Musings Along Electric Avenue

2011-09-19T20:55:00.004-04:00

Gloria Vanderbilt, now more famous for spawning our favorite Grey Fox, Anderson Cooper, than she is for her once-fabulous jeans, recently pondered over the loss of her other son, Carter, to suicide in 1988. Carter was 23 when he jumped off the balcony of the family's penthouse right in front of his helpless, horrified mother.

"You never get over it, but you learn to live with it," she said, adding that she thinks about it all the time.

Numerous interviews where Anderson recalls his mother fondly indicate that she bucked up and remained strong for the sake of her still-living son.

"I wanted to follow him over that balcony but then I thought of you and I didn't", she recalls to Anderson, of watching Carter plunge to his early death. Those words and that attitude are harder than anyone can imagine.

Losing a child is truly a life-changing event. My mother lost her only son when he was 18. From then on, life was divided into two distinct chapters. Relating a story or memory was always preceded with, "this was before Charlie died, so it must have been 19--" or the opposite. Experiences "after Charlie died" could never have taken place in that quaint bubble that Charlie inhabited with us.

Life became one of those "Sliding Doors" or "The Box" type movies where that one event beget the next in a never-ending game of Dominoes built on a keystone that was yanked away from its foundation.

Charlie and his buddy Randy were troublemakers of the Merry-Perri Hobbit-type mischief sort, but in a small New England town where "crime" is defined as putting out your mail without lifting the mailbox flag, Charlie was a moving target wherever he went.

Charlie's hijinx could be blamed on an absentee dad and a strict stepdad, or the sheer boredom of living on a farm pre-internet and Wii. Some blame the local sheriff with too much gun practice and not enough targets. The smaller the town, the greater the Power of One becomes, after all.

The made-up "what-ifs" don't matter. The reality is that a mother is never the same. Never. The. Same.

"There is never closure on something like this," Gloria told Anderson on his show. "Closure is one of those TV words."

Indeed.

RICE AND MEANS

2010-09-11T14:36:00.007-04:00

People of means do not eat rice. Risotto is a rich person’s dish, the name dressed up as much as the simple kernel itself. Fifty pound bags of granular substance are reserved for second and third world countries. To make a meal of rice is so un-American, it is justified only by the accompaniment beans and maracas.

Yet this snubbed food symbolizes home to me. Not because I am from a rice country, but because we didn’t have much.

For most people, a snowy day locked indoors in front of hot pine embers translates to mugs of hot chocolate and down filled blankets. It means reruns of black and whites and snow cones made from freshly fallen white stuff. Often, it also means bare cupboards since a trip to town is out of the question for several more days. Once the last bit of beef is cooked and the large storage freezer is empty, it is time to dig deep into the pantry, because if there is nothing else, there is always a bag of rice. Those who’d canned their own goods the season before subsist on jam, pickles, and beets smeared onto baking powder biscuits. Because there is always flour and sugar. There is always flour and there is always sugar and there is always rice. When all other stored goods are gone, a savvy New Englander knows how to turn flour and sugar and rice into three days of meals. And often, we did.

We did so not only because of winter’s vengeance, but because of unreliable jobs, manufacturing’s jaunt overseas, and the occasional deluge of medical bills when the health insurance safety net snapped free. Rice did not taste poor to me. It was a special cereal not sold in stores – a homemade kind. It was warm and sweet with butter, milk, and sugar. It was filling, nutritious, and yummy. It was comfort food.

Rarely now do I eat rice and milk. Indulging in the sticky stuff is reserved for Chinese take-out night then tossed with the leftovers into the garbage. A lack of food – or even a lack of a paycheck and health insurance – is far from my mind. Recently, though, there was nothing to eat. The fridge, freezer, and shelves were full, but laziness trumped any urge to cook something. But there in the back of the fridge was a week-old container filled with dried up rice. Jackpot.

Something from home filled my bones as I soaked it in milk, sprinkled it with sugar, and zapped it warm. But it wasn’t the same. It didn’t taste like home. It was crunchy not comforting, weak not warm, bland not bold. Perhaps because I didn’t have to eat it to survive. Or maybe it was the 70 degree air outside. It is possible, though, that it needed to sit on a back shelf and soak in sadness, poverty, despair and madness. When cooked with sour milk and disguised with sugar, it tastes like home.

More likely, the rice concoction always tasted like it did the other night. Maybe my life of means has changed my tastes into one that demands it be dressed up and renamed, served on fancy plates at sky high prices. I do love rice pudding, a treat I discovered in adulthood. Cooked with loads of expensive butter and cream and stirred by hand for hours on end, it is an annual indulgence enjoyed by the whole family. When my baby is grown, I wonder if the combination of cinnamon, rice, butter, and cream will paint home to him. And I wonder if it will taste the same or if he will have moved beyond such a humble dish. Most of all, I wonder how it will once again reinvent itself from rice to riches.

51st State: Newest Mexico

2010-08-25T18:03:00.000-04:00

In an age when illegal immigrants from Mexico aren’t deterred by barbed wire, gunfire, or Arizona’s legalized profiling, isn’t it time to redirect those millions of taxpayer dollars and invest them in a sure-fire plan?

Stop patrolling the border and instead, send those troops over to start a war with Mexico. Rather than watching with folded hands the bloody war that Mexico’s drug lords are waging and winning, the U.S. should declare marshal law. It wouldn’t even be a war but more like child’s play. We have the resources and the clear-cut advantage of a professional army. Let’s add another 7-day war to our history books and expand our lands.

