Laurie Kendrick

by Laurie Kendrick

“I owe everything to Laurie Kendrick. Please be with her, Dear Lord.”

“Laurie is a nice gal, God. Give her a break.”

“Please take care of my friend, LK. She never thinks of herself and that’s why she’s in trouble now.”

♦

God: Hello Joseph. Trouble?

Joseph: Yes. Looks like we’ll have to send someone down. A lot of people are asking for help for Laurie Kendrick.

God: Ah yes, it’s her crucial time. We’ll need to send someone down immediately. Who’s turn is it?

Joseph: That’s why I came to see you, Sir. It’s that little angel. The nasty, vulgar one named Clarence–that clockmaker. He refuses to wear clothes and has that incessant rectal itch. We make him sit on his halo so none of us will get that funk.

Clarence (arrives while looking like a nebulous white tumor or bloodclot to the lullaby, “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”) : You sent for me, sir?

Joseph: Hello Clarence. I know you’ve been waiting a while to get your real wings.

Clarence: Yes, people are talking. These cotton pieces of shit are fine for half-ass angels in training, but I want the real things. You know, them gossamer sumbitches and I have been waiting almost 300 years. What the fuck is that all about, huh?

Joseph: Perhaps then Clarence, you can help this Earth woman. She’s about to commit the biggest sin of all.

Clarence: You mean she’s going to take her own life?

Joseph: No, worse. She’s going to try to cook Christmas Eve dinner for her incredibly dysfunctional family at precisely 7:45 tonight Earth time.

Clarence: Then I better hurry. Can I assume then Joseph, that if I can assist this crazy ass bitch in successfully cooking Christmas Eve dinner for the ingrates that comprise her family, I’ll finally get my wings?

Joseph: Yes, you foul mouthed little troll…..yes, you will.

♦

5:30 pm CHRISTMAS EVE:

Laurie is out of work and has been since Halloween of 2008. She never married; she’s a homely spinster who looks like Donna Reed in a George Bailey fantasy of what life would’ve been like had he never been born.

The resemblance to the actress once known as Donna Stone, wife of a doctor and mom to Jeff and Mary, who would one day record “Johnny Angel” and be married parenthetically to coach, Craig T. Nelson, is uncanny. In fact, she could also use a decent lip wax not unlike Mary all homely’d out as the dowdy, spinster Pottersville Librarian.

donna-reed

And because she’s been unemployed for so long, Laurie can’t afford to buy the items needed to prepare the Kendrick family Christmas Eve dinner. Even if she could, her culinary talents are so lacking.

If circumstances weren’t bad enough, her kitchen is filthy. Corn and unidentifiable flora grow in the dirty corners of the floor. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Laurie’s baby sister, LuLu desperately wants Santa Claus to bring her a bicycle for Christmas. But this year, she’d have to be told once again, that Santa couldn’t find “Loserville” on his sleigh’s GPS. Sadly, there wasn’t enough money or time to buy one for this sweet but very ill and crippled little girl, who because of severe Penis Envy issues, everyone calls “Tiny Tim”.

And yes, all of these negatives; these stumbling blocks persist in spite of Ange Second Class Clarence’s help. He wanted to intervene by showing her what that night would be like if the Kendrick family had somewhere else to go. They’d realize that they’d be far more sober and sated in terms of a festive Christmas meal, but Laurie will have none of this. She’s still hell bent on feeding her family, even with no money and with her kitchen in need of a visit by the WHO, the CDC and a priest.

The clock winds down; the Kendrick family gets hungrier and drunker, and every second that passes, Clarence sees yet another opportunity to get his wings slip through his fingertips. Clarence knows he needs to supplement Laurie’s income, but how? He does the only thing he knows to do and that’s contacting Heaven’s gatekeeper and religious iconic patron of children’s aspirin, St. Joseph.

Joseph suggests rolling drunks.

Then suddenly, just as Motel Kamzoil (from “the dressmaking tailor from “Fiddler”), warbled, a miracle of miracles occurs.

LK’s friend, taxi cab driver (and in a couple of years, Dobie Gillis’ TV father, “Mr. G”) Ernie arrives with a telegram in hand. He enthusiastically reads the following to the gathering crowd:

Mr. Gower cabled you need cash– stop.
My office instructed to advance you up to twenty-five thousand dollars– stop.
Hee Haw and Merry Christmas!
Sam Wainwright.

No one has a clue as to who Sam Wainwright is, much less Mr. Gower, but with the OK to advance LK 25-grand, a glorious Kendrick family Christmas meal is all but a reality.

So, Clarence gave LK a little hit of some Angel Dust and that, plus the spirit of the season, motivated her to clean her kitchen, do all the shopping, the cooking and voila!!!

A sumptuous Kendrick Family Christmas Eve meal!!!

The phot below shows Aunt Sissy Louise Dawn Anna Roselyn in the flattering vertical striped sweater and her husband, Big Dave is talking to their youngin’, Dale “Skeeter” Earnhart Kendrick.

The family just calls him Joyce.

white-trash-christmas

Nothing says “festive Christmas meal” better than paper plates, cans of beer, Styrofoam cups, turkey pieces seeped in brownish water, hamburger buns with ketchup, a hastily thrown together salad, something kinda yellowish in color and all mashed up in an amber Pyrex bowl.

After the family feed, everyone gathered round the tree to sing Christmas carols. Uncle Bobby excused himself to take his annual post-holiday meal dump while inappropriate toucher and “jail boid”, Uncle Billy held a very nervous and uncomfortable Little Laurie in his arms.

laurie-holiday

Then, they heard “a tinkle”. And no, not Uncle Bob’s post fecal wiz/slash.

This was sound of an ornament on the tree. That’s when Little Laurie told her way too touchy/feely Uncle Billy that her teacher taught her class the old world belief that every time Tim Tebow gets his bell rung, an angel gets his wings.

Just then, the entire family noticed a copy of the script from hte epic movie, ”Birth Of A Nation” under the tree. Megan’s Law uber violater, Uncle Bob picked it up and Little Laurie clumsily opened to the forward written by Norman Mailer.

Beneath that, what did the Family Kendrick spy?

A handwritten note from Clarence announcing he was now flyin’ high.

“Atta boy, Clarence!”

clarence1

Just then, Little Laurie felt something protruding from Uncle Billy’s coat. She started screaming and well, the entire family was alarmed since everyone knew Uncle Billy was such a perv. So, Nick from Mr. Martini’s bar tackled him and gave him the once over only to discover that nestled in a pocket of his coat, wasn’t anything revoltingly phallic at all…

It was LuLu’s pedals!!

Aw, when no one was looking Uncle Billy copped some of the money sent from Sam Wainwright (whoever that is) and sneaked out to buy LuLu a bike for Christmas. Santa WOULD find Loserville afterall!!!

Apparently, this sweet ol’ pedophile was in the middle of putting the bike together when the opportunity to hold a small child distracted him from his efforts.

It was indeed a time to celebrate.

The entire Kendrick knew this was a special moment that only rarely comes about. It was time to be happy and rejoice. So, they held hands and smiled. Then they all drank some of Mr. Martini’s wie while Little Laurie latched on to one of her favorite juice boxes. She loves the flavor that is Red.

That was followed by happy family fellowship and a very rousing lively rendition of Auld Lang Syn, complete with full orchestra accompaniment and Hollywood backup singers, composed of women, a few baritones and several members of Castrati, Local #39571.

…………………………… ……….. .…….THE END

Closure – My New “Opiate”

2009 December 18

by Laurie Kendrick

When it comes to this blog, there are things that I’ve been very open about with regard to my life. I have boundaries, but they’ve been tested by my willingness to be open. Perhaps my inner narcissist thinks what I’ve experienced might help someone else. Or maybe I just like to read my own dronings. To determine the psycho/social particulars of those two statements will require time and a separate post. What I will share with you now though, is an unabashed admission that I’ve been in therapy off and on since the late 80’s.

I’d like to say it’s because I’m such a fascinating specimen of humanity. In truth, I’ve lived a life typical of creative types–I have long been a very tortured soul. My last delving into the world of Jung, Adler and Freud was late this past winter and of all the sessions I’ve had in my life, I got more out of this one.

Any shrink will tell you that in order to be helped, you have to be willing to seek it. You have to admit there’s a problem. And not only that, you have to be willing to do the homework. True therapy involves deep introspection that exceeds well beyond the one hour weekly sessions in therapist’s office. This is a very painful process and one reason why so many people cease their sessions before anything has stuck.

You have to learn the hard way that pain means change and you have to forge ahead. I understood that this time. I really got into the things I was learning about myself and others. It was more fulfilling because I really wanted to get help for the problems that were plaguing me. I had to realize that if I wanted any kind of quality of life, I’d have to admit they were real and up to me to resolve them. I did and once that happened, I started acquiring the defensive tools and weaponry needed to do battle. And I assure you, successful therapy is nothing short of waging war against your inner demons.

So, in this process of turning myself to face myself, my therapist told me something that blew me away. She said in all her years in this profession, she’d never met anyone so completely out of touch with her feelings.

Me?

Moi?

I was Laurie Kendrick, a witty and urbane woman who was also a deep thinker, eloquent and erudite to the gills. OF COURSE, I WAS IN TOUCH WITH MY FEELINGS!!!!!!

But instead, I learned that I was actually an excellent sweeper of all things under the rug. That’s how I’d deal with problems. Oh yeah, if something happened, I’d cry…mourn…get depressed, but instead of processing what had transpired and then properly dealing with the ensuing pain, I’d choose to place these unsavory events in an unmarked file in my brain and only revisit when I absolutely had to.

Which I rarely did.

That resulted in files brimming to the rim with nothing but unresolved relationships; relationships that just died without any real explanation; without any rhyme or reason and instead of confronting the person to find out what had really happened, I said nothing. I asked no questions. I didn’t defend myself. I felt inferior, as though I was to blame and I merely limped away, only to emerge a little later as if nothing had ever happened.

Fast forward to the late fall of 2009.

I had an opportunity to re-acquaint myself with someone who had held a very regal position in my heart for almost four decades. He started the ball rolling by walking out on me 36 years ago. He broke up with me and never offered a reason why. I was too wounded and at 14, too young and immature to ask why. I just let him go and reacted like it didn’t bother me at all. But it did. I was seething inside and it haunted me for the rest of my life.

I never thought we’d reconnect and even though I never wanted to, I’m glad we did because we talked. I asked questions and the man he’d become explained the feelings of the boy he once was. I got the answers I wanted. I got the closure I needed.

What an absolutely glorious thing to have a feeling come full circle. To have questions answered. To find that damned needle in the haystack. To apply punctuation to the end of a long, run – on sentence.

I do believe that something physical happens when you achieve closure because closure means structure. The event that once unnerved you only had a beginning and a middle. It was missing an integral part. Closure provides an ending and when realize the omega to your alpha, I swear it becomes something altogether physcial. I think the brain starts to emit endorphins once you realize you have closure. You get a runner’s high because you finally stopped running from a situation you’ve allowed to chase you for years…decades, perhaps.

