Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Using my brain in public
In the past, when I needed an MRI, I almost always scheduled them in the evening because that way they did not interfere with work. It just so happened that late last week my doctor thought it would be wise to get me in to the giant magnetic tube as soon as possible and today at noon was arranged.
I have been in an MRI before, so I know the routine. You check in, you get escorted back and change into a gown and some uncomfortable hospital pajama panties and you sit in a waiting room and read bad magazines until you are escorted back to the big giant machines room. Since I have usually been in an MRI section when it is not busy, the waiting rooms have almost always been empty. I believe last summer I ended up hanging with a woman who had breast cancer, she and me alone in the waiting room, laughing and having a good time.
Today, the waiting room had a lot of people, older people, unhappy people. Not the jovial and beautiful woman with battle in her eyes, more beleaguered people with defeat and a look at lost hope. Oh well, I thought, I need to find People Magazine and focus. I sat down in what looked to be the angry women’s section and immediately I thought I had made a terrible mistake.
There was a know it all woman leaning against a wall, drinking her Barium cocktail and talking loudly enough that I doubt anyone in the area could have missed a word, and every word was filled with how sad her life had become. He worthless son lived with her, but he was no help at all. He slept till two in the afternoon and the only chore he managed around the house was taking the garbage out once a week. She still had to clean and manage to create meals. All this while undergoing chemo, which made the meals less and less enticing, although she added, since she began smoking marijuana, she is getting her hunger back.
One of the other women questioned her about the legality of marijuana and it seemed that her good for nothing son was good for something, scoring good quality smoke. I was busy reading about Brad and Angie and how they may finally get married when the woman drinking Barium declared to everyone within earshot how she was indeed dying, sooner than later, “pancreatic cancer will do that to you, but then, we are all dying, all of us here anyway.” She said that, including everyone in the waiting room. That got me to look up and she and I made eye contact.
“What’re you here for?” She asked me.
“Bone fragments in my knee, it hurts when I ride,” I lied to her.
“Well, maybe you aren’t dying.”
“Probably not. My doctor is convinced I am invincible.”
“Is that right?” She said with that smokers gruff scowl in her voice.
“Guess so,” I said, smugly.
The nice woman across from me gave me a warm smile. She was there accompanying her mother, who was there checking her life timeline. Mom was dying, as was Barium cocktail woman, as was the fat guy sitting behind me, I could see it in his eyes. I have seen eyes like his before. He had the bad news, not he just wanted to know the timing.
I liked that Barium momma was under the impression that my nimble knees were the source of all my discomfort. I have been riding my indoor cycle a lot more than I should, and my knees and grinding in that way that long road cycling brings about, but I was not there to have a specialist take interior pictures of my knees. I wish I was. No, I was there for a view of my tiny, barely functional brain. Again.
The MRI is a giant tube that makes a lot of noise, especially when you slide into it. When you are having your brain looked at, they put this cage like device over your face, almost touching your nose, and these bean bag pillows all around your head so you can’t move at all. The bed you lie on slides into the MRI machine and loud pounding noises are emitted as the electro-magnets somehow magically make images of your body appear on a computer in another room. It is all magic. In the past I have asked and received copies of the MRI report, so I have a few digital images of my brain, so every now and then when I am accused of being brainless, I can actually prove people wrong.
This time I did not ask for a copy of the images.
I slept during the first half of the procedure. Although it is loud and pounding and sometimes the technician wakes the patient to ask if everything is all right, I have been “tubed” enough times at this point that I am bored by the routine. The major difference this time, well, there were two, the first is that about halfway thru, I was pulled out, something was added to an IV that had been started in my arm and I was replaced back into the machine, so some magic MRI fluid could flow through my brain while the machine did is thump thump thumping. I tried to nap again.
The other interesting change this time was watching the technician react to the image that came over his computer screen. This is never a good thing to witness for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the technician is not a doctor and has no ability to actually read what he is seeing. I had this tiny mirror right above my face, that allowed me a view of the technician sitting at his computer console. I watched as he was looking at my brain and at some dramatic point, he called over another technician and started pointing at the screen, at my brain, and the other technician, adding to my neurosis, leaned in closer to the screen, as if to say, “what the hell is that?” At that point I just closed my eyes and thought about what it would be like to drink one of those barium cocktails.
There are no immediate answers from an MRI, you leave the big technology filled room, go back to a locker, get your clothes, get dressed and leave. In a couple of days I will meet with someone in a white coat who will probably tell me my knees look fine.
That’s how these things usually go.
I have been in an MRI before, so I know the routine. You check in, you get escorted back and change into a gown and some uncomfortable hospital pajama panties and you sit in a waiting room and read bad magazines until you are escorted back to the big giant machines room. Since I have usually been in an MRI section when it is not busy, the waiting rooms have almost always been empty. I believe last summer I ended up hanging with a woman who had breast cancer, she and me alone in the waiting room, laughing and having a good time.
Today, the waiting room had a lot of people, older people, unhappy people. Not the jovial and beautiful woman with battle in her eyes, more beleaguered people with defeat and a look at lost hope. Oh well, I thought, I need to find People Magazine and focus. I sat down in what looked to be the angry women’s section and immediately I thought I had made a terrible mistake.
There was a know it all woman leaning against a wall, drinking her Barium cocktail and talking loudly enough that I doubt anyone in the area could have missed a word, and every word was filled with how sad her life had become. He worthless son lived with her, but he was no help at all. He slept till two in the afternoon and the only chore he managed around the house was taking the garbage out once a week. She still had to clean and manage to create meals. All this while undergoing chemo, which made the meals less and less enticing, although she added, since she began smoking marijuana, she is getting her hunger back.
One of the other women questioned her about the legality of marijuana and it seemed that her good for nothing son was good for something, scoring good quality smoke. I was busy reading about Brad and Angie and how they may finally get married when the woman drinking Barium declared to everyone within earshot how she was indeed dying, sooner than later, “pancreatic cancer will do that to you, but then, we are all dying, all of us here anyway.” She said that, including everyone in the waiting room. That got me to look up and she and I made eye contact.
“What’re you here for?” She asked me.
“Bone fragments in my knee, it hurts when I ride,” I lied to her.
“Well, maybe you aren’t dying.”
“Probably not. My doctor is convinced I am invincible.”
“Is that right?” She said with that smokers gruff scowl in her voice.
“Guess so,” I said, smugly.
The nice woman across from me gave me a warm smile. She was there accompanying her mother, who was there checking her life timeline. Mom was dying, as was Barium cocktail woman, as was the fat guy sitting behind me, I could see it in his eyes. I have seen eyes like his before. He had the bad news, not he just wanted to know the timing.
I liked that Barium momma was under the impression that my nimble knees were the source of all my discomfort. I have been riding my indoor cycle a lot more than I should, and my knees and grinding in that way that long road cycling brings about, but I was not there to have a specialist take interior pictures of my knees. I wish I was. No, I was there for a view of my tiny, barely functional brain. Again.
The MRI is a giant tube that makes a lot of noise, especially when you slide into it. When you are having your brain looked at, they put this cage like device over your face, almost touching your nose, and these bean bag pillows all around your head so you can’t move at all. The bed you lie on slides into the MRI machine and loud pounding noises are emitted as the electro-magnets somehow magically make images of your body appear on a computer in another room. It is all magic. In the past I have asked and received copies of the MRI report, so I have a few digital images of my brain, so every now and then when I am accused of being brainless, I can actually prove people wrong.
This time I did not ask for a copy of the images.
I slept during the first half of the procedure. Although it is loud and pounding and sometimes the technician wakes the patient to ask if everything is all right, I have been “tubed” enough times at this point that I am bored by the routine. The major difference this time, well, there were two, the first is that about halfway thru, I was pulled out, something was added to an IV that had been started in my arm and I was replaced back into the machine, so some magic MRI fluid could flow through my brain while the machine did is thump thump thumping. I tried to nap again.
The other interesting change this time was watching the technician react to the image that came over his computer screen. This is never a good thing to witness for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the technician is not a doctor and has no ability to actually read what he is seeing. I had this tiny mirror right above my face, that allowed me a view of the technician sitting at his computer console. I watched as he was looking at my brain and at some dramatic point, he called over another technician and started pointing at the screen, at my brain, and the other technician, adding to my neurosis, leaned in closer to the screen, as if to say, “what the hell is that?” At that point I just closed my eyes and thought about what it would be like to drink one of those barium cocktails.
There are no immediate answers from an MRI, you leave the big technology filled room, go back to a locker, get your clothes, get dressed and leave. In a couple of days I will meet with someone in a white coat who will probably tell me my knees look fine.
That’s how these things usually go.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
The 3 that matter the most
A long time ago in a dirty Alaskan town
I just wanted to 10 fingers and 10 toes
When prodigal was born I was surprised how nice he was
His sister came out screaming at me and has not slowed
Her sister is a zen master who smiles and I smile back.
Lately we’ve been together again after a spell where we weren’t.
I once told friends I was blessed for being able to spend time with these three
And now that is even more true.
Every moment, any moment, seems magnified, intense.
I hear a ticking sound that sometimes drowns out words
They hear it too and sometimes we are all grow tired of it.
We try to remain drama free, thank god.
That does not mean we are unaware.
Chapters get written and forgotten
Some are more interesting than others
And we all have our favorites
But final chapters are looming and to pretend like we are unaware would be silly.
So when we are all together, there is an acknowledgement.
They say time is fleeting and that much has become clear
These moments spent with the three of them can be harrowing
And they can be charming, just depends on timing
Like almost everything else.
With what we all know is looming on a shortened horizon
Days like these are fast becoming all that matter.
I just wanted to 10 fingers and 10 toes
When prodigal was born I was surprised how nice he was
His sister came out screaming at me and has not slowed
Her sister is a zen master who smiles and I smile back.
Lately we’ve been together again after a spell where we weren’t.
I once told friends I was blessed for being able to spend time with these three
And now that is even more true.
Every moment, any moment, seems magnified, intense.
I hear a ticking sound that sometimes drowns out words
They hear it too and sometimes we are all grow tired of it.
We try to remain drama free, thank god.
That does not mean we are unaware.
Chapters get written and forgotten
Some are more interesting than others
And we all have our favorites
But final chapters are looming and to pretend like we are unaware would be silly.
So when we are all together, there is an acknowledgement.
They say time is fleeting and that much has become clear
These moments spent with the three of them can be harrowing
And they can be charming, just depends on timing
Like almost everything else.
With what we all know is looming on a shortened horizon
Days like these are fast becoming all that matter.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
A little trouble in New York City
I am 28, according to a recent Fox News poll, most of the people who bother to read this blog are 28, or like me, they claim to be 28, but my friend Harry Bandini is actually 28. He has been visiting from Rhode Island, he likes to say he is slumming, because in all actuality, he is.
Bandini is six feet tall, broad shouldered, played rugby in college and is tough, I met him when he punched me in the face for kicking his car. It’s a long story, but since I have nothing better to do, I will share it.
I was in Blanchard, a small town on the Eastern shore of Rhode Island, looking for a summer place that I could rent for the kids. I need to have some free time away from them, especially in the summer when I can’t ship them off to some school or social program for hours at a time and they swarm around me like neurotic bees, pestering and screaming constently. No, that summer I would rent a large house on the Eastern Shore of Rhode Island, put them in it, pay my old friend Lutgarda Gonzalez Munoz 17 dollars and a pack of menthol cigarettes and leave them all to themselves for the entirely of the summer.
I could then return home to peace and quiet. So I was driving around the small country towns of Rhode Island looking at possible rentals and there I was, standing on an empty downtown street in Blanchard, with a fresh plum from a nearby organic farm in my mouth, the pit working around my teeth, trying to clean it before I would spit it out. This spry little British racing green MGB sports car comes roaring around the corner right as I’d finally finished cleaning the pit and I spit it out right in front of the car, which locked up its brakes and the abusive son of a bitch driver sat up because his top was down, and screamed at me like I was some common street whore and he was my pimp. It was an ugly scene, but I did not respond, my mouth was full of organic plum. I just stood there dumbfounded, trying not to swallow and choke while this hothead screamed obscenities with no regard to the other townsfolk who could hear every vulgar word he casually threw at me. At some point he called me a “mealy mouthed pussy,” slid back down into the plush leather car seat and gassed it, and it was right then that I stepped off the curb and kicked the back fender of the slight little MGB. The brakes squealed to a complete halt again. The door pounded open, tough guy filled with rage and adrenaline jumped out, almost running back to me, his hand clenched in a massive fist. The next thing I remember is coming to on the sidewalk, bits of slightly chewed plum all around my face all over the wood planks next to me.
Harry Bandini had punched me right in the left cheek. I guess I just went right down and out and he kind of did too. He broke two bones in his wrist, he stood there actually crying in pain for a good five minutes. When I finally cleared the cobwebs from my head, before my left eye was swollen shut, I sat up and laughed at what a wuss Harry Bandini actually was, crying like a girl. He looked at me, tears streaming down his face, and then he just started laughing and so was I at that point. We were both there, less than ten feet apart, laughing like lunatics and he walked over and introduced himself and gave me a ride to the hospital, where they put a cast on his broken hand and a doctor gave me some ice for my swollen cheek.
For whatever reason we became friends. He was a man who was tougher than his hands would allow him to be and I was a man who liked organic fruit. He did end up helping me find a house for the kids that summer. I would help him a year later dispose of an illegal alien living legally in a duplex Bandini owned in Hollister. It was not something I actually did, I had my Harvard educated lesbian attorney deal with it, something she could do with her hands tied behind her back and I know this because we actually had her deal with it while we had her hands tied behind her back as a test. She is that talented and kinky. Harvard will do that to an Australian.
Bandini stopped by the house this morning and asked if I wanted to drive to New York with him to pick up some “stuff”. This may sound like a simple sort of road trip to most people, but Bandini hardly ever does anything that does not involve danger or at least illegal activity. I immediately said yes and ordered a pizza for the kids.
About ten miles into the trip I spied a fat transvestite on the side of the road selling bags of oranges. This is not the season for orange selling, but Bandini and I are both lovers of all things citrus, so he immediately hit the brakes. I threw a five dollar bill at the hideous tranny and he/she tossed a bag of hearty looking tangerines into the car.
“Hey, these are not oranges?” I said, almost outraged.
“So,” said the overly made up transsexual, still standing on the side of a fairly busy highway.
“Well, from a distance they looked like oranges.”
“Oh honey, from a distance I look like Marilyn Monroe.”
Bandini started to let the car creep forward and said, “honey, from space you don’t look like Marilyn Monroe.” He hit the gas and we were off. The tangerines were perfect. If there is one thing about the new world order that I could get used to, other than child labor in China building me cheaper and cheaper I-products, it would be fresh citrus available year round, if we could only import a higher quality transvestite street selling force. I will email the president at my first opportunity.
We drove like speed freaks on meth for 3 hours and found ourselves double parked in front of the Chelsea gallery “Feinstein” when I started to dump 10 tangerine husks onto the street and ask why we were there.
“These stupid fucks have my painting,” Bandini said, “they are too retarded to hang onto it, so I am here to retrieve it.”
“You mean, as in take it?”
“Yeah, I need you to help me pull it off the exhibit wall, walk out of the gallery, put it in the back of the car and we can go back to your house.”
