Atop the 4th of July

After 5 full minutes of convincing, Kristi agreed to go on the double ferris wheel with Jim, and now damn! if they weren't stuck at the pinnacle of the mechanically-failed ride.


Their bench seat gently rocked commanding the grandest vista of distant greenery in full summer glory, and the shimmer of the river in the distance only added majesty worthy of commitment to canvas as a fine painting.


It wasn't turning out as Jim hoped, but he had one arm around Kristi's shoulders and, with the other, held her hand gently in his lap, her head nestled squarely into his shoulder whose firmness brought reassurance, almost palpably absorbing her anxiety.


He softly chided her, successful in getting her to open her eyes, coaxing her to look toward the horizon, instead of looking down.


He tilted her chin for her eyes to meet his, "We're on top of the world, Kristi,, our world, and it's our chance to look beyond instead of down or back, honey," and he paused to inhale deeply.


"Will you marry me?"

The Poor Sad Fate of Letterville

Q and U had been together since forever, shacking up in perfect union and the envy of every couple in Letterville, including the double consonants who liked living with their respective twins near the foothills.


Nobody ever quite figured out why K, Z, Y and J were loners, but there was always gossip about Y’s being trans-letteral, often dressing up like--and going out into print as--a vowel, tho' never had Y been as notorious as.... X.


O, E, A and I weren’t exactly shunned despite their slutty reputation for hanging-out everywhere with just about anyone, yet irony found some envying their popularity.


Q loved U unconditionally and she put him above all others, despite her appetitite for wanderlust and occasional flings with the vowels and, when U and Y hooked up, look out!


Some Letterites would hang in pairs and sing so prettily in their off- and on-again relationships that they grabbed attention performing “Diphthongs” in public to the delight of both, eye and ear.


The sad downfall of Letterville occurred in Englishland almost overnight, when that scoundrel Christopher Latham Scoles captured and sentenced all 26 in Letterville to solitary confinement upon round, metal keys to be beaten mercilessly and forever after, once Scoles sold out to Remingon in 1874 and the shameful perjorative of “QWERTY“ was attached without regard to lower cases.

Chinese Luck of the Irish

Leonard Lim, Jay's coworker at the tire shop, referred him to a Chinese herbalist in Scottsdale.


Jay was impressed with his initial visit, walking away seventy dollars light and swearing the month's worth of Chinese gentleman's formulations had done wonders for his arthritis and aching muscles.


Entering the lobby from his second session with Dr. Wah, Jay thought he heard cricket chirps coming from the corner of the waiting area and, sure enough, a retail shelf held tiny bamboo cages each containing a single cricket, and a sticker that read, "'For Good Luck $8.99,"

'Can't hurt, the other stuff seems to be workin',' he muttered to the cashier.


Jay put the cricket on his kitchen counter, and plucked the smallest leaf from a celery stalk to wedge into the delicate cage.


Three mornings later, Jay discovered the cricket was dead and emptied the cage into his garbage disposer, pulling the cold water tap on to full force, and reaching for the disposer switch that electrocuted him an instant before an echoey chirp came from what sounded like the sink's drain.

Redline

I pulled up to the stoplight behind the new SS.


The smirk of its taillight styling mocked the Focus, my trusty commuter.


My showroom-new '74 Camaro came to mind, the modified V-8's muscle smoking Firebirds and Trans-Ams of the day.


The low grumble of this one's gentle revs in front of me awakened my competitiveness.


I'd live to find this one another day, and show him my motorcycle's tailpipes off the line.


I'd grin, wondering how he'd feel getting beaten--if only in the first two or three gears--by a fat guy on a Honda bike costing 25-grand less.

A Lasting Baseball Memory

My left-handedness gave me a bodacious curve ball I used to say I could throw through a sideways door from the pitcher's mound some 60-feet, 6-inches away.

I even set a league record for triples one year, me, a pitcher!

When I was in college, Juan Marichal, a legendary left-hander for the S.F. Giants nodded over toward me from the bullpen and told the catcher, "That kid can HURL!"

Hey, it was an unusually sunny and hot day among Candlestick Park's 'Bleacher Creatures.'


I guess I hadn't realized how many of those ten-ounce little bottles of Miller High Life I had consumed.

