minute, a soothing yet firm recorded female voice warned me of the increasing dangers of identity theft. All I had to do to protect myself was sign up for a special protection program that would cost $4.95 a month. They would handle the rest. Press 1 to sign up or press 2 to foolishly pass. I pressed 2. But that wasn't the end. The female voice came back a bit harsher, a bit more urgent, speaking more precise and stern. She repeated her warnings of identity theft, asking if I was sure I wanted to put my sacred and irreplaceable identity foolishly on the line. I pressed 2 again, hung up then went and hid under my covers.
The dire warnings, the pleading, the urging, the attempt to fill me with fear about identity theft got me thinking about this new "crisis."
Identity theft seems to be everywhere. Rather the advertisement of identity theft seems to be everywhere, with credit card companies/banks being the first to warn and ultimately protect you from the identity thieves. (I bet everyone can name a current identity theft TV commercial)
Now the first question should be, when did banks and credit card companies start caring so much about the consumers they have centered their business on screwing over? We all know that there's only one thing they care about. Profit . . . and screwing you over, which to them is redundant.
So the epidemic of identity theft has gotten so bad that it is starting to cut in to the profits of the banks and credit card companies?
I'll go one further. It's all about fear. Who knows who this fear benefits. But just like the war on drugs (hello crack), welfare mothers, stranger crime, terrorism, airplane crashes, monkey pox, SARS, nuclear holocaust, kidnappers, Communism, anthrax, satanic cults, satanic lyrics and so on, identity theft is just the latest thing we have been told to fear. (The whys of fear are numerous but most center on the fact that fearful citizens are a) good consumers/great for business and b) manage to stay pretty orderly. Oh, and politicians know fear equals votes. What's the one issue Republicans still have an edge over Democrats on? Terrorism. They're the ones who will protect you from the bad men. If it were up to Democrats, your commute and your life would be cut short today by a dirty bomb).
With the fear of identity theft, the banks have at worst manufactured it or at best merely piled on, seeing it as a convenient way to take a little more of our money.
Identity theft even has a scary name. Identity theft. Your identity, the thing that makes you you, is being stolen by a faceless, hooded thieve.
But really, as far as I know, identity theft can be someone who came upon your credit card number from who-knows-where and uses it to fill up the car with gas and head on to Best Buy to get some awesome stereo equipment (this actually happened to us). I wouldn’t really say they stole our identity.
Now, I'm not saying that identity theft isn’t real or can't do damage on peoples lives. I'm just wondering if identity theft isn’t a little overblown. I'd also like to know who is profiting from it.
Now I'm going to go check my credit report, then buy a new security system for my fall-out shelter gun closet.
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