“Is that illegal?”
“Oh, doubtful, I mean, it is my painting.”
“Yeah, but it’s some dude named Feinsteins Gallery, you ask if he is cool with us taking your painting?”
“Yeah, that’s the thing, he is not cool with me taking my own painting. He is a Jew dick.”
“Yeah, the anti-semitic thing.”
“Right, forgot. He is a Jewish dick.”
“Much better.”
“So, can you help?”
“Sure, I am all high on tangerine and I am here, we are illegally parked and you sound like you put a lot of planning into this. What do we do with the painting when we get back to my house?”
“You want it?”
“No.”
“You don’t want one of my paintings?”
“No, not really.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, I have one. I think that’s enough. I could give it to one of my kids.”
“No way. I don’t even like your kids.”
“You don’t like my kids?”
“Well, I like that one, Becky number 7. I like her.”
“Yeah, she’s my favorite too.”
“The other 17 though, I could live without.”
“16, Becky number 7 actually makes 17.”
“Right. The other 16, I could do without.”
“Harsh. Not sure I will help with the painting theft now.”
“Come on, we’re here. May as well.”
“OK, but I’d like to give your crappy painting to Nina Maria, my least favorite son.”
“You have a son named Nina Maria?”
“He’s Italian.”
“How’d that happen?”
“Don’t ask. So, we gonna do this or what?”
We got out of the car, after he put the top down, preparation is the first rule of success, or something like that. We entered the Feinstein Gallery from 24th Street and walked directly past the non-responsive dork staring at his Apple Computer while sitting behind the front desk. We walked all the way back to a large vibrant wild painting, something called, “Large, Wild, Vibrant Painting Number 4” on the back wall. Bandini grabbed one side, I the other and we pulled until the wire on the back jerked the screws holding it to the sheetrock. It came loose with some effort and because it was about six feet long and 4 feet wide, we held it with both hands and walked towards the front foot, Bandini walking backwards, awkwardly, but quickly. He reached behind himself and pulled the gallery door open, the doofus behind the Imac looked up and muttered something like, “stop right there for a moment” but I was already leaving and the door was automatically closing behind me.
Bandini manipulated the painting into the back seat, but because it was so long it kind of dangled over the back rest and onto the folded roof of the car. We decided we would need to use the seatbelts in the back seat to secure it and as we both crawled into the back to lock it in, we heard voices from the gallery screaming at us. I was latching mine into place and Bandini was in the drivers seat now, pulling the car forward, my pelvis balanced on the beam of the back section of the car, feet dangling over the rear of the car, kicking wildly. I looked at him, his face in the rearview mirror, “what the fuck?”
He stopped at the corner of 11th and 24th and I jumped into the passengers seat and he gassed it. Behind us, a half block away, the Feinsten of Feinstein Gallery, a fat man with a stupid goatee was waddling quickly towards us, screaming obscenities about how his lawyer would sue some sort of shit out of Bandini. No clue how that is even possible, but it was a colorful threat. We made our way to the West Side highway and headed uptown to the Lincoln Tunnel.
About two hours outside of the city we had stopped at a rest area to piss and eat some tangerines. When I got back in the car Bandini asked me to drive. We got back on the highway and I pumped the convertible up to 75 and turned the music up as loud as possible, with the top down you could barely hear Florence and the Machine blaring from the stereo. Bandini has not buckled in, he swung around in the passenger seat while we hung steady at 75 miles per hour, unlatched both the back seatbelts, grabbed the bottom of the painting and with little effort at all he lifted the painting enough so the air coming over the windshield grabbed it, lifted it and the painting took off like a badly colored kite. It was gone and I did not slow down to watch where it landed.
“Why did you do that?” I screamed over the music and the wind.
“Never really liked that painting much.”
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Hell calls with election tips
I try to get 10-12 hours of good solid sleep a night, plus one or two naps during the day, it is what keeps me so fresh and happy. As you can imagine, if you were in the midst of a deep sleep and your phone rang, with the ring tone from Purgatory, and the screen image being an old black and white picture of my mother, in a one piece bathing suit from the 40’s, looking like a completely different woman that the one I knew, but this one, black and white, stunning in that classic ‘40’s sort of pose, you answer the call.
I pressed the power button and said hello.
“Matthew?”
She has been dead for over 6 years now, and before that, my mother for at least two decades, possibly longer if you have access to my birth certificate, and yet, always with the formal first name. I, of course, have also been trained, Pavlovian style, with just as many years of constant nagging, mixed with belittling and some well placed neurotic jujitsu that only a Jewish mother seems to know how to apply.
“Yes mother. How is Purgatory?”
“I’m actually not sure I’m still in Purgatory, I think I may have progressed right to hell.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Hell is a lot like a summer in Pittsburgh, without the losing baseball team.”
“Oh, you so funny.”
“Was that a bad Asian accent?”
“I’m working on a number of accents.”
“Good for you. I worry that you are just loafing around and wasting your life.”
“I suppose you called to give me stock tips?”
“Did you buy Apple like I told you to?”
“You said Steve Jobs would died years ago, he died last year. Great call.”
“He was on the list. You have Steve Jobs money, you get to buy extra time on the outside.”
“Is that how it works?”
“How do you think Warren Buffett remains up there?”
“So, hell, how is it?”
“Saddam says hello.”
“Seriously? Saddam Hussein is there?”
“No, I was kidding. He’s in Mormon hell.”
“Only recently did I find out that there was an actual Mormon Hell. A candidate running for president up here in Normal Land used some curse.”
“Ishkabibble?”
“Oh, you know about the Mormon Ishkabibble chant that sends people to Mormon Hell?”
“Saddam told me about it. Well, Saddam heard about it Osama.”
“Wait, Osama Bin Laden went to Mormon hell?”
“Makes sense right? I mean, if you want 73 wives, you just have to have Mormons involved.”
“Ouch.”
“Anyway, I guess one of the Seal Team 6 members was a Mormon, so he kept doing that cute little chant and Bam, Osama is down there with Saddam.”
“How about Hitler?”
“No, he’s over at the Jewish Center right now.”
“No shit.”
“Everyone gets their own little hell.”
“So, Mitt Romney Ishkabibbled me a bunch of times, am I going to Mormon Hell?”
“Maybe, depends on when you die. Maybe though. Certainly you are going to hell. I asked around.”
“Who did you ask? You can’t have a lot of friends in hell.”
“No, but I was in the slop line, waiting for my bloody finger soup, which was cold and over spiced, as usual, and I turned to Mother Teresa and I said, is my son Matthew going to end up here too? She just smiled, you know how she is, but I figured, if anyone knows, she would know.”
“Good enough for me. So, how’s dad?”
“He’s not here, imagine that, you father leaving me, again.”
“He’s in heaven?”
“I guess. They don’t talk about heaven here. There is Mormon hell, there’s regular hell, there is non-believer hell and then there is that Special Hell for televangalists, pedophiles, TV morning show hosts and someone named Beth Libitard.”
“Did you say Beth Libitard?”
“You know her?”
“Yeah, she’s my lesbian attorney.”
“Well, that’s strange. You hardly ever see a lesbian in hell. They most certainly never go to Mormon Hell and there is not a single lesbian in Special Hell. Wait, did you say she was an attorney?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, then all bets are off.”
“So, you called to discuss the benefits of hell?”
“No, I’m calling about the presidential election.”
“Which is our countries version of hell.”
“Oh, look how funny you are all of a sudden.”
“Yes, it’s a Jewish thing.”
“Oh, so now you’re a proud Jew? Too late.”
“Election, get on track. You called?”
“Yes, do everything you can to make sure Mitch Romney gets elected.”
“Mitch?”
“Mitch?”
“His name is Mitt mom, not Mitch.”
“I’m in hell, I could care less. Don’t make me Ishkabibble your ass son.”
“Whatever.”
“Ishkabibble. Anyway, I worry about the United States and Newt Romney is a dangerous whack job.”
“Newt Gingrich, Mom, Mitt Romney is one candidate, Newt Gingrich is another.”
“Which one is the pudgy, multi-married, disgraced former speaker, who seems to have a thing for threesomes?”
“That would be Gingrich.”
“Yes, I like him.”
“OK, so the Hell vote is pushing Gingrich?”
“I don’t speak for everyone in hell smart ass. No, the latest polling in hell has Romney in the lead.”
“Wait, they have polling in hell?”
“Sure, the entire Gallup Organization is located here.”
“Not surprising really.”
“Nielsen Families are all here too. Plus, Focus on the Family has their corporate offices right off the Hell business park.”
“Not surprised at all.”
“Wal-Mart Corporate offices just started construction on a new art museum.”
“Of course.”
“Oh, and Mitt Romney has been sheltering well over 17 million dollars in an account here in Hell, plus rumor has it he has another 17 million in Mormon Hell.”
“Mom, have you been drinking?”
“They don’t allow drinking in hell honey.”
“That was neither a yes or no answer.”
“Well, Mother Teresa and I do have a thing for wine.”
The line began to buzz, as do phone connections from hell do from time to time and then it went dead, which is not a word people in hell mind hearing at all.
I pressed the power button and said hello.
“Matthew?”
She has been dead for over 6 years now, and before that, my mother for at least two decades, possibly longer if you have access to my birth certificate, and yet, always with the formal first name. I, of course, have also been trained, Pavlovian style, with just as many years of constant nagging, mixed with belittling and some well placed neurotic jujitsu that only a Jewish mother seems to know how to apply.
“Yes mother. How is Purgatory?”
“I’m actually not sure I’m still in Purgatory, I think I may have progressed right to hell.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Hell is a lot like a summer in Pittsburgh, without the losing baseball team.”
“Oh, you so funny.”
“Was that a bad Asian accent?”
“I’m working on a number of accents.”
“Good for you. I worry that you are just loafing around and wasting your life.”
“I suppose you called to give me stock tips?”
“Did you buy Apple like I told you to?”
“You said Steve Jobs would died years ago, he died last year. Great call.”
“He was on the list. You have Steve Jobs money, you get to buy extra time on the outside.”
“Is that how it works?”
“How do you think Warren Buffett remains up there?”
“So, hell, how is it?”
“Saddam says hello.”
“Seriously? Saddam Hussein is there?”
“No, I was kidding. He’s in Mormon hell.”
“Only recently did I find out that there was an actual Mormon Hell. A candidate running for president up here in Normal Land used some curse.”
“Ishkabibble?”
“Oh, you know about the Mormon Ishkabibble chant that sends people to Mormon Hell?”
“Saddam told me about it. Well, Saddam heard about it Osama.”
“Wait, Osama Bin Laden went to Mormon hell?”
“Makes sense right? I mean, if you want 73 wives, you just have to have Mormons involved.”
“Ouch.”
“Anyway, I guess one of the Seal Team 6 members was a Mormon, so he kept doing that cute little chant and Bam, Osama is down there with Saddam.”
“How about Hitler?”
“No, he’s over at the Jewish Center right now.”
“No shit.”
“Everyone gets their own little hell.”
“So, Mitt Romney Ishkabibbled me a bunch of times, am I going to Mormon Hell?”
“Maybe, depends on when you die. Maybe though. Certainly you are going to hell. I asked around.”
“Who did you ask? You can’t have a lot of friends in hell.”
“No, but I was in the slop line, waiting for my bloody finger soup, which was cold and over spiced, as usual, and I turned to Mother Teresa and I said, is my son Matthew going to end up here too? She just smiled, you know how she is, but I figured, if anyone knows, she would know.”
“Good enough for me. So, how’s dad?”
“He’s not here, imagine that, you father leaving me, again.”
“He’s in heaven?”
“I guess. They don’t talk about heaven here. There is Mormon hell, there’s regular hell, there is non-believer hell and then there is that Special Hell for televangalists, pedophiles, TV morning show hosts and someone named Beth Libitard.”
“Did you say Beth Libitard?”
“You know her?”
“Yeah, she’s my lesbian attorney.”
“Well, that’s strange. You hardly ever see a lesbian in hell. They most certainly never go to Mormon Hell and there is not a single lesbian in Special Hell. Wait, did you say she was an attorney?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, then all bets are off.”
“So, you called to discuss the benefits of hell?”
“No, I’m calling about the presidential election.”
“Which is our countries version of hell.”
“Oh, look how funny you are all of a sudden.”
“Yes, it’s a Jewish thing.”
“Oh, so now you’re a proud Jew? Too late.”
“Election, get on track. You called?”
“Yes, do everything you can to make sure Mitch Romney gets elected.”
“Mitch?”
“Mitch?”
“His name is Mitt mom, not Mitch.”
“I’m in hell, I could care less. Don’t make me Ishkabibble your ass son.”
“Whatever.”
“Ishkabibble. Anyway, I worry about the United States and Newt Romney is a dangerous whack job.”
“Newt Gingrich, Mom, Mitt Romney is one candidate, Newt Gingrich is another.”
“Which one is the pudgy, multi-married, disgraced former speaker, who seems to have a thing for threesomes?”
“That would be Gingrich.”
“Yes, I like him.”
“OK, so the Hell vote is pushing Gingrich?”
“I don’t speak for everyone in hell smart ass. No, the latest polling in hell has Romney in the lead.”
“Wait, they have polling in hell?”
“Sure, the entire Gallup Organization is located here.”
“Not surprising really.”
“Nielsen Families are all here too. Plus, Focus on the Family has their corporate offices right off the Hell business park.”
“Not surprised at all.”
“Wal-Mart Corporate offices just started construction on a new art museum.”
“Of course.”
“Oh, and Mitt Romney has been sheltering well over 17 million dollars in an account here in Hell, plus rumor has it he has another 17 million in Mormon Hell.”
“Mom, have you been drinking?”
“They don’t allow drinking in hell honey.”
“That was neither a yes or no answer.”
“Well, Mother Teresa and I do have a thing for wine.”
The line began to buzz, as do phone connections from hell do from time to time and then it went dead, which is not a word people in hell mind hearing at all.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Quite possibly the most important parenting advice ever
My middle son Roscoe called me this morning, or at least he tried to call me. As I am sure most of you experience the same sort of collect calls from a state run prison as I do. I get these every morning from my son Roscoe, every morning I tell you, 10 AM, like clock work. Sometimes I take them, most times I pretend I don’t speak English.
“Hero?” I say in my fake Asian accent.
“Yes, this here the phone company, we gots a collect call from Roscow, you cept?”
“Hero?” I say again.
“Yeah, you speak English?”
“Shitty chicken? You want Shitty Chicken?”
“Yeah, she ain’t speak English man.”
I do that because I know Roscoe can hear me and I am sending a message. You know what the message is? Hey Roscoe, you send someone to stick a shiv in my stomach, you better send a real man, got it?
I guess you could say me and Roscoe are having a disagreement.
Here’s how it went down. Couple of weeks ago I get a call, I accept the charges, it’s Roscue, he is all hyped up on prison speed, which I have been told can be pretty fine, and he says the 49ers are gonna kick the Saints ass. I spit coffee I was laughing so hard. I bet him a pack of cigarettes and some porn. First, the best part of me not being in prison is that when I bet some inmate, I am betting the equivalent of something like 10 dollars of money, but to someone in lock up, that’s a shit load of value right there.