For a year’s budget that goes to fighting drugs in the U.S. that slip from in Mexico, it could be stopped permanently with one swift military action. Why haven’t we then? Besides the international outcry of imperialism and bully-tactic Colonization, it’s really about economics. The Mexican economy is kept afloat by the drug trade. The current civil war aside, Mexico is generally happy as a pig in mud with their profitable exports, illegal as they may be here.

If we invaded and took over, our tax money would pour through that sieve we created into the Mexican economy for the next three decades. We’d be building roads, hospitals, schools, prisons, and housing. But we’d save just as many millions not fighting illegal immigration. In fact, most would probably voluntarily go home. Jobs, healthcare, and safety would be guaranteed back in Mexico, something they haven’t seen in their lifetime.

Moving manufacturing from overseas to local cheap intra-continental labor is the main answer to the economic woes. China and Japan, now First World countries, are becoming too expensive, forcing companies to move their plants to second and third world countries again. What’s better than a new, struggling Mexican economy? Without drug money and drug lord interference, North American manufacturing could boom once again. What might be slightly more in wages would pay off in cheaper transportation costs. No more month-long trips across the ocean or losing important (or hazardous) cargo to sea quells.

Tax dollars garnered from manufacturing plants on new American soil would be reinvested into Mexican infrastructure. Contracts and jobs would send people running to Mexico, boosting our own lagging economy and lowering our unemployment rate. Those workers would need housing, food, and entertainment, and the reinvestment of their wages into the local economy would pay off in spades. The American government could stop sending them unemployment checks and start collecting income taxes. The only losers are the drug lords, who would somehow find a way to ply their trade elsewhere.

Hell, with a new American-based education system in place there, companies could even move customer service and IT support from India to Mexico. A new frontier for casinos and lotteries would generate jobs, revenue, and tourism.

After a decade of sweeping reform, the land once known as Mexico could be broken down into multiple states, localizing government and creating a whole new fight for the Red and Blue. If it wasn’t already taken, I’d vote to call the first state “New Mexico” because it would, indeed, be a whole new world. And maybe we'd finally have a soccer team to be proud of.

Now Hiring: Chief Executive Transponster

2010-06-06T19:12:00.004-04:00

Call me old fashioned, but I need to put my hands on the fruits of my labor. Our forefathers never had to explain what they did for a living – they’d simply point to something in the room and say, “I built that” or “I make the bolts that hold that together” or “I sewed your shirt.” Ask the average American now what they do and they’ll be as stumped to explain it as Chandler Bing’s character on Friends (“he’s a transponster” was the guess during the apartment-losing trivia bet).

Today, job titles range from the obscure (the “Fandemonium Director” created by Monster.com) to the ambiguous (the “Happiness Engineers” that work at WordPress) to the hubristic (the self-applied “iCEO” title held by Steve Jobs).

Engineers the world around with $50k in school loans and bigger brains than the average bear should be up in arms at how their hard-won titles are thrown around today to dress up run-of-the-mill work. From the home-based “Domestic Engineers” to the “Caffeine Distribution Engineers” found at Starbucks to the “Petroleum Movement Engineers” at the local gas station, Engineers are popping up on every street corner with an education far removed from AutoCAD and algorithms.

America is no longer the country that once produced tangible goods. Our main export now is entertainment, information, and money. We import our jeans, straws, even our hourly help. Today’s Jack and Jill have internet jobs moving around data in cyberspace and met in an invisible chat room; they have a robodog, an electric car, and a surrogate growing their baby in India because it’s cheaper than maternity leave.

It is no wonder the unemployment rate is so high. We don’t really know how to do anything. A hundred years ago, people built their own houses, grew and canned their own food, sewed their own clothes, and delivered their own babies. It is said that out of ten people in a room, one is homosexual, two are color blind, and eight will say their favorite color is blue. But none know how to reattach a button, make spaghetti sauce not from a jar, or change the oil in a car. Well, maybe one could sew a button.

Warning: Made in China

2010-04-03T20:42:00.004-04:00

What if you declare war and no one shows up to fight? That seems to be what China’s mulling over right now. Caught up in a made-up war over in the desert, we neglected to heed the call to arms that China issued nearly a decade ago.

You gotta hand it to them; they’ve fought calculated battles, hitting our people and our infrastructure with minimal loss of their own. How is it that our media and our politicians have yet to realize they’ve been waging a quiet, deadly war against us? Why do we keep chalking up each attack to ineptitude when it’s obvious they’re trying to pick us off one by one – and succeeding?

This isn’t crazy conspiracy talk. It’s an actual conspiracy. The summer of 2007 saw a massive recall of lead-laced toys made in China. Hasn’t it been something like 40 years since lead was added to anything except gas? Then there was toothpaste. The FDA ordered the destruction of Chinese-made toothpaste for containing toxic amounts of diethelyne glycol, a sweet, syrupy poison.

The fall of 2008 brought melamine-tainted baby milk, eggs, sweets, and animal feed across Europe and parts of U.S. Suddenly deadly amounts of melamine showed up in all of those unrelated,Chinese-made products?

