Saturday, November 14, 2020

12-YEARS-OLD

                        "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over."

- President Gerald Ford at his inauguration, August, 9th 1974

Over the past four years or so, I’ve told this story several times. It’s about the first time I ever saw and/or heard our soon to be (democratically) deposed “leader.” Now seems like the perfect time to share it with those who haven’t quaffed down a beer or two with me or don’t know me personally.

I was 12-years-old, so this around 1983. My father and I were watching the ABC news magazine show, 20/20. As I am recalling, I don’t believe the profile of a rich New Yorker named Donald Trump was the lead story that night…a fact that I’m sure pissed him off on some narcissistic level.

Nevertheless, there he was, defiling the 27-inch, wood-grain cabinet TV that sat in the corner of my family’s living room. I only watched him prattle on with his bullshit, which was quite elaborate even then, for about three minutes before a rather powerful and distinct thought meandered through my 12-year-old brain:

“Who the FUCK does this guy think he is?”

I obviously didn’t say that out loud as my dad was sitting two feet away from me in his recliner, but it almost eked out of my mouth for sure. That’s how immediately repulsed I was by this guy – I almost dropped an F-bomb right in front of my father.

Rather than hear him utter another contrived syllable, I decided to retire to my room for the evening to do something more befitting a tasteful and cultured lad of my age: read comic books.

If you could have somehow told that 12-year-old boy who was now wholly engrossed in the high-speed adventures of the Flash that one day, in November of 2016, the absurd, braggadocios man you saw on television tonight would be elected President of the United States, he would’ve called you a filthy liar…and then he would have pushed you out of his goddamn room because he had to go to bed soon and that Flash comic wasn’t going to read itself.  

It pains my soul, the part of my soul that still tears up at particularly stirring renditions of the Star-Spangled Banner, that over 72 million of my fellow Americans couldn’t and/or flat out wouldn’t see what I saw so, so clearly as a pre-pubescent boy. Regardless of his political affiliation, Donald Trump is in absolutely no way fit to be the Leader of the Free World, and is unquestionably one of the least “presidential” men our country as ever produced.

I do not consider myself particularly political. I do not believe in fake news, conspiracy theories, or organized religions of any ilk – I believe, and will continue to believe, in science, reason, and logic. Because of this, people assume that I am a left-wing, bleeding heart liberal – a “libetard” in today’s charming, right-wing vernacular, but that is not true. I was raised by a man who greatly admired both Richard Nixon and Ronald Regan, so I can see the many pluses and minuses of both the Democratic and Republican parties, and I vehemently believe in the power of America’s ideals, so clearly defined in the unforgettable words of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence.

Donald Trump believes in none of those things. He only believes in one thing, which is as true now as it was in 1983: he only believes in his own dumb ass at the expense of everything and everyone else. I sincerely wish that the 72 million Americans who voted for him would come to understand this. You disgust Donald Trump and his abhorrent cronies, and they wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire. And that fact right there, beyond his myriad other failings, is why he never, ever should been elected President in 2016. If we had to endure four more years of a Trump White House, I have no doubt that we would have seen the ruination of this country – the death of the American Dream which, truth be told, is kind of on its last legs anyway.

But I still believe in it, and I hope you do too. And for the first time in four long years I have hope that we can ALL still live that dream. Let’s live (or revive) that dream for the 12-year-olds, the 12-year-olds who dutifully recited the Pledge of Allegiance approximately 275 days a year growing up, still living inside each and every one of us…

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

THE ABSENCE OF VONNEGUT


“The writer stares with glassy eyes
 Defies the empty page
 His beard is white, his face is lined
 And streaked with tears of rage
 Thirty years ago, how the words would flow
 With passion and precision
 But now his mind is dark and dulled
 By sickness and indecision
 And he stares out the kitchen door
 Where the sun will rise no more…”
~ Rush “Losing It”

This story is dedicated to the person who (along with the Kinks) told me, “Don’t forget to dance.”

Oh, I’m still dancin’ and this little ditty is concrete proof of that.

d

The laptop screen was blank, and it had been that way for many an hour.

His hands rested limply on the battle-scarred keyboard. He discovered an errant Dorito crumb that was living in-between the “N” and “M” keys. He pondered it for brief moment before flicking it away with an exasperated sigh.

The clock sitting in the right-hand corner of his desktop read 7:24 AM; his deadline was a little over 12 hours away and not a word had leaked from his brain onto the digital page set before him.

“Fuck me,” were the only words he could think to utter in this confounding moment.