I am a big believer in signs. Closure and the physical sensation of completion is one of Nature’s perfect indicators that we’re doing the right thing; that we’re heading in the right direction. There is complete removal of doubt. Certainty is one of the best feelings in the world.

But beyond that, closure is also a literal event. When we experience closure, we close the doors on the confusion of the past and that in turn, allows us to focus on the future. Closed doors let us make decisions faster. They let us see clearer and somehow, they let us experience real forgiveness.

But perhaps the best part about closed doors? They’re also extremely hard to open again. Maybe it’s just me, but I find great comfort in knowing there’s permanence to this particlar aspect to change. I like knowing that things could never go back to the way they were. For me, there’s safety in that. There is security and a sense of finality. I would imagine it would be a feeling that’s akin to knowing the man who murdered your sister is behind bars and will stay there for he rest of his life.

Under less arduous circumstances, closed doors allow us to say goodbye and good luck and really mean it.

So, goodbye and good luck, Mr. Heartache. It took 36 years for you to give me the one thing I never knew I always wanted–a parting gift of liberation and emotional unencumbrance. I have freedom and room to grow and I still believe somehow, even through the muck and mire of my life, that good things can still happen…even at this late stage of the game .

As I see it, your departure from my life means my arrival.

And for that, I am truly thankful.

This One’s About Tiger and Christmas

2009 December 17

by Laurie Kendrick

Why am I doing this?

Why would I make light of a man, a mortal man who in spite of his accomplishments ($$$$) out on the links, is probably at one of the lowest times of his life?

I guess because he really should know better and it’s my duty to harass and harangue the stupid and let’s be honest, Tiger Woods is not a smart man. At least, not where it counts

I have heard countless people, on and off the airwaves say he’s just a man, errant and tempted, just like anyone else.

Well for starters, Tiger Woods ISN’T like anyone else. The man is rich. Very, rich. Warren Buffet and Saudi Royal family rich. He’s no stranger to TV and has been in the limelight ever since he was old enough to clutch a child sized 9-Iron. He has one of the most recognizable faces on the planet.

And if truth be told, despite his celebrity status, Tiger Woods really owes no one other than his family an explanation as to his actions. He doesn’t owe you one and wouldn’t, even if you utilize any of the products he so heartily endorses (or perhaps, “endorsed” is a more appropriate word these days).

Woods is a sports figure. Not even an athlete, really. Just a guy with a hell of a golf swing that’s accurate as hell. He didn’t raise his hand and take an oath on a Holy Book and swear his unyielding honor to defend this country and her inhabitants. He doesn’t make copious amounts of money pimping a book on family values and he certainly never donned a long, black cassock and took a vow of chastity and poverty as the Vatican looked on.

But he did take a vow before God, flowers, white lace and his invited guests to love, honor and be faithful to his wife.

I don’t know what goes on inside the stately Floridian manor the Woods call home. I’ve not a clue as to the dynamic that exists or existed between Tiger and Elin Woods. It isn’t our place to judge, then why do we judge Tiger?

Is it because we’re intrinsically shallow as human beings go and love gawking at the train wreck that his marriage has become? Is it because he’s so rich and we’re not that we to see those who have get knocked down a peg or two?

We all heard about Teddy Kennedy and his crotch conquests. We listened with delight to tales of that walking hair-do, John Edwards and his inability to keep his pants zipped. There were the extramarital exploits of South Carolina Governor, Mark Sanford and of course, we all know about President Bill Clinton and his penchant for cigars, blue dresses and being deftly “handled” by a chubby Jewess.

We were sorely disappointed by these men. Sure, they’re human too but unlike Tiger, they make public policy and help keep national security intact. Clinton perjured himself when probed about his affair(s). The question then became this: if a man who held the highest post in the land was willing to break the law he swore to uphold, what would keep him from lying about something else vastly more serious?

Clinton’s situation became less and less about politics and more about the man’s integrity or lack thereof.

Tiger doesn’t have this kind of responsibility. His only job is to make money winning major golf tournaments that advertisers jump on in order to hawk their products. It’s about all the periphery things around Tiger; the clubs he uses; the balls they hit. The sportswear he dons when he makes that birdie. The cars he drives. It’s about the sports drink he slugs down after playing 16 holes at Palm Springs in August.

And here’s the way the world works…even that which Madison Avenue created. We have the right to refuse to buy those clubs; to use those balls. To refuse to wear that shirt or buy that car. And we certainly DON’T have to slam back anything Tiger is paid to drink.

And these days Tiger, who owes no explanation to anyone, now needs no one to explain to him why his bank account, while still vast, is shrinking.

For every action there is a consequence. For some its a forced removal from office. For others, its jail time. And still for others, it’s a free fall from grace from the very people who in effect, paid his or her salary. No one is above reproach, regardless of what that reproach entails.

Wealth doesn’t inhibit the fall, either.

More About College Football

2009 December 16

by Laurie Kendrick

Once again, I am a devout fan of the University of Texas.

Longhorn football especially, means a great deal to me. And like other fanatics of other sports teams, I have supported the Horns through great seasons ( such as the BCS Championship one of 2005, courtesy of a pigskin clutching Harry Potteresque wizard in burnt orange named Vince Young) and not so great seasons which would include the bulk of the late 80’s and early 90’s.

Needless to say, I am ecstatic about the Longhorns’ s upcoming appearance in the Rose Bowl for all the collegiate pigskin marbles. They’ll meet Alabama in Pasadena on January 7th.

Many are questioning the second ranked Horns’ right to be matched up against the top rated Crimson Tide. It’s true, my team didn’t have the best of games against I’mDominate Suh and their place kicker. The rest of the Nebraska team didn’t need to even to bother showing up; those two players were the lump sum of the Cornhusker offense and defense. Admittedly, Texas played its worst game ever, but still managed to win with a last second field goal to win by one point with nary a second left on the clock. The Longhorn record remained unblemished at 13-0.

But the “what have you done for me lately” attitude permeates and the talking heads in sports broadcasting are treating the Longhorns like ugly stepdaughters and dirty Dickensian street urchins trying to sell matches on a street corner in the dead of a London winter. Go ahead, tune into ESPN; all you hear about is how Colt McCoy’s last game cost him the Heisman. You’ll hear repeatedly how Suh manhandled him during the Big 12 Championship (which he did but come on, the Horns still won the damn game!!!).

OK, so Colt played the worst game of his career at the absolute worst time..maybe he was well aware that the Heisman was his to win…and to lose and perhaps, he played uncharacteristically unsettled. But it wasn’t as if Colt allowed Suh to penetrate a Texas offensive line that was as porous as O.J.’s alibi. His WR’s were very well covered and they dropped several catchable, potentially game-changing passes.

Tune into ESPN and you’ll hear about the Tide’s unstoppable defense and its pristine offense lead by QB McElroy and Heisman winner and Sophomore phenom, Mark Ingram. You hear that come January 7th, Texas will be facing a “good ol’ countryfied ass whoopin’”.

Throughout the Heisman Award presentation and other award shows on ESPN, jokes were made at Colt McCoy’s expense. It was as if Suh, who was also up for the Heisman and scads of other awards, chased Colt down like Simon Wiesenthal on a Nazi shake down in South America. McCoy took it all in stride.

But I’ll tell you this much…

There seems to be a national anti-Texas mindset both across the board and in college football. Lest we forget Texas’ flagrant ommission from the BCS championship game last season, all at the hands of some ridiculous BCS conceived tie-breaker. We beat OU soundly, then we lost to Texas Tech in the very last second of the game. OU went on to clinch the Big 12 Championship and played Florida in The Big Game, but lost as soundly to the Gators as they did to the Horns.

It’s as though we still suffer from this huge George Bush backlash, like he had/has anything to do with college football. Think what you want, but NO ONE can say UT’s prowess as one of the country’s perennial power elite college football teams has anything to do with Iraqi oil or as a so-called “revenge factor” for the failings of Bush the Elder. Abject silliness, if that could even be the case. Still, it seems as if there’s a definitive Texas prejudice, but in reality, I don’t really mind it.

That’s why I strongly encourage ESPN to keep talking. Keep lauding Alabama as if God himself was calling the plays. Keep reminding Texas of its poor showing against Nebraska and forget that Alabama struggled on three occasions to win games this season. That’s right; go ahead…keep trash talking. Keep reminding Texas that its an inferior team.

Reiterate to McCoy over and over again that he didn’t win the Heisman and that Bama’s Mark Ingram did. ESPN’s Chris Fowler and that Albino Herbstreit are the biggest offenders.

But again, keep it up. By doing so, you’re only setting a familiar stage.

You see, I watched the expression on Colt’s face when Ingram’s name was called. Of course, he was disappointed, but as the reality sunk in, I saw disappointment morph into steely resolve and determination. His lower jaw clinched; his eyes narrowed slightly, but never left the podium where Ingram giving his acceptance speech. He’s planning on repeating history.

Yes…he had that expression.

I’d only seen it once before and it was on the face of another deserving Longhorn quarterback who also went home empty-handed on a cold New York evening in December 2005.

Some may say that Colt McCoy is no Vince Young.

Some would argue that Nebraska and Suh proved Texas’ weaknesses, just as near miss games with Arkansas, LSU and Auburn showed Alabama’s vulnerabilities.

Many would say the Texas team of 2005 ISN’T the Texas team of 2009 and they’d be right….it isn’t.

Many say Alabama is a better team than Texas, but the same was said about Texas when it faced back-to-back national champs, USC in the 2006 BCS showdown and well, we all know how that game ended.

As it’s been said many times before, football (especially college football) is an extremely arbitrary game. Any team can beat any other team on any given Saturday.

Or on any given Thursday night in January, 2010.

All I’ll say is that the next month’s showdown in Pasadena won’t be the “countryfied ass whoopin’” that so many are predicting.

How do I know?

Oh, call it a gut feeling and something I saw in Colt McCoy’s eyes.

It’s Monday. All Damn Day.

2009 December 14

by Laurie Kendrick

And all that that implies.

It’s humid in Houston today and that can make a fat man feel fatter and a depressed woman even more so. It’s winter here, but the season doesn’t preclude the presence of humidity. A cold front (or as we call it–the weather leftovers from the Pacific Northwest) will come through later today, but not before the city turns into one big sauna. In Houston, its always hottest before a storm, regardless of the season.

This fair city, soon to be the third largest in the country (and now the largest city in the country with an openly gay mayor. Mayor-Elect Annise Parker is a Lesbian) can be a humid place regardless of the time of year. I’ve heard a lot of negatives lobbed against my city, mainly because of it’s humidity. I like Houston and I have a mother-hennish attitude regarding criticism, especially from those who’ve never been here…

BUT….

The often oppressive humidity is indefensible.

I’ve been here 20 years and I’ve yet to get used to it. I know Houston and Harris County lifers who’ve never left (and never will) who still haven’t acclamated. But I ask, is that even possible? Can anyone deal with abject humidity that heats you to the core, any more than one could handle extreme and consistently sub-zero weather that freezes one’s bone marrow?