The latest bomb exploded in our housing sector, though it may have been the first one planted. Since 2001, Chinese drywall used in most of our new housing has been emitting hazardous amounts of sulfur gas. In lightning time, this corrodes copper, electrical wiring, air conditioners, appliances, makes people sick, and easily becomes airborne, thereby entering and lodging in lungs.

Our government just issued a warning to gut all drywall, insulation, wiring, circuit breakers, and gas pipes and replace them completely. How did the Chinese government – which directly manufactured this product – manage to hit so many Americans? Their Trojan horse came in the form of a ridiculously cheap price we couldn’t resist.

The Chinese didn’t need to fly a plane into our centers of commerce because we paid them to send bombs into our homes and the hands of our children. We forgive and forget each time, continue to buy their products, and close our eyes to the obvious.

We are at war. Instead of trained militants, it is postmen, teachers, accountants, and babies who are on the frontline. Laugh if you will, but mark my words, there will be more headlines. The only one we should be seeing from now on is this: Warning! Made in China.

Till Cold Feet Do Us Part

2010-03-24T00:03:00.003-04:00

It was a rite of passage around ten or twelve or some age when parents finally decided you were tough enough not to succumb to childhood disease. If you’d beat the pox, scarlet fever, croup, pneumonia, and measles, then a parent felt obligated to contribute a few bucks to your continued survival. Henceforth, warm nights in New England were no longer limited to dying embers in the potbelly and hot water bottles under the covers. No, from there on out you got your very own electric blanket. It was usually a hand-me-down or picked up while yardsaling and about half of the wires worked. But it was warm and welcome.

As an adult with a thermostat-regulated gas furnace, no wood to chop, and insulated walls, there is little need for this New England bedroom staple. But like warm cookies and hot chocolate, it is a comfort, a guilty pleasure. But unlike such American staples as Star Wars and Corvette, the original benefited from its update: the electric mattress pad.

Anyone with backaches, arthritis, or a partner who won the thermostat war needs one of these babies. It envelopes you like a . . . well, a warm blanket. A hug. Loving arms that never fall asleep or fidget. Adjustable from 1-10 and split down the middle with dual controls for his and her comfort, the electric mattress pad is the best invention since electricity. It’s like being a kid again – without the chores.

I pledge allegiance to . . . Hubba Bubba?

2010-02-26T10:57:00.005-05:00

In typical American slacker fashion, Bode Miller chomped gum during the national anthem as he stood on the medal podium at the 2010 Olympics. The next day, his teammates paid dearly. Lindsey Vonn crashed hard and broke a bone, causing Julia Mancuso to be stopped mid-run. Her cursed second run went poorly.

Hell hath no fury like a nation’s flag scorned.

Of the eight golds (thus far) that were privileged to be accompanied by our national anthem, I only noticed one athlete putting their hand over their heart. Not one attempted the song, though cross-country skier Johnny Spillane did mumble along some.

It’s been noted that our own President doesn’t observe all of the recommendations set out by U.S. Code 301. Is Nationalism dead? In this day of invisible boundaries where athletes from several nations are all wearing Nike manufactured Olympic gear, where the best Norwegian sleds are raced under a rainbow of flags, and where our most medaled winter Olympian hails from Japanese roots, is there even such a thing as nationalism?

The Pledge of Allegiance isn’t said in most of our schools anymore. Only Whitney Houston knows all the words to our National Anthem. Our nation hasn’t fallen yet for this lack of showy patriotism. But for God’s sake, spit out the gum, Bode. It’s just good manners. If we are nothing else, we are polite Americans, eh?

Once Upon a Faulty Gene

2010-02-17T18:54:00.004-05:00

Children are programmed to love their parents no matter the harm inflicted upon them. It’s hardwired into their little brains and hearts to forgive and trust. It’s one of nature’s catch-22 scenarios, put there to ensure that a parent can doctor a child back to health and still hold esteem.

As a sick tyke, I often felt betrayed by my trustworthy folks as they held me down and put torturous drops into my painfully infected ears. How could they do that to me over and over, knowing how much I hated it? I now watch with sick regret as I have to do the same to my own little one. I look into his doe eyes, filled with surprise and accusation and thank God or Mother Nature for his ability to hug me afterward instead of running away. I will always be the bad guy, the one to scrape wounds clean and make him drink penicillin (aka poison to him).

The problem is that this “get outta jail free” gene is the same one that makes abused kids lie and defend their parents, afraid of being separated from them. How is a judge to know what’s best for a child when that kid can’t differentiate abuse from loving care and says with all sincerity, “I want to live with mommy”? If evolution weeds out harmful traits, how long will it take for society to be rid of bad parents? And if there were no more bad parents, could we even procreate? Or is selfishness just inherently human?

Dear Conan,

2010-01-13T17:55:00.011-05:00

Dear Conan,

Stop being a baby.

If I did my job poorly, got bad reviews, or didn't make my numbers, I'd be fired. All you got for doing a bad job was a shift change; although you still get to go in at the same convenient time in daylight hours to do that job. Your late night show doesn't actually require that you work at midnight, unlike the plant employees where I work.

If I made fun of my bosses on their dime, I'd be tossed faster than dice in Governor Paterson's back yard. So you feel lied to by corporate America who didn't come through on their word for your promotion. Welcome to my world. I don't get paid a few million to ease that sting.