Anyway, he bites, he is so confident he is going to take his old man for some smokes and cheap porn that he wants to share a valuable tip with me, I can “get a 60 inch plasma, for real paps, for 300 bucks, for real.”
This is the way he talks, being locked up on a petty drug charge for 18 months now and he has this persona of a real tough guy, but he knows and I know, if it came down to it, I could lay him out with one punch, and if he suckers me into one more shitty deal, I will too. In December he turned me on to a shipment of 17 Antonio Banderas inflatable love dolls, said I could pick them up for 10 bucks a piece and sell them in the city for a hundred each, just stand around, inflate one and people will line up and pay 100 dollars cash for each one.
Now, in retrospect, if you think about it, a grown man, standing in New York City, in the middle of December, with a crate of uninflated Antonio Banderas love dolls of unknown quality, but one inflated and showing a fairly substantial package if you know what I mean, it sounds damn close to absurd and quite possibly obscene. That is, of course, in retrospect. When he first told me about it I was immediately sold on the idea, throw 170 bucks right into the plan and every day for 3 weeks I was standing on a variety of different street corners in New York City, sometimes for 10 or more hours, holding a totally inflated Antonio Banderas Love Doll and a box of 16 more, trying desperately to sell them. Three weeks. I sold 4, and not one for more than five bucks.
If Roscoe was not locked up behind bars, I’d of killed him.
So when he came to me with this great bet, he so sure the ultra gay San Francisco 49ers would kick the collective asses of one of the greatest teams playing the game right now, I jumped in with everything I had. When the 49ers proceeded to wipe the field with the dead carcass of the once proud Saints, I was sobbing into my beer, crying so loudly that my pet monkey Rufus T. Maplethorpe began throwing feces at me because he thought I might be dying and when a monkey senses its owner is in peril, it reacts in the most primitive way imaginable.
The phone rang again a few days ago.
“Marta de car es een zee garage.” I said.
“Yeah, I got a collect call from Roscoe, will you accept the charges?”
“Marta de car es een zee garage.”
“Yeah, he ain’t answering.” The operator hung up.
A couple hours later there was a man on the porch, I figured the mail man was delivering, so I gave him a minute to drop the mail and leave, I don’t really feel comfortable interacting with the mail man ever since I started ordering clown makeup and explosives via mail order from Argentina. The less eye contact, the better is how I have been playing it. I opened the door and checked the box and there was nothing there, which was strange since I had presumed the mail man to have just delivered, and right then a slick little black figure darted toward me from my left. I turned quickly, it was Rocky, this skinny dumb kid who used to live a couple of blocks over. I kicked him in the knee, and as he slid forward, I brought my elbow up and hit him in the jaw. His head shot directly back and my shoe caught the shiv and kicked it out into the snow.
“What you doing Rocky, you gonna stick me?”
He rolled onto the porch, laid up on his back and stared at me. Defenseless. What a pathetic attempt. I looked at him and smiled. “Rocky, you’re a punk. You cold?” He shock his head and I put my hand down and helped him up. “Roscoe put you up to this?” He shook his head yes. “You want some coffee? The girls might have some hot chocolate, I could make you some?” He smiled and we went inside. Try to stick a shiv in me? What the hell, the kid must weight 100 pounds.
The phone rang the next morning. “Yes, yes I will accept the collect charges.”
“Hey dad.”
“Oh, hi Roscoe. How’s everything?”
“Well, could be better.”
“Yeah? Well, me too. You know, almost got spiked my some punk yesterday. Guess what? Apparently the going rate to have your own father stuck is now 50 cents. You hear me son? You were gonna pay that punk 50 cents to stab me in the stomach?”
“I was sending a message.” Roscoe said, seriously.
“Yeah, I got your message. You are one dumb mother fucker.”
“The fruit does not fall far from the tree.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You calling me a homo?”
“Shoe fits.”
“What the hells that mean?”
“Thrice the boxing match.”
“No clue. Not any idea what the fuck you are talking right now. Are you letting the guards hit you in head with night sticks?”
“Yeah.”
I hung up the phone at that point. Not like it was free Verizon minutes, I was actually paying for that useless conversation.
Roscoe is my least favorite son, which is really saying something in my collection of children, because of the 8 or 9 sons, at least 4 of them are in prison, 3 in foreign prisons, and one of those is in Abu Garib, the famous Baghdad prison, and get this, at least once a week, the Baghdad guards email me some terrible picture of my son, naked, covered in peanut butter, or dancing with a scantily clad midget, just some sort of strange shit they make him do to humiliate him. I actually find it funny, but in their culture, it’s just terrible.
Still, Roscoe is the one who hired a kid for 50 cents to stab me, that may be an all time low. No, now that I think about it, there was the exploding six pack of imported French Canadian Queens Ale beer the kids gave me when I turned 28 last year. That was unpleasant as well.
I keep getting asked a lot lately, strangers, emailers, prison guards and republicans running for president, everyone is asking me for advice on parenting. Just because I have 17 children and I seem to have them all under control, or in state custody, other parents want to know how it is done. Newt Gingrich thinks I should write a book.
I was at a park in Cranston a couple of days ago, watching my youngest son throw dirt onto the faces of unsuspecting 4 year olds and this woman sat down next to me on a bench. She was watching her daughter playing in the field about 10 yards ahead of us. My lesbian dog was laying out in the sun and her daughter started to move towards her and she called out, “Millie, leave the doggy alone,” but I told her, not to worry, that dog loves children.
The little girl walked up and started to pet the dog, who glanced up and seemed to appreciate the gesture. Then the girl started to pull the fur, which the kinky side of my dog also seems to like. After a few minutes of that sort of rough stuff, my dog got up to walk away, but the little girl was having none of that, so jumped onto the dogs back as if she was going to ride her like a horse. The mother next to me was a bit alarmed, but I grabbed her arm and assured her that the dog was well trained. I assured that both the young girl and the elderly dog would learn their important lessons. Not 30 seconds later the dog was sprinting across the green grass, the girl screaming for everything she was worth, holding onto the dogs collar until she finally let lose and fell off to the side. My dog slowed, looked back at the crying child and walked a few steps, did that circle dog thing and laid back down.
The mother ran to her uninjured daughter, picked her up and carried her crying young girl back to the bench, scowling at me. “What were you thinking, your dog could have killed my daughter.”
“Your daughter could have killed my dog.”
“What?”
“I said your irresponsible and mean spirited daughter could have killed my dog. She is a dainty old dog.”
“You said she was good with children?”
“Yeah, well, she doesn’t much like it when kids try to ride her like a horse.”
“You are about the worst parent I have ever met.”
“Well, you should read my book.”
“Hero?” I say in my fake Asian accent.
“Yes, this here the phone company, we gots a collect call from Roscow, you cept?”
“Hero?” I say again.
“Yeah, you speak English?”
“Shitty chicken? You want Shitty Chicken?”
“Yeah, she ain’t speak English man.”
I do that because I know Roscoe can hear me and I am sending a message. You know what the message is? Hey Roscoe, you send someone to stick a shiv in my stomach, you better send a real man, got it?
I guess you could say me and Roscoe are having a disagreement.
Here’s how it went down. Couple of weeks ago I get a call, I accept the charges, it’s Roscue, he is all hyped up on prison speed, which I have been told can be pretty fine, and he says the 49ers are gonna kick the Saints ass. I spit coffee I was laughing so hard. I bet him a pack of cigarettes and some porn. First, the best part of me not being in prison is that when I bet some inmate, I am betting the equivalent of something like 10 dollars of money, but to someone in lock up, that’s a shit load of value right there.
Anyway, he bites, he is so confident he is going to take his old man for some smokes and cheap porn that he wants to share a valuable tip with me, I can “get a 60 inch plasma, for real paps, for 300 bucks, for real.”
This is the way he talks, being locked up on a petty drug charge for 18 months now and he has this persona of a real tough guy, but he knows and I know, if it came down to it, I could lay him out with one punch, and if he suckers me into one more shitty deal, I will too. In December he turned me on to a shipment of 17 Antonio Banderas inflatable love dolls, said I could pick them up for 10 bucks a piece and sell them in the city for a hundred each, just stand around, inflate one and people will line up and pay 100 dollars cash for each one.
Now, in retrospect, if you think about it, a grown man, standing in New York City, in the middle of December, with a crate of uninflated Antonio Banderas love dolls of unknown quality, but one inflated and showing a fairly substantial package if you know what I mean, it sounds damn close to absurd and quite possibly obscene. That is, of course, in retrospect. When he first told me about it I was immediately sold on the idea, throw 170 bucks right into the plan and every day for 3 weeks I was standing on a variety of different street corners in New York City, sometimes for 10 or more hours, holding a totally inflated Antonio Banderas Love Doll and a box of 16 more, trying desperately to sell them. Three weeks. I sold 4, and not one for more than five bucks.
If Roscoe was not locked up behind bars, I’d of killed him.
So when he came to me with this great bet, he so sure the ultra gay San Francisco 49ers would kick the collective asses of one of the greatest teams playing the game right now, I jumped in with everything I had. When the 49ers proceeded to wipe the field with the dead carcass of the once proud Saints, I was sobbing into my beer, crying so loudly that my pet monkey Rufus T. Maplethorpe began throwing feces at me because he thought I might be dying and when a monkey senses its owner is in peril, it reacts in the most primitive way imaginable.
The phone rang again a few days ago.
“Marta de car es een zee garage.” I said.
“Yeah, I got a collect call from Roscoe, will you accept the charges?”
“Marta de car es een zee garage.”
“Yeah, he ain’t answering.” The operator hung up.
A couple hours later there was a man on the porch, I figured the mail man was delivering, so I gave him a minute to drop the mail and leave, I don’t really feel comfortable interacting with the mail man ever since I started ordering clown makeup and explosives via mail order from Argentina. The less eye contact, the better is how I have been playing it. I opened the door and checked the box and there was nothing there, which was strange since I had presumed the mail man to have just delivered, and right then a slick little black figure darted toward me from my left. I turned quickly, it was Rocky, this skinny dumb kid who used to live a couple of blocks over. I kicked him in the knee, and as he slid forward, I brought my elbow up and hit him in the jaw. His head shot directly back and my shoe caught the shiv and kicked it out into the snow.
“What you doing Rocky, you gonna stick me?”
He rolled onto the porch, laid up on his back and stared at me. Defenseless. What a pathetic attempt. I looked at him and smiled. “Rocky, you’re a punk. You cold?” He shock his head and I put my hand down and helped him up. “Roscoe put you up to this?” He shook his head yes. “You want some coffee? The girls might have some hot chocolate, I could make you some?” He smiled and we went inside. Try to stick a shiv in me? What the hell, the kid must weight 100 pounds.
The phone rang the next morning. “Yes, yes I will accept the collect charges.”
“Hey dad.”
“Oh, hi Roscoe. How’s everything?”
“Well, could be better.”
“Yeah? Well, me too. You know, almost got spiked my some punk yesterday. Guess what? Apparently the going rate to have your own father stuck is now 50 cents. You hear me son? You were gonna pay that punk 50 cents to stab me in the stomach?”
“I was sending a message.” Roscoe said, seriously.
“Yeah, I got your message. You are one dumb mother fucker.”
“The fruit does not fall far from the tree.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You calling me a homo?”
“Shoe fits.”
“What the hells that mean?”
“Thrice the boxing match.”
“No clue. Not any idea what the fuck you are talking right now. Are you letting the guards hit you in head with night sticks?”
“Yeah.”
I hung up the phone at that point. Not like it was free Verizon minutes, I was actually paying for that useless conversation.
Roscoe is my least favorite son, which is really saying something in my collection of children, because of the 8 or 9 sons, at least 4 of them are in prison, 3 in foreign prisons, and one of those is in Abu Garib, the famous Baghdad prison, and get this, at least once a week, the Baghdad guards email me some terrible picture of my son, naked, covered in peanut butter, or dancing with a scantily clad midget, just some sort of strange shit they make him do to humiliate him. I actually find it funny, but in their culture, it’s just terrible.
Still, Roscoe is the one who hired a kid for 50 cents to stab me, that may be an all time low. No, now that I think about it, there was the exploding six pack of imported French Canadian Queens Ale beer the kids gave me when I turned 28 last year. That was unpleasant as well.
I keep getting asked a lot lately, strangers, emailers, prison guards and republicans running for president, everyone is asking me for advice on parenting. Just because I have 17 children and I seem to have them all under control, or in state custody, other parents want to know how it is done. Newt Gingrich thinks I should write a book.
I was at a park in Cranston a couple of days ago, watching my youngest son throw dirt onto the faces of unsuspecting 4 year olds and this woman sat down next to me on a bench. She was watching her daughter playing in the field about 10 yards ahead of us. My lesbian dog was laying out in the sun and her daughter started to move towards her and she called out, “Millie, leave the doggy alone,” but I told her, not to worry, that dog loves children.
The little girl walked up and started to pet the dog, who glanced up and seemed to appreciate the gesture. Then the girl started to pull the fur, which the kinky side of my dog also seems to like. After a few minutes of that sort of rough stuff, my dog got up to walk away, but the little girl was having none of that, so jumped onto the dogs back as if she was going to ride her like a horse. The mother next to me was a bit alarmed, but I grabbed her arm and assured her that the dog was well trained. I assured that both the young girl and the elderly dog would learn their important lessons. Not 30 seconds later the dog was sprinting across the green grass, the girl screaming for everything she was worth, holding onto the dogs collar until she finally let lose and fell off to the side. My dog slowed, looked back at the crying child and walked a few steps, did that circle dog thing and laid back down.
The mother ran to her uninjured daughter, picked her up and carried her crying young girl back to the bench, scowling at me. “What were you thinking, your dog could have killed my daughter.”
“Your daughter could have killed my dog.”
“What?”
“I said your irresponsible and mean spirited daughter could have killed my dog. She is a dainty old dog.”
“You said she was good with children?”
“Yeah, well, she doesn’t much like it when kids try to ride her like a horse.”
“You are about the worst parent I have ever met.”
“Well, you should read my book.”
Friday, January 20, 2012
Beth is everywhere
The new book, The Tails of Beth Libitard is now officially available on all digital formats, everywhere.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Then this again
Vince from marketing was on the phone this morning, early. Changes were being made, add this, subtract that. I was drinking coffee and trying to take notes, but I missed some of it. I am sure he will call back.
The thing is, "Dancing with Mannequins and Idiots" is being pulled from Amazon, there is something else there, but that is not on the notepad. All posts dealing with the issue of Newt Gingrich must be removed. Some sort of legal thing.
Another legal notice, Rick Santorum is not a Satanist. That much is true.
The long form book, "Dancing with Mannequins and Idiots, a complete guide to the 2012 presidential race, or how to BBQ a cookbook" will be released at an appropriate time, probably about the same time Mitt Romney releases his tax returns.
The thing is, "Dancing with Mannequins and Idiots" is being pulled from Amazon, there is something else there, but that is not on the notepad. All posts dealing with the issue of Newt Gingrich must be removed. Some sort of legal thing.
Another legal notice, Rick Santorum is not a Satanist. That much is true.
The long form book, "Dancing with Mannequins and Idiots, a complete guide to the 2012 presidential race, or how to BBQ a cookbook" will be released at an appropriate time, probably about the same time Mitt Romney releases his tax returns.