Shit, if I hadn't been holding onto the railing while puking, I'd have prolly somersaulted myself right onto the ground from the 8th row making the double-header a triple one.

Daily Dalliance

The L.A. Times had a dress code we account execs exceeded, preening ourselves in designer suits and $100+ neckties, while clerical staff dressed 'to the nines' and only the artists could adorn themselves in glorification of their creative spirits.


The sexual harrassment code was expressed, regarded serious enough to require annual training recertification for, as incredible as our $900 million in yearly ad sales volume was, the paper would never tolerate an expensive settlement and ensuing scandal to the glee of other dailies in the L.A. basin.


I don't know what she wore to her interview or who hired her, but from day 1, Marsha's centerfold-beauty was constantly clothed in plunging necklines and micro-miniskirts, accented by 'CFMs' ("come fuck me pumps," the other office women spat in reference to them, resenting her beauty and undue(?) attention paid).


Marsha flirted at every opportunity, shook her moneymaker on routine swings through our rows of mini-cubicles, and turned alot of heads that--on occasion--flipped males' fantasy switches to the highest hormonally-induced needle-pegging 'hubba-hubba' readings, often causing sweat rings on twitching, wedding banded fingers.


The beer cart was flying up the aisles as we pushed Friday deadline one night, prepping ads for Saturday, Sunday and Monday editions, when I shook my head and rolled my eyes at Marsha's attire prompting the shimmering beauty to lean over, plant the heels of her hands on my desk (risking bilateral mammary fallout onto my ad proofs) and say, "Know what, Joe-banger? One of these managers is gonna say or do the wrong thing (patting her own buttocks with a freed hand), and I'm gonna be one, rich-for-life girl."


Monday morning at 7AM, I no sooner put my briefcase on my desk than my private line rang and it was a sobbing Marsha, "Richard was at Kim's desk, heard me talking to you, and he just called from his car phone to tell me I'm fired..." just as my head snapped to see Richard entering the office, scratching at his full body rash from a stress-worsened skin disorder, which was my cue to point at the mouthpiece and cover it, shouting at him across the cubicle canyons, "RICHARD! Marsha's bra snapped and she got hurt bursting through her blouse buttons so she won't be in today," which drew his all-time-best death glance and made him scratch himself nearly bloody all day.

Yoostas

Poetic license has nothing to do with my intentional, at-will butchering of English, and I didn't yoosta get as much satisfaction from it as I do these days.

I yoosta have this Camaro...the two sports cars I yoosta have...The V-8 in my Jeep Renegade yoosta haul ass and shoot 60-foot roostertails on the snow-packed freeways when I yoosta live in Denver....


The models I yoosta date, and the other beautiful women with whom I yoosta have intimate relationships and whose sexploits are legend....


My buddies and I yoosta set this town on its ear, paint it red and double-coat it.


Well, life's little GPS [I hate that bitch] announced my arrival at Old Age, and cognition affirms it by the science of math, and the number of 'yoostas' in my written and oral conversations with you.

And myself.

Gina's Case Study

Midnight shifts as the hotel operator gave Gina the time to finish her college homework in time for her 8:30AM class.

This night, she was cramming for her final exam in Psych 340, and it wasn't exactly smooth sledding for a girl whose corn-popping nerves were her worst enemy during written tests.

It was nearing 7am and she slid the notebook in front of her and flopped the cover open, onto the desk.


"What the hell?!," she thought aloud when she saw that 43 of the hotel's 110 rooms had 7:50AM wake-up call requests, each expected to be made, personally, by hers-truly, and within a 3-minute margin of the request.

She grabbed the clipboard from its hanger and realized there was a convention in-house, and began a belly laugh she was wont to stop, one that grew as layers of test anxiety layered off.

Wouldn't the dining room staff go crazy when all these 7:50AM wake-ups from the Association of Southwestern Psychics & Clairvoyants arrived at the hostess desk, simultaneously, and once seated, ordered the same omelette with sourdough toast.

Kickin' It: Can I Really Blame Ya, Kid?

Mommy's trim and fit from an indoor bike and treadmill at her gym and heads right to the tanning parlor after her strenous workouts, arriving home to nuke a Lean Cuisine for herself and freezer-meal for you.