Your refusal of the reassignment is simply Un-American. I don't know one person who would turn down a paying gig. I do know plenty of laid off factory workers who are funny enough to fill in for you if you think you're above it. I'd bet my next measly paycheck they'd bring in higher ratings than you. But if they didn't and NBC gave them a pink slip, they'd hold their head high and go stand in line at the unemployment office like so many others.

Ya see, Conan, this country is built on the shoulders of workers. Go work.

Russia Saves the Galaxy?

2009-12-30T22:27:00.008-05:00

It wasn't too long ago that we were sure that Russia -- the USSR, CCCP -- would blow up the world. They beat us to space, we beat them at hockey. We raced to build arms with the foolish thought that if we had one more than them, they'd back down. In the end, they gave us their wall and we gave them denim.

Hearing that Russians stood in line for hours for toilet paper sorta whipped back the curtain and all at once, the big bad wizard behind the screen was just a little man with great manipulative powers. Russia became to the superpowers what Mork was to aliens.

So what does a nation do that's been all but exiled from Earth? Become the superpower in space. It's a lawless, unexplored front with no borders and little political history. Their space station is the Eagle's Nest of the galaxy.

Now with a crippled U.S. and our own status as a world superpower being questioned, it seems that Russia is once again making headlines with their influence on the world. The Earth, to be exact.

Russia's space agency just announced plans to attack a rogue asteroid, ala Armageddon. Is this more smoke and mirrors in Oz, or have they somehow managed to bring the nations of Earth to their mercy once again? When they're done playing Galactic Sheriff, will we let them back into our playground, thankful they saved the day? Will they even want back in? Russia may be quite content to rule us from a throne made of stars. While we continue to chase our tails here on the third rock from the sun, our one-time nemesis is becoming king of a new hill.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Their version of Princess Leia doesn't look nearly as good in a gold bikini.

Biggest Brothers

2009-12-13T09:57:00.008-05:00

Band of Brothers is not meant to be watched in the dark, alone. It is soul marking and its enlightenment should be realized in the shadow of tree limbs splattered with tiny lights as the snow falls outside.

Every Christmas I dust off my boxed set and pop it in. From its brilliant beginning, where David Schwimmer has his Glengarry Glen Ross moment, to the freeing of the camps, Band of Brothers delivers life lessons. It redefines friendship and family and reminds us the cost of freedom before bombs and internet warfare.

A great performance by Damien Lewis made me one of the two dozen people who faithfully watched his series Life before it got canned. Other great sightings: An unrecognizable Matthew Settle (before Gossip Girl fame) as the crazy Lt. Spiers, a premier performance by Hollywood royalty Colin Hanks as a rich West Point graduate trying to make good on the front line, ghost appearances by producer Tom Hanks as a British officer, and a very young James McAvoy as an unappreciated Replacement.

Somewhere around Christmas Eve as I wrap the last present and warm my feet by the fire, the 101st is spending their holiday dug into a trench in below-zero Bastogne, shaving with shards of ice and eating frozen bread to survive. I think how opposite those conditions are to the current warriors in the 120 degree deserts of Iraq, yet their fight is the same. The only thing that changes is the face of the enemy.

Our freedom is never really won. Like the Stanley Cup, we get to keep it for a short time until someone bigger and stronger comes along and takes it away. We will always need 19-year old boys who believe they are invincible. I think of this as I watch my nothing-scares-him baby boy sleep fitfully in his crib. Having no siblings of his own, I wonder if he will someday bond with his brothers-in-arms in a faraway land, believing that Freedom is worth it and equally convinced he will come home someday.

As I watch history unfold on my screen for the eighth year in a row, knowing most of them will be dead by the seventh hour of this miniseries, I find myself cheering, screaming, and crying anyway. I like these guys. Elizabeth Edwards said the only way a dead person lives on is through those who knew them and remember. Millions of people know these young men now.

They will truly live in infamy. And well they should.

We Text You A Merry Christmas

2009-12-09T14:31:00.003-05:00

Whatever happened to the Christmas card? The tree trunk's worth of glittery paper adorned with Coca-Cola Santas and too many rugrats that used to line my hallway at the holidays has dieted its way to a couple of generic "Season's Greetings" and the occasional form letter from a cousin. It's not that life has become too busy for my friends and family. If anything, their full lives give them more reason to send an annual "howdy" along with an updated photo we can all hold onto in case one is abducted.

Much like its cousin the Pen Pal Letter, the Christmas Card has been made extinct by Facebook, email, and digital cameras. My faraway cousins with whom I kept up only through my parents' monthly update and once-a-decade photo now inundate my Facebook page. I not only know their kids' grades and friends, I also know their latest Sudoko score and Virtual Mayoral duties. What I don't know is their address, phone number, or what their voices sound like.

Technology has brought us closer, shrinking our globe to M&M proportions. I'll probably never see the handwriting of my nephew although I'll "see" and "hear" him through some silicone medium. But then modern penmanship is a topic best debated another time.

Lucy -- one year gone

2009-11-26T01:11:00.002-05:00

She died on Thanksgiving
She was my friend
my walking buddy
my meal companion
my foot warmer
my first baby

It was a cruel circle of life
I cleaned up after her as a puppy
and again as a senior when she couldn't hold her own
I helped her up stairs when she was too little and gangly to make it
and again when she was too old and arthritic
I crushed up her food before she had teeth
and again when they'd all fallen out

She died on Thanksgiving
and I was never more thankful

Breakin Even

2009-11-07T16:08:00.011-05:00

Growing up with a landscape of people as pale as the snow that capped the mountains that framed my State, I was oblivious to inner-city struggles, urban plight, and social welfare. “Gang” was just the four letter word that preceded “ly” when describing the boys in my town.