Coffee and love
I met Betty Rubble on the suburban streets of Bainbridge Island 12 years ago while I was riding my bike and she was vigorously walking a beach road. I almost ran her over and she screamed something profane at me, I had these headphones in my ears and I think I was listening to U2 at the time, so I could not hear a word she said, but I slowed and turned my bike around, and then I removed an earbud and stopped and waited, she approached and I asked if she had said something to me.
“Yes, I said you’re an asshole and should learn to ride a bicycle.” She continued to walk.
I nodded and put the earbud back in, turned the bike around, started to peddle, harder and faster until I passed her again on her left and dug in and rode away. At that time in my life I rode five or six days a week, rain or shine, almost every day at 10 in the morning. It was my ritual, it was both a punishment and a joy. There was never really a reason I started, although a painful divorce did coincide with the more serious riding, I kept at it, pushing myself, year after year, harder and faster until I was in the best shape of my life, a serious, daily cyclist.
I started to see Betty Rubble often out on the roads and in the various parks, walking. At some point I stopped at the Tree House Café for a quick coffee and she was sitting there and I grabbed my coffee and sat with her. She was wearing a tight, dark pair of runners winter tights, a gray lycra zip up top of some sort and something in her hair that pulled it all back in a bunch. Her face was clean and white, not quite a China doll, but very clean.
“You know who I am?” I asked.
“I know you ride your bike a lot.”
“You called me an asshole a couple months ago.”
“OK.”
“Kind of hurt my feelings.”
“Yeah, looks like you spent a lot of time crying.”
“That and I drink more.”
“Is that helping to ease the pain?”
“Nope, I’m still an asshole.”
“I can tell. My name is Betty, Betty Rubble.”
“I’m Matt.”
From then on I would slow and chat while I was out and about on my cycle. We would have coffee, we exchanged phone numbers and we would meet. We became fast friends. Betty was tall, dark haired, fair skinned, thin, athletic, almost always smiling, naturally stunning and alluring in the most intense way imaginable. She married Fred Flinstone 5 years earlier, they had a 3 year old son named Barney and they seemed very happy with one another. How could they not be, she was amazing, he was some sort of male model, athlete attorney or something. Perfect really.
I liked Fred Flinstone, he was a man who seemed at peace with himself. I am not sure I could pull off his calmness, because here I was, a cyclist, meeting his wife out on the road, for a coffee now and then, sometimes downtown for a donut, we laughed and joked. He knows she and I are enjoying ourselves and yet he does not seem to care in the least. I had met him, we had talked, he seemed like a grounded man. He did not view me as any sort of competition for his wife, which was fine, because I never had been, but my question always remains, how did he know that?
That never really mattered though, how he knew, if he knew or if he just did not care if his beautiful and seductive wife was flirting with the guy on the super sleek Italian cycle. Some men were just not the jealous type.
There is a pier at Point White and sometimes, when I was slow and tired, I would ride my speedy racing cycle down to that pier and instead of continuing to ride, I would just get off my bike and walk out onto the wooden planks and sit over the water and watch fish. I know, thinking back on it I am amazed at how incredibly boring it sounds, but when you consider days of cycling, often the same roads, sometimes over a hundred miles a day, loafing on a pier on a warm spring day staring down on fish swimming below is not really all that bad.
I was laying face down on the pier, watching the small salmon doing some sort of primitive dance and someone walked up and laid next to me, uncomfortably close, I don’t really like a lot of physical contact. I turned to my right, it was Betty. She was radiant, even more so than usual. We were just inches apart, her lips gently touched with a shade of color, but her face naturally tanned and supple. Our eyes met, she did not say anything. I could sense her breath. The closeness shook me. At that point, we were friends and there was a tension when we were with one another, not necessarily a sexual tension, but certainly a palpable chemistry that neither of us seemed to know what to do with, nor to even acknowledge. I just held my stare and we were both looking at one another, but seeing more than one another, for a second, the world slowed, for just a moment we were completely alone, the salmon stopped swimming, there was no traffic and the wind blew to a quiet hush. There was something in her eyes and then there was a tear. All of a sudden, what had been a peaceful scene was now dread and not a word had been spoken. My head gently shook from side to side, hardly noticeable, but then she shook her head, almost in response, subtly up and down. A tear formed in my eye and slid down my cheek.
“Breast cancer.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s 3 fuckin’ years old.”
“Yeah.”
We stared at each other for a long time. Then she said, “why are you laying on the pier?”
“Watching the fish.” Then we both laid face down, side by side, and stared at the fish. Her left hand, above her head, my right hand, reaching out, holding it. I liked that feeling.
“Yes, I said you’re an asshole and should learn to ride a bicycle.” She continued to walk.
I nodded and put the earbud back in, turned the bike around, started to peddle, harder and faster until I passed her again on her left and dug in and rode away. At that time in my life I rode five or six days a week, rain or shine, almost every day at 10 in the morning. It was my ritual, it was both a punishment and a joy. There was never really a reason I started, although a painful divorce did coincide with the more serious riding, I kept at it, pushing myself, year after year, harder and faster until I was in the best shape of my life, a serious, daily cyclist.
I started to see Betty Rubble often out on the roads and in the various parks, walking. At some point I stopped at the Tree House Café for a quick coffee and she was sitting there and I grabbed my coffee and sat with her. She was wearing a tight, dark pair of runners winter tights, a gray lycra zip up top of some sort and something in her hair that pulled it all back in a bunch. Her face was clean and white, not quite a China doll, but very clean.
“You know who I am?” I asked.
“I know you ride your bike a lot.”
“You called me an asshole a couple months ago.”
“OK.”
“Kind of hurt my feelings.”
“Yeah, looks like you spent a lot of time crying.”
“That and I drink more.”
“Is that helping to ease the pain?”
“Nope, I’m still an asshole.”
“I can tell. My name is Betty, Betty Rubble.”
“I’m Matt.”
From then on I would slow and chat while I was out and about on my cycle. We would have coffee, we exchanged phone numbers and we would meet. We became fast friends. Betty was tall, dark haired, fair skinned, thin, athletic, almost always smiling, naturally stunning and alluring in the most intense way imaginable. She married Fred Flinstone 5 years earlier, they had a 3 year old son named Barney and they seemed very happy with one another. How could they not be, she was amazing, he was some sort of male model, athlete attorney or something. Perfect really.
I liked Fred Flinstone, he was a man who seemed at peace with himself. I am not sure I could pull off his calmness, because here I was, a cyclist, meeting his wife out on the road, for a coffee now and then, sometimes downtown for a donut, we laughed and joked. He knows she and I are enjoying ourselves and yet he does not seem to care in the least. I had met him, we had talked, he seemed like a grounded man. He did not view me as any sort of competition for his wife, which was fine, because I never had been, but my question always remains, how did he know that?
That never really mattered though, how he knew, if he knew or if he just did not care if his beautiful and seductive wife was flirting with the guy on the super sleek Italian cycle. Some men were just not the jealous type.
There is a pier at Point White and sometimes, when I was slow and tired, I would ride my speedy racing cycle down to that pier and instead of continuing to ride, I would just get off my bike and walk out onto the wooden planks and sit over the water and watch fish. I know, thinking back on it I am amazed at how incredibly boring it sounds, but when you consider days of cycling, often the same roads, sometimes over a hundred miles a day, loafing on a pier on a warm spring day staring down on fish swimming below is not really all that bad.
I was laying face down on the pier, watching the small salmon doing some sort of primitive dance and someone walked up and laid next to me, uncomfortably close, I don’t really like a lot of physical contact. I turned to my right, it was Betty. She was radiant, even more so than usual. We were just inches apart, her lips gently touched with a shade of color, but her face naturally tanned and supple. Our eyes met, she did not say anything. I could sense her breath. The closeness shook me. At that point, we were friends and there was a tension when we were with one another, not necessarily a sexual tension, but certainly a palpable chemistry that neither of us seemed to know what to do with, nor to even acknowledge. I just held my stare and we were both looking at one another, but seeing more than one another, for a second, the world slowed, for just a moment we were completely alone, the salmon stopped swimming, there was no traffic and the wind blew to a quiet hush. There was something in her eyes and then there was a tear. All of a sudden, what had been a peaceful scene was now dread and not a word had been spoken. My head gently shook from side to side, hardly noticeable, but then she shook her head, almost in response, subtly up and down. A tear formed in my eye and slid down my cheek.
“Breast cancer.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s 3 fuckin’ years old.”
“Yeah.”
We stared at each other for a long time. Then she said, “why are you laying on the pier?”
“Watching the fish.” Then we both laid face down, side by side, and stared at the fish. Her left hand, above her head, my right hand, reaching out, holding it. I liked that feeling.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Even pychopaths have mommy issues
Over a year ago we asked Sketchy the Addict to move out of our house, mostly because we had discovered that Sketchy was not a lot of fun, plus the whole constant online hooking up with strangers whenever we were not looking was kind of gross and dangerous. So we said goodbye to Sketchy and then everyone got tested because, well anything that Sketchy might have touched could have infected us with god knows what.
The weird thing is that when you run with the psycho’s of the world like Little Miss Sketchy, sometimes you feel blessed in a strange way, because it is almost like emotional bungee jumping. You make friends with someone, and for the initial months everything is open and honest and trusting because that person has given you no reason not to question their integrity. So it was with Sketchy, in fact, with Sketchy it was even easier to trust and want to like, because Sketchy was good at pretending to be all clean and sober and living the healthy righteous life. Sketchy was good about pretending to go to “meetings” and telling anyone and everyone about how she overcame her terrible addictions. Oh how Sketchy had suffered from her self inflicted wounds.
The problem with expectations is that when you allow people to think you might be one thing, and then you are exactly the opposite, it’s kind of a let down. Sketchy presented herself as this paragon of integrity because she had discovered the drugs she so enjoyed were actually killing her, so she got her act together, she pulled herself together, she got some rehab and attended all the right meetings and told all the other helpless addicts how she was suffering but stronger. Everything was going well. Until we discovered that everything Sketchy said was a lie. It was not so bad that Sketchy was still using, which I take is a no-no in the whole cleaner than thou mantra of AA/NA/VA/BA/CA whatever, but ever stranger was that Sketchy had also switched much of her addictive behavior from nights snorting anything she could stuff into her rather over inflated nostrils to nights and days cruising the internet for any man with a semi-functioning penis.
So we tossed Sketchy the Addict out of our life and that was that. We even begged, please Sketchy, never ever ever contact us, in any form, such was the betrayal and level of disgust we felt toward Sketchy the addict.
That was over a year ago. In all that time, we have been blessed with not a word, no cards, no snail mail, nothing. So even though Sketchy, who did everything possible to prove she is a woman who can not be trusted, that she is the exact opposite of a woman of integrity, we were lucky to have not heard a word from anything Sketchy. It has been wonderfully quiet. Part of it was that when a true psychopath is finally discovered, the last thing they really want is that bare truth released to anyone else. So it was with Sketchy. As long as Sketchy could continue on with her contemptible behavior without any of her “friends” knowing that she had just exchanged lying about coke and meth for promiscuous sex and online hookups, no one would be the wiser. She could just tell her “friends” that she decided to move on, probably concocting another fake dramatic story that her friends are all too familiar with anyway, so her getting thrown out of another living situation would probably just be filed under “Sketchy drama” and soon forgotten.
One thing I have learned with my interactions with psychopaths is they rarely mix family and friends with their new friends, because then when things go south, (which they always do) the new friends might inform the family and friends what a psychopath everyone else was dealing with. Such it was with Sketchy. While I am sure I could have spent a week tracking down Sketchy’s family and friends and informing them that the clean and sober role model was nothing but a walking/talking STD clinic waiting to gift any unsuspecting person with a variety of treatable and untreatable diseases, I just let it die, because as long as Sketchy was out of our lives, I could easily forget the damage that sort of hysterical drama creates.
Last night I got an email from, oh come on, not Sketchy, because truth be told addicts are really pussies hiding in bullies leather jockstraps. No, Sketchy has some sort of role model mother, a care taker at the Bates Motel somewhere and I got an email from her. Of course psychotics do not just plop out of a vagina fully formed, they must come from some sort of alcoholic and abusive nest, right? So, imagine, an email from the source of Sketchy’s psychosis sending me a lovely little note.
I think I met Mrs. Sketchy once, she was drunk and loud and obnoxious. I believe even Sketchy was ashamed of her, if shame was something Sketchy was even capable of. Sketchy had warned me that Mommy was not far removed from the trailer park, that she was a hard drinker, a grade school drop out with a temper and an inability to comprehend anything deeper than a Rush Limbaugh rant. Even at the time I did not pay it much attention, because in retrospect I must have surmised that Sketchy spoke in a language filled with addict bullshit and self loathing I could not comprehend.
At first the email I recently received, I did not know it was from her, because I have this blog and a number of other public outreach campaigns and a lot of press with a couple of books recently out, so I am being contacted often enough by a lot of strange and unknown email addresses I do not recognize, so when I get strange or stupid email, my standard response is, who is this?
This is what I received:
“Matt,
I don't know what in the world you are thinking.
Leave my Sketchy alone. You don't want me mad.”
The most interesting thing is, I have not contacted Sketchy since we tossed her scary psychotic ass out into the street. What’s even stranger, her scary daughter is a middle aged woman, which in my mind begs the question, why is this complete stranger emailing me in the middle of the night with implied threats, “don’t want me mad?” Honey, you raised a psychopath, I know what you are capable of. I don’t care if you are mad, or drunk, or dragging your knuckles on the ground with a beer in one hand a copy of Truckers Weekly in the other. You did a fine job of screwing up and creating Sketchy the Addict, what could you possibly want with me?
I don’t really know much about Sketchy or her family, since the only real thing I know about Sketchy is that everything thing I did know about her was built on lies. What I do know about liars and bullies is this, they make threats, they scream and yell and then the drugs and alcohol wear off and they return to their boring lives of soap operas and high school sports. It was a major mistake to ever allow Sketchy the Addict in our life, much less our home. The only bigger mistake possible would be either Sketchy or her drunken Mommy dearest to show up at some point.
The weird thing is that when you run with the psycho’s of the world like Little Miss Sketchy, sometimes you feel blessed in a strange way, because it is almost like emotional bungee jumping. You make friends with someone, and for the initial months everything is open and honest and trusting because that person has given you no reason not to question their integrity. So it was with Sketchy, in fact, with Sketchy it was even easier to trust and want to like, because Sketchy was good at pretending to be all clean and sober and living the healthy righteous life. Sketchy was good about pretending to go to “meetings” and telling anyone and everyone about how she overcame her terrible addictions. Oh how Sketchy had suffered from her self inflicted wounds.
The problem with expectations is that when you allow people to think you might be one thing, and then you are exactly the opposite, it’s kind of a let down. Sketchy presented herself as this paragon of integrity because she had discovered the drugs she so enjoyed were actually killing her, so she got her act together, she pulled herself together, she got some rehab and attended all the right meetings and told all the other helpless addicts how she was suffering but stronger. Everything was going well. Until we discovered that everything Sketchy said was a lie. It was not so bad that Sketchy was still using, which I take is a no-no in the whole cleaner than thou mantra of AA/NA/VA/BA/CA whatever, but ever stranger was that Sketchy had also switched much of her addictive behavior from nights snorting anything she could stuff into her rather over inflated nostrils to nights and days cruising the internet for any man with a semi-functioning penis.