He stood up and began to pace and to think which is what he did. Of course he had heard of Writer’s Block before, but he had never suffered from its crippling effects…such as not being able to put a goddamn word on the goddamn page no matter how much wanted and/or needed to.

Inevitably his thoughts shifted from the topic at hand, the topic he should be focusing on, the topic that would make him some cold, hard cash, to her. “You can think about the woman, or the girl you knew the night before,” the great Bob Seger once sang.

And think he did…

Emily was her name; the vast digital wasteland of Tinder, where respectability and romance go to die, was their meeting place. Not a rom-com “meet cute” by any stretch of the imagination, but one has to take what they can get in today’s impersonal, electronic age.




Emily was unquestionably adorable, and built like a teenage camgirl to boot, but she was a hyperactive, over-medicated flake who talked way too much nonsense for his liking. He was at the point in his life where he knew damn well that the steak mattered more than sizzle. And, ultimately, this was a person who he just couldn’t spend an extended amount of time with.

He desperately craved a woman in his life who had that subtle combination of beauty, style, and grace that was nigh impossible to find. While Emily certainly had the beauty part down cold (which is the easiest to come by, really, being just a genetic roll of the dice) the style and the grace parts most certainly eluded her as the Accelerati Incredibilus so deftly avoided the Carnivorous Vulgaris for many a decade.

So, after their third date he expeditiously deleted and blocked her number from his phone on the drive home from her apartment the next morning. He was in no way proud of this act of cowardice, but this was something he was wont to do during his latest spate of dating tomfoolery.

Not long after, he realized IT was no longer in his possession…and that Emily had IT.

The IT in question here was his well-worn, paperback copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkey House. After reading this wondrously diverse collection of short stories his freshman year of college he decided that the life of a writer was the one for him. He also concluded in that moment that Kurt Vonnegut was the fucking man, and he set out on a quest to consume every word the man had ever put to the page.

Why he gave IT to her in the first place was a hybrid of intellectual hubris and male ego – trying to be the big, impressive guy he never felt he truly was when push came to shove. Emily mentioned in passing that she had never read any of Vonnegut’s work, but she had heard nothing but good things about it. So, he showed up to their first date with his copy of IT for her to read, telling her rather pompously that IT was the best place to start if she wanted to understand the man as one of the most important authors of the 20th century.

The ridiculous notion that he was having issues writing for the first time in his career because IT was no longer in his possession struck him while he was waging the constant war against the insects (Ants? Roaches? Some devilish hybrid of the two??) that lived and bred under his microwave. As he was brushing a few of the doomed creepy-crawlers into his sink to drown them in the unholy Charybdis of his drain, the thought became stuck in his addled brain, and it would not leave no matter how stupid or superstitious it seemed to be.

“Native Americans have totems, and the Irish have Lucky Charms. I mean, four-leaf clovers…and other dumbasses have rabbit’s feet and all that, right,” he stammered to no one other than himself, trying to convince himself of this madness.

Another thought occurred to him then: Perhaps he could just replace IT; just buy another copy of IT?

To test this tenuous theory, he drove to the closest bookstore and picked up a new version of IT which sported a detestable, art-nouveau cover. While he waited in line, staring at this cover he hated, he realized that this was not going to work. He needed his original copy of IT; the one he bought in the rapacious college bookstore many moons ago.

He deposited the faux IT on the magazine rack in the check-out isle, hiding the latest, tabloid indiscretions of the royals and internet “celebrities” from public consumption then beat a hasty retreat to his parked car.

There was only one thing left to do now: check the blocked messages and calls on his phone in the hopes that Emily tried to contact him after he callously “ghosted” her. If she did this, perhaps he could sweet talk her into returning IT? That seemed unlikely, but it was all he had in these desperate hours.

A furtive glance at the dashboard clock revealed that it was now just past 2 PM…six desperate hours left until his deadline. Wouldn’t be a cakewalk but could be done. He just needed IT back in his possession as IT was certainly the key to unlocking all this Writer’s Block bullshit – of this he was now certain.

Upon checking the “BLOCKED” box on his phone, there were indeed several confused and angry messages from Miss Emily. She called him every foul and derisive name under the sun…and then heaped on a few more for good measure.

He was all those things, and more. No doubt. But right now, none of that mattered. He needed IT back and he would wriggle his dumb ass through the maggot-infested bowels of Hell to get IT. His life, nay his career and reputation, were on the line here.

He shot her a text: “Hey, can we talk?”

He glared at his phone for what seemed like an eternity, almost willing her to respond to him in his hour of dire need. Finally, a response did come: “Who is this?”