So when the single screen movie theatre – the only one in a twenty mile radius – showed Breakin’, we went in droves. Somehow I talked four different adults into taking me six times before it left town and was replaced by Karate Kid or Footloose or some other fish out of water story.

Rewatching it now with the wisdom of years, the experience of living near a big city, and the many gang articles seared into my brain, I’m as lost as I was then, just for different reasons. While I’m able to identify Adam as the flaming gay dancer friend – he just seemed unusually extravagant then – I’m unsure if gangs actually fought this way in the 80’s. Did they really dance it out, the best street corners going to the declared winner ala 8 Seconds? Or was Hollywood glossing over (or maybe oblivious to) the problem brewing right under their nose only a few miles away?

While the interracial relationships didn’t faze me – they’re just people of a slightly different color, albeit colors I hadn’t seen in person at the time – I now wonder if they were as easily accepted as the movie made them out to be. The only problem people seemed to have was “street” versus “trained” dancers. Maybe this was Hollywood’s way of slyly addressing the class differences in the hills and valleys of LaLa Land. Or maybe they just wanted to build that dance wagon everyone would soon jump on. If so, they were also early creators of the boy-girl-boy hero trio that’s still popular today (see Harry Potter).

Despite the movie not aging well (who the hell is Lucinda Dickey?), I was pleased to be able to identify Ice-T twenty five years later. He hasn’t aged a day. Now that’s some Hollywood magic.

Drunk Blog Dialing

2009-10-19T23:59:00.002-04:00

One recent Friday night, I found myself bored with all my books, all two hundred TV channels,and every friend who might want to chat. I needed something different, unpredictable. A few years ago, I'd have hit a new club or called up my European entourage to entertain me for the evening. But since it's illegal to leave a baby unattended (go figure), I find myself at home on more weekends than not.

This is when I discovered drunk blog dialing. You don't have to actually be drunk, but it's fun to do a shot (or a sip of a shot) for every blog you like. Here's how to play. Go to a blogger site (like this one), then push the button at the top called "next blog." Blogger randomly moves you to another blog page.

For some reason, about ninety percent of them were German that night (this happens) but I did come across a few worth reading and some even worth following. Here's a highlight:

Fat Nat Sketches http://nategaul.blogspot.com/ -- a kid with a good hand for drawing monsters.

Film Girl http://filmgirlopinions.blogspot.com/ -- a girl with a love for old movies and the beatles. She reviews (and has great pics) of old, old movies. Very funny is the "spoiler" warnings she puts on each, as though these just came out last weekend.

Pittsbugh Daily Photo http://pburghdailypho.blogspot.com/2009/10/sometimes-most-sweetest-random-moments.html -- A nurse who went to art school in Pittsburgh and takes beautiful photos of the not-so-sh**burgh.

A Virginia Flyfishing Journal http://ridpathflylines.blogspot.com/ -- You don't have to like fishing or flies to enjoy the Garrison Keillor-esque writing this guy does.

Brooklyn Guy's Wine and Food Jouranl http://brooklynguyloveswine.blogspot.com/ -- A great guide to local wines and food from a real person. Only slightly snobby.

I also came across some really cute family blogs, where I watched the kids grow up years in a matter of minutes of surfing. I didn't "follow" these, though, and won't mention them here. They're minors, after all, and if the kid goes missing, you know the police are coming looking for the weirdo cyberstalking them.

Next time you have a minute, click the "next blog" button a few time and see what you find. Maybe a gem.

Seventy-two Tattoos

2009-09-16T00:29:00.004-04:00

Your mad genius pierced my skin
Six dozen times
Drilling like my blood was oil

Your art is your soul
That I welcomed into my body
Like a conjoined twin

I enter your den
Drink from your well
Unbutton my heart

You ready your paints
Smile wickedly
Swab my chest

You tell me this time will hurt
No
The real pain comes with leaving

I only meant to get one
Then I fell in love
This time you will ask me out

A Dark Haiku

2009-08-26T11:43:00.001-04:00

It was always dark
She dug graves in the summer
Odd for a woman

She found it peaceful
Preparing the resting place
For the dead and gone

She was no martyr
It was the least she could do
Because she'd killed them

PRIDE

2009-08-21T15:45:00.003-04:00

They came with hopes of a better life, ten dollars in their pocket, and a phone card to call the only relative living in the States who might give them shelter. They left family, their homeland, the mother tongue. Their first English words were spoken when their feet touched this hallowed ground. With no land to till or crops to tend, they gladly took the jobs abandoned by the generation turning to computers and college.

Standing all day in near hundred degree heat next to machines as loud as lawnmowers, they pump out millions of items that magically appear on our store shelves, courtesy of the immigrant.

They’ll never be rich. They’ll never work in air conditioned cubicles. They know they are considered bottom of the wrung by so many Americans. But they have pride in what they do.

When “Bring Your Child to Work Day” comes around, they gather in droves, ushering their offspring to their stations, showing off their part in the assembly line of life. For some, it is the only time they’ve been known to smile.

They remember why they left and why they came.