So we tossed Sketchy the Addict out of our life and that was that. We even begged, please Sketchy, never ever ever contact us, in any form, such was the betrayal and level of disgust we felt toward Sketchy the addict.
That was over a year ago. In all that time, we have been blessed with not a word, no cards, no snail mail, nothing. So even though Sketchy, who did everything possible to prove she is a woman who can not be trusted, that she is the exact opposite of a woman of integrity, we were lucky to have not heard a word from anything Sketchy. It has been wonderfully quiet. Part of it was that when a true psychopath is finally discovered, the last thing they really want is that bare truth released to anyone else. So it was with Sketchy. As long as Sketchy could continue on with her contemptible behavior without any of her “friends” knowing that she had just exchanged lying about coke and meth for promiscuous sex and online hookups, no one would be the wiser. She could just tell her “friends” that she decided to move on, probably concocting another fake dramatic story that her friends are all too familiar with anyway, so her getting thrown out of another living situation would probably just be filed under “Sketchy drama” and soon forgotten.
One thing I have learned with my interactions with psychopaths is they rarely mix family and friends with their new friends, because then when things go south, (which they always do) the new friends might inform the family and friends what a psychopath everyone else was dealing with. Such it was with Sketchy. While I am sure I could have spent a week tracking down Sketchy’s family and friends and informing them that the clean and sober role model was nothing but a walking/talking STD clinic waiting to gift any unsuspecting person with a variety of treatable and untreatable diseases, I just let it die, because as long as Sketchy was out of our lives, I could easily forget the damage that sort of hysterical drama creates.
Last night I got an email from, oh come on, not Sketchy, because truth be told addicts are really pussies hiding in bullies leather jockstraps. No, Sketchy has some sort of role model mother, a care taker at the Bates Motel somewhere and I got an email from her. Of course psychotics do not just plop out of a vagina fully formed, they must come from some sort of alcoholic and abusive nest, right? So, imagine, an email from the source of Sketchy’s psychosis sending me a lovely little note.
I think I met Mrs. Sketchy once, she was drunk and loud and obnoxious. I believe even Sketchy was ashamed of her, if shame was something Sketchy was even capable of. Sketchy had warned me that Mommy was not far removed from the trailer park, that she was a hard drinker, a grade school drop out with a temper and an inability to comprehend anything deeper than a Rush Limbaugh rant. Even at the time I did not pay it much attention, because in retrospect I must have surmised that Sketchy spoke in a language filled with addict bullshit and self loathing I could not comprehend.
At first the email I recently received, I did not know it was from her, because I have this blog and a number of other public outreach campaigns and a lot of press with a couple of books recently out, so I am being contacted often enough by a lot of strange and unknown email addresses I do not recognize, so when I get strange or stupid email, my standard response is, who is this?
This is what I received:
“Matt,
I don't know what in the world you are thinking.
Leave my Sketchy alone. You don't want me mad.”
The most interesting thing is, I have not contacted Sketchy since we tossed her scary psychotic ass out into the street. What’s even stranger, her scary daughter is a middle aged woman, which in my mind begs the question, why is this complete stranger emailing me in the middle of the night with implied threats, “don’t want me mad?” Honey, you raised a psychopath, I know what you are capable of. I don’t care if you are mad, or drunk, or dragging your knuckles on the ground with a beer in one hand a copy of Truckers Weekly in the other. You did a fine job of screwing up and creating Sketchy the Addict, what could you possibly want with me?
I don’t really know much about Sketchy or her family, since the only real thing I know about Sketchy is that everything thing I did know about her was built on lies. What I do know about liars and bullies is this, they make threats, they scream and yell and then the drugs and alcohol wear off and they return to their boring lives of soap operas and high school sports. It was a major mistake to ever allow Sketchy the Addict in our life, much less our home. The only bigger mistake possible would be either Sketchy or her drunken Mommy dearest to show up at some point.
Foreign press
A book reviewer from a small newspaper somewhere in England called me early yesterday morning to ask about the book I have written about my experience covering the republican candidates running for president, Dancing with Mannequins and Idiots is selling well in England and my marketing maven has been hounding the press people in Europe with promises of obscene quotes about the British royals and frosted cakes if they would just do an interview, so yesterday morning, a Sunday in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, I got a call on Skype from a nice woman in the town of, I believe it was Brumpington on the Louie.
A tiny little bit of personal history. I have no real short term memory to speak of. That is, sadly, true. I had a bicycle accident a few years ago that damaged a tiny bit of my incredibly tiny brain, just a little bit, maybe a cell, but enough to cause me to not remember that last sentence. See how that works?
So, sometimes it works for me. If I dated you in the last 7 years and you have terrible memories of that date, fear not, I do not share those memories. That dangerous car drive we went on together? I don’t recall it. The movie staring that actress? Never saw it. My daughters soccer game? Could not tell you who won. The fight I got into at Macy’s with the large Native American man who claimed that shirt was his? I’d need to see video. That is how my memory works. Sometimes things stick, mostly, they do not.
When it comes to writing, once I finish, I will not recall any of these words, which makes editing a little bit more entertaining, because I come at these things objectively as if I am reading these for the very first time, every time. That said, when a reviewer calls you early on a Sunday morning with what sounds like a fake James Bond accent and starts asking you questions, not only about your book (no clue about anything in the book) but also about two recent blog posts (again, not a clue what she was talking about) it was almost comedic.
She asked me if I really had a dog and I told her there is a collection of stories coming out this week regarding my dog, her law degree from Harvard and the terrible deaths she suffered over the past year.
“Is your dog really named Beth?”
“Yes”
“How did that come about?”
“The naming of the dog?”
“Yes, who names their pet Beth?”
“What is your name again?”
“My name? I am Mortia. I told you that when I emailed.”
“Right. Who named you Mortia?”
“My parents of course.”
“Right. See my point?”
“No.”
“No one chooses their own name, or their parents.”
“I read your book, Dancing with Mannequins and Idiots. How much time did you actually spend in Iowa?”
“Maybe a week.”
“We, some friends and I, question when you take off on fantasy and when you are based in reality. You did not drink a concoction of cough syrup, Viagra and Methamphetamine with Congressman Ron Paul, did you?”
“Well, when you put it like that, in those terms, I would have to speak with my lawyer.”
“Really?”
“I would, but she is sleeping.”
“Your lawyer, Beth?”
“Yeah, she sleeps in on Sundays, I usually do too.”
“So you are not going to answer?”
“I am going to stall until we move on to another question.”
“There is a concern here that the people you profile in your book, the Republican candidates for president of the United States all come across as hypocrites, drug addicts and Satanists.”
“Yes.”
“Is this accurate?”
“That they come across like that?”
“Do you feel like you accurately portray the republican candidates honestly.”
“Yes.”
“Seriously”
“What did you say your name was again?”
“Mortia.”
“Right. I would imagine that there may have been a couple of inaccuracies in the book.”
“Can you give me any example?”
“Yes. When I was picked up by an obviously intoxicated Ron Paul at the airport in Des Moines, he was all high on Viagra and Meth, I think I reported there were three illegal, ugly and ungodly Canadian prostitutes in the backseat of his car.”
“Yes, I meant to ask you about that.”
“Yes, well, there may have been 7, but because 7 would have been hard to believe crammed into the back seat of a small sports car, I cut it back to 3.”
“Is that all?”
“It is quite possible Rick Santorum did not kill a single goat in a Satanist ceremony.”
“You are saying Mr. Santorum is not a Satanist?”
“Not at all, I am suggesting that he killed a barn filled with chickens, angry and vicious chickens.”
“I see. Any other inaccuracies in your book?”
“Twice my own name was spelled wrong.”
“I see.”
“Just keeping it real.”
“Yes.”
With that I clicked the little icon on the Skype screen and the woman from England just disappeared. In the modern world, these sorts of press interviews were going to be easy, sitting in my bed, drinking coffee and talking about things I have no memory of.
A tiny little bit of personal history. I have no real short term memory to speak of. That is, sadly, true. I had a bicycle accident a few years ago that damaged a tiny bit of my incredibly tiny brain, just a little bit, maybe a cell, but enough to cause me to not remember that last sentence. See how that works?
So, sometimes it works for me. If I dated you in the last 7 years and you have terrible memories of that date, fear not, I do not share those memories. That dangerous car drive we went on together? I don’t recall it. The movie staring that actress? Never saw it. My daughters soccer game? Could not tell you who won. The fight I got into at Macy’s with the large Native American man who claimed that shirt was his? I’d need to see video. That is how my memory works. Sometimes things stick, mostly, they do not.
When it comes to writing, once I finish, I will not recall any of these words, which makes editing a little bit more entertaining, because I come at these things objectively as if I am reading these for the very first time, every time. That said, when a reviewer calls you early on a Sunday morning with what sounds like a fake James Bond accent and starts asking you questions, not only about your book (no clue about anything in the book) but also about two recent blog posts (again, not a clue what she was talking about) it was almost comedic.
She asked me if I really had a dog and I told her there is a collection of stories coming out this week regarding my dog, her law degree from Harvard and the terrible deaths she suffered over the past year.
“Is your dog really named Beth?”
“Yes”
“How did that come about?”
“The naming of the dog?”
“Yes, who names their pet Beth?”
“What is your name again?”
“My name? I am Mortia. I told you that when I emailed.”
“Right. Who named you Mortia?”
“My parents of course.”
“Right. See my point?”
“No.”
“No one chooses their own name, or their parents.”
“I read your book, Dancing with Mannequins and Idiots. How much time did you actually spend in Iowa?”
“Maybe a week.”
“We, some friends and I, question when you take off on fantasy and when you are based in reality. You did not drink a concoction of cough syrup, Viagra and Methamphetamine with Congressman Ron Paul, did you?”
“Well, when you put it like that, in those terms, I would have to speak with my lawyer.”
“Really?”
“I would, but she is sleeping.”
“Your lawyer, Beth?”
“Yeah, she sleeps in on Sundays, I usually do too.”
“So you are not going to answer?”
“I am going to stall until we move on to another question.”
“There is a concern here that the people you profile in your book, the Republican candidates for president of the United States all come across as hypocrites, drug addicts and Satanists.”
“Yes.”
“Is this accurate?”
“That they come across like that?”
“Do you feel like you accurately portray the republican candidates honestly.”
“Yes.”
“Seriously”
“What did you say your name was again?”
“Mortia.”
“Right. I would imagine that there may have been a couple of inaccuracies in the book.”
“Can you give me any example?”
“Yes. When I was picked up by an obviously intoxicated Ron Paul at the airport in Des Moines, he was all high on Viagra and Meth, I think I reported there were three illegal, ugly and ungodly Canadian prostitutes in the backseat of his car.”
“Yes, I meant to ask you about that.”
“Yes, well, there may have been 7, but because 7 would have been hard to believe crammed into the back seat of a small sports car, I cut it back to 3.”
“Is that all?”
“It is quite possible Rick Santorum did not kill a single goat in a Satanist ceremony.”
“You are saying Mr. Santorum is not a Satanist?”
“Not at all, I am suggesting that he killed a barn filled with chickens, angry and vicious chickens.”
“I see. Any other inaccuracies in your book?”
“Twice my own name was spelled wrong.”
“I see.”
“Just keeping it real.”
“Yes.”
With that I clicked the little icon on the Skype screen and the woman from England just disappeared. In the modern world, these sorts of press interviews were going to be easy, sitting in my bed, drinking coffee and talking about things I have no memory of.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Parenting advice for dummies
I was at the grocery store this morning and this nice enough man was shopping for fresh vegetables with a young girl who I presumed to be his daughter when I stopped to watch the following interaction.
The young girl walked over the to banana section, found some blackened and rotting bananas and picked them up and threw them in her fathers basket. He looked at them disapprovingly and said, “honey, I think we might want to find fresher ones than those bananas, those ones don’t look so good.” She frowned at him with such a severe look of disgust I was just a little bit shocked and said, “I want those ones” and continued on to look at apples. He wimpishly kept the rotting bananas and followed on to the apples.
I thought to myself, I really should sit down and offer some parenting advice at some point because I have all these children and I have done such a bang up job at it. I mean, some of my children, the ones not in foster care, jail, Haitian detention camps, Disneyworld slave shop manufacturing operations, Damian Hirst exhibitions and sold into the white slave market (I did that as an act of desperation) the ones who made it with me, they all seem fairly well adjusted and if I were to write anything about parenting, I would focus on those, make that, the one that seems to have survived.
Instead my phone rang. My youngest brother Dirk was calling from Denver. He was married just 6 lovely years ago and he has an 8 year old son named Dirk number 4 who is now playing soccer. No one likes Dirk number four, I certainly don’t, it’s why I refuse to go to Denver, even though I am a big Tim Tebow fan. Dirk called to ask me how I got out of coaching youth soccer.
“Seriously,” I asked incredulously, “this is why you call me for the first time in two weeks?”
“Yeah, Margo is all over me about bonding with Dirk Number Four. She has volunteered me to coach a team. I hate it, these kids, all they do is run around in circles, it would drive me nuts. I can’t do it. I remember when you had the twins, Curly and Larry.”
“Moe and Larry.”
“Right, two of the Barkley brothers.”
“Marx brothers, are you high?”
“Little bit.”
“Continue.”
“How did you bag off the coaching of youth soccer.”
“OK, I will tell you my secret, but you must keep this to yourself, because this is some sort of suburban legend of some sort and you can’t ever tell anyone.”
“Got it.”
“OK, take notes. You will get a call from a bald headed serious man who will have a list, he is the organizer of all youth soccer teams. He is a very serious man and he asks a series of very serious questions. When he calls, find a private place where you can focus. He will ask you if you wish to coach youth soccer, you must answer that there is nothing more important in your life than coaching youth soccer. He will say he is impressed with your desire to help children grow. You should sound like you are dedicated. Then he will ask if you are available for some sort of coach training seminar on Saturday. You ask, this Saturday? He will answer, yes, this Saturday. You will ruffle some papers and say, I think so, yes, this Saturday will work just fine. Then he will say, the teams will be coached after school hours, three days a week, 3-5 PM, can you fit that into your schedule. Now you must pause. Here you must explain about your ankle monitoring device and how you will have to contact the judge to see if it is even all right at this point for you to be around kids anymore. They usually hang up at that point.”
“Perfect. That will do it, yes?”
“ To be honest with you, I have never coached a kids team in my life. Never even went to a game. Can’t imagine what sort of hell that would be like.”
“I’ve been, it’s hell.”
“I’d imagine. Why did you go?”
“Margo, she has that Jewish guilt thing that works on me.”
“I believe I was the brother who warned you about marrying a Jewish woman.”
“No, you told me I should marry a Jewish woman. You demanded it. You talked me out of marrying Asian Fong, remember her? My college hotness? Damn, I bet she is still hot too?”
“Imagine being married to someone named Fong? How stupid would that be? I hate that name. If she were named Patty or Cindy I would have said go for it.”
“It’s not really your call though, is it?”
“Apparently it was, you said you married Margo because I demanded it.”
“You suggested it would be wise.”
“I was right, Jewish women are the best.”