I suppose I’d rather live in a wetter zone than an arid one, though. There are physical ramifications, you know. I hear dry areas can wrinkle one up faster than the exasperating effort of trying to stay married to Tiger and his Woods.

That’s definitely NOT the case here in the Bayou City.

For example: here’s a photo of my friend, Glenda. She’s lived in humid, humid Houston all her life. She was born here…. a mere 74 years ago.

Here’s her photo from a party this past weekend.

Therefore, I have a saying for those who’ve never experienced Houston in a sweat lodge capacity: our hair looks like hell, but our skin looks FABULOUS!!!

Things That Bother Me

2009 December 12

by Laurie Kendrick

You know this woman. You’ve worked with her. You went to college with you. She’s “that chick” and what is it about “that chick” who thinks every guy is interested in her and or coming on to her? I once knew a young woman who fancied herself to be “all that” and she would constantly tell me how upsetting it was that every man came on to her.

One man asked her for the time. I heard him pose the question. She construed that as a come on. I asked her how she derived this and she replied she could tell he just wanted to see her face and bod close up.

Oh really?

This kind of rampant insecurity is sad and pathetic, but it’s also very annoying for those of us who have to hear about it. On the surface, one might think she’s trying to laud it over our heads. No, I believe she’s trying to convince herself that she’s viable. Sadly, male attention validates her.

I love love, just like the rest of the world. I am looking for Mr. Goodbar and have made no bones about this quest and the fact that I’ve made horrendous mistakes along the way. I have spent an errant lifetime loving the wrong men for all the wrong reasons. I am guilty of loving for love’s sake. I am single and unattached, but I don’t regard that as a character flaw.

I also have a decent amount of self-esteem that’s often humbled by reality. While it’s taken a while for me to be comfortable in my full acceptance of this ”warts and all” mentality, I know my limitations and choose to work within them and with open eyes. While I make every effort not to sell myself short, I know there aren’t that many gray areas in life. White is white and black is black and sometimes, a question from a stranger is just a question from a stranger.

Therefore, if a guy asks me for the time, it’s probably because he forgot to put his watch on that day.

♦

There is a special place in Hell for the arrogant, self-absorbed assholes who refuse to place their shopping carts in the parking lot cart corral once their groceries have been off loaded in the car. There is nothing more aggravating than to be in a hurry, see what you think is a stellar parking spot close to the door, only to pull up to find there’s a cart smack dab in the middle of the space.

Place your carts in the proper place people. To do otherwise is rude and socially stilted behavior.

Are you so busy modifying the Atlas III rocket so that it runs on stale Post Toasties, that you can’t return your damn shopping cart?

If so, say hello to Cerberus for me.

♦

While I’ve got a grocery store vibe going here, if you’re in the check-out line and you have a basket full of groceries and you look behind you and there stand a woman with a bunch of bananas, a bag of Fig Newtons and one lukewarm Yoo Hoo, be considerate and let her go through the line ahead of you.

And please, don’t try to tell me you can’t because you’re pressed for time. You have 54 items brimming over the sides of your cart and if you were in a hurry you’d be holding the same number of items that the guy behind you holds. You certainly wouldn’t be shopping for the month.

♦

Keith Olbermann.

The name alone sends shivers down my spine. I think he’s crazy. certifiable so. He’s got that rage-fueled delivery that’s so venomous like everything he talks about his a personal affront. I swear if the camera did an extreme close-up, you’d see his kaleidoscopic pupils strobing to the beat of a tune no one hears but Keith.

This whack job is the Left’s answer to Rush Limbaugh. All I can say is thank God he’s on MSNBC where his viewership of 38 can hang on his every insane, spit and froth delivered word.

♦

And lastly, I am made nutsy cuckoo by actress, Lisa Rinna’s lips.

Or are they?

To me, they look like two sausages strategically bent around her mouth.

At 45, she has a surgically processed body but her surgical-slash-sculptor did a decent job. I know several men (and women) who admire his or her handiwork.

Behold, Mrs. Harry Hamlin →

Pretty lady, huh?

Twenty-three years ago, Lisa grew tired of her thin lips and after watching “Beaches” in which Barbara Hershey appeared with collagen enhanced lips, Lisa decided to do the same, but with one difference. She would look for a doctor who be willing to put silicone in her lips. Unlike collagen, silicone is permanent and never loses its shape. She never has to go in for booster shots. It’s permanent.

Get a gander at these babies close up:

You might find this hot and/or alluring.

I find them distracting. She was on a recent edition of “Celebrity Ghost Stories” and I have absolutely no idea what she talked about. I was transfixed (and not in a good way) by those inner-tube like lips of hers. She may have conveyed a fascinating story about her life in a haunted house. If she did, I didn’t hear it. Her lips made my mind race. I kept thinking of things that they reminded me of Mr. Bill’s mouth.

And then I thought no, no, no Kendrick! Think along a more sophisticated line. Then, I remembered studying this critter in college.

Her mouth reminds me of that of a lamprey eel.

Then I thought, “Come on, Self…you can narrow it down better. What does it remind me of?? Think. THINK!!!”

And then it hit me .

I got all National Geographic Channel. Lisa Rinna’s mouth reminds me of lip plates used in certain African tribes.

Jokes At Tiger Woods’ Expense

2009 December 10

by Laurie Kendrick

./watch?v=7yl3UMO-TkE].

Before I get into the funny, I have to get something off my chest.

Indulge me, won’t you?

I have in recent years, been called a “comedic mercenary” with regard to dispensing jokes about whichever celebrity ( be it a famous person from the world of politics or the Hollywierd front) who’d found themselves in the hot seat for having screwed up in some colossally public way; I’ve often been ribbed for my willingness to go to great lengths to get the joke in, regardless of how vile or degrading it was.

Well frankly, I really don’t care if that’s what some people think. If it was funny enough, it was worth the stretch and besides, I make jokes at my own expense. No one is absolved from blame in my world…not even me. Public figures know that they are fair game and besides, the Tiger Woods affair is ripe for the picking.

And here’s part of the reason why I feel this way. For starters, I’m completely jaded when it comes to errant athletes. After O.J., Kobe, Pete Rose, all the steroid abuse cases–even that former jock turned TV announcer from ESPN who got caught screwing around on his wife with a producer–how can anyone regard these people as being above reproach??

I’m disappointed in people who are disappointed when their favorite sport stars fall from grace. Athletes on every level in every sport are to be admired for their athletic prowess and skills sets, but are they role models? A resounding “No, they are not”. Athleticism doesn’t guarantee integrity any more than having integrity guarantees you winning the Heisman Trophy. The two are mutually exclusive. Why don’t more people understand this?

I feel sorry for the truly feeble and simplistic thinkers who believe otherwise. Aspire to dribble like Michael Jordan, bend it like Beckham or play golf like Tiger Woods, but don’t immolate these men. If you do, you’ll be sorely disappointed every time. Their ability to score points, win races or poll vault their way into Olympic history doesn’t make them exemplary people. Stellar athletes yes, but ideal human being without sin? Not at all.

And the fact that Tiger Woods can’t keep his putter in his very married pants bothers me, but I don’t lose sleep over it. And I think he’s actually gotten off pretty easy. If I were Elin Woods, I would’ve been a bit more aggressive regarding my behavior the night my ”distraught” husband crashed his Escalade into a fire hydrant on our block. A proctologist would have been called to the scene….

STAT.

And I would’ve recommended he bring heavy duty wire cutters with him.

Hell hath no furry like a former Swedish model scorned.

The old adage, if you lie down with dogs, you’ll get up with fleas applies here. This is Tiger’s version of scratching and the world is watching him go at it. Well, we’re watching him scratch in the privacy of his home in a very exclusive gated community with a PR machine that never sleeps It is an unavoidable fact of life that for every action there is a consequence. Therefore, Tiger Woods, by virtue of his being one of the most recognizable sports figures on the planet, cannot be absolved from sin or its wages.

Should we care who and what he “does” in his private life? Well, I suppose you can care if you’ve got nothing better to do. Should his sponsors terminate their contracts with him? I would imagine they would and perhaps should, IF his actions affect sales conversely and of course, they should there’s some sort of morals clause written into his contract .

But no matter what happens on the sponsorship front, I can assure you that I will NOT run out and by some Tiger lovin’ Gatorade. Then again, I never bought the sports drink BEFORE news of Tiger’s alleged sexual trysts with half of the East Coast surfaced. Who and what he shills for won’t make one bit of difference to me. While I strongly disapprove of infidelity, I doubt seriously if Gatorade will taste any differently because a fornicating golfer is getting paid millions to tell a tirsty world that it’s a bitchin’ substance to drink after playing 18 holes.

And after playing golf, too!!!

But seriously folks….

Tiger Woods’ situation, as sad, tragic and as humiliating as it is, is a veritable treasure trove of comedic delight for any and all pundits. By virtue of the fact that he’s a public person (something about which I know all too well), we can say just about anything we want. And we’re covered by law. We can say what we want within reason. So here you go…welcome to “reason”.

And lastly, sorry Tiger…you’ve been in the public eye since your childhood, when Daddy Earl decided to pimp your amazing golfing skills to the highest bidder. I remember watching you manhandle an 8-iron as a kid on Carson a million years ago. You are certainly no celebrity neophyte. I don’t pity you either. You had to have known the rules of enragement.

♦

In light of news about Tiger Woods’ extramarital affairs, we’ve heard that Tiger Woods’ handlers are urging him to drop that specific feline nickname and adopt another: like Cheetah.
Tiger Woods’ just signed an exclusive multi-million dollar three picture deal with a major Hollywood studio. The first movie to be made: “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Hydrant”.
Tiger has played golf all over the world, but recently we’ve learned that there’s one course that’s been giving him a particular amount of trouble. That would be intercourse.

The photo below was taken during a time out at a recent Houston/Jacksonville game. It’s fairly self-explanatory: a leggy blond brandishing a club while chasing a tiger in a red sports shirt.

What was Elin Woods doing outside at 2:30 in the morning? Apparently, she been out clubbing.
When the cops asked Tiger’s wife how many times she hit him, she said “I can’t remember, “Gee, I dunno…uh, put me down for a five.”
Tiger Woods and baby seals apparently have quite a bit in common. They’ve both been clubbed by Swedes.

Here’s a pic of the latest club that Tiger is endorsing. It’s called the Ouch Iron

GOLF TIP: Tiger’s tip for wayward golfers: never ask an angry golfer’s wife to keep track of your balls.
Police reports indicate that Elin Woods actually struck her famous husband twice. That would stand to reason since in golf, there’s a 2-stroke penalty for playing the wrong hole.
What was the actual cause of Tiger’s accident? Well, the official police report said he was “tree under par”. ( I know…groan the groan of death)

And here’s yet another photo funny:

But he has all his teeth in the Nike ad!?!?!?! Gee, it must have been Photoshopped before Tiger opened up a hole in one in his Escalade’s front end over the Thanksgiving holiday!