She works long hours trying to out-perform peers and claw her way up the corporate ladder.

Her Blackberry is her best friend, and a techno-guilt trip found her putting a cell phone into your little mitts when you turned 8, justifying its cost to always know where you are (and I'm surprised that she didn't take you to the vet to have a chip injected, one like your overweight golden retriever, Max got, but I guess the economics never occurred to her).

Evenings, she's curled-up with the same laptop doing the same AOL- or work thing she was doing when your crib was in the next room.


You had hundred-buck Jordans on your feet and were told not to scuff 'em before you were even 10 years old, and video games kept you quietly out of the way in your room, protected from the violence and sex on TV (but you better pray she doesn't catch your happy little ass playing the T-for-teen and adult-rated games, online) save for the occasions she turned Sesame Street on in your room thinking you'd sit on your thumb singing the alphabet with Kermit and Big Bird instead of flipping the channel once the door closed.


And where the hell is your dad in your life, but, you can penalize me 15 yards for an unsportsmanlike for that wistful remark because mine was never really in the picture 'cept for the time the private detective Mom hired photographed him climbing out of his girlfriend's bathroom window [true] to the chagrin of his future divorce counsel.

Kickin' It: I Survived Childhood?

Coraline and I were yacking behind this screen, yesterday, and my little cardiac episode was one of the conversation's bullet-points. Our talk of my kicking the bucket made me think of "Kick the Can," a juvenile game we played in the street five decades ago (although I think being the noire-writer she is, her mind may have gone to giving my carcass to Bloodmeal, her Rottweiler, to strip the meat from my bones and bury them).


Kick the bucket, kick the can: see how ole folks' mind switch gears?


Maybe you do, but I sure don't see kids jumping rope or playing kick-the-can or even throwing a Frisbee in my neighborhood.


Kids' thumbs and joystick-hand are in perfect shape, because they're innocents who just don't know that Jump Rope, Frisbee and Kick the Can weren't always i-phone apps and gamer's software, but based in reality.


Disgusting as the thought may seem to them and their parents, today's milk-complexioned, butterball-obese, bagged-drink sucking kids don't realize my generation braved the odds, playing those games outside despite neighborhood-trolling perverts, bees, air pollution, UV rays, rabid dogs, errant sprinklers, blast-furnace heat, Mrs. Patrick's rosebushes, skinned knees and elbows, occasional street traffic, getting our canvas ten-buck Keds or Converse shoes dirty, or risking sweat-soaked and grass-stained clothing--and the only rechargers we ever needed were food and sleep.

Cost vs. Bare Necessity of a Close Shave

If you're a woman who shaves 'down there' (and I don't mean Australia), I can't imagine you'd use a 25-cent disposable razor around the world's most sought-after au naturel resource any more than I'd use a quarter-disposable on my less-than-nondescript 'mug' and scalp, leaving both looking like razor-burnt wastelands dotted with scabbed nicks.

When the first 100-degree day hits, the hair comes off and my penchant for a smoothed dome has grown so strong that I'll sometimes shave it twice a day, then use hair spray to add blinding luster, a secret told to me by one glum soul whose whole life changed after his hair clumped onto his pillow night-after-night, ne'er to return.

The annual tradition began in ‘00 at Puerto Vallarta, when the summer’s humidity found me marching into a barber shop to surrender my God-given rug to a Mexican’s steady-handed straight-razor.


Wake up, Gillette and Schick, because changing your technology to yet another new "system" once-a-year or more, with greed-driven pomposity to make my blades and their proprietary handles obsolete without even the option to price-fix myself receiving your best by a mail subscription, will force my razor-wielding hand to seek a 3rd-world country's blades for imminent, internet purchase.

You've violated my trust and have no credibility, Schicksters and Gilletteers, upping and upping your prices to eliminate nubbies from my face and scalp.

Don't even go off-point from my charge of greed by reminding me it has always taken six clock revolutions to bring my chin's resemblance to anything remotely posing as 5 o'clock shadow because it's moot, the result of my years in daily meditation to redirect my testosterone to a better end.

Kamikaze Deal Breaker

Countless squadrons of gnats invaded our offices a few weeks back.