Dead Hero

2009-08-15T18:11:00.003-04:00

As a young girl, I was probably what the adults called “boy crazy.” I’d fixate on the cutest or most charming male around, sure that he was a god never to be outdone. Inevitably, he’d do something dumb, as boys are apt to do, and my fragile bubble would burst. His beautiful image would turn to ash faster than palms on Sunday. This was the beginning of a lifelong curse of being disappointed by that unreliable gender, of looking for that crack in the armor before it collapsed on me.

There were a few who persisted in their petrified state in my mind, frozen in time, untouched by human foibles. But eventually even those cannot help but expose their weaknesses, their indignities, their intolerant corniness.

I’ll never forget the collapse of one such memory, one I held so close to my heart for so long. Before cable TV and multiplex cinemas, we were at the mercy of program planners. We watched what they fed us, over and over. And before Harry Potter and vampire lovers on HBO, we had The Dragonslayer. I was ten and Galen was every girl’s heartthrob. A head of fabulously curly hair (it was the 80s), a slight frame perfect for a young girl’s obsession, and a smile so warm it could have melted the iceberg and saved the Titanic.

Galen was my hero. He slayed the dragon, saved the town, saved the girl – the tomboy of a girl, to whom I related oh too well – and was an all around brave guy. I went through life for years looking for Galen, only to meet silly boys with no interest in being men or heroes.

Then one day in the 90s, deep into my Ally McBeal obsession of all things “I don’t need a man but I’ll take one if he’s perfect”, I stumbled across Dragonslayer on cable. My hero had returned. Seeking a two hour reprieve from the disappointment that was my life, I settled in with flannel pajamas and popcorn to remind myself what I was holding out for.

Then I saw him. Not Galen, my brave, handsome dragonslaying hero, but The Biscuit. Yep, my childhood hero was played by Peter MacNicol, now better known to me as that stuttering, oddball from Ally McBeal. I made it about twenty minutes into the movie, wincing the entire time at the sheer campiness of it all, before I threw in the towel.

Another hero bites the dust.

Drool Me a River

2009-08-15T09:40:00.001-04:00

Walking through "old" Vegas one beastly hot summer day (Vegas is cheaper in the summer, see, and all the west coasters stay put on the ocean cliffs, leaving the desert to the foolish east coasters), I see a sign for Deep Fried Twinkies, 99 cents. Unable to imagine anything but an immediate cardiac arrest at consuming this, I snap a picture and pass.

A couple of years later, I read about a girl who, during her lunar cycle,eats nothing but oreos fried in butter until her sanity returns. Then at the next four birthday parties and weddings I attend, marshmallows dipped in chocolate grace all the tables. My taste buds lurch in objection.

So I start wondering: What the hell is this obsession with finding the worst possible combination of fat and sugar? I'm a pretty basic chocolate type of girl. A few semi-sweet chips if I have a craving or maybe coco crisp cereal with skim milk. Like my fellow sisters, I can't deny the urges that hormones thrust upon me, but I've never sat around my kitchen, throwing things into a pan until something appeals to me.

I mean, just what was rejected if the winning result is a twinkie thrown into a vat of lard and cooked within an inch of its life?

Today, though, I might have found my new achilles heel. In an article about the best chocolates (most tastes like stale halloween candy: Nestle; most butter like: trader joe's), some kitchen wizard came up with the penultimum chocolate treat: chocolate covered bacon. My traitorous mouth immediately went into drooling overdrive. It seems to have it all: the much sought after balance between salty and sweet, crispy and soft, breakfast and desert.

So here I sit, whiling away the minutes until I can hit the grocery store to find the perfect chocolate and bacon for my concoction. No apple smoked meat for me. No ghiradelli or belgium. No, I'm pretty simple. Just give me some chocolate and salt and I'm happy. Until next month, that is.

Neighbors

2009-08-14T22:00:00.001-04:00

My native New England was home at one point to many great, famous writers. In my mind’s eye, I always pictured the pen folk functioning within a secret writer society devoid of time and mortality. Neighbors in another realm.

I wondered if JD Salinger deigned to answer the door when Robert Frost took the back road, because it was less traveled, to see him, or if Robbie had to stand outside the wall and do the one-handed silent clap to get his attention.

I wondered if Cormac McCarthy carried the fire to the Filipino themed beach party thrown by Norman Mailer and if Stephen King told the creepy campfire stories that kept them all up at night.

I wondered if they all mourned Mark Twain’s death or if they realized it was greatly exaggerated so just sent flowers.

And as John Updike sat in his Norman Rockwell painted house, stuffing his pipe with tobacco, I wonder if he realized just how famous and influential they’d all be one day.

SECRET RECIPE

2009-05-09T23:00:00.000-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

Today a man in Texas discovered the original secret recipe to Dr Pepper.

The browning, torn alchemy book was stuck under a crate in an antique shop, society having abandoned the expensive, time consuming tradition of using natural ingredients and manual labor.

Way back then, there was no high fructose corn syrup, liquid caffeine, or preservatives. Instead, the doctor used mandrake root, sweet flag, and syrup.

The man offered to sell the handwritten recipe to the company so they could maintain their lifeblood, their secret, but they laughed.

Nothing is as it used to be, so nothing is sacred.

AGE IS A BITCH

2009-05-01T22:56:00.000-04:00

Elsa hated this job.