Lastly, below you’ll find a pretty interesting and funny computer aided reenactment of Tiger’s accident and how it might have unfolded and we have the ambitious, technically savvy and crazy ass news happy Chinese media to thank.

SIDENOTE TO THE ARTISTS BEHIND THE COMPUTER GENERATED ROUND-EYE PORTRAYING ELIN WOODS: It’s called blush…It’s a color. Apply some.

Click here to be take there:

Human Resources HELL!!!!!!!!!!

2009 December 8

by Laurie Kendrick

Company Memo
FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director

TO: All Employees

DATE: December 10, 2009

RE: Gala Christmas Party

I’m happy to inform you that the company Christmas Party will take place on December 23rd, starting at noon in the private function room at the Grill House, at 2397 Washoe Circle.. There will be a cash bar and plenty of drinks! So, please join us in a glass of good cheer!

We’ll have a small band playing traditional carols… feel free to sing along. And don’t be surprised if our CEO shows up dressed as Santa Claus! A Christmas tree will be lit at 1:00 PM. Exchanges of gifts among employees can be done at that time; however, no gift should be over $10.00 to make the giving of gifts easy for everyone’s pockets. This gathering is only for the employers of Roscoe Redwood, Inc.

Our CEO will make a special announcement at that time!

Merry Christmas to you and your family,

Patty

Company Memo

FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director

TO: All Employees

DATE: December 10, 2009

RE: Gala Holiday Party

In no way was yesterday’s memo intended to exclude our Jewish employees. We recognize that Hanukkah is an important holiday, which often coincides with Christmas, though unfortunately not this year. However, from now on, we’re calling it our “Holiday Party.” The same policy applies to any other employees who are not Christians and to those still celebrating Reconciliation Day and Kwaanza. There will be no Christmas tree and no Christmas carols will be sung. We will have other types of music for your enjoyment.

Happy now?

So on that note, Happy Holidays to you and your family,

Patty

Company Memo

FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director

TO: All Employees

DATE: December 10, 2009

RE: Holiday Party

Regarding the note I received from a member of Alcoholics Anonymous requesting a non-drinking table, you didn’t sign your name.. I’m happy to accommodate this request, but if I put a sign on a table that reads, “AA Only”, you wouldn’t be anonymous anymore. How am I supposed to handle this?

Somebody?

And sorry, but forget about the gift exchange, no gifts are allowed since the union members feel that $10.00 is too much money and the executives believe $10.00 is a little chintzy and I mean that in terms of being a little cheap. That wasn’t a swipe at the Jews.. Serioiusly, it wasn’t. Forget I even used the term chintzy.

SO REMEMBER: NO GIFTS EXCHANGE WILL BE ALLOWED.

Company Memo

FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director

To: All Employees

DATE: December 10, 2009

RE: Generic Holiday Party

What a diverse group we are! For starters, I’m sorry for offending the Muslims on our staff by using a Yiddish terms in an earlier memo. I knew things were that bad in Gaza but here in Toledo???

Also, I had no idea that December 20th begins the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which forbids eating and drinking during daylight hours. There goes the party! Seriously, we can appreciate how a luncheon at this time of year does not accommodate our Muslim employees’ beliefs. Perhaps the Grill House can hold off on serving your meal until the end of the party or else package everything for you to take it home in little foil doggy baggy. And I’ll insist that NO PORK can be be found anywhere near the dining room.

Will that work?

Meanwhile, I’ve arranged for members of Weight Watchers to sit farthest from the dessert buffet, and pregnant women will get the table closest to the restrooms.

Gays are allowed to sit with each other. Lesbians do not have to sit with Gay men, each group will have their own table.

Yes, there will be flower arrangement for the Gay men’s table.

To the person asking permission to cross dress, the Grill House asks that no cross-dressing be allowed, apparently because of concerns about confusion in the restrooms. Sorry.

We’ll have booster seats for short people and low-fat food will be available for those on a diet.

Socially conscious Democrats can can eat scraps and leftovers if that makes them feel better and Republicans can quietly say a blessing to themselves before they eat if they’d like.

I am sorry to report that we cannot control the amount of salt used in the food . The Grill House suggests that people with high blood pressure taste the food first.

There will be fresh “low sugar” fruits as dessert for diabetics, but the restaurant cannot supply “no sugar” desserts. Sorry!

Did I miss anything?!?!?

I’m sure you’ll let me know if I have.

Patty

Company Memo

FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director

TO: All Fucking Assholes Also Known as Employees

DATE: December 10, 2009

RE: The Fucking Holiday Party

Hey Dipshits,

You all make me sick. You do. SICK! And I’ve had it with you vegetarian asshole pricks!!! We’re going to keep this party at the Grill House whether you like it or not, so you can sit quietly at the table furthest from the “grill of death,” as you so quaintly put it, and you’ll get your fucking salad bar, including goddamned organic tomatoes. But you DO know, tomatoes have feelings, too, don’t you? Oh yes, they do. They scream when you slice them. Didn’t know that did you, walking nutsacks??? Well, I’ve heard them scream. In fact, they screaming right NOW!

The rest of you fucking weirdos can kiss my meat eating, alcchol-swilling, Muslim hating, Pro-Zionist, salt-licking, Conservative voting, heterosexual ass!!! I hope you all have a holiday so rotten that your balls rot off and your ovaries sprout fucking horns!

One more thing; For God’s sake, drive drunk and die.

With hate,

The Crazed Bitch from Hell!!!

Eat me!!!!!!!

Company Memo

FROM: Joan Bishop, Acting Human Resources Director

DATE: December 13, 2009

RE: Patty Lewis’ Illness and the Holiday Party

I’m sure I speak for all of us in wishing Patty Lewis a speedy recovery and I’ll continue to forward your cards to her family. Hosptial officials have yet to establish visiting hours for her, as she’s still heavily medicated and in restraints 24/7.

In the meantime, management has decided to cancel our Holiday Party altogether and give everyone the afternoon of the 23rd off with full pay.

Enjoy your December vacations!

Joan

Fear Not, ABC Says Soon It WILL BE Christmas Time

2009 December 7

by Laurie Kendrick

As a woman who leans in a more Conservative direction, I am all about a strong national defense. I think we need to be in Afghanistan to keep that ravaged country from imploding further, especially at the hands of crazed religious extremists with falafel for brains. I ionly hate that it has to be at the expense of young U.S. service men and women.

President Obama announced last Tuesday night that the U.S will send in an additional 30-thousand troops to the region as early as next year with the possible withdrawal starting in 2011. This extra police effort will cost a tidy little sum of 30-billion dollars.

Yeah, that’s extremely important and Godspeed to all the troops, to those going over and to all those who God willing, will be heading home.

And soon, we pray.

But there was an understory to last week’s Presidential speech…one that probably angered Liberals as much as the content of the speech.

You see, President Obama’s speech pre-emptied “A Charlie Brown Christmas”. The annual early December broadcast is a holiday must-watch for me and countless others: Jew and Gentile alike.

You too, Habib and Pho Nhyn!!!!

Many feel that is really isn’t Christmas without watching this show.

I know of only a few people of Goyim persuasion who don’t have at least one or two decent childhood memories of Christmas and watching this family special is usually right up there in the nostalgia department. And there are other “must watch” classics: the annual holiday Rankin-Bass stop-motion animated epic, “Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindeer”. I already missed my chance at seeing that and this year, “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” was also broadcast a week ago and that meant another year passed by without me signing “ Fah Who For-aze!! Dah Who Dor-aze” with all The Who Down In Whoville.

By the way, is that a bastardized form of Latin or just a by-product of Dr. Seuss remembering an old a college linguistics course he once took and perhaps, a little opium??

Anywho, ABC apparently got more than a few complaint calls about this broadcast faux pax and has agreed to pre-empty some other show and air the Charlie Brown sChristmas special Tuesday evening, December 8th.

Check your local listings for exact time.

So fear not America, the Christmas season officially arrives tomorrow night with Charlie Brown, Lucy, Pig Pen, Snoopy, Schroeder and the cute little lisping Linus, who with this memorable excercise in elocution, first tried to answer Charlie Brown’s probing Yuletide query back in 1966.

Another Christmas favorite of mine is “Mr. Magoo’s A Christmas Carol”. It’s a very well-done musical version of the story, told a la animation, but in a multi-act Broadway production.

It stars Jim Bacchus, of course, as the voice of Mr. Magoo, but this production also features Jack Cassidy and Morey Amsterdam. Music and lyrics are courtesy of the talented Broadway writing dynamo, Jule Styne and Bob Merrill.

It was originally broadcast in prime time on December 17, 1962 and was rebroadcast in subsequent years in prime time prior to Christmas for a while, but eventually lost favor with networks and viewers, which beats the hell out of me because the program is really quite good. It includes lovely music, it’s well-acted and quite poignant, actually.

My sister Karol and I would catch it by sheer luck on the occasional Sunday afternoon in December back in the late 60’s/early 70’s and in the past few years, The Cartoon Network would air it at 4:00 am on a Thursday in early December. Inconvenient as hell, but I’d still wake up to watch it.

And no, I don’t own a recorder, so there.

Plus, I checked and it’s not being shown on any network this year. Sad, but if you really want to see it and effort to bring back those childhood Christmas memories that make your stomach do a little nostalgic flip-flop, you can buy the DVD at Amazon or anywhere DVDs are sold.

Happy holiday viewing!

The “Other” Robert Plant.

2007 July 23

by Laurie Kendrick

Saturday morning.

Time to get up and do stuff. Do my grocery shopping. Run errands…do everything I put off doing during the week. And my “to do” list was a long one. On top of everything else I had to do, I needed to take care of my plants. I have a Day Lilly that’s in dire need of being watered, fed and pruned.

The same applies to my Ficas tree, my Boston Fern and an English Ivy that my mother gave me 15 years ago. She had it for at least ten years before that, so this plant is like a member of the family. In fact, my mother actually named it.

Robert sits on a tall pedestal in the corner of my living room.

I got out of bed, showered, made myself presentable for Saturday morning errands and put on some jeans and an old T-shirt from the “comfy, old T shirt drawer”. I looked down and couldn’t believe that my Guess shirt had reached “comfy old” status.

I remember when I bought this shirt…at Macy’s about 20 years ago. I was “into” designer clothing back then and wanted something that literally screamed “Guess” and when I found that shirt with the word printed boldly across the front, I had to buy it.

So, I left my apartment, got in my car and ran all my errands. Six-point-five hours later, I returned. I put my groceries away. Kicked off my shoes and prepared to deal with my plants.

I filled up my watering can, grabbed my pruning shears and started working on Robert first.

“34 B”.

I looked around. Who in the hell said that? I live alone.

“Who’s there? I asked.

“34 B”?..

That time, I could’ve sworn I heard the voice coming from the plant.

Was this some kind of joke? An acid flashback from that crazy party in ‘73? I shook my head and stared at the plant.