Not a good start. He quickly typed his name, hoping that alone wouldn’t send her into a spasm of indignant, feminine rage.

After a few dragging moments: “Talk about what exactly??”

15 minutes later he was driving to her place with a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. The text conversation went as well as could be expected; she was surprisingly amenable to what he needed. I mean, IT wasn’t hers in the first place, she admitted. And IT was still sitting in the back of her car, unread, as far as she knew.

As soon as he pulled up out in front of Emily’s place, he understood why she had been so accommodating: she was fucking with him in order to exact some sort of twisted revenge. There she was, cute as a button, sitting out on her postage stamp-sized patio (where they had feverishly made out only a week or so ago) methodically ripping pages out of IT then placing them on the small, Weber grill at her feet.

When she noticed him pull up, she smirked then dropped what was left of IT’s carcass on to the blistering grill below her then slammed the lid on top of IT with a definitive clanging sound, almost as if it were a death knell.

His initial instinct was to pounce out of the car in true costumed crime-fighter fashion in an attempt to save IT from the flames, but all he could muster was a plaintive, “Why,” as he was lowering his driver’s side window.


Emily, the demoness, the book-immolator, smirked her wicked smirk once again and spat, “Because fuck you that’s why.”

She turned on her heels to go inside, but before she did, she had one last searing dagger to thrust into his heart: “And try trimming your pubic hair sometime, asshole!”

He drove off. Sadly. Slowly.

He was beaten. IT was gone...nothing but cinders now.

d

The ride home was indeed a somber one. There were no shit-eating grins to be witnessed, not even when his favorite song in the whole entire world (Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again”) came on the radio.

Upon returning home, he sat down at his desk. Nothing came. Not a blessed syllable. He had notes and research and interviews and statistics, but he could not think of one goddamn way to make that information coalesce into something both informational and intelligible.

So, he sat.

And he sat.

And he sat.

And he sat.

While he sat, his cell phone erupted with wrathful, screed-like texts and pleading, plaintive voice messages from his editor who wanted to know, simply, where in the flying fuck her story was.

With the prevalent thought of “Hang on tightly, let go lightly,” he tossed his buzzing cell phone out the window.

“That’s where I filed my story, lady,” he deadpanned as he watched his phone hit the concrete below with a shattering CRACK.

“Why the hell can’t you FIND IT!?”

He actually screamed the last part, and that shriek scared the bejeezus out of a little girl on the ground below who wanted nothing more than to understand why it was suddenly raining smartphones.

It was at that moment he decided to go for a drive. A long drive to nowhere.

In the midst of that drive, he came across a massive, high-tension pole that, for some reason, he desperately wanted to drive smack dab into. For a fleeting moment, he had the ridiculous notion that maybe, just maybe, doing that would somehow lift the curse of IT and magically cure his Writer’s Block.

So, he drove smack dab into the pole.

It didn’t feel good, and it cured nothing.

Nothing at all.
d

For a time, all he knew was haze. Confusing haze and agonizing pain. But then there was smoke. He knew this smoke for it was cloying and clinging and unmistakable. It was cigarette smoke – a dense fog of it enveloped the hospital bed to which he was now bound by crazy wires and things that went “BEEP” in the night.

The source of the smoke was man, shadowy, yet familiar, who was seated at the side of his bed. Was this cigarette smoking man a man who was Unstuck in Time? No…no…that was his character. Pilgrim. Billy Pilgrim.

This was the man himself.

“I tried this once,” the smoking man said in a measured accent that was entirely hayseed…by way of New York City. “Didn’t take.”

“What…what are you…doing here?”

“Maybe I’m bored. Maybe I’m lonely. Maybe my afterlife, if I believed in that crap, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” the smoking man confessed while expelling more noxious smoke into the air.

“Maybe I have something to tell you…something you need to hear,” the smoking man continued. “I won’t be long. Brevity being the soul of wit and all that.”

He tried to sit up, to lean in closer to hear the smoking man’s wisdom, but a shocking jolt of pain put an end to that.

“That’s what you get for playing chicken with a fucking pole.”


While enjoying a quiet chuckle at his pointed barb, the smoking man stood up. His head was now wreathed in murky cloud which made him look like something out of a sci-fi cartoon.

“Look, kid, it was never about my book. The book possessed no special mojo or magic. C’mon, that’s horseshit and you know it,” the smoking man scolded.

“But it felt…so real. I mean, Writer’s Blo…”

The smoking man impatiently waved his words away like the nonsense they were.

“Writer’s Block is horseshit too. It’s all about you and what’s in your head.”