“She is driving me crazy.”
“You didn’t let me finish. Jewish women are the best at driving men crazy. Hello? Hello?”
When did hanging up the phone become the norm and acceptable? Seems to me like every phone call I have lately ends with people hanging up on me.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
One Saturday evening
My friend once picked me up from my apartment at 101st and West End Avenue. He had a motorcycle and two helmets. I rode on the back. We did 65 miles per hour and I twisted my neck to the left and watched apartment buildings fly by. We weaved in and out of traffic and pedestrians seemed to walk right next to us and stop. In about 10 minutes we parked, removed the helmets, he pulled some tickets from his jacket, we walked a few feet and we were in a club. The music was softly playing as we held a beer in one hand the helmets in another.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
A little night ballet
Just a couple of months ago I was able to ride my bike all over the place, in part because I was training for a longer ride in the summer of 2012 and in part because it feels good to ride upwards of 100 miles a day on warm and sunny days. I discovered a great little diner in Lawrenceville that serves healthy food, mostly gluten free and they don’t mind if you show up after riding, a little muddy, in bike clothes and possibly a little stinky. At least, I am of the opinion they did not mind that I would show up after a day of riding and most defiantly smelling like someone who put on a lot of miles on a humid day riding around the hills of Pittsburgh.
It’s winter now and I am driving. I blew off whatever sort of date I had last night, but it was getting late and I had been unable to find anything to eat since an early lunch, which consisted of a banana and a yogurt. I found my favorite diner, but parking was impossible and I kept driving, expecting to find a space, but the more I drove, the less my chances seemed to grow. Finally, after what seemed like years had passed I found a place and did a magnificent job of parallel parking, just barely pushing up against the car behind me and hardly removing any paint at all from my own fender as I polished a city parking meter.
I got out, pulled on a sweater and a beanie and started the long walk to the small diner. About a block or so into the walk I felt an old familiar sense of confusion and bewilderment. This was a neighborhood I was unfamiliar with, but I knew I would need a quite place to sit for a moment and I began to frantically look for a stoop or a bench. There was an old plumbing supply place that I spotted, closed for the night, half a block ahead of me, still lit up, but closed, I made it to there and slumped into the doorway.
About an hour later a worn tennis shoe was kicking my leg that was dangling recklessly into the sidewalk. My eyes slowly opened and some man was bent over, looking at me, he was wearing strange large framed glasses, but his face was a blur. I blinked a few more times and tried to remember where I was. He was asking me if I was drunk and did I need help. My mouth was dry and my lips were stuck together and were not moving, so at least I knew I was not engaging this idiot who had already kicked me. I tried to regain some composure and figure out where I was and how I had ended up in this store front doorway.
I sat up. I did not have the energy to stand. I leaned by back against the doorway. I looked up, the gangly assailant looked to be about six feet tall, but young, maybe 20 or 25, thin, not too dangerous, even in my delirium I figured if I had to I could kick his ass, but he had backed off a bit when I sat up. I continued to blink my eyes and my lips had parted, but I had yet to speak. I looked at him again, the glasses were not boxy, they were rather stylish, his face almost angelic, surrounded by badly combed brown hair. I asked, “where are we?”
“Dude, you don’t know where you are? I’m calling paramedics.”
“No, we’re in Pittsburgh,” I said. “Where is this place, right here?”
“Penn Avenue, you were passed out. Are you drunk or high?”
“No, I need food.”
I sat for a while. He introduced himself. Marcus, he of the New York City Ballet, visiting his parents for the holidays. After some time I felt strong enough to stand and we walked the few blocks to the diner. I offered to buy dinner, but he refused, but he sat and drank a chocolate shake, which I found disgusting. I ordered a gluten free pasta with free range chicken and a Tuscan inspired red sauce. I had a glass of the house merlot which was both well priced and delicious.
I like dancers. I was once a dancer, not a professional dancer, well, not even a good dancer, mostly just in my apartment, but I think that should count for something. Before we sat down Marcus took off his heavy winter jacket and his fleece sweatshirt, so all that was left with was some wispy t-shirt and a silk neck scarf. Male ballet dancers are incredibly tall and seriously thin. He is six feet two inches tall and weighs somewhere around 140 pounds. I told Marcus I have a lesbian dog that weighs that much and she is a terrible dancer.
I am neither a dancer or a cyclist. That is to say, I do not have a classic athletes body. I am too thick to be either a serious dancer or a cyclist, but in my house I am a dancer without regard to either age or gravity and on the road, I am a cyclist without regard to aerodynamics or dress codes. Marcus had the body of a professional dancer, incredibly lean and tightly would muscles. The tight shirt showed that he was in prime shape and every movement he made, from hanging his jacket to picking up my fallen cellphone was graceful and sublime.
“Tell me something about you,” he said to me. I smiled and immediately filled my mouth with gluten free pasta.
I mumbled that I am an open book, there was no mystery, no closet with skeletons, no tell all books being written by angry lesbian dogs that know too much but have no access to computers or type writers or any other writing implements. With that last part he looked at me like I might be insane. I made a mental note to stop talking about my dog as if everyone knew all about her.
“And you, what is some deep dark secret you feel obliged to tell me?”
“Like you,” he said, smiling dangerously, “I have no secrets.”
The big glass windows on this lovely little diner open up right onto Penn Avenue and I could look out and watch the trendy hippies scurrying to the gallery opening across the street and I could smile. Then I could turn and Marcus would catch me smiling and look out the window too. There was a time I too was a trendy hippy running to galleries and finding art both confusing and inspiring.
I paid for his shake and my dinner, thanked him for kicking my leg and bringing me back to consciousness and assured him that sometimes, in places not of my choosing, I pass out. He again smiled and said he does the very same thing.
Sometimes it is funny how people flow in and then flow out of our lives. I may not ever see Marcus the New York ballet danced again. That said, I may not ever pass out on Penn Avenue again either. Of course, I did add his email to my cellphone, the keeper of all things important and if I am ever in New York City, I may offer to buy him another shake.
It’s winter now and I am driving. I blew off whatever sort of date I had last night, but it was getting late and I had been unable to find anything to eat since an early lunch, which consisted of a banana and a yogurt. I found my favorite diner, but parking was impossible and I kept driving, expecting to find a space, but the more I drove, the less my chances seemed to grow. Finally, after what seemed like years had passed I found a place and did a magnificent job of parallel parking, just barely pushing up against the car behind me and hardly removing any paint at all from my own fender as I polished a city parking meter.
I got out, pulled on a sweater and a beanie and started the long walk to the small diner. About a block or so into the walk I felt an old familiar sense of confusion and bewilderment. This was a neighborhood I was unfamiliar with, but I knew I would need a quite place to sit for a moment and I began to frantically look for a stoop or a bench. There was an old plumbing supply place that I spotted, closed for the night, half a block ahead of me, still lit up, but closed, I made it to there and slumped into the doorway.
About an hour later a worn tennis shoe was kicking my leg that was dangling recklessly into the sidewalk. My eyes slowly opened and some man was bent over, looking at me, he was wearing strange large framed glasses, but his face was a blur. I blinked a few more times and tried to remember where I was. He was asking me if I was drunk and did I need help. My mouth was dry and my lips were stuck together and were not moving, so at least I knew I was not engaging this idiot who had already kicked me. I tried to regain some composure and figure out where I was and how I had ended up in this store front doorway.
I sat up. I did not have the energy to stand. I leaned by back against the doorway. I looked up, the gangly assailant looked to be about six feet tall, but young, maybe 20 or 25, thin, not too dangerous, even in my delirium I figured if I had to I could kick his ass, but he had backed off a bit when I sat up. I continued to blink my eyes and my lips had parted, but I had yet to speak. I looked at him again, the glasses were not boxy, they were rather stylish, his face almost angelic, surrounded by badly combed brown hair. I asked, “where are we?”
“Dude, you don’t know where you are? I’m calling paramedics.”
“No, we’re in Pittsburgh,” I said. “Where is this place, right here?”
“Penn Avenue, you were passed out. Are you drunk or high?”
“No, I need food.”
I sat for a while. He introduced himself. Marcus, he of the New York City Ballet, visiting his parents for the holidays. After some time I felt strong enough to stand and we walked the few blocks to the diner. I offered to buy dinner, but he refused, but he sat and drank a chocolate shake, which I found disgusting. I ordered a gluten free pasta with free range chicken and a Tuscan inspired red sauce. I had a glass of the house merlot which was both well priced and delicious.
I like dancers. I was once a dancer, not a professional dancer, well, not even a good dancer, mostly just in my apartment, but I think that should count for something. Before we sat down Marcus took off his heavy winter jacket and his fleece sweatshirt, so all that was left with was some wispy t-shirt and a silk neck scarf. Male ballet dancers are incredibly tall and seriously thin. He is six feet two inches tall and weighs somewhere around 140 pounds. I told Marcus I have a lesbian dog that weighs that much and she is a terrible dancer.
I am neither a dancer or a cyclist. That is to say, I do not have a classic athletes body. I am too thick to be either a serious dancer or a cyclist, but in my house I am a dancer without regard to either age or gravity and on the road, I am a cyclist without regard to aerodynamics or dress codes. Marcus had the body of a professional dancer, incredibly lean and tightly would muscles. The tight shirt showed that he was in prime shape and every movement he made, from hanging his jacket to picking up my fallen cellphone was graceful and sublime.
“Tell me something about you,” he said to me. I smiled and immediately filled my mouth with gluten free pasta.
I mumbled that I am an open book, there was no mystery, no closet with skeletons, no tell all books being written by angry lesbian dogs that know too much but have no access to computers or type writers or any other writing implements. With that last part he looked at me like I might be insane. I made a mental note to stop talking about my dog as if everyone knew all about her.
“And you, what is some deep dark secret you feel obliged to tell me?”
“Like you,” he said, smiling dangerously, “I have no secrets.”
The big glass windows on this lovely little diner open up right onto Penn Avenue and I could look out and watch the trendy hippies scurrying to the gallery opening across the street and I could smile. Then I could turn and Marcus would catch me smiling and look out the window too. There was a time I too was a trendy hippy running to galleries and finding art both confusing and inspiring.
I paid for his shake and my dinner, thanked him for kicking my leg and bringing me back to consciousness and assured him that sometimes, in places not of my choosing, I pass out. He again smiled and said he does the very same thing.
Sometimes it is funny how people flow in and then flow out of our lives. I may not ever see Marcus the New York ballet danced again. That said, I may not ever pass out on Penn Avenue again either. Of course, I did add his email to my cellphone, the keeper of all things important and if I am ever in New York City, I may offer to buy him another shake.
Republicans ruin my morning
Oh my, never wake up hung over and turn on your TV hoping for infomercials and preachers with sexy hair and instead find a bunch of Republican presidential candidates.
First, Rick Perry, when not stoned makes a lot of sense. He should only do early morning debates. That should become his new campaign plan. If I ran the Perry campaign, and believe me, I was asked if I would be willing to run the Perry campaign and I said no I am shopping for shoes online at Zappos (paid plug), but if I was stupid enough to take the cash offered from PerryCorp, I would say, only do morning debates, because once Perry starts drinking and doing bong hits, right around 11AM, he loses all his ability to make sense.
Ricky Santorum is funny, I like him, he is adorable and he wears nice suits. If elected president, he would make a handsome 2 dollar bill.
My mother called last night directly from Purgatory and said that she likes Ron Paul and I said, first, how was she able to call from Purgatory and she said they are allowed two calls, and she wanted to hear my voice. So we chatted a bit, I told her the bad news, that my dog was recently attacked by a great white shark, and she was shocked, as was I. She then went on to endorse Ron Paul for president because, and this is a scoop, Ron Paul is dead. I did not know that. My mother has been dead for about 7 years now, so she knows what she speaks.
As a registered Republican I liked on Huntsman and I do plan to support him for president in 2016.
Naughty Newt Gingrich is still debating, but my TV is one of those smart televisions and whenever he spoke, it muted, so I have no clue what he said.
For the life of me, Robot Mitt Romney should bow out now. First, I do believe he will win the nomination, only because he is running against flawed and hopeless idiots and criminals. That said, he will be beaten like a dead horse by the current pretty president who speaks well and looks good in a nice suit.
This country is at a crossroads and having been at a crossroads myself recently, I think I can speak for all Americans who find themselves at a crossroads, it is a very confusing place. A crossroads has all sorts of options, you can go right, or left, you can go straight, or turn around, you can go up or down, you could even go sideways, or this way, or that way, or even, if desperate, you could sit on your hands (like I did) and cry like a baby (which I did).
This country is at a crossroads, my sincere hope is that we as a country do as what Ronald Reagan suggested when people come to a crossroads,"tear down that wall."
First, Rick Perry, when not stoned makes a lot of sense. He should only do early morning debates. That should become his new campaign plan. If I ran the Perry campaign, and believe me, I was asked if I would be willing to run the Perry campaign and I said no I am shopping for shoes online at Zappos (paid plug), but if I was stupid enough to take the cash offered from PerryCorp, I would say, only do morning debates, because once Perry starts drinking and doing bong hits, right around 11AM, he loses all his ability to make sense.
Ricky Santorum is funny, I like him, he is adorable and he wears nice suits. If elected president, he would make a handsome 2 dollar bill.
My mother called last night directly from Purgatory and said that she likes Ron Paul and I said, first, how was she able to call from Purgatory and she said they are allowed two calls, and she wanted to hear my voice. So we chatted a bit, I told her the bad news, that my dog was recently attacked by a great white shark, and she was shocked, as was I. She then went on to endorse Ron Paul for president because, and this is a scoop, Ron Paul is dead. I did not know that. My mother has been dead for about 7 years now, so she knows what she speaks.
As a registered Republican I liked on Huntsman and I do plan to support him for president in 2016.
Naughty Newt Gingrich is still debating, but my TV is one of those smart televisions and whenever he spoke, it muted, so I have no clue what he said.
For the life of me, Robot Mitt Romney should bow out now. First, I do believe he will win the nomination, only because he is running against flawed and hopeless idiots and criminals. That said, he will be beaten like a dead horse by the current pretty president who speaks well and looks good in a nice suit.
This country is at a crossroads and having been at a crossroads myself recently, I think I can speak for all Americans who find themselves at a crossroads, it is a very confusing place. A crossroads has all sorts of options, you can go right, or left, you can go straight, or turn around, you can go up or down, you could even go sideways, or this way, or that way, or even, if desperate, you could sit on your hands (like I did) and cry like a baby (which I did).
This country is at a crossroads, my sincere hope is that we as a country do as what Ronald Reagan suggested when people come to a crossroads,"tear down that wall."
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Our book is free today - only
That’s all true. If you love politics and meth and Viagra, like Ron Paul, or if you worship Satan like one former senator from the once former great state of Pennsylvania, or if you wear magic underwear and cast spells on innocent people, then this book is for you. Say you are the governor of the state of Texas and your biggest accomplishment so far is that you consider yourself to be a pepperoni pizza, this book is exactly what you need right now. Even if you are a one term president who smokes medical marijuana on a beach in Hawaii, this is your chance to catch up on some light reading. Click here, download and get completely misinformed. For free.