“Robert? Is..is that you? Are you talking to me?”

Robert: Yeah. Your shirt says “Guess” across the chest, so I took a shot. 34B?

LK: Well frankly, I don’t think that’s any…

Robert: “OK, then let me guess again….Implants?”

LK: NO!! And furthermore, I can’t be having a conversation with a plant and secondly…..I’m NOT a 34 B.”

Robert: Really? I’m proud of ya. You got nice ones, kid.

LK: Great! I own the world’s only talking plant and it’s a smart ass and a sexist pig.

Robert: Well, I do likes the ladies!

LK: How is it that you talk? Do you have a mouth? Eyes? Brain?

Robert: Bitch, does it look like I have a face???

LK: HEY! Watch your mouth…if you have one. One more crack like that and I swear I’ll yank a handful of leaves really hard!

Robert: OK, sorry, sorry!! I simply meant to say that I’m a plant. I don’t have a face or a mouth or anything like that. Sheesh! Just suffice it to say that I can talk. Every plant can at certain times. It’s on rare occasions when the moon is just right or when Ron Paul actually makes a cogent point. I guess this is your lucky day.

LK: I see. So, you mean to tell me that you and the other plants in this house communicate?

Robert: At times, yeah. And we can see things, too. We’re able to observe things, really. I don’t know…it’s kind of through osmosis or something like that.

LK: Fitting for a plant I suppose. And based on the comment about my shirt, I take it you can read, too.

Robert: Of course we can. We’re not animals!!!! But more often than not, we just sit here..quietly and look green, process carbon dioxide, make oxygen…you took botany in college, didn’t you?

LK: Yeah, I understand the basics. When you plants talk, what do you talk about?

Robert: Lots of stuff, such as the Ph level in our soil, the Scorched Earth Policy in Burma, the embarrassing itch of aphids and you mostly. Namely, the guys you date. Very interesting. Remember that really weird one…with the receding hair line. I think his name was Lloyd. Well, when he came over one night, you were entertaining him here in the living room. When you got up to go to the bathroom, he peed in the Ficas.

LK: When was that?

Robert: Last summer.

LK: So that’s why so many leaves turned brown.

Robert: And that other loser you went out, Roger, was it? You made curried shrimp for him that one time and he said he loved it and told you he cleaned his plate, remember?

LK Yeah…so?

Robert: He lied. When you left the room, he tossed every one of those curry laden bastards into the fern.

LK: What a liar! But that explains that horrible smell. Gee, I thought a convenience store clerk had died in here!

Robert: It made for some decent mulch though. The fern never looked better. Wanna hear something else?

LK: Sure.

Robert: That Day Lilly over there by the window…she’s a piece of work. Really into that stem cell stuff.

LK: As in primal cells found in all multi-cellular organisms which retain the ability to renew themselves through mitotic cell division and can then differentiate into a diverse range of specialized cell types?

Robert: Uh… no!!! You obviously misunderheard me, Helen Keller. I meant she sells her stems. You know…to other plants. She’s a whore.

LK: I had no idea!

Robert: Oh yeah. She has a fine stamen. Knows how to use it, too. And she gives GREAT photosynthesis! She probably pollinates four…maybe five times a night. I’ve chloro-filled her once or twice myself. She loved it…gave her consecutive organisms, too!

LK: Really? Well, isn’t this fascinating AND uncomfortable. Mind if I prune while we talk about something entirely different?

Robert: Go head. Take a little off the top.

LK: So, what does an English Ivy like you think about Global Warming?

Robert: It’s very real.

LK: Wow, really?

Robert: Un-wad your panties there, Sister. It’s real, but not in the way that Al Gore thinks it is. When the TV is on in here, I’ve watched a few of his interviews on the subject. Tell me something….is he a plant? Part tree maybe?

LK: No, he’s human. Why?

Robert: I’m surprised. He’s awfully wooden in appearance. Anyway, I think Al’s heart is in the right place–for the most part. I’d even go so far as saying his intentions are honorable. But he’s making a big deal about Global Warming because I don’t think he has anything else to do.

LK: Explain.

Robert: Since being president isn’t in his cards, Gore has to keep busy and tell me, is there a better platform than global warming? Something that can’t be definitely proven..or disproven without a lot of lengthy debate AND more research AND a whole hell of a lot money??? I mean, this is perfect for a “Look at Me! Look at Me” kind of guy like Gore. This cause also keeps his name out there and keeps him close to Young Hollywood and their deep pockets. You know—the Glitterati! Personally, I think he’s more of an alarmist than a conservationist. As I see it, he seems far more concerned with the girth of his popularity then actually saving the Earth. Hey! Look at me…I’m a pundit!

LK: You sound more like a Republican.

Robert: Me a Republican? Nah, I’m all Green Party, but I do like Bush!

LK: Something tells me you mean that in more ways than one. Please! Don’t respond to that…just tell me more about Global Warming from your perspective.

Robert: It’s real. It happening right now as you and I converse, but there’s a catch; it’s been happening since the beginning of time. See, this planet is a tough old bird. It’s been warming up and cooling down at different times since it was nothing but a dirty little ice chip with potential. The process is cyclical–always has been and always will be. We’re in a warming trend right now and yeah, portions of the Polar Ice Caps are melting but wait a while. Things will change. In a few years, we’ll enter a cooling period and things will start freezing again and someone will get all hot and bothered and start a big megillah about that!

LK: Megillah? You speak Yiddish?

Robert: A little. I’m an English Ivy, but by grandfather was a Wandering Jew.

LK: Who knew?

Robert: Yeah..sure. But you know, plant life is fascinating. I think it is, anyway. We’ve been around for a long time. Longer than you bi-peds. We have our own system of doing things. Thriving communities, astute leaders, fiduciary institutions, the works.

LK: You have banks?

Robert: Yes, we do.

LK: I suppose in the plant world, all your banks have “branches”???

Robert: Yes.

LK: And…and what do you keep in these banks? Hedge funds???

Robert: Yes we do. Why? Does our fiscal responsibility amuse you?

LK: Well, it’s just that I meant these as puns; play on words. I didn’t intend for….

Robert: Intend for your queries to be funny? I can understand how a human wouldn’t get us …who we are and how we do what we do, but these things are all very real in the plant world. We’re a progressive lot.

LK: Sorry, I meant no offense. You mentioned you have leaders, too?

Robert: The plant world isn’t much different than yours. We have leaders. Every civilized culture has leaders. We practically have an oligarchy in ours, but it’s fair and just and by and large, the plants are all happy. We have a pair of leaders who are related. The father was in office a few years before the son assumed the role as ranking leader. Their family is fast becoming something of a political dynasty in our world and they have THE perfect last name to be the leaders all plants and trees.

LK: You don’t mean….

Robert: Oh yes I do! President Palm! There’s Olaf Senior and his son, Olaf Junior.

LK: Uh-huh. Right. And uh….just where do the Palms live?

Robert: In big clay desPOTS.

LK: Oh really?

Robert: Well, terra cotta ones, actually.

LK: OK, THAT did it!!!

Robert: Hey, where are are ya going?

LK: This has been very interesting and very enlightening, but this ridiculous conversation is over. I’m done, Robert. The other plants need my attention. And who knows? Maybe my fern might be willing to explain Manifest Destiny or perhaps, the socio-economic ramifications of the high school drop out rate in Senegal!!!!

Robert: So, uh….what are you? You gonna tell me?

LK: Excuse me?

Robert: If you’re not a 34B, then what are you?

LK: I’m the owner of one less house plant.

Robert: What’s that supposed to mean?

LK: You’re rude; you’re forward and oddly boob obsessed for multi-stemmed Hedera Helix. I don’t like it because frankly, I get enough of that from your human counterparts. So, it’s best you leave. I’m taking you to the front desk in the lobby of my building. That will be your new home and I suggest you just sit there, keep quiet and look lovely….like a good Ivy should!

Robert: Now look lady, I’ve been in your family for more than 25 years!!

LK: So has syphilis. You’re out of here!

One week later….

I walked into my lobby and went straight to my mail box. I guess the concierge didn’t hear me come in, but I heard her involved in what sounded like a very interesting and familiar conversation.

“Yeah, I’m a 38… Double D”, she giggled.

That Robert. What a plant!

And what a conversationalist! So good about discussing tit…for tat.

The Unraveling (Reposted By Special Request

2008 February 6

14 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

Super Tuesday has come and gone.

It only redefined the confusion over the person those who align themselves with the political donkey, really want to take up semi-permanent residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It was a historic Super Tuesday…record vote tallies in some areas and for the first time in U.S. history, a woman and an African American man are vying to be the Democratic presidential candidates.

Here’s the Super Tuesday break down between Democrats, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton:

Obama clinched 13 Super Tuesday states, while Clinton nabbed eight, including American Samoa. However, Clinton made the most headway in the acquisition of delegates. She now has 845 to Obama’s 765. It takes 2025 delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination.

The contest for the Democratic party nod has been fierce and clearly, there has been no clear-cut standout between them. Leads ebb and flow.

Mrs. Clinton won the first round. She narrowly defeated Obama in the New Hampshire primary.

It was a win the Clinton camp needed.

Desperately.

Then things weren’t looking so “White House Rose gardeny” when Obama beat her soundly in the Iowa Caucus.

Mrs. Clinton isn’t used to losing. She left Iowa dejected and once she arrived in New Hampshire, she hit the campaign trail running with a morning stopover at a diner.

This is how the story played out in the media.

PORTSMOUTH, N.H – In perhaps her most public display of emotion of the presidential campaign, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s eyes welled with tears, and her voice cracked dramatically on Monday, as she talked about holding up under the rigors of the race and her belief that she is the best candidate for the Democratic nomination.

If it was not an Ed Muskie moment — Mrs. Clinton did not cry (or look like she was crying) — she was certainly on the verge of it after a woman asked her, at a round table discussion at a coffee shop here, how she managed to get out of bed and soldier through each day.

“How do you do it?” the woman, Marianne Pernold, asked. And, with a touch of humor, she then added, “And who does your hair?”

It’s not easy, it’s not easy,” Mrs. Clinton replied slowly. “I couldn’t do it if I did not passionately believe it was the right thing to do. It’s very personal to me.”

At this point Mrs. Clinton’s voice softened and lowered to a near-hush, and she spoke more haltingly; her eyes become tear-filled.

“I have so many ideas for this country, I just don’t want to see us fall backwards,” she said, her eyes visibly wet, as a row of news photographers began snapping away to capture the moment. “It’s about our country, it’s about our kids’ futures.”

Mrs. Clinton sat there and became emotional, something we’ve never seen before. Her eyes reddened, her hands were obscured from view, apparently on her lap as she sat at a table and addressed the common folk.

At least, that’s what she wanted us to think.

We here at Laurie Industries sent our top notch camera crew to New Hampshire and were present at this fine Denny’s moment. With the help of our tiny, UTTC (Under The Table Camera) we were able to capture exactly what was occupying Mrs. Clinton’s hands hidden beneath the table.