Thursday afternoon on a long day with only four hours' sleep the night before, I was eye-to-eye with a client, closing a deal, when I inhaled one.

Other than maybe a shocked ::blink:: or two, I hoped my face hadn't registered it.

The insect crawled up the back of my throat, into my nasopharynx.
I began to sneeze, uncontrollably, into my elbow and my eyes watered like a big snort of a mean onion.


After an Uzi burst of 6 or 7 hard sneezes, I prayed there wouldn't be a dead gnat in the crook of my elbow, and was dumfounded, struggling whether to lie, explain what happened, or opt for red-faced silence.

Lazy June Afternoons

Lisa and Paul enjoyed a light lunch on the patio and then shed their suits to frolic in pool.


Their frolicking often led to foreplay, and into lovemaking as exhausting and intense as either ever experienced.


The weightlessness of the pool’s lovemaking had made the union even more…unusual than than normal, as the two discussed from chaise lounges tanning their fit bodies.


“Oh God, look at the time,” Paul said as they jumped up to quickly don cover-ups and walk to the elementary school’s bus stop.


The kids noisily emerged seeing their Mom and Dad awaiting them as usual, and then headed home.


Once inside, Paul phoned Lisa and, in a teasing tone, asked, “Hey, if you’re not doing anything tomorrow, could I come over and swim again?”

Mind Games

No son of Ernie’s was gonna sit around the house all day, eating his food, keeping a slovenly room, and puttering around on the internet day and night after night.


Ernie had retired from 26 years in the Army Corps of Engineers, and his son wasn’t even able to tolerate a 4-year hitch in his father’s footsteps.


Worse, Ernie Junior—disgustedly addressed as “Dipshit” by his dad around the house—was constantly disrespectful to his mother, and lipped-off to Senior at every opportunity, usually answering him in gibberish or riddles, making the elder Mr. Staller believe his son was likely using drugs.


In a heated argument, yesterday, Senior had reached his limit, yelling, “You’re mother’s the only thing that keeps me from kicking your sorry ass from here to Kingdom-come and out into the street, you peckerhead, and these mind games are gonna come to a screeching halt!” eliciting the reply of his son’s middle finger.

Two days later, after their cook-out on the 4th of July, Junior yelled for his dad to join him in the back yard to light some fireworks, and the screen door swung open as Senior said, “Why not!” popping the top on his 8th can of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

As Ernie Senior strode across the lawn, he was blown to bits and the beer can sky-high by a buried, improvised explosive device of Junior’s making, to the howls of hideous laughter and Junior’s farewell message yelled from his crouched vantage behind the massive barbecue, “Mined games, asshole, it’s all in the mine.”

Watershed Moment

I was in my study writing-out monthly bills when I heard Angela's voice behind me, ""Scuse me, Dad, but can we talk for a minute... about sex?"

My chair seemed to accelerate while swinging around as I fumbled my glasses onto the desk, knowing she noticed.

"What's up, honey?"

"Well, don't flip-out...because I'm still a virgin, but it's hard to say 'No' when your body's screaming 'Yes.'"


Some of the stupidest things I've ever said rolled out of my mouth, like, "The longer you wait the better the experience is, darlin'" and, through all my verbal awkwardness, Angela patiently listened before thanking me, pecking me on the cheek, and leaving the room.


I swept the bills aside, turned back to my computer, cleared the screen, made a mental note to block the TV channel that carries "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader," Lifetime and Discovery channels, and began a furious internet search for old-style, all-girls' Catholic high schools in hopes of finding a suitable transfer for my 15-year old.

Tale of the Ticker's Tapes

I turned off the ignition in the parking space right in front of the V.A. clinic, Monday, about 8:15AM and then told my sister, "I have heart attack symptoms."


They got an EKG on me and hell broke loose, with the M.D. seeing the pattern, and instructing the nurse, "Call 9-1-1!," followed by an oh-by-the-way, "Anybody got a stethoscope?"


The Doc's convo with the Phoenix Fire Department's paramedic was an interesting exchange about each's observations and medical impressions, about the cause and immediate, on-site action before I was transported with a heart rate of 188 beats per minute.