If you do not have a Kindle, and really who does? But if you do not, but you have a smart phone, the Kindle App is free. If you have a semi-literate phone, the app remains free. If you have a completely stupid phone, then take it to the river and throw it like a girl as far as you can, run to the phone store and demand an upgrade, then download the Kindle app and run as fast as you can, because at Midnight in Japan, the witching hour as Rick Santorum likes to say, the free book, Dancing with Mannequins and Idiots will go back to its outrageous price of 99 cents.
Wait a second, 99 cents? Seriously? It’s true, you can save just a little less than a dollar if you click right here, right now. It ends at midnight, in some unknowable time zone, so do it quickly. Click that beautiful blue headed man on the right side of this page and that link will take you directly to the free copy of the book. Then you will have it. Want to have some fun? Send that link to everyone you know, just to mess with the people at Amazon. No, I'm kidding, do not do that.
If you do not have a Kindle, and really who does? But if you do not, but you have a smart phone, the Kindle App is free. If you have a semi-literate phone, the app remains free. If you have a completely stupid phone, then take it to the river and throw it like a girl as far as you can, run to the phone store and demand an upgrade, then download the Kindle app and run as fast as you can, because at Midnight in Japan, the witching hour as Rick Santorum likes to say, the free book, Dancing with Mannequins and Idiots will go back to its outrageous price of 99 cents.
Wait a second, 99 cents? Seriously? It’s true, you can save just a little less than a dollar if you click right here, right now. It ends at midnight, in some unknowable time zone, so do it quickly. Click that beautiful blue headed man on the right side of this page and that link will take you directly to the free copy of the book. Then you will have it. Want to have some fun? Send that link to everyone you know, just to mess with the people at Amazon. No, I'm kidding, do not do that.
Seven years on
We do not pick our parents, but we get even, because in the lottery of life, they did not pick us either. I am pretty sure my father never really liked me very much, which was OK, for the most part, I seemed to have spent the better part of my rebellious teenage years more than returning the favor. At some point we declared a truce.
My mother, on the other hand, we had one of those love hate relationships. Apparently mothers have some sort of deep attachment to their youngest child, knowing that when that child grows up and flies away, the nest will be empty, so the mothers tend to really put their claws into the youngest child. Needless to say, I was that youngest child.
My mother was described by both her friends and former friends as loud, garish, obnoxious, insecure, flamboyant, hyper-intelligent, neurotic and probably paranoid. So, it would not be an underestimation to say she was complex. She drove a car like she was racing, she smoked like it was a federal requirement and at some point she took up cussing like a drunken cattle salesman. She was a New Yorker stuck in a small town in Southern California and she was so far out of her element that she seemed to attack the laid back ladies of the golfing set, only because she was wearing fur in 100 degree weather and thought they should be too.
There was a moment in the late 90’s where I was just finally at a point where all my children were out of diapers and I was able to converse with them and play games, board games and outdoor physical games and ride bikes and I could see that our lives were getting much better. Right about that time my mother showed up, in need of diapers and care. A cycle of life playing out right before my eyes. Children progressing forward, my mother in decay.
For the next five years Alzheimers and cancer would decimate her. For a while she remained sharp, but fading. In early 2005 she had a stroke and for a while she hung on in a Seattle hospital. I had to remind myself of that link that the youngest child and their mothers always have. We all knew she would never leave that hospital bed. Machines were keeping her alive for the most part, but the Alzheimers had robbed her of memories and the intelligence that she cherished. The stroke was the final straw. She was helpless and she was dying. At one point the kids came into her room and they all had a chance to say goodbye to her and they did. They left and I was alone with my mother. I held her hand and I whispered in her ear that everything was going to be OK and that it would fine if she wanted to go.
I thought she needed to hear that from her youngest son, the one she had become overly attached to. She died that night, January 7, 2005.
There is the most wonderful postscript to this. My mother was cremated as was her wish. I was living in Seattle and her ashes were in my house for a while, but I was not going to keep them in Seattle and she certainly did not belong in California. It only seemed right that she would return to her native homeland. A dear friend of mine volunteered to take my mother to New York. Which she did. My good friend did the most spectacular thing, because when you think about it, what would you do if you were carting around a backpack with a small foldable shovel and a box of ashes in New York City?
I am not sure how many Native New Yorkers are buried in Central Park, but now, my mother is one of them. That is true.
My mother, on the other hand, we had one of those love hate relationships. Apparently mothers have some sort of deep attachment to their youngest child, knowing that when that child grows up and flies away, the nest will be empty, so the mothers tend to really put their claws into the youngest child. Needless to say, I was that youngest child.
My mother was described by both her friends and former friends as loud, garish, obnoxious, insecure, flamboyant, hyper-intelligent, neurotic and probably paranoid. So, it would not be an underestimation to say she was complex. She drove a car like she was racing, she smoked like it was a federal requirement and at some point she took up cussing like a drunken cattle salesman. She was a New Yorker stuck in a small town in Southern California and she was so far out of her element that she seemed to attack the laid back ladies of the golfing set, only because she was wearing fur in 100 degree weather and thought they should be too.
There was a moment in the late 90’s where I was just finally at a point where all my children were out of diapers and I was able to converse with them and play games, board games and outdoor physical games and ride bikes and I could see that our lives were getting much better. Right about that time my mother showed up, in need of diapers and care. A cycle of life playing out right before my eyes. Children progressing forward, my mother in decay.
For the next five years Alzheimers and cancer would decimate her. For a while she remained sharp, but fading. In early 2005 she had a stroke and for a while she hung on in a Seattle hospital. I had to remind myself of that link that the youngest child and their mothers always have. We all knew she would never leave that hospital bed. Machines were keeping her alive for the most part, but the Alzheimers had robbed her of memories and the intelligence that she cherished. The stroke was the final straw. She was helpless and she was dying. At one point the kids came into her room and they all had a chance to say goodbye to her and they did. They left and I was alone with my mother. I held her hand and I whispered in her ear that everything was going to be OK and that it would fine if she wanted to go.
I thought she needed to hear that from her youngest son, the one she had become overly attached to. She died that night, January 7, 2005.
There is the most wonderful postscript to this. My mother was cremated as was her wish. I was living in Seattle and her ashes were in my house for a while, but I was not going to keep them in Seattle and she certainly did not belong in California. It only seemed right that she would return to her native homeland. A dear friend of mine volunteered to take my mother to New York. Which she did. My good friend did the most spectacular thing, because when you think about it, what would you do if you were carting around a backpack with a small foldable shovel and a box of ashes in New York City?
I am not sure how many Native New Yorkers are buried in Central Park, but now, my mother is one of them. That is true.
Friday, January 6, 2012
A smartphone resolution
I don’t believe in New Years resolutions, only because in the past they only set me up for failure. After my son was born in the early 90’s, my initial leap into resolutions was to never have another child. Later that year, my wife at the time, Becky, gave birth to twins, as some sort of cosmic punishment for me for A-resolving to not fathering any more children and B-not heating the house during the cold winter months, leaving us with very few options for staying warm. So we had the baby girls, but that was it, no more babies for me, the very next New Year, I resolved dammit it, no more babies.
Nine months later, my new wife, Becky point 2 gave birth to our very first baby, who we lovingly named Tuberculosis in honor of Becky.2’s father who had died 20 years prior to the birth of baby Tuberculosis from a rare genetic disease commonly referred to as drunkenly getting hit by a taxi cab in Hong Kong. I, of course, lobbied for the name Drunken Loser, but Becky.2 was a strong woman and wanted to honor her father, so we compromised, which is what healthy couples learn to do, or they get divorced. We divorced later that year.
My resolution at the end of that year was to never ever ever get married again. In Febuary of that next year I got married, but it was romantic because it was February 14th, which is a romantic day, because it was the day Jesus was given chocolate by the three stupid men. As opposed to the Wise Men who gave him the Mir Space Craft, Frakenstein and a candle. A lot of people did not read that chapter in the bible about the 3 stupid men, but it’s right there, after Corninthians, but before the cookbook part, I forget what it’s called, and if I take the time to edit this (highly unlikely because this years resolution was No Editing) I will find which chapter deals with the three stupid men who made February 14th the day Jesus got chocolate.
As a side note, for Rick Santorum and all the other holier than thou people, it just seems to me, Jesus spent a heck of a lot of time with wise men, stupid men, men in dresses and other garments that look a heck of a lot like dresses, prostitutes, vagrants, drug addicts, cross dressers, people who sure spent a lot of time turning water into wine and the like. I’m not saying anything about gay marriage or anything, but if you asked me was Jesus, you know, accepting of alternative lifestyles, well, he was the son of an unwed mother who always claimed that his father was, well out of the picture, and all the guys I know who come from such situations are, if lucky, super gay. Just saying.
Back to resolutions. I married another Becky after Becky.2 but because the new Becky was from a foreign land, Ireland I believe, only judging from her accent and her inability to read English and unwillingness to use birth control of any sort, we had a long a fruitful relationship. When asked in the international court of law to define “long and fruitful” I swore on the Koran that I took it to mean the making of 17 children and having less than 14 affairs, which of course was a lie, because at the time I was both an astronaut and a fairly well know standup comic in the Ukraine, which made sexual conquests easy by American standards, which is to say, if you can still get erections after a gallon of home made vodka, you can pretty much do whatever it is you want.
There is a decent chance that I am personally responsible for as many as 15 thousand children in various parts of the former Soviet Union, but who is counting, really. I am not proud of that decade, although, truth be told, I am kind of proud. First, I learned that when you barf in space, no one can hear you, even mission control, who at the time was the same woman who now speaks so seductively for the Verizon Corporation when you call to complain that your 800 dollar texting bill that seems just a little steep. “I’m sorry sir, but that line is currently understaffed and you’re wait time is approximately 15 thousand hours, would you like to hold, or would you just prefer to bend over now and we could have a burly Verizon subcontractor stop by between the hours of 6AM and midnight to savagely abuse you in ways once thought unimaginable?”
This year, when I woke up on the first of January and realized I had made it to a brand spanking new year, without either a brand or a spanking, I decided that I would not make any resolutions. That’s when I saw the man in the cheap suit laying next to me. Now, if you are like me, and chances are you are not, because you did not wake up with a fat man in a bad suit next to you on New Years day, holding an envelope that read, hand to the hairy fat man on New Years Day. As I tried to sneak out of bed, the badly dressed bald guy woke up in an instant and said, “you be served,” and stood up, walked downstairs, kicked my lesbian dog for good measure and left. The dog kicking is true and I found that sort of abuse both mean spirited and well, deserved, because quite honestly, what the hell do I even have a lesbian dog for if not to stop these sorts of situations from transpiring in the first place?
That said, Becky.4 filed for divorce. Which is good really, I am tired of being married. I am tired of the responsibility that comes with marriage, the constant “hello, how may I service you today” sort of thing I am always saying, and “how may I help you with that Mercedes Class C sedan you carjacked this morning, honey?” I guess at this point I can honestly say I am not good at relationships, most of my exes are either convicted felons, living fulltime in hostels in the seedier parts of Paris or running as republican presidential candidates.
That is all over now. I have decided to dedicate my life to being a modern man. In fact, even though I am a week or so late, I have made a resolution for this year to be a completely modern man. I even bought a cellphone, a smart cellphone, one that has a screen and buttons and the ability to read minds and tell me deep dark secrets. I hold my cellphone and look at the screen and the apps and I wait for it to direct my life in ways that I once thought were unimaginable. A new world in opening for me, right there in my hand. This cellphone has changed everything. I am told I will be able to find restaurants, dates and bike shops at the press of a pretty button. I am a digital man now and the world is my electronic oyster. Of course, I will have to call my ex-NASA co-worker to get some service of some sort and that could take literally months of negotiations, but once I have what the kids like to call a service plan and soon after that I master how to actually turn the damn thing on, then and only then will I figure out if this glorious new digital world that has opened in the palm of my hand that currently is no more than just a series of circuits and electronic pinger splazzes, because right now, that 500 dollar phone is being used by my dog to cover the bruise she received from the angry New Years day divorce process server.
Nine months later, my new wife, Becky point 2 gave birth to our very first baby, who we lovingly named Tuberculosis in honor of Becky.2’s father who had died 20 years prior to the birth of baby Tuberculosis from a rare genetic disease commonly referred to as drunkenly getting hit by a taxi cab in Hong Kong. I, of course, lobbied for the name Drunken Loser, but Becky.2 was a strong woman and wanted to honor her father, so we compromised, which is what healthy couples learn to do, or they get divorced. We divorced later that year.
My resolution at the end of that year was to never ever ever get married again. In Febuary of that next year I got married, but it was romantic because it was February 14th, which is a romantic day, because it was the day Jesus was given chocolate by the three stupid men. As opposed to the Wise Men who gave him the Mir Space Craft, Frakenstein and a candle. A lot of people did not read that chapter in the bible about the 3 stupid men, but it’s right there, after Corninthians, but before the cookbook part, I forget what it’s called, and if I take the time to edit this (highly unlikely because this years resolution was No Editing) I will find which chapter deals with the three stupid men who made February 14th the day Jesus got chocolate.
As a side note, for Rick Santorum and all the other holier than thou people, it just seems to me, Jesus spent a heck of a lot of time with wise men, stupid men, men in dresses and other garments that look a heck of a lot like dresses, prostitutes, vagrants, drug addicts, cross dressers, people who sure spent a lot of time turning water into wine and the like. I’m not saying anything about gay marriage or anything, but if you asked me was Jesus, you know, accepting of alternative lifestyles, well, he was the son of an unwed mother who always claimed that his father was, well out of the picture, and all the guys I know who come from such situations are, if lucky, super gay. Just saying.
Back to resolutions. I married another Becky after Becky.2 but because the new Becky was from a foreign land, Ireland I believe, only judging from her accent and her inability to read English and unwillingness to use birth control of any sort, we had a long a fruitful relationship. When asked in the international court of law to define “long and fruitful” I swore on the Koran that I took it to mean the making of 17 children and having less than 14 affairs, which of course was a lie, because at the time I was both an astronaut and a fairly well know standup comic in the Ukraine, which made sexual conquests easy by American standards, which is to say, if you can still get erections after a gallon of home made vodka, you can pretty much do whatever it is you want.
There is a decent chance that I am personally responsible for as many as 15 thousand children in various parts of the former Soviet Union, but who is counting, really. I am not proud of that decade, although, truth be told, I am kind of proud. First, I learned that when you barf in space, no one can hear you, even mission control, who at the time was the same woman who now speaks so seductively for the Verizon Corporation when you call to complain that your 800 dollar texting bill that seems just a little steep. “I’m sorry sir, but that line is currently understaffed and you’re wait time is approximately 15 thousand hours, would you like to hold, or would you just prefer to bend over now and we could have a burly Verizon subcontractor stop by between the hours of 6AM and midnight to savagely abuse you in ways once thought unimaginable?”
This year, when I woke up on the first of January and realized I had made it to a brand spanking new year, without either a brand or a spanking, I decided that I would not make any resolutions. That’s when I saw the man in the cheap suit laying next to me. Now, if you are like me, and chances are you are not, because you did not wake up with a fat man in a bad suit next to you on New Years day, holding an envelope that read, hand to the hairy fat man on New Years Day. As I tried to sneak out of bed, the badly dressed bald guy woke up in an instant and said, “you be served,” and stood up, walked downstairs, kicked my lesbian dog for good measure and left. The dog kicking is true and I found that sort of abuse both mean spirited and well, deserved, because quite honestly, what the hell do I even have a lesbian dog for if not to stop these sorts of situations from transpiring in the first place?