It explained her contrived emotional state.

But the staged, onion-fueled tears are only part of the equation. Mrs. Clinton did well in New Hampshire but as we mentioned, she came in third place in Iowa. This performance apparently started something of a downward spiral for the Gentlewoman from New York.

There have been reports indicating that her campaign has been marred by public exhibitions of very strange behavior.

We have been told that her showing in votes tallied from Super Tuesday, mainly in that she didn’t win the total number of states, has really put Mrs. Clinton over the edge. We’re talking about exhibitions of extremely odd behavior really, that some have closely equated to Britney Spears’ incredibly public mental collapse.

Naturally, our camera crews were there to capture it all.

This photo was taken early Tuesday morning. When Mrs. Clinton learned she lost Alabama, she immediately got in her car and drove to Paco’s Hair-A-Teria and Barber Shop in East Los Angeles where she took coiffure matters in her own hands and began shaving off her own locks.

Here’s a photo of the newly shorn Hillary Clinton.

Hours later, Mrs. Clinton learned she’d won California, but is seen here with green umbrella in hand, attacking the car of Roland Champlain, Headmaster of the Prescott School for Women. Hillary had heard the female student body of the politically left- leaning Liberal Arts prep school, could not and would not support Bush.

Apparently, Mrs. Clinton’s fragile mental state has left her rather…..confused.

And the final clue indicating that she has completely “come undone” was made glaringly apparent during the wee hours of Wednesday morning. She was photographed exiting a limo outside the Hotel Arnold in Compton, California sans her sensible Maiden Form size 9, white cotton hipster panties.

It’s our understanding that Dr. Phil is trying to have an unsolicited audience with Mrs. Clinton and that a judge in Inglewood, California is considering naming her daughter, Chelsea Clinton and former Clinton Administration staffer and sex addict, Dick Morris as conservators to her estate.

Eine Kleine Hand Muzik

2009 April 13

by Laurie Kendrick

Mein Gott!!!!!!

♦

And last but not least, a little Ozzie:

Give a hand to the musician behind this musical fartress of hand compression. It’s Jerry Phillips and he’s been a “musical manualist” for the past 38 years.

Remember Gary Condit?

2008 September 9

by Laurie Kendrick

Chandra Levy made news again. If you believe mainstream news organizations (which I rarely do) there’s about to be an arrest in the young Washington intern’s murder.

DC police feel sure it’s some con who’s last name contains all consonants. He’s done time in the past for assaulting women in the same park where Levy’s remains were found, one year after her strange disappearance.

In case you don’t remember the Condit/Levy case, here’s a primer.

Seven years ago this past August , a curious American public gathered around their Sony Triniton equivalents of the old fireplace to watch a very special taped interview. It was one of the biggest one-on-ones that veteran TV journalist Connie Chung would ever conduct.

It was with Gary Condit.

Old Gary.

My, how he first garnered, then held our attention captive beginning around May 1st of 2001. If you remember, Condit represented California’s 15th congressional district, the northern San Joaquin Valley.

He was a nice looking guy; neat, well dressed…probably owned a few stylish sear-sucker suits. His hair was always perfectly coiffed; his teeth were perfect and white—like Chiclets. I hate the term, but I supposed one could label him a “metro-sexual”.

Condit made national headlines because of the murder of Chandra Levy, who was originally from Condit’s district in California, but at the time, was working as an intern for the Bureau of Prisons in Washington, DC.

It was alleged not long after Levy went missing that there was something amiss as far as her relationship with Condit was concerned. Police questioned him twice about an affair. He denied everything, but that went south once Levy’s aunt went public with conversations she’d had with her missing niece about an adulterous affair with the lawmaker. When DC police found out, they questioned him a third time and Condit finally confessed to the relationship.

At the time of the affair, the Democrat was 53; Levy was 23.

Condit was never named as an official suspect in the disappearance, but the Levy family (and subsequently the national media along with untold Americans) suspected that Condit was withholding something; at the very least, people felt he knew more than he was letting on about the intern’s disappearance.

We demanded more.. A scandal starved public clamored to know more. It had been years since OJ’s murder trial and Lewinsky-Gate was becoming a distant memory. We were hungry for “amber journalism” and the media fed us ample portions.

CNN, the networks and Fox News ran it the story ragged, beating a dead horse, but still, interest was extremely high. Needless to say Condit’s situation was a PR nightmare, mainly because he was a politician at the time. It simply wasn’t kosher for the “Distinguished Gentleman From California” to have had an adulterous tryst with a woman two years younger than his own daughter.

And not only that, Condit mishandled things. Aside from the fact that police claimed he’d impeded the investigation by not being completely forthright with information, there were other reports about other illicit affairs. And in July, two months after Levy’s disappearance made news, he was caught trying to stash a gift box in a dumpster in a Virginia suburb. He claims it was innocent enough; that he was merely throwing away an old watch box given to him by a former staffer years earlier. He chose to get rid of the box miles from his office to escape the prying eyes of the media.

Still, it didn’t look good.

Well, as fate would have it, Levy’s remain were found scattered in a secluded area of a Washington DC park in May 2002. Her death was ruled a homicide and the case remains unsolved.

Condit’s life went on. He ran again for his congressional seat in early 2002, but lost. His first loss ever.

It’s safe to say that Condit’s life was greatly affected by this incident. Monumentally so.

He and his family moved away from California a few years later. They went to Arizona where they opened several ice cream franchises. That was in 2005, I have no idea what he’s doing now or where he’s doing it.

Personally, I’d like to believe he’s been doing a lot of thinking. I’m not saying Condit is guilty of anything OTHER than having an adulterous affair, but in my world, that’s enough.

I have a hard time with infidelity. I’ve seen it’s evil first hand. I was angry at this man for this and while hated what happened, I was one of those Americans who helped Fox and CNN beat the Condit horse to death. I was glued to this on going saga. And on the evening of September 10th 2001, I went to bed feeling sure I’d wake up a few hours later to the latest dirt in the Gary Condit scandal.

But that wasn’t the case.

I woke up the the next day; the morning of Tuesday, September 11th just as 19-crazed Islamic radicals induced a most formidiable paradigm shift.

After that, like most of America, I forgot all about the Condit/Chandra affair.

I’m certain though, that’s not the case with the Levy family…they’ll never forget.

And I’ll bet Condit wishes he could.

So, I’m In The Hospital, Right…..

2009 January 7

by Laurie Kendrick

This past April 26th commemorated the 18th anniversary of a nasty, nasty truck- freeway overpass- semi-dry creek bed below accident I had in 1991.

I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that it was bad and I broke 11 bones and was injured all to hell. It happened on a stretch of Interstate 10 about 35 miles outside of san Antonio. I was transported to a hospital there where I would eventually under go three surgeries in the almost three months I was a patient there.

I will tell you that among the many bones broken were my pelvis, my sacrum (the base of my spine at the pelvis) and I had two comminuted fractures in the tibia and fibula on my right leg (comminuted means the bones were literally pulverized; sanded down. Former NFL legend, quarterback Joe Thiesmann had one, remember that game back in ‘85? Well, I had two of them. Wuss!). I also broke my ankle mortis, the little bony box thing that comprises the ankle. These, coupled with other injuries meant I had to lie in a bed, encased in this pelvic sling thing…a strong piece of material of some sort that was suspended from a bar above my bed. It stabilized my pelvis and gently squeezed it together. My doctors chose to go that route because my leg breaks required a full leg cast from butt to toe. It was in my best interest across the board to remain in bed and immobilized.

And believe me, I was. I couldn’t move. I’d broken my right shoulder, too and only had my left arm free. So, in order to attend to the specific things that doctors and nurses must do for proper patient care, I had to remain naked from the waist down. A single sheet covered my legs and was funneled through the pelvic traction device, to cover my upper torso. I was naked on the bottom, but clothed on top.

I hate hospital gowns, so my mother bought me these hip looking T-shirts (well, “hip” in my mother’s mind. One said “Benny Goodman Rules” and another one read, “23-Skidoo, Bitches!!”). She then cut them up the back so I could put them on with relative ease..

For three months, I lived in a world of pain, uncomfortable plaster casts, horrible food, lousy TV and that nasty hospital smell that still permeates my olfactory system’s memory banks.

Birth, death. Illness, wellness. Each has a smell and they smell like hospitals.

Anyway, my friends and colleagues in Houston would come to visit me frequently and let me state here that TV and radio types, they can be …oh what’s the word? Uh…it’s uh…it’s….Oh yes, assholes.

They are loud, bombastic, ballsy, in-your-face, unfiltered and few possess any semblance of social boundaries.

But I love ‘em!!

One gentleman friend in particular came calling one Saturday afternoon. Steve was cute, smart, funny, the consummate definition of a lusty, skirt chasing heterosexual man. He loved women and I constantly served as his chief counsel when it came to the opposite sex. I was often his “wing woman”, in fact. He didn’t need me though. The ladies loved him and he loved the ladies.

Anyway, he appeared in the doorway of my hospital room with flowers in hand and immediately announced, “Get out of that bed, Faker!!! You look like shit!!”, which is Broadcasting code for, “while I care about you, you’re in that bed, in pain, battered and bruised and this isn’t our usual dynamic, therefore I’m not at all comfortable with this situation, so I’ll attempt to diminish these feelings with a failed attempt at inappropriate humor.“

He sat down in a chair beside the bed and we made small talk at first, then he asked for details as to what happened. I conveyed what I remembered and then went into depth about all the procedures and indignities I’d endured up to that point. He sat there, listening with a rather pained expression on his face.

Minutes later, he obviously felt the need to lighten the mood, so he stood up and demanded, “Now, let’s see that cast. It needs my signature!”. And when he did, he yanked the sheet before I could say a word and there I was….lying there with my leg cast and everything else exposed to the elements.

Nothing was said.

He just stared at my naked pelvic area and I stared at him, staring at my naked pelvic area. The silence was deafening; he was in shock; I dare say, he was traumatized; his face was contorted. He was seeing his very platonic female friend in a whole new and unfortunate light.

I was mortified.

Well, what felt like a millennium later, he dropped the sheet, completely crimson-faced. I knew I had to say something, but the only thing I could muster was a question.

I asked, “How do you like my impersonation of Lincoln?”

He didn’t miss a beat and replied, “It was good, but as presidents go, I thought it was a fairly decent portrayal of Bush!”

♦

UPDATE: Steve and his life partner, Ron have been together for eight years now!!

Those Who Are Unsung…

2009 May 24

by Laurie Kendrick

This Memorial Day holiday finds me admitting to you and the world that I am decidedly not showy when it comes to my patriotism. I don’t wear a flag pin on my lapels and Old Glory rarely comes out on holidays commemorating those who fought and died for my country.

But I humbly appreciate everything they’ve sacrificed.