The smoking man paused for moment, taking a long drag on his cigarette.

“You’ve got the gift. You know that. Don’t piss it away like this.”

“Yeah, but…”

“The one thing you can do is be more kind to people. Karma, as we know, is a real bitch,” the smoking man divulged.

Searching his memories, the smoking man chuckled again: “There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”

“I wrote that a while back. Pretty good stuff…now that I think about it. You can be easier on yourself when you are dead.”

“Am…am I dead?”

“Not yet. But you’ll get there, kid.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“That business with Sports Illustrated back in the day…I mean, why did you just get up and leave? You could have just asked for another assignment. Most people would consider that a dream gig…”

After another long, ponderous drag on his cigarette, the smoking man sighed, “I wasn’t very good at being an employee. I saw the future in that moment, you see. A future chained to a desk writing shit I couldn’t stand. And I didn’t like it. Not one little bit. So, I wrote what I wrote, and I left.”

“The horse jumped over the fucking fence,” he recited as if it was his own memory and not the smoking man’s.

“Yup. That’s it.”

With that, the smoking man, with his craggy face, porn mustache, and shock of curly, brownish hair, grinned at him as dropped the cigarette under his heel to extinguish it.

“See you around, kid.”

d

He awoke three days later.

The only reason he knew that was because the snippy nurse who was now poking something sharp into his arm had told him so.

She continued to complain about smelling smoke and the like as he tried to reacquaint himself with the really real world.

Aghast, the nurse bent over to pick up something clearly horrifying off the floor. She found it, then shoved it in his face. It was a crumpled cigarette butt.

“Jesus Christ! Was someone smoking in here?!?”

“I have no idea. I was mostly dead for three days. You said so yourself.”

With an exasperated sigh, the nurse tossed the offensive butt in the trash.

“Did anyone bring any of my stuff here,” he queried hopefully.

“Your sister did the other day. It’s over there.”

“Is my laptop there?”

“I think so. You want it?”

“Please.”

The nurse rummaged through the bags left by his sister, soon finding his laptop. She handed it to him but didn’t let go.

 “Need to check your online dating profile,” she asked with the hint of a curious smirk playing at the corners of her mouth.

“No. Not at all,” was his curt reply. “I have an idea for something.”

“Allllrighty then.”

So, she left him…as there were other patients to annoy and cajole.

He switched on the laptop; it quickly came to life with a musical jingle. The first notification that popped up was an email from Emily, apologizing for how beastly she acted. She went on to write: “Maybe, just maybe, they could grab a drink sometime.”

He deleted that fucking insanity as quickly as his index finger would (repeatedly) hit the DEL key.
Upon opening his word processing app, he began to write…with passion and precision.

The first words that flew onto the digital page were: “The laptop screen was blank, and it had been that way for many an hour.”


THE END

Illustrations by Noa Cebalo

Thursday, April 21, 2016

"Sometimes It Snows in April..."

This print hangs on my wall to this very day

I never got to see The Artist live.

I’ve lied several times over the years out of sheer embarrassment, saying that I had but, in fact, I never had pleasure of seeing Prince Rodgers Nelson in concert. Now, he’s gone and I’ll never get the chance.

Part of the reason I never saw His Royal Badness live is that he didn’t play Philadelphia all that often. The story goes that he held a grudge against the city for how he was treated as an opening act for the Rolling Stones in 1980. This was the “Dirty Mind” era of Prince when he wore nothing more than black panties and trenchcoat on stage. That just wasn’t going to work in the Philadelphia of that era, especially for a liquored up crowd waiting to hear “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Street Fighting Man,” so he was unmercifully booed off stage. Believe it or not, the treatment that my city showed Prince that night severely rattled his cage…so much so that Mick Jagger had to call him personally and beg him to finish out the tour. 

Philly was in no way ready for this...
The other part is, of course, that I idiotically assumed that there would always be a “next time.” “Oh, I’ll catch him next time,” naïve Jer thought time and time again as I would read glowing reviews of shows (secret or otherwise) that he’d put on around the globe. Now there will be no “next time." All I can do is hang my head in shame and weep for the sounds and visions I missed out on. Stupid, stupid me.


*****

The first song of The Purple One’s I ever heard was “Little Red Corvette.” I recall being instantly entranced by it, much like I was the first time I heard Rush’s “Tom Sawyer.” Not much later, a friend of mine lent me the “1999” cassette, which I copied of course, then I proceeded to play that cassette into the motherfucking ground. I was only 13 at the time…the diversity and overt sexuality of the songs excited and shocked me. Songs like “Let’s Pretend We’re Married,” “Automatic” and “Lady Cab Driver” blew my Catholic school boy mind. I was, in a word, hooked.