The pattern kept changing before the doctor's and paramedic's eyes, to the technico-medical exclamations of, "Whoa, look at THAT!." and continued until I "converted" (stablilzed to a normal rate) as the gurney was hefted gently into the ambulance, eliciting my gratitude, "Well, at least you all got this on several tapes, from 3 EKG machines."

I've spent the last 2 days as an in-patient, passed my lab tests--even cholesterol--with flying colors, and was released after a chemical stress test with radioactive isotopes to the heart proved negative for an actual heart attack, and I was discharged about 4:45PM Tuesday, with the admonishment, "Call 9-1-1 if this happens again."

So at 1:18am after just 4 hours' sleep following two days of hospital rigors, my heart awakened me at Indy-car speed, and off we went, this time to be discharged from another expensive visit to the level-1 trauma center, only this time with a prescription in-hand and the farewell wish to have a happy day at work and, "Oh, you should see the cardiologist by the end of the week," which I dismissed with a mental finger and resignation of both eventualities.

Dr. Ramsey Revisited

TransPacificAir's flight 37 levelled-off at a fuel-saving 48,000 feet almost 70 minutes after its Los Angeles departure for Honolulu. The 1st-class cabin was about to get its second round of cocktails when a passenger in 34C unbuckled his belt and tumbled into the aisle, clutching his chest, and experiencing breathing difficulty. The flight attendant's P.A. call requested calm, after which she leaned into seat 2B and asked assistance from the older gentlemen the manifest identified as an M.D. The doctor arrived, setting his cane aside to attend to the disheveled, long-haired and bearded victim who appeared to be in his late 40s. In the flash of an eye, the victim grabbed the doctor's lapels, rolled them both over to sit upon his rescuer's chest and drove a Bic pen into the 77 year-old's larynx. "You flunked me outta USC med school in '87, Dr. Ramsey, and you can go to hell, first class," then 'adjusted' the pen to perforate the physician's carotid artery.

'Neath the Western Sky

Chet single-looped Bucky's rein around the porch post and went in to give Teresa a sweet thank you and smooch goodbye.

She smiled as her man settled the grey Stetson back on his head and said, "You've been wantin' to do this a long time, and I sure don't know why you haven't, so enjoy it out there."


Bucky carried the elderly cowboy out into his beloved hills of pinon pine, mesquite and scrub as the Western sky began to get painted from the pinks and lavenders and orchids side of God's palette, and His brush just never seemed ever grander than this particular June evenin'.


Chet found a suitable clearing, gathered some wood, and collected a few stones for a fire ring as Bucky grazed lazily nearby.


Nightfall found Chet leaned-up against his worn saddle, next to a crackling fire, having had a campfire supper and nip of brandy, followed by a fresh, new pack of Red Man chew he had sneakily hidden from Teresa.


In his bedroll under a billion stars, Chet lay content with his life, good children, his irreplaceable Teresa, and thought of his dad who had handed him the rancher's life and love of the outdoors, and as he was drifting off to sleep, wished on every one of those billion stars polka-dotting the indigo sky, that, if there was another life after this one, not a single thing would change.

A Bit of Patience

He practiced as 'Bo Johnson,' because the endodontist never liked...hell, detested being called 'Robert' or 'Rob,' 'Bob' or 'Bobbie.'

The staff had just left for the evening as he sat reviewing files of the next morning's cases when he nearly spilled his coffee at the sight of the name, "Zornick, Earll Emerson," and there could be no mistaking the identity of this prick.

The next morning, the girls had Zornick in the chair and bibbed as Johnson told the staff he wanted a few undisturbed minutes with the patient, uncharacteristically locking the door behind him.

Bo soothed Zornick's natural anxiety, reaching for a topical anesthetic far from the norm, a home-made, curare-based preparation that would paralyze this patient, rendering his limbs useless while at full consciouness.

Bo smiled down at the now helpless man, reminding him, "You may have skated through the youth camps and juvenile probation, but 9 years after you sodomized my twin sister, Robin, she took her own life," and the bulging-eyed, terror-filled patient tried to move, couldn't even squirm, and Zornick's most strenuous effort could only produce the merest fluttering of eyelids.