I love this country. There are freedoms here that don’t exist anywhere else. America, in spite of it’s many problems, still offers amazing things. It allows left of center people to exist. We live here under a red, white and blue roof despite the fact that we have differing opinions, different tastes, different political leanings and except for the battles fought on Capital Hill and very often, right here on this blog. Even those who wish to turn this country over to Socialists and other regime’s, still continue to enjoy their freedoms here, while lambasting the very governmental hand that theoretically feeds them.

See? That’s freedom. We can speak out about what we feel are problems. We can criticize a president and his or her administration and not risk being forcibly removed from our beds at night and hustled to some dank bunker where we’re interrogated by some Adolph Menjou looking commandant in jodhpurs demanding that we answer his questions.

We can drive across the entire country without checkpoints. You don’t have to travel “with papers”. No, I don’t like riots, protests and boycotts, but it’s our Constitional right to to participate in them…peacably, but that’s rarely part of the equation when injustice is perceived to have been committed. Despite the blemishes, inflicted by her own people and 19 Islamic sociopths with an unholy desire to destroy values and principles they could never have, I’m quite proud of my country, Americans don’t live a utopian existence–we never have, we never will. Utopia is a concept that’s damned impossible to describe much less attain. It means different things to different people. And why should we expect perfection? The words “complete perfection” can’t be found in our Constitution) America is an incredible place. Her landscape amazes me, her natural beauty takes my breathe away and so do the people who comprise her populace.

And oh, how varied are her people.

I think of so many Americans and can’t help but think of “heroes”. It’s a word that’s been bandied about quite a bit in recent years. It’s what we call New York City firemen and other rescuers workers after 9/11. It’s how some Americans refer to U.S. troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and these make up only the very tip of the hero iceberg. There are so many more heroes to name. Especially those who we’ve personally encountered.

I’m talking about the quiet, unassuming types who become heroes unwittingly…merely for doing their jobs. Sometimes, simply because they were in the right place at the right time.

Take Lenny Skutnik for example.

It was the winter of 1982. January 12th was a particularly cold and snowy day in Washington, DC. Skutnik was a young worker at the Congressional Budget Office. He’d been driving home from work when Air Florida Flight 90, fated by improper de-icing of the wings, fell from the sky and into the semi-frozen Potomac, just 20 seconds after takeoff from Washington National Airport. Skutnik saw what happened, jumped out of his car stopped in traffic near the Fourteenth Street Bridge, where a crowd had gathered, watching as a female passenger screamed for help as she and a few other survivors thrashed about in the the icy waters.

Two weeks later at a State of The Union address, President Ronald Reagan turned and looked up into the gallery where Lenny was seated and said:

“Just two weeks ago, in the midst of a terrible tragedy on the Potomac, we saw again the spirit of American heroism at its finest — the heroism of dedicated rescue workers saving crash victims from icy waters. We saw the heroism of one of our young government employees, Lenny Skutnik, who, when he saw a woman lose her grip on the helicopter line, dived into the water and dragged her to safety.”

Few Americans knew who Lenny Skutnik was before that fateful day and these days, his name is largely forgotten, save for White House insiders–namely among speechwriters. Many speeches these days include what is referred to as a “Skutnik”, a warm, inspirational story about an ordinary person who does an extraordinary thing.

THE CASE OF CHARLES WHITMAN

I remember that day well. I was six, home from school on summer break and it was particularly hot that day. I was inside basking in air conditioned comfort and the TV went blank and then a network anchor broke in and went live to The University of Texas campus at Austin. KLRN, a public TV outlet that was based on campus, had some how managed to take a live camera outside and positioned it towards the top of the tower.

The news files from the Huntley/Brinkley Report as it aired on NBC late one August afternoon in 1966. The news report merely says that Whitman was taken out; it is remiss in not conveying how that was done.

It was just after noon when the first shot rang out and the campus, as one might imagine, was in utter chaos. Charles Whitman, a UT student who’d already killed his mother and his young wife, had taken a cache of weapons, ammo,food, water and a radio to the top of the observation deck of the famed UT Tower.

He was a Marine sharpshooter and that, plus he had a 36- degree view of campus from all four sides of the deck, some 25 stories up, made him the most treacherous of snipers. The observation deck with it’s thick walls was 25 stories up, meant he had a keen vantage point. He was able to shoot through open turrets in the deck’s cement barrier. I remember video of Whitman taken by the APD chopper. I could see his shocking platinum blond head of hair lying down on the floor, rifle poised at the ready. He was wearing a jumpsuit.

It was 1966; the Austin Police Department had a helicopter, but it wasn’t equipped offensive purposes, so the key in stopping Whitman would be to do so on the observation deck.

Face to face.

Gun to gun.

Austin Police Officer Jerry Day was the first officer to travel up the tower’s elevator. He and volunteer University Co-Op employee Allen Crum (who Day deputized on the spot), went up with off duty Officer Ramiro Martinez. They followed Martinez and Officer Houston McCoy to the observation deck, they stayed at the door to guard it. Martinez went out first and McCoy followed.

Martinez decided to go alone around the SE corner in a crawling position with his .38 revolver drawn. McCoy realized that he would need back-up and rounded the corner with his shotgun. They two men proceeded to the northeast corner of the deck. Martinez spotted Whitman sitting on the floor of the northwest corner watching for any signs of police. Martinez jumped into the walkway in a split-position, firing his .38 revolver in the direction of Whitman, who was partially shielded by a floor light ballast.

McCoy ascertained the direction in which Martinez was firing, and stepped out and away from Martinez, and saw Whitman’s head above the ballast, just as the gunman was aiming his M-1 carbine around towards them. As Martinez was firing, McCoy fired his riot shotgun at the at Whitman, clad in a white head-band, effectively killing the sniper with the first blast.

Heroes.

These people woke up on the mornings of these events, not expecting to do anything but endure the mundane sameness of their everyday existences. However, they went to sleep that night as entirely different people. Or did they? Surely, something was “in them”…perhaps something congenital made them different. They acted; they reacted and that made the difference, but why? What made Lenny Skutnik–a regular schlub, kick off his shoes and jump in 27-degree water to save a stranger?

Granted law enforcement types and soldiers are sworn to duty, but even so, what was it exactly that made these two Austin Police Officers in particular, risk life and limb to keep a madman from killing more innocent people?

There are scores of people who do heroic things every day and they do so without a Presidential award mention or Congressional recognition.

You have animal rescuers. There are police, firemen, social workers, doctors, nurses and EMT’s are heroes on an hourly basis. So are soldiers. There are whistle blowers who help end corruption. Researchers who find cures to diseases. Philanthropists who give generously to incredibly worthwhile causes which help minions and these people do so without a press release or a camera crew chronicling their every move.

And still, there are other heroes comprised of everyday people who unwittingly change our lives in the most unherealded of ways. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Like the Sophomore English teacher in a very small South Texas High School who in 1975, told one forelorn, petite brown-eyed blond who was rife with doubts and insecurities, traumatized by her parents’ horrific divorce, that she had the power to change the world, her world anyway, through the written word.

I saw Mrs. Purser at a funeral about a year ago. God love her, she barely remembered me.

But I will never forget her.

O.J.’s Ultimate Fate

2009 February 24

by Laurie Kendrick

One day in the relatively near future, O J Simpson has a heart attack and dies. oj-hell

He immediately goes to hell, where the devil is waiting for him. Satan is clutching a clip board rife with papers.

‘Welcome Mr. Simpson. This is where you’ll spend eternity…in a place that’s really of your own making on Earth!” The devil belts out this deviant, evil laugh befitting a Wes Craven movie or a John Milton novel. The devil then rifles through the papers on his clip board.

“Gee, Mr. S, I’m at a loss here. You see, you’re are on my list of incoming residents and actually, I’ve had you earmarked to head due south ever since that that little bloddy glove incident on Bundy Avenue L.A. during the summer of 1994, but for some reason, I have no room for you. Hell is all filled up. So, I have to find space for you while keeping in mind that I have to keep extra room for Obama’s Cabinet. My problem is that you definitely have to stay here”.

The devil put a cloven hoof up to his chin, tapped it a few times as he pondered what to do with the formerly decent human being.

“OK, I’ve got it!”, said the devil. “Tell you what I’m going to do. I’ve got a few folks here who weren’t quite evil as you, so I’ll let one of them go, but you have to take their place. I’ll even let YOU decide who leaves! How’s that for accomodating?”

OJ thought about it for a minute or two, then decided that sounded quite doable, so the devil asked for former football legend if he was ready to see the first room. The devil opened the door.

In it, was Al Gore, He was wearing only his integrity—and a pair of boxers and a “John Kerry Sux” T-shirt. He was sitting there, shivering and freezing in an igloo that will never, ever melt. A very hungry Kodiak bear, who feels encroached upon by Inuits and the Broadway touring company of “No, No Nanook!, Not only that, the bear voted Republican in ’08. The huge creature patrols the igloo’s portal constantly. Every time Al tried to exit the frozen, tiny fortress, the bear would roar and claw at him. Gore had no option but to go back inside and exist in a cold world, with none of the deep pocketed, yet gullible Young Glittery Hollywood types to bail him out…much less toss him a Member’s Only jacket.

Such was his fate in hell.

No way!!”, OJ said. ‘I don’t think so. I’m a warm weather kind of guy. Hell, I played pro-ball in Buffalo. I know cold and no thank you; I’m done with that shit. What’s next?”

”As you wish.” said the abominable one. The devil led him to the door of the next room.

In it, was Hillary Clinton with a sledgehammer, seeking a vast, right ring conspiracy, along with the last bastion of her dignity, her femininity and a rare collection of Indigo CD’s. in a room full of huge rocks and boulders. All she did was swing the hammer, time after time, breaking stone after stone and never making a dent in the igneous mass before her.

“No man, this is no good! I played pro-ball. I got a bad shoulder. I’m arthritic and I’d be in constant agony if I had to bust up rocks day in and day out!”,The devil nodded his head, then opened a third door.

Through it, OJ saw Bill Clinton, lying on the bed, his arms tied over his head and his legs restrained in a spread-eagle pose. Bent over him was Monica performing one of her trade mark Lewinskys.. OJ looked at the scene before him in shocked disbelief, and said, “Oh hell yeah, man!! Now, this I can do forever. I can handle this for sure. I want to spend eternity like this, Devil! And that’s my final answer!!”

The devil smiled and said, “OK Monica, you’re free to go…..”

Happy Birthday, You Doll You!!!

2009 February 25

16 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

EDITOR’S NOTE: IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR PHOTOS AND VIDEOS OF EXTREMELY GROSS PUS FILLED SPIDER BITES, PLEASE CLICK HERE!!

As I type this, I will turn 50 in less than two months.

Unlike my good friend, Cheryl (our birthdays are one day apart…same year), I have no qualms with reaching the half century mark….at least, not yeat.

I don’t look 50, but I sure as hell feel it. When I wake up and attempt to get out of bed, I hear a cacophony of cracks and snaps and pops. I’m like this big peri-menopausal bowl of Rice Krispies.