I could write volumes about “Purple Rain” of course (who couldn’t?), but the next album that was truly innovative and, in my opinion, perfect was “Sign O’ the Times.” I dare you to find an uninteresting or unoriginal song on that record. Go ahead, try. I’ll wait...forever…because it just isn’t going to happen.

A true masterpiece
I vividly recall every moment of my first listen of that cassette: I bought it on my dinner break at the Sam Goody in the pathetic Leo Mall. The cassette sat in my front pocket for the rest of my shift, silently calling to me, waiting to be played…waiting to reveal its auditory magic. When I got home later that night, I popped that bad boy into my boom box, slipped on my headphones, and glided into a soundscape of something that just wasn’t like anything else I’d ever heard in my previous 17 years on this planet. It was then that I knew I’d be a Prince fanatic for the rest of my days, be they long or short.

He’s had a varied career since that time to say the very least…but I’ve never stopped loving him and his sublime music. The man defined the word “iconoclast.”

It’s now 11:58 PM. I’m “in the cups” as my Irish ancestors would have said. Prince Rodgers Nelson, a being composed solely of sounds...as if he were some impossibly powered, musical super hero, is still very much dead. There are now stories floating about that he was treated for a drug overdose of some sort.
 
“Hogwash,” says I.

It still doesn’t change the fact that I never got to see the man whose music meant so much to me play a live set.

I guess I’ll just have to live with that.

Rest in peace, you sexy motherfucker, you.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

"MY MIND IS CLEARER NOW..."


If you haven’t guessed it by now, I’m not the most religious of people. If you are, that’s fine…as long as your beliefs aren’t hurting yourself or anyone else, have at it, my fine friend. Please understand that what follows here is not meant to challenge, or offend, anyone.

My personal beliefs are an echo of the Agnostic axiom, “I know that I don’t know.” I don’t believe in chaos as most Atheists do. To me, there seems to be a rhyme or reason to how things work in the universe, but I cannot say with any certainty what sets it all in motion. Unfortunately, I just don’t think that ANY religion and/or belief system truly answers the big questions most intelligent men and women have. 

I was raised Catholic and even went to 12 years of Catholic school. But, the whole “Catholic” vibe just never stuck; I always found all the pomp and circumstance just a bit absurd. Beyond the fact that there’s a great deal of fantastic moral philosophy in the words of Jesus found in the New Testament, the majority of what’s written in the Bible confounds me. Therefore, I view the Bible as more of a historical document than a document of faith or belief. Period.

Epic poster is epic
Even as a lad, I recall thinking on many occasions while twiddling my thumbs in church or in one of my many religion/theology classes, “Well, this just doesn’t make any goddamn sense!”  It wasn’t until I saw the film version of “Jesus Christ Superstar” in 8th grade that a “real” perspective of Jesus finally clicked in my teenage mind. He wasn’t the water-walking miracle man that I was raised to believe in, he was just a guy, trying to figure out what the hell he was doing and that he and one of his best friends disagreed on some important issues. And that disagreement cost them both of their lives. That’s a sad reality of course, but something about Jesus finally had substance…and that was pretty cool in and of itself.

The complex, tempestuous relationship between Jesus and Judas is the crux of “Superstar.” (It also puts forth a rather interesting, and forward thinking, depiction of the Jesus and Mary Magdalene “situation.” Really listen to the lyrics of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” and I dare you to tell me that’s a song written for a friend and not a lover.) Every Easter I watch the film (in lieu of going to actual Mass), and I still get chills during the second part of “The Last Supper” song when Judas and Jesus really lay into each other, Judas condemning Jesus calling him “a sad, pathetic man” and uttering the classic line: “Every time I look at you I don’t understand, how you let things you did get so out of hand. You’d have managed better if you had it planned!”  There are many wonderful lyrics (courtesy of Grammy, Tony and Academy Award winner Tim Rice) throughout the musical, but that one always seemed the most…insightful…to me.

Jesus and Judas throw down with some slap fight action...
In the early 90’s, I was lucky enough to see a stage production of JCS at the Merriam Theater in Philadelphia. Both Ted Neely and Carl Anderson reprised their roles as Jesus and Judas respectively. It was, in word, magical. I was transfixed for those two hours…it is a night that I will never, ever forget.

Oh, and I met Garry Maddox (sans mega afro), the ex-Phillies center-fielder on the great 70’s and 80’s teams, out on Broad Street afterwards. It seems he and his wife took in the show as well. So there’s that.