Dr. Johnson pivoted his low stool and removed something from a cabinet, turning back to Zornick while displaying a cordless Mikita drill with a 3/8" bit, smiling as he told Zornick, "Sure, I'll get the electric chair for this, but it'll be a day I'll always relish and enjoy, not finishing you off until the cops bust-down that door" as the trigger was squeezed emitting the Mikita's high-pitched whir, and the strong smell of urine emanated from the growing, wet stain through the gown over Zornick's waist, the rapid heartbeat of the rapist drumming loudly but laughably inaudible over the approaching silver bit as Johnson lowered his goggles and slid-up the blue mask.

Requited

Tyler showed up at rehearsal with a shaved head and white bandage covering most of his white dome, to the astonishment of fellow members in Steel-Toed Kick, his hair-metal band that enjoyed a respectable measure of local renown.

He carefully lifted a corner of the bandage to reveal a tattoo of an imposing-looking crab with threatening claws.

Two weeks later, he rang the doorbell and after a pause he knew to mean she was at the peep-hole, the door was flung open and the young, robed woman's words were spilling rapidly, "So you never wanted to see me again and you show-up on my doorstep with a crab tattoo... me... 'Crabby Gabby' as you called me," and, gazing at the tattoo, tried to stifle a laugh easing the sharp edges of her long-simmering resentment and pain over their break-up.

The gift-wrapped box Tyler concealed was offered in conciliatory fashion, as Gabby's puzzled look alternated between unwrapping the feather-light present and looking into eyes that once adored and devoured her.

She burst into tears as she lifted the beatifully hand-crafted wig from the box, cardboard falling to the ground without notice.


Ty wrapped his arms around her skeletal frame as she wept, cooing her, whispering softly, "I never wanted to see you like this," as he gently caressed the contours of her head, Gabby's scalp bared by chemo and radiation, over a face of hopelessness.

One Way Ticket

A week ago, she was a nearly bed-ridden 91-year old, with sparkling eyes, a soft, engaging smile and adorable sense of humor appreciated by all who know her.

She’s in the hospital with pneumonia in her right lung, a still-abnormal heart rhythm called “A-fib” (atrial fibrollation) and has a urinary tract infection.

The region’s top hospital put her in a private room with a beautiful view of nearby mountains, in an environment staffed by professionals whose care is beyond praise to even include the dieticians whose delectable food Mom chooses from a menu with help from, and nods to, my sister.

IVs dole out the antibiotics and heart meds, pills routinely arrive as do techs performing tests or getting samples, the doctor is all one could wish for, and machines whose predecessors once beeped with asynchronous indifference now work silently to record her bodily functions from the leads of taped electrodes.

Despite looking straight into her eyes as her expressions change every minute or so, I’m staring at baggage left behind at the curb, and I feel tears wanting to slip their ducts to well at my lower eyelids' dams that sometimes fail.

My mom has left for a destination I’ll never know, has already arrived at a place I cannot reach her, and I never even got to say, "So long...."

It Was About Time We Met

My sister introduced me to one of her friends about 20 years ago, a divorced young woman with a 6 year old son and a terrific job as the admin assistant for one of the regents at one of the University of California campuses.

She looked like a cross between Halle Berry and Whitney Houston, with skin just a shade or two darker, and drop-dead gorgeous.

Breathtakingly so.


Lately, I’ve seen a woman around town who could be her clone and I say that only because the woman I keep seeing is in her 30s, and my sister's friend has to be pushing 60.


Each time I’ve spotted her, she’s looked right at me, locked eyes and smiled, and it's almost given me a shiver.

She’s asked to see me and is in my office, and I rise to her neon smile, extending my hand and she gently takes it...but I can't let go, now, because her eyes reveal her and I recognize she is Death, come to take me.

Smart (Car) My Ass

It was in the lot all day, and the lady said, “I sent fifteen thousand off to France, waited fourteen months, and just got it, but it only gets 37mpg because they (the Fed) won’t let-in the model with the bio-diesel engine that, you know, burns garbage,” an' thank God she didn't notice me tryin' to peek under it to see if it had mower blades.

A Kentucky boy o’ my girth and countenance would have to put on and wear that little mammyjammer like a metal coat, and, if there was a poor soul in there with me, it would probably be an up close and personal door-bulging experience worthy of the jaws of life.