It wasn’t too long ago that she was in the islands doing bathing suit shoots, staying in the best five star hotels, being wooed by the richest and best looking men. Now she’s in a dirtied up backlot pimping shoes for print ads and they won’t even show her face for fear of losing their younger crowd.

If someone had told her that by 30 she’d be a washed up model with no career, no savings, no friends, and no future, she would have stayed in Idaho and married Tommy Keebler and raised his babies.
Elsa’s shoulders sagged as she sighed heavily, searching her brain to find the silver lining in this stormy raincloud she called her life.

Hell, she still had great legs and after this shoot, she’d have a kickass pair of shoes, too.

WE NEVER FEARED

2009-04-10T22:55:00.000-04:00

Way back then
We had hope
We had dreams
Me the president
You my vice
Hillary and Bill

THE YEAR THAT WASN'T

2009-04-07T22:54:00.000-04:00

They promised to meet every year on their birthday in the spot where their birthday suits were all they wore for their first time together and every time since.

They'd met in that very spot on this beach ten years earlier, when life's currency was their innocence and when adults made the unbendable rules that they gleefully and wickedly broke.

Every summer they returned with their families then later by themselves, just the two of them.

They have no contact the rest of the year, just an annual date for a week of carnal bliss.

It was agreed they would meet no matter who was in their lives because this was separate and different, but if by chance one of them truly fell in love, they reserved the right to pull out.

This year, he didn't show up.

NO MORE BEDTIME FOR BONZO

2009-04-04T22:52:00.000-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

Starla counted to six while the vapors took effect then confidently whisked past the unconscious security dwarf.

Most people were annoyed and angered that dwarves had gotten first dibs in the government's genetic lottery that duplicated their defective DNA and turned them into superhumans, but Starla knew there was more than met the eye.

She wound through the building's labyrinth that would baffle anyone else, but Starla intuitively knew where to go, having gotten a little genetic tweaking herself.

She was obviously chosen for this job for her stealth and skill and she knew the peace of the world was dependent on her finding that one person who could once again bring about unity, that one person who could make them beat their swords into plowshears.

Then she found him, packed away in all his frozen glory amongst centuries old computers and other ancient artifacts from a time when humanity measured success by its gross excess.

Starla used her pocket knife to spill her golden blood onto the security pad, punched in the 100,000-digit code she memorized, and watched the brainwaves of Ron Reagan come to life on the screen as she prepared to ask him the favor of a lifetime.

GOD BLESS THE LAZY AMERICAN

2009-04-03T22:51:00.000-04:00

They came out of the woodwork from every corner of the earth: the Greek, Russian, Italian, Romanian, French and British businessmen, all together for the annual summit.

They had impeccable manners, dressed beautifully, gave generously to all who served them, and were fiercely competitive with each other for the attention of the lone female bartender, drowning her with compliments but all the while maintaining respect.

They were all far superior to the slacker American who tipped poorly, tracked their entitlement to free drinks, and shamelessly hit on her as she worked her twelfth hour and endured their wrath when she politely turned them down.

The Europeans were a nice change, she thought, as her hotel bar filled for the evening with the raven haired gods, all white smiles and twinkling eyes.

But as the week wore on, the testosterone became heavy and suffocating, their competitiveness shined through as an ancient hubristic practice, and their elevated standards became a bar too high to jump.

Exhausted, she yearned for the lazy, rude, cheap American male who gave little but expected just as little from her in return.

DEAD PRESIDENT?

2009-03-29T22:49:00.000-04:00

Jack sat on the fiercely guarded deck and looked out at the misty mountain range, mulli

ng over for the thousandth time the irony in the Russians being his savior whereas the Cubans were his downfall.

However indiscreet his affairs, this subterfuge was a hundred times more scandalous – if anyone ever found him.

The two countries’ partnership, long ago abandoned, was just a ruse meant to end here, with him in captivity at their beck and call.

Jack calculated the strength of the guard closest to him and realized he was too old to attempt another escape with a simple elbow to the guy’s nose.

Instead, he closed his eyes and called up the memory of kissing Marilyn, who was also secretly there with him until she died –truly died - three years ago of an aneurysm.

Reaching into his pocket, he fingered the presidential pin, the last reminder he had of who he used to be: the much loved, revered, elegant, powerful JFK.

PULLING AN OBAMA

2009-03-26T22:47:00.001-04:00

Chuck closed his eyes, threw his head back and inhaled the heavenly scent that reminded him of home, back in Kentucky.

His nose and lungs filled with air laced with the earthy, mind boggling aroma that made his spine tingle and his brain synapses dance.

Scenes filled his head: horses racing on a muddy track in spring, old men with big glasses cheering on their bet, pretty Myrtle in her yellow sundress playing coy as he tried to kiss her behind the bleachers.

Smells could do that – bring you back to a time when life was good, before you knew better.

The squeaky back door opened and Chuck’s wife Linda glared at him, her eyes moving to his hand and what he was holding.

Sometimes I just slip, he told her unapologetically as he stubbed out the incriminating cigarette in her pot of marigolds, pausing only briefly before following her back inside.

CHEESEBALL CHALLENGE - A CHEESY 6S POEM

2009-03-22T22:46:00.000-04:00

roses are red, violets are blue.

i hate "the man" and i know you do, too.

what's the real meaning of life?

It's just a series of seven year itch.