You rock on with your bad self, Garry Lee...
Since Easter just passed, do yourself a favor and check out some version of “Jesus Christ Superstar” (I highly recommend the 1973 film version). I can’t say that it will have the profound impact on you that it had on me, but it’s still well worth a viewing be you a Jew, Christian, Wiccan or Muslim because, religious nonsense aside, it tells the powerful story of two friends who clearly care for each other, but just cannot see eye to eye...and that failure costs them both dearly. That kind of pathos is something we can all relate to, I think.

And maybe someday I’ll get to do the remake I’ve been planning since the mid-90’s that would star Chris Cornell as Jesus, Prince as Judas, Tori Amos as Mary Magdalene, Howard Stern as Herod and Kevin Spacey as Pilate.

That right there is a license to print money, I tell ya…

Thursday, March 10, 2016

FARE THEE WELL, STARMAN

It’s been exactly two months now since David Bowie died. I’m still not sure how to process it…I suppose that’s why it’s taken me 60 days to cobble together this post. I can’t say that any other celebrity death has ever affected me this deeply. Most times I just shrug these deaths off with a curt, “Well, that sucks” then I move on with my life.

Just think about it for a minute:

Ziggy Stardust has returned to life on Mars with his badass Spiders in tow.

The Thin White Duke has snorted his last line of premium blow at the swanky after-party.

The Goblin King has been eternally spurned by the haughty, teenage girl.

Lazarus lies dormant in his grave with no hope of resurrection.

Hell, I was still tearing up a few days ago when I showed my daughter the classic “Life on Mars?” video on You Tube. I guess it just boils down to the fact that David Bowie died with aforethought, grace, style and virtuosity. That’s better than most people live, goddamn it. It makes me infinitely sad that someone of his creative stature is no longer with us and I now have to listen to Donald-Fucking-Trump’s hateful diatribes on a daily basis.

It’s funny, the first thing I thought about when I heard Bowie died was one of those awkward, teenage moments that I seemed to have a good many of back in the day:

I was home on break from college and during those breaks I would pick up a few shifts at the local Acme supermarket to make a few bucks. On this particular evening, I was waiting for my mother to return home with the car so I could drive to work. I had the stereo on in the living room while I was waiting and soon, the smooth, Philly-Soul beats of “Young Americans” wafted throughout the room. I quickly sprung to my feet, raising the volume on the stereo to ear-splitting levels (because good music ALWAYS needs to be played LOUD) as I did this. Before I knew it, I was dancing…spinning and grinning like a first class buffoon. What can I say? The sweet, soulful music possessed me in that moment and I was a dancin’ fool of a white boy.

But, alas, all good things must come to an end. As I was completing a twirl that would have made one of the Temptations blush, I swung about to find my mother and brother staring at me from the doorway. I’m not sure how long they had been watching me, but it was long enough.

They were heartily laughing at me as I turned off the stereo, collected the car keys and made a quick exit, sincerely hoping to never speak of this moment again. But, truth be told, I always recalled that moment, and the song itself, rather fondly.

In my estimation, there are a lot of people this crazy world could do without… people who are just sucking in good air that the rest of us could be using. David Bowie definitely wasn’t one of those people…

…and this crazy world is just a bit more terrible now that he’s gone from it. That’s a fact.

Monday, January 18, 2016

NIGHTMARES & DREAMSCAPES

So, last night I had one of those dreams. Some would call it a nightmare. Others would say I crossed over into the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits.

Yeah. Listen to my story now; it was a crazy dream:

It was as if my 10-year-old daughter Bridget and I were in a Japanese anime or manga…something akin to a modernized “Lone Wolf and Cub.”

Check out the films or manga if you haven't already...
In narrative of this twisted dream, I was being hunted by an evil ghost. I don’t recall the why’s and wherefore’s as to this vengeful spirit’s purpose. It was just after me. Guess I had wronged it somehow.

It seems that the dream itself took place in Japan because the next part of the nightmare I recall is that she and I are on the bullet train, the Shinkansen. It’s there that we discover that the wraith is indeed a female and she shares the same name as my daughter. This revelation comes about by us translating the Japanese kanji (ブリジット), which is “Burijitto” or “Bridget” in Japanese. There was also some business with us acquiring magical katanas/swords that could harm ghosts, but my memory is sketchy on this now. Regardless, it was made clear that Bridget’s weapon was better than mine. This will come into play later.