That said, Becky.4 filed for divorce. Which is good really, I am tired of being married. I am tired of the responsibility that comes with marriage, the constant “hello, how may I service you today” sort of thing I am always saying, and “how may I help you with that Mercedes Class C sedan you carjacked this morning, honey?” I guess at this point I can honestly say I am not good at relationships, most of my exes are either convicted felons, living fulltime in hostels in the seedier parts of Paris or running as republican presidential candidates.
That is all over now. I have decided to dedicate my life to being a modern man. In fact, even though I am a week or so late, I have made a resolution for this year to be a completely modern man. I even bought a cellphone, a smart cellphone, one that has a screen and buttons and the ability to read minds and tell me deep dark secrets. I hold my cellphone and look at the screen and the apps and I wait for it to direct my life in ways that I once thought were unimaginable. A new world in opening for me, right there in my hand. This cellphone has changed everything. I am told I will be able to find restaurants, dates and bike shops at the press of a pretty button. I am a digital man now and the world is my electronic oyster. Of course, I will have to call my ex-NASA co-worker to get some service of some sort and that could take literally months of negotiations, but once I have what the kids like to call a service plan and soon after that I master how to actually turn the damn thing on, then and only then will I figure out if this glorious new digital world that has opened in the palm of my hand that currently is no more than just a series of circuits and electronic pinger splazzes, because right now, that 500 dollar phone is being used by my dog to cover the bruise she received from the angry New Years day divorce process server.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Drama in paradise
Big mistake, not only is Cindy BingBang stupid and self centered, she is one of those people who can not even do something simple like go to the grocery store without it becoming opera level drama. So I set the phone down while she began the detailed description of whatever it was that had happened.
I had to walk down three flights of stairs to the kitchen, clean the coffee from the drainer, rinse that out, turn the grinder on, which makes an awful racket by the way, put a new filter in the machine, get fresh water into the back of the coffee maker, pour the freshly ground beans into the fresh filter, shut the entire mess up and turn it on, stand back and watch with anticipation as everything started to happen.
So I figured, while I was waiting, I may as well have a banana. Which I did. I like bananas, they are the staple of my diet. A few weeks ago I met with a nutritionist and I told her that since this past summer when I found out that me and gluten could not longer get along, bananas were now my go-to fruit of choice and the nutritionist, who’s name I do not recall, so I will call her Becky, as in SuperInShape Becky, said, “Oh bananas are really healthy.”
So, I ate a banana for breakfast and watched as the coffee was dripping into the carafe. Which reminded me, about a week ago my less than a year old coffee machine died, just one morning it stopped making coffee, which was not such a bad thing because it was a shitty design and I grew to hate it. This is what I hate about cheap foreign developed coffee makers, and I do not want to sound like some pampered American jerk face here, but seriously, if you are making something that holds a fluid that is to be poured, the very least that product should do is pour the god damned fluid without spilling it every damn time because the lip of the carafe is designed in such a shitty fashion that it automatically spills drops of coffee every morning. Then again, that coffee maker is gone and I no longer have to deal with that.
There was enough fresh brewed coffee in the new carafe and I took it’s pretty chrome handle and poured myself a cup and noticed that it was dripping on the newly installed tile cabinet top and I got a little pissed, because once again I had some sort of design flaw piece of shit coffee carafe that was going to slowly drive me insane and it was right then I realized I’d left the phone sitting next to my computer up three flights of stairs, so I slowly began the trek back to my bedroom.
I made it up, but by the time I got there I had to piss, so I took care of that, because the last thing I wanted to do was sit up in my bed, talking on the phone with Cindy Bingbang and drinking freshly brewed coffee with that feeling that I would soon have to piss. I took care of that, crawled into bed, picked up the phone and she said, “is that not the most fucked up thing you have ever heard?”
I said, “I am kind of speechless right now.”
“I know, right?” So, what do you think I should do?”
“Well,” I started, not sure at all what she should do since I had no clue whatsoever what she had been yammering about for the last 5-10 minutes. I decided to do some sort of jazz improvisation advice thing. “As you well know I’m not a relationship expert by any means, but just for your self esteem alone, I think you might want to take a break.”
“Huh? It was the wrong pizza that got delivered twice, what the fuck are you talking about? I should break up with Papa Johns? Are you high at 7:30 in the morning?”
“Is it 7:30 in the morning?”
“It most certainly is.”
“What the hell are you calling me at this ungodly hour for and telling me some bullshit story about pizza? My lord, what the hell is wrong with you.”
With that I hung up. Drank some coffee. Turned on the radio and sat there and thought to myself that maybe I should buy a better coffee maker.
Right wingers needed
It's not often that people find work for the far right, but it happens. I think. I could be wrong. More often than not lately, I have been wrong. Here is the link.
Legally speaking
He had a point.
Yesterday I stopped by my local doctors office to get a booster shot, nothing serious, a normal visit, I would not even be seen by my incredibly sexy doctor, who I like to call Dr. SexyPants. She does not appreciate that and has even threatened me with some sort of frivolous lawsuit, but I remind her that not only do I have an Australian lesbian Harvard educated lawyer living with me, but I have no less than 2 somewhat free lawyers on call. She did not believe me, so to prove it to her, one time I actually called one.
Me; Hi it’s matt.
Lawyer; Yes.
Me; I’m calling to prove to my doctor that you are indeed a real lawyer and if she actually files a sexual harassment lawsuit against me you would happily fight it and probably file some sort of anti-defamation frivolous lawsuit against her wealthy doctor ass, am I right?
Lawyer; Who is this?
Me; It’s me, Matt.
Then the phone went dead. This was back when I had AT&T. In fact, as I write that I am making a mental note to call my lawyer and file a series of frivolous lawsuits against AT&T because it was their negligence that interfered with my inability to file numerous other frivolous lawsuits in the past, herewith.
There I was in the doctors office and my favorite nurse took me back for the basics, height and weight, temperature and blood pressure. She weighed me and I had lost 10 pounds and she noted that and I said to her, “look I’ve lost 10 pounds.” This is why she is my favorite nurse of all recorded history. First, if it was legal, she would have a cigarette hanging from her mouth at all times, lit of course. She is about four feet tall, with gray hair and eyes that suggest she has seen a lot of turmoil in her life. She also has a wonderful sense of humor and always greets me with a smile and asks how “her favorite patient is doing?” She looked at me standing in front of her, 10 pounds lighter than the last time I was weighed on that very scale, and then looked me up and down and said, coughing a little phlegm at first, “could lose another 10, wouldn’t hurt ya any.”
She took me back to an exam room and had me remove my shirt so she could administer the shot. When she came turned around with the needle and looked me over, she reassessed and said, “make it another 15 pounds and you’ll be fine, handsome.” Still, I like her style.
As she was about to give me the shot I asked her how many other patients she had used that same needle on and out came that lovely smokers cough and she got all serious, “they throw needles away after they use them” and I asked if they always do that with every needle and she said, “of course.” So I told her about a hospital visit I had in Seattle some time ago.
I had a bike accident many years ago in Alaska, where I broke a bone in my spine and during my recovery, at some point, they did some sort of super magic test where they shot some dangerous nuclear toxic fluid into my blood and had me sit in an uncomfortable chair that seemed to float in space while these giant magnets of some sort spun wildly around me, this would map the broken bone fragments, or something.
The key point was they inject you with this toxic nuclear fluid. I should say they inject US with this toxic nuclear fluid. There were four patients in that waiting room. A nurse came in and injected the woman next to me with something, refilled the syringe and gave her some more of the good stuff, then she turned to me, refilled that very same syringe and injected me, refilled in once more and did the same thing. It was right about then that I mustered the courage to ask if it was proper hospital etiquette to reuse a syringe and she assured me that they always dispose of a syringe after each use. Which of course, she did not do, as I had just witnessed.
I did the magnet chair test, I healed, my life continued. Then yesterday I asked the smoker friendly nurse about this as she laughed so hard I thought she would cough out a lung. “That never happened,” she said to me.
I put my shirt back on after the shot and I had to sign some papers. As I was leaving, outside the clinic, under a tree, in the freezing cold, there stood my favorite nurse, smoking a cigarette. She noticed me as I was leaving and called out, “that didn’t really happen with the syringe, in Seattle did it?” I nodded and said, yes it did. She smiled, “if it did, you should call a lawyer.”
Call a lawyer? Who does things like that?
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Only in memory
I have a thing for old Jewish women. There I was recently, in the strange courtyard of a Jewish rehab facility for elderly people and I was sitting with an older woman in a wheelchair and she was not so happy, but we found reason to laugh. At some point she asked me if I had ever had Chemo treatment and I said not in the last few weeks, which is true. She asked me if I thought it was a worthwhile adventure for an older woman in her 80's. I said no, I did not.
There are small bronze statues in the heavily shaded area where we were sitting, she sipping root beer, me sweating and a little exhausted. She asked me why I would suggest she forego Chemo and I said for most people the tradeoff is not worth it and that is especially true with people who are really old. I told her the breast cancer treatment my mother went through in her 80's was probably the last straw that killed her.
She sipped her root beer. I think we talked about my bike ride the day before, I was kind of glowing from the adventure of riding hills and mountains around Southern California. I wheeled her to the lunch area where there was a literal gaggle of gray haired old Jewish women, all of whom were beautiful and lively, even in their various states of recovery from their various illnesses. Beautiful women remain stunning even in a time of personal tragedy, this is something I have seen before.
Much like my own mother, my friend kept offering me cookies from her lunch plate, but I cannot eat cookies anymore, so I suffered, which seemed appropriate. Soon after she had to go to a specialist and I had to go buy baby clothes, because one of my best friends has recently become a proud father. As I was driving away from the Jewish rehab facility, all I could think of was how sublime older Jewish women are and how it is always such an inspiring honor just to sit with one in a moment of introspection.
Yesterday that amazing woman passed away. It pains me to know she is gone, but she was in pain and we all can only take so much before we say enough. Her courage, strength and humor will settle in over all who ever had the honor of knowing her.
There are small bronze statues in the heavily shaded area where we were sitting, she sipping root beer, me sweating and a little exhausted. She asked me why I would suggest she forego Chemo and I said for most people the tradeoff is not worth it and that is especially true with people who are really old. I told her the breast cancer treatment my mother went through in her 80's was probably the last straw that killed her.
She sipped her root beer. I think we talked about my bike ride the day before, I was kind of glowing from the adventure of riding hills and mountains around Southern California. I wheeled her to the lunch area where there was a literal gaggle of gray haired old Jewish women, all of whom were beautiful and lively, even in their various states of recovery from their various illnesses. Beautiful women remain stunning even in a time of personal tragedy, this is something I have seen before.
Much like my own mother, my friend kept offering me cookies from her lunch plate, but I cannot eat cookies anymore, so I suffered, which seemed appropriate. Soon after she had to go to a specialist and I had to go buy baby clothes, because one of my best friends has recently become a proud father. As I was driving away from the Jewish rehab facility, all I could think of was how sublime older Jewish women are and how it is always such an inspiring honor just to sit with one in a moment of introspection.
Yesterday that amazing woman passed away. It pains me to know she is gone, but she was in pain and we all can only take so much before we say enough. Her courage, strength and humor will settle in over all who ever had the honor of knowing her.
Making golf unsafe for everyone
That said, I just have no time for traditional golf, I’m a busy man. So a few years ago my good friend Hector and I got completely drunk one early morning, which is apparently what most golfers do anyway, and we proceeded to revolutionize the entire “sport” of golf.
First things first, golf is no more a sport than auto racing, archery or piloting small aircraft. Sure, these things all take a tiny bit of skill and reading a pamphlet of some sort with directions, but give me about 20 minutes and a decent cup of coffee and I could probably represent my country in the Olympics in any of these so-called sports.
Since we all agree that golf is not a sport, yet I got drunk and found a way to make it a sport. The secret, remove the whole part about getting that stupid little ball into the hole. My lord, do you have any idea how long that takes? Plus, that was the part that slowed the entire process down. Hector pointed that out right as we finished our first six pack of imported Bosnian beer. Hector said to me, “whyn’t we just skip the hole and hit it as far as possible an then run after it as fast as we can an hit it again?”
Brilliant, right? Thus, golf on speed (SpeedGolf) was born. Now, traditional golf has all sorts of silly rules, from Mulligans, to the infamous 7th hole reach around, which I was never comfortable with. In Speed Golf, you have exactly one minute per hole. Yes, you heard that correctly, one minute. Since we removed the goal of getting the little white ball into the small hole in the green, the real goal is to get it close to the green as possible and move on.
I’d like to say that Speed Golf is a gentlemans game, but much like the excessively slumber inducing tranny game played by the slow witted drag dressers, this game is unfriendly and best played drunk. People in a hurry are often angry and bitter. Plus, you have only 18 minutes to finish all 18 holes and you had best be in good shape. On most Speed Golf courses, the 15th hole usually has a few ambulances waiting because that’s traditionally where the heart attacks start. This, my friends, is a real sport.
In traditional golf it is almost unheard of to injure your knee, because golf has a low impact on your body, because for the most part, it is a slow game played by fat people. In Speed Golf, if you are moving through the course faster than the players in front of you, the rules require you to attack them with 9 irons, with shots to the knees. It’s not pretty and it can be dangerous, but it’s in the rules and it’s required.
Another aspect in Speed Golf that is completely different from tradition golf is the lack of silence. When I was playing boring old traditional golf you may hear some geezer whimper out a call of “fore” from some distance, but chances are he was even then too weak to really be hitting a ball anywhere near hard enough to actually be worthy of a warning. In Speed Golf yelling is part of the glory of the game, it’s required and again, if you go more than two holes without cussing, screaming at your partners or pissing on the green, out comes the nine iron and you’d best protect your groin.
This is not your grandfathers golf game. In fact, when I first played Speed Golf with my own grandfather, he used a platinum putter on my right temple on the third hole and screamed at me, “who’s winning now asshole” and I jumped to my feet and high fived him. Of course, by the ninth hole an ambulance hauled his lazy ass away, grandpa was not in the shape he thought he was and I will always miss that old coot.
Sure, Speed Golf is not for everyone. You are not allowed the wear those garish gay “golf” clothes that have become the fashion of suburban bozos around the world. No, multi-colored short shorts are part of the new look for Speed Golf, or just jock straps. Man up guys, you have 18 minutes to make it through the entire course, you won’t have time to complain while your sprinting around the acres and acres of grassy hills and men screaming out in pain and pissing on the greens.
A lot of older men become golfers because their bodies have begun to let them down and the only “sport” they can still do is hit a tiny ball with a stick. In Speed Golf that attitude is literally tossed on it’s head, and when I say tossed on it’s head, Speed Golfers will literally toss the slow, badly dressed traditional golfers on their head if they happen to wander onto the playing field of the rambunctious Speed Golfers, who are not only drunk and dangerous, but willing to use golf clubs as weapons on their own friends, imagine what they would do to others wearing garish pants and blank looks on their unwitting faces.
Speed Golf, coming to a public course near you.
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