But it always comes full circle

Warning: Payback's a bitch

ST. PAT'S REVELATION

2009-03-17T22:45:00.000-04:00

Every holiday was special, with small gifts to represent the tradition’s heritage even if it wasn’t theirs, but this year her mother gave her a claddagh ring.

It looked expensive and old.

Sarah smiled curiously as she slipped it on and looked into her mother’s brimming eyes.

Thanks but this seems like too much, she said, we’re not even Irish.

Her mother sighed heavily, unable to meet her daughter's eyes and said, we’re not but you are.

It’s time I told you, she admitted to a stunned Sarah, that you real father is Irish, so happy St. Patrick’s Day and don’t tell your dad.

BALL AND CHAIN

2009-03-16T22:44:00.000-04:00

Jackie slipped into the silky white material that cost her two month’s salary and pressed a peony to her nose that was part of her bridal bouquet.

He’s late, they told her, but she wasn’t worried since he always ran late and hadn’t stood her up yet.

He’s probably picking up my wedding present, a wonderful set of pearls or maybe a diamond bracelet, something better than he got his first wife, she thought.

She smiled and peeked out at the small crowd waiting for their procession, mostly her family and friends since his had sided with his wife in the divorce.

It’s him, someone said as a phone was pressed to her ear and his silky voice came through.

She stared, stone cold, then looked at them and announced, he’s not coming because he never got divorced.

FAKER - A LITTLE LONGER

2009-03-16T22:43:00.000-04:00

Geread was tired of faking it any longer.

For ten long years he’d pretended to be a gay ice dancer because, after all, it was just easier to be gay in that profession.

Unfortunately, his local community were having a hard time believing him ever since the looks he gave Seala, his partner, and the heat that passed between them had become so obvious to everyone that he was ready to "come out" and profess his love for her.

He kicked off his skates and changed out of his sequined competition outfit into something manly and rugged then headed for the glass elevator that would bring him to the celebration party.

Geread leaned against the glass and looked out.

In the room below, Seala leaned into Rob, laying her lips lightly on his and Geread realized he’d have to fake it a little longer.

AVERAGE JOE

2009-03-10T22:42:00.000-04:00

Joe watched his brother hitting on his best girl, the one he was in love with but wouldn’t date because he just couldn’t let one woman be all things to him.

That would make him dependent and if there was anything he prized, it was his freedom and independence.

She was “just a friend” but the guys all knew what that meant and stayed away from her.

What’s wrong with him, she asked, he keeps glaring at us.

Baby brother likes his bottles full and his women empty unlike me, he said, and led her out of the bar to a waiting cab.

Joe eyed up the perky blonde bartender as he downed his whiskey, thinking one night with her might be the perfect antidote to a broken heart.

BOYS

2009-03-09T22:41:00.000-04:00

Shadows of lonely pews dance like fanged monsters across the cathedral walls in the distorted light of a dying candle. A gray haired priest stoops at the church altar, his face wet with tears and sweat after hours of repeating his agonizing mantra.

“Father, help me . . . Father, forgive me . . .” Staring at the ghostly statue of a crucified Christ, he rubs his Rosary beads endlessly as blood stains his fingertips.

He knows what he did and he knows there is no redemption for it. No matter how long he prays or how much he begs, he knows he is going to hell.

THE HOMEFIELD ADVANTAGE

2009-03-09T22:40:00.000-04:00

She wasn’t the prettiest girl at the party – not by a long shot – but he was drawn to her just the same. Her free flowing white dress danced in the breeze, wafting its fragrance in his direction. She smelled of sunshine, lilacs, and heavily bleached linen. She reminded him of the summers he spent at the beach as a kid. He approached and stood close behind her, inhaled her scent, and watched the trickle of sweat run down her neck and pool in her bosom. He closed his eyes and knew he'd found home.

THE FINAL CUT

2009-03-06T22:39:00.000-05:00

Elsa sat in the expensively decorated waiting area, flipping through a catalog of noses, vainly searching for youth. Her nose had widened and thickened through the years, as it does with everyone, the bulbous tip becoming more pronounced. Her husband said that thinning it would make her look Jewish. Elsa assumed he meant Austrian, since she didn't look the least bit German, Polish, or Israeli. Austrians have the straightest noses. As she sat later in the Hollywood eatery unable to get service, she pulled out a compact and pinched the tip of her nose, imagining what it would look like and wondering if she would get waited on faster.

MIDNIGHT SURPRISE

2009-01-22T22:29:00.000-05:00

Image by elefanterosado via Flickr

I stared at the bright red skin on my arm as the white-hot blisters popped out, conforming to the triangular shaped mark that the iron had left hours earlier, a result of yet another careless act of mine. I lay writhing in pain on the bed, feeling the heat seeping into the rest of my body, causing spasms in my core more painful than anything I had ever felt before. Give her something for the pain, my husband had yelled to the bustling nurses, many of whom had stopped to look at the nasty flesh but none of whom seemed interested in making it better. Finally, a doctor, intense boredom kidnapping his handsome features, stopped to assess but abruptly moved on to someone more deserving of his attention. Hours of unbearable pain culminated as bags of ice melted against the hot branded flesh, offering little relief until finally the burning ceased, replaced by intense stabbing in my belly. For several minutes I was sure I would die until it magically stopped and there you were in your naked glory, all 6 lb 12 oz of you surprising us all.