So, she and I eventually disembark the train with the nasty phantasm hot on our trail. We ultimately come to an open field, readying ourselves for an assault. The assault comes…the specter comes right for me. It moves almost like the alien Predator in the classic, 1987 film: it’s there, but not there, and for fleeting moments I can briefly glimpse the vaguely human shape as it rushes towards me. I hack at it repeatedly, but my blows do no harm, yet the phantom is hurting me as it right on top of me. Now, I studied martial arts and Kendo, the Japanese sword art, as a teenager and I still can handle a bladed weapon fairly well, so this should not be happening.

Suddenly and swiftly, two strikes hit the assailing apparition from the side and it backs off of me. It’s Bridget, of course, giving my attacker what for, but in the process her sword, the better sword…the sword that is clearly the ghost slaying sword, is flung from her hands.

She screams something to me…something I cannot hear. I assume she’s telling me to reclaim the sword and I endeavor to do just that but, quick as flash, the unremitting spirit is upon me once again, enveloping me and that’s when I awake with start.

Now, here’s where things get really weird.

I’m totally awake. My eyes are wide open. My heart is doing its best John Henry impersonation on my chest. A split second later, Bridget’s Furby toy, which is sitting on shelf in the far corner of the room springs to life. The toy lights up the room and begins to spew its inane jibber-jabber. This Furby has been dormant for at least two months. No one has touched it or molested it in quite some time because, quite frankly, the stupid thing is fucking annoying. Panicked, I bolt upright in bed and glance around the room, which I can see fairly well due to the eerie glow emanating from the Furby’s digital eyes. There’s nothing to see. Nada. Zip. Zero. Nothing.

You can go fuck off an die, Furby.
I grab my phone to glance at the time. It’s 5:04 AM. Finally, the Furby has shut the hell up. All this excitement has filled my bladder it seems, so I leave my cozy bed as the wind howls mightily against the windows. Unaware as to what new weirdness awaits me outside my door, I step into the hallway to see the clothes I left carefully draped over the bannister are now haphazardly lying on the floor. It’s was as if someone was pissed off at me and decided to dump my shit on the floor…just because they could.

This has never, ever happened before.

I’ve left clothes over that bannister dozens of times over the last year or so and they’ve always been exactly in the same place when I awoke in the morning.

Obviously, I stumbled into something supernatural as I slumbered last evening…something mysteriously paranormal and vaguely evil. And it clearly wanted to frighten me or send some sort of message. Why? I do not know. Usually, something like this wouldn’t bother me so much but, right now, I haven’t the time nor the inclination for such nonsense.

Go away, whatever the hell you are. Oh, and leaving my fucking daughter out of it. You want me, you come get me.

Dream bullshit or not, I can assure you that if you cross my path again my sword will be sharp and at the ready. 

Make no mistake about that.

Sunday, November 29, 2015

LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST

Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd
In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes;
And, to begin, wench — so God help me, la! —
My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.”

~ Berowne, Act V, Scene II, Love’s Labour’s Lost

So, a little over a year or so ago I was working for a crappy little magazine that focused on the transportation industry. It was an infinitely dull job…not helped by the fact that the most of the people that worked there were myopic twats. I’ll even go a bit further to say that a couple of them were, I’m quite sure, certifiably insane.

One of the much-needed respites I would take from this place was during my lunch hour when I would visit a used record store that was nearby. It was a cool store, with an equally cool vibe, that awoke many memories of my late 70’s, early 80’s childhood, sitting in front of a “Hi-Fi” stereo listening to classic records from the likes of  KISS, Queen, Rush, Aerosmith, Styx and AC/DC with various friends and family members.

On one of my last trips there, I came across some buried treasure of sorts. While a was checking out a near mint copy of the Rolling Stones self-titled inaugural record, an envelope fell out of the sleeve and landed at my feet. I wasn’t sure what it was at first, but I quickly snatched it up.

Mick and Keith should write a song about this letter and call it "Carol" then set it to the tune of "Angie"
It was a letter, and a rather old one by the looks of it. It was address to a “Miss Carol Makers” who lived in Northeast Philadelphia (the store where I found it is in South Jersey). It had a 5 cent, George Washington stamp on it which was made/used in 1962-63. But there was no return address and no postmark, so it obviously was never mailed.

For a fleeting moment, I thought about taking the letter to the counter and turning it in. But, my journalistic instincts got the better of me: I needed to know what was inside this envelope. So I quickly pocketed my find and made a hasty exit, as if I was a sketchy, teenage shoplifter boosting a couple Beastie Boys cassettes.

Never mailed...why, I wonder?
When I got back to my office at work, I opened the envelope to find a love letter of sorts. It was nothing Shakespearean in stature or rhyme, but it was endearing in its own ham-fisted way. And it even had a bit of wonky sexual innuendo tacked on at the end as far as I can tell.