That thing wouldn’t hold my lunch food from Planet Hollywood’s Vegas buffet, and if you‘re a student, you best be orderin’ a luggage rack for your book bag.

I finally realized that its very existence just pissed me off cuz the Ford Focus gets nearly that mileage and has enough gumption to keep from rollin’ like a tennis balll if hit by a car or flyin’ like a tee shot if creamed by a truck.

Later and all alone, I stood next to it and felt the urge to lay into it and put it over on its side, jam a flagstaff into its upturned door with stars ‘n stripes a-flutter, and pose for an Iwo Jima-like photo to send to the UAW in Dearborn.

Lady, I bet your ass wouldn’t fly in it if that same company made a plane.

Vein-Bulging Daddy, San Francisco State, ca. 1980

< 5:00AM, PST >

"This is Joe, Manager on Duty, how may I help you?"


"This is George Blahblah in Peabody, Mass, and I wanna know what the HELL'S going ON, there!

"I just called my 18-year old daughter, Carolyn Blahblah, in room 603 at Mary Park Hall, and a goddamn BOY answered and, when I asked who the hell he was and what was he doing there, he said 'I'm her roommate and don't ever fuckin' bother us this early again,' and slammed the GODDAMN PHONE down on me!"


[pause]
"Mr. Blahblah, that is the dorm with the co-ed floor and...checking the records, Carolyn does have a male roommate."


"You have to be SHITTING me, and... and I'm going to be phoning the President of that goddamned zoo for a school you're running out there, and WHAT did you say your name was, again?"

"I'm Joe Gensle, the M.O.D. of all three dorms and you're welcome to do that but I think this is a conversation you might want to have with Carolyn, first, because this is San Francisco, and she and the young man chose that living arrangement by mutual consent...and she is eighteen...but, oh, you should know that, shouldn't you."

< click >

A Tip of the Hat to Olde World Craftsmanship

Lean times were leaner for magicians, but “Daryl ‘The Daring’ Derringer” stood in front of Stavros the Haberdasher with explicit instructions for a top hat, and the two agreed $200 was a fair deposit for the $1100 custom headwear.

At his fitting two weeks later, the magician bitterly complained and, as he removed the hat, reached within and removed a turtle, insisting, “You SEE how VERY wrong this is!,” slipping the turtle into his trousers pocket and leaving the small shop, abruptly.

Four tantrum-ended fittings followed, except the animals appearing from the hat (only to disappear into the pocket) were a mouse, a wiggling goldfish, a huge cockroach, and tarantula, and Stavros (as always) was left alone and angry, puzzled and hurt.


The sixth fitting, Daryl proclaimed the hat to be perfect and, as he removed it, pulled a .45 caliber , 2-shot Derringer from under the brim and killed poor Stavros, walking out of the store with a smile and his bargain of a hat.

He entered the cluttered apartment striped with sunshine and, as if on cue, Casper-the-rabbit stood on his rear legs but was met with a reproachful tone from Daryl, “You’re retired, my furry friend, and much too old and fat for this, dear Casper.”


Daryl smoked an after-dinner cigar, staring down, mesmerized by the beauty of the hat that would revitalize his act when he suddenly stood, convulsed, and vomited an acrid mixture of dark ale, carrots and rabbit stew all over the ottoman and into the pride of the haberdasher’s craft.

My Voice as a Natural Resource

I look nothing like my voice and, at an early age, thought it would sail me through a lucrative career.

Despite my heralded college degree and broadcast days behind microphones, my career went a different way, like tugging the left control line of a steerable parachue for a soft landing in what appeared to be a more flowery pasture amid an expanded horizon, finding weeds in bloom and hoeing my small landing area into into a small garden with much more work than I’d supposed to undertake.

Yes, I’ve sung, and on recordings of a world champion barbershop chorus, one of only 5 basses able to project the pedal-D at the end of “Silent Night,” and other pane-rattlers from other works.

Hosting a classical music show, captured live and post-produced to add my ‘basso-pretendo’ (profundo) commentary in the studio, as if I’d been present with the sound engineers at the performance, was ego-stroking and poorly paying, as was a stint for NBC Radio News that barely kept the wolves away.