The letter is printed in brown ink, maybe with a felt-tip pen or marker of some sort, and it’s in ALL CAPS. It reads as follows:

                “Dear Carol,

“The boy you should hate is on the other end of this pen. I’ve had a lousy Christmas this week. I thought I was having a good time. Thursday night I finally realized I was being selfish, practically ignoring you. There’s NO reason at all for not seeing you, I’m just not good to you, like, I just realized having such a girl as you I should do everything I can to talk to you & be with you.

“You’ve put up with me for almost a year now, I’ll never forget this past year you’ve been better to me than you should have. I wasn’t half as good to you as you were to me. You never did anything wrong to hurt me. But no I was to (sic) foolish, first ‘Mary’ then I didnt see you, or call you for a long time (you’ll never guess whats on the radio) There’s an arrow drawn here from the end of “radio” back up to the name “Mary.”

“But you are so great to me, that those things didn’t matter. (I guess to you they’re both like scars.) All that I can say is if I lost you now Id fall apart. I told you before Ill never hurt you again I’ve tried not to & Im gonna try harder not to. I’m not going to hurt you. Lets forget all our hard times Sunday and start (his “S” looks much like a “B” here…not sure why) new.

“Well Im gonna stop cause I (this “I” looks much like an arrow here…again, not sure why. My best guess is that his hand was getting tired because after the first two paragraphs he started skipping many apostrophes in his contractions as well) got to call you in about 20 min.

Love,

Bob”

Click on either page for the full-size version
There are two rather odd postscripts to this letter. Off to the left hand side and in a bubble of sorts is: “I got 10 finger-nails again.” This seems to be a point of pride for ol’ Bobby, I mean, why else would you mention something that fucking weird in a love letter? Was Carol appalled at his lack of 10 fingernails? Did she say something along the lines of “Call me when you have 10 fingernails again, you freak!?” The mind boggles at the possibilities…


Under that is something ever weirder, and this is where the sexual innuendo part kicks in. Taking up the last third of the yellowish stationary is a crude drawing of a gnome (I guess?) with long cap pulled down over his eyes. Over the gnome, written in rainbow fashion are the words: “BURT CAN’T SEE ANYTHING.” The name, “BURT,” is written along the brim of the gnome’s cap. To the right of Burt is written: “lets get lost on a country road with Burt.”

Now I could be entirely incorrect, but I’m guessing Bob named his penis “Burt” (why some men do this still confounds me to this day), and he’s implying that he and Miss Carol should forget their troubles and just go bang on a country road somewhere. The “let’s get lost” line is a pretty strong indicator to me that this is what he wanted, but it’s the gnome’s hat that seals the deal in my mind because it looks like the tip, or reservoir, of a condom. Take a look at it below and make up your own mind:


Since I came across this letter I’ve been rather curious as to how things turned out for Bob and Carol, and most of all why did Bob never bother to send it? I would think it has to do with the very last line in the letter when Bob writes that he will be calling Carol in “about 20 minutes.” My guess is that call either went really wrong or really right and there was no need to send the letter after that either way.

I’m a romantic at heart and I’d like to believe that the call went well then these two Northeast Philly kids (where I was born and raised, hence my heightened curiosity) went on to have a wonderful life together…regardless of Burt, Mary or the dire fingernail situation.

But who the hell knows, right??

The main reason I’m finally writing this post is to use the power of the internet and/or social media to find out what really happened with Bob and Carol. So, if you are reading this and would like to know more yourself, please share this anywhere and everywhere…especially if you live in the Philadelphia area. Let’s see if we can use this 21st century tech to track down these two, 60s love birds.

Here’s what’s known from the letter itself:
  •          It was written in the early to mid-60’s (the stamp seems to be from 1962-63 and the first Stones album was released in the U.S. May of 1964).
  •          It was written to Miss Carol Makers who lived at 2828 Sandyford Rd. Philadelphia, PA 19152.
  •          It appears that Bob’s last name is Martini and that he lived at 11606 Depue St. Philadelphia, PA 19116. If you look closely at the stationary in the pictures above, it has a name and address on it (Mrs. David Martini 11606 Depue St. Philadelphia, PA 19116) that is crossed out for some reason, so it may not be legit, but I’m guessing that ol’ Bob used  his Mom’s stationary and didn’t want Carol to know.
Alright internet sleuths get to sleuthing! You are all hereby deputized by me (hey, I do work for the cops now after all…), so let’s crack this!