I guess I’ve used my pipes in different ways to my advantage, an asset in other modalities over the years.


Pipes: You either got ’em or you don’t but, sadly, I only use 'em to give good phone these days until I figure out how to apply this natural resource I seem to be wasting.

Family Retreat at Crown King, Arizona

The last time Harold had been to the cabin was when he winterized it back in 2006, and Marie was worsening but still alive.

The aging pickup turned onto NF-32’s graded surface (national forest road) and he watched the odometer for 1.3 miles to make the left turn, and then negotiate 2.8 miles of bumpy ruts causing the old truck to wail its squeaks of strain and age, weaving to avoid fallen trunks until it reached the reprieve of his smooth drive, marked by a yellow-flagged stake.

In the ‘6os, he had built the rough-hewn cabin by hand, and even hauled granite to top the bladed road of the drive and build-site blanketed with cool, pine-scented air and shade from towering Coconino Pines nearby.


In low gear, the noisy, creaking pickup ground granite under the tires as Harold mashed the brakes in reaction to seeing clean windows on the cabin, and a pair of jeans and flannel shirt swaying over the porch rail, as if drying.

Calling, “Hello? Hello?,” as he entered slowly, the cabin was definitely being lived-in, with foodstuffs and clothing, neat in their proper areas, but the handfull of shotgun shells on the small, planked table riveted the octogenarian's attention.

The loud metallic click, from the doorway behind him, spun him around and he was staring up...level-eyed with twin shotgun barrels, behind which, stood his son, Marvin, whom he hadn’t seen or heard from in 12 years, long prior to Marie’s diagnosis.

A Gen-u-ine Taste o' The Crescent City

Sure there’s etoufee ‘n jambalaya and crayfish and other Cajun and Creole delights to enliven one’s taste buds in the Crescent City, but my appetite’s got a date with a fried oyster po’boy.

Folks say it was the Martin brothers who invented it, two streetcar drivers who opened a restaurant down about St. Claude Avenue way in the ‘20s, and that during the streetcar labor strike of ‘29, the brothers tried to come up with an affordable offerin’ for their hungry brothers that was out walkin’ the pickets.

They come up with chunks o’ roast beef, smothered in gravy, on crusty French bread and--as they’d see somebody approachin’ from the pickets--they'd call out, “Here comes another po’boy!”


Stuffin’ for the classic po’boy has evolved, with po’boy menu offerin's like smoked or hot sausage, ham ‘n cheese, and even hamburger.

While the fried seafood po’boy is the runaway pick o’ locals these days, the cheapest you gonna find around is the French fries po’boy, yes, gravy-topped fries, ordered ‘dressed’ (with mayo, pickles, tomatoes an’ shredded lettuce) and stuffed on that crusted bread they know ain’ like no other.

If you lucky, you jus’ might catch yourself sidlin’ up next to me [’bout 4 miles up from the Doubletree] as I savor the Parkway Bakery & Tavern’s fried oyster po’boy dressed to kill and goin’ down with a smile and icy-cold Heiner Brau (since the storm put 10-foot o’ water into the legendary Dixie Brewery killin’ ‘em off and, if that wasn’t enough, their 16-foot copper kettles bein' carried off by looters).

Never the Same After...Well... You know

After she was raped, the initial reaction of family, friends and admirers was to soothe and comfort her but that was only at first, because, as time passed, there was a palpable distance, oh yeah, with pity and sympathy, but no one wanting to come really close if you know what I mean.


She wasn't shunned, exactly, it was just that everything was superficial with people feeling sorry from a distance, fear or helplessness or underlying apathy making them part of a widening perimeter when she desperately needed that circle to go the other way.


So brutal was the attack, her self-esteem was gone erasing all but inklings of her former beauty on the outside. Despite her vibrant soul remaining intact, the label of "damaged goods" was as indelible as it was invisible, and she came to grips knowing that forever after, she would be, 'Oh yeah, that girl.'


Bystanders witnessed the attack, stood helplessly watching the savagery as the merciless attacker was caught on cameras, everywhere, and named "Katrina."


'Her' name was New Orleans, and she was about to suffer another savage beating, only this time, from the bottom of a tainted sea.