The audibles that my body often call without my consent are only half the battle though. I have other symptoms of aging, too. I tend to forget things these days; my bladder control has all the effectiveness of Mexico’s militia and my skin is getting dryer. I eat Omega-3 vitamins like candy; I try to stay hydrated, yet my skin still looks like slightly buffered dry wall. Thank God it’s not manifesting itself in wrinkles, but the dryness is still there. Guess my once OPEC friendly oil glands aren’t producing like they used to.

I’ve tried putting vegetable oil on my face and hands–something about the emollients (or so I’ve heard) is good for the skin. Well, it is GREAT for your hands and arms. You can see a visible difference in just a few days of application. This ISN’T great for your face. I applied vegetable oil before going to sleep for two nights. You’d be surprised by how easy this stuff is to rub in. While my hands and arms were softer, the oil on my face, understandably served as nothing but zit fuel. Intellectually, I knew putting this on my face was wrong, wrong, wrong, but I was desperate. My face ended up looking like the back of a white chocolate Nestle’s crunch bar. One pimple was so big it had a Black Diamond trail on it’s north slope .

But I terminated the oily irrigation source and applied some of the same shit Jessica Simpson puts on her facial version of the Pyrenees and then a day or two later, I popped that huge pimple of mine with Vesuvian like results, which were satisfying.

Ever noticed that women are crazy for popping pimpl recluse-spider-bite es and/or protruding cysts? Why is that? We don’t care what it is–blackheads, white heads; big, hulking bulges on the backs of our husbands or boyfriends. We pinch, they wince and we push out this mass of ugly that both enthralls and disgusts us. We push the bulk of the evil out from the depths of the dermis, then we scream and act horrified, but uultimately, we come back for round two. God forbid we should ever get our hands on a nice, juicy primed Brown Recluse spider bite.

So, dear readers, I face my 50th head on, but this noble, “hold-my chicken neck attached to my head high but I’m faking” bit, met with difficulty today. One of Satan’s spawn sent me a video just to remind me, not of my mortality, but that at age 50, I’m a hell of a lot closer to staring it in the face than I was a mere year ago.

Here’s the gist of this rambling nonsense: Cheryl and I both turn 50 this year….and so does Barbie. I wasn’t much of a doll girl, Cheryl was, she had Barbies, I didn’t. If I had dolls, they had to do something human-ish; they had to walk, talk, burp, cry or have an intact , fully operational Mattel engineered excretory system. My dolls had to produce foul Infamil-like toy doo-doo. Oh, I had imagination, I just dug the magic of technology in my play things.

Even so, I’m the same age as Barbie and I’ve realized that she, as a former pilot, gymnast, debutante, homemaker, model, attorney, vice cop, Madoff’s PR consultant, haberdasher, astronaut, mechanic, moil, stewardess, Teamster, toll booth worker, gay advocate, teacher, princess, game show host, post Civil War Carpetbagger, junkie/whore, doctor, nurse, TV personality, corporate mogul, movie star, AFL-CIO lobbyist, pool boy, a mail woman, politician and depression era wet nurse, has had a far, far more successful life than I have.

And she did these things…while consistently maintaining a 1.3″ waist…that Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene’d bitch!!!

So, watch this if you will and effort to feel empathy for my nearly 50-year old anguish at this sad, sad comparison.

Wanna

A New Bumper Sticker

2009 February 26

by Laurie Kendrick

For those of you who read this tripe with any degree of regularity, you are well aware of the fact that I live in Houston, a large city that’s fairly evenly divided in terms of political allegiance. We have Independents, the bohemians and terminally hip love the Green Party, there areDems galore and of course, this being an oil town, we have our fair share of Republicans.

I am one of you.

I lean right and I know how upset you’ve been with Bush out and Obama in. Sorry, but that’s the reality. The Republicans lost and the Democrats won. That said, it’s high time we get rid of those “W” bumper stickers we’ve proudly displayed on our cars for the past eight years.

The Bush Administration is done…over…kaput. He’s “Citizen Bush” now; Washington is far behind him

The Democrats are in power. We simply need to get past that.

Now, I urge all of my fellow Republicans from Buffalo to Brownsville, from San Luis Obispo to some lobster trap with a tiny little harbor town attached in Maine, to come together; to unify; to support all of the new changes in our midst.

We have a new Commander-In-Chief. A new party, a new man with a new staff; a new cabinet and a completely new way of doing things.

Obama has just been on office a little more than a month. He’s had a mere 35 days to prove his political moxie; his judgment, his concern and efforts to resolve this current economic crisis the country is struggling through and of course, we’ve only been introduced to his rather unique view of foreign policy and détente..

Therefore, scrape, peel, rip or tear off those “Ws” off your bumpers and replace them with a new sticker. It’s high time you Republicans started voicing YOUR thoughts about our president and his lofty goals of change..

So, here’s your new bumper sticker. Drive around proud—for at least, the next four years.

o-shit

* Stickers available at Jabo’s Big and Tall, Studz Toke and Poke–For All Your Smoking and Sexual Novelty Needs (25,984 locations throughout California) , Pelosi’s Five & Dime and Sean Penn’s House of Etiquette

H/T Cafe Press

Happy, Happy Weekend!!!!

2009 February 27

13 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

Reader 1: Why is LK so happy? She never wishes us a happy weekend!

Reader 2: Yeah…Gee Wally, what gives? She’s usually as ornery as a Haskell. She puts the piss in pessimism!

Reader 3: That makes no sense.

Reader 2: Well, in print it doesn’t.

Reader 1: So, why then did you……? It’s not even spelled the…. Oh never mind, but it is a wee bit disconcerting whenever this broad is in a decent mood, much less when she’s outright happy.

Reader 3: Yeah, you’re right. Something is up. I don’t know what it is, but I think I should warn you all–gurd your loins!!!

LK: Fear not, readers dear. I am in a good mood and there will be no repurcussions as a result.

Reader 2: Uh, did you get laid then?

LK: No..and what exactly is “getting laid”? I seem to have forgotten.

Reader 3: Do we have a lottery winner in our midst?

Reader 2: Did you meet a nice guy who’s loaded?

Reader 2: Have you become a really successful prostitute? Did poverty force you to swallow your pride…and that of about 6000 different men at 50 bucks a pop?

LK: To answer all three of your queries: no, no dammit and HELL no! Settle down and I’ll explain why I’m smiling.

You see, I had a very important job interview with an entity under the auspicies of Harris County, of which Houston is the county seat. It’s media related and will be a sizeable advance in scope, scoop, and sciput. That’s what the ancient Hebrews called cash. I don’t know, I’m lying.

Anyway, the job would be a tremendous feather in le chappeau du Laurie. Not only that, I think I could do a great job at this job. More interviews are being conducted through Monday, but as I see it, I’ve got it in the bag. After I walked out of the building, I looked around. Lovely edifice…nestled amid the huge pines of NW Harris County. As I walked to my car, I noticed that the building street number on the facade was not only low, but rather loose. So, I burped sulfur as I donned horns, a tail and cloven hooves as I changed the numbers.

How deviously delicious is that???

(Inswert evil laugh with a clown photographed at a funky angle. Like a scene out of “Batman”…the Adam West version, thank you!!)

Wanna know what I did. Well, 4690 West Hughes is now 9064 West Hughes. Potential candidates will never find that building….ever!!

This job is mine. My vast journalist acumen be damned!!! Sometimes, you just have to screw with fate.

And building street addresses.

In the meantime and before Judeo/Catholic guilt makes me feel otherwise, I am happy and content and yes, dare I say optimistic.

And my readers–both of you–will reap the benefits.

My gift to you? Wonderful, hoot-filled cartoons to read and forward to your likewise skewed and deviant friends, until I return Monday….paler, weaker and 17 pounds lighter after a gut gnawing, guilt and angst ridden weekend.

Ask The Questions; Question The Answers

2009 February 28

by Laurie Kendrick

I’ve got several days before I find out how I fared in my recent job interview. While relatively calm, I will admit that I’m consummed by the thought of gainful employment. I’m excited about…so are about seven filthy, duhty creditors. So, I take with me some of the Marianne Williams mantra stuff I’ve read—live it, like you already have it.

Or did Emo Phillips say that?

So, I envision what my life would be at my new job; what I’d wear each day, how I’d interact with my new co-workers. If I might be able to vamp any of the lawyers and lobbyists. I think about how I’ll decorate my office and how I’d react in a situation requiring crisis management. I keep telling myself, “Of course, I got the gig! It’s mine!!” and for a while, I believe it, and then like a scene out of “Sybyll”, I’m encroached by all these little childhood traumas that tell me, “What chance have YOU got you big loser, street person, pauper, with peri-menopausal chin whiskers??”’ Twenty minutes later, I’m praying to Gods I don’t even believe in to help me with the odds of getting this job. And the cycle continues.

Prior to going back into intensive psycho-therapy a few months ago, I’d always become the sad sack and ask, “Why me?” Regardless of the situation, it was my fault. I failed. I was taught to think less about myself. Many people around my age were raised in the same way. Maybe it’s merely the strange M.O. of material things starved children who grew up during the Depression, only to become strange vengeful parents who each practice a version of mind control or an early and varied form of Manchurian Candidacy.

Now, I’m telling myself and anyone who’ll listen, “Why NOT me, mother fucker??”

The beauty of insight is that it changes you permamently. It creates a paradigm shift that can never be altered. And once you have it, you see your life in this classic Coyote/Road Runner cartoon scene you’re the person you are now standing on one plateau. Fifty feet away, on a matching plateau is the person you used to be. I look across and see a 14 year old Laurie.

My God, I was a homely teen!! But that was the last time in my life that I remember being really happy.

What’s in between the plateaus you ask? I my case, there;s 35-five years I can’t account for, swirling around in an otherwise empty crevice that goes on forever. You realize that eventually, you’ll feel that seemingly bottomless pit with the feelings you’ve never felt and issues with which you’ve never dealt. That comes in time, but for now it’s filled with questions.

Like you, I’ve certainly asked my share in my life…who, how, why, when, and where. Sometimes my queries were answered; sometimes all I got back for my effort, was a vacant expression and half the time, that was from my own reflection in the mirror.

Up until quite recently, I’ve asked questions than somehow, blamed myself for the answers.

~

I decided to organize my pantry this weekend. I found a can of Vienna Sausages. I loathe Viena Sausages, therefore I never buy these things. I look at one and think which poor litle Jewish kid had the far-sighted moil? I wouldn’t buy a can of this misery even if I were stocking up for hurricane supplies. Ike came and went…I bought a few canned goods for my return from the Hill Country where I evacuated, but I never bought a can of these nasty weenies. I felt almost sure I hadn’t bought any thing like this in the months or hell, the YEARS prior. Still, it was in my pantry, so the question became, “When did I buy this crap?’

Head scratching.

I was at a cocktail party a few years ago at none other than 30 Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhatten. The hi-rise is the corporate HQ of all things NBC. I took leave of all the mindless radio chatter and walked around a bit. I looked up and there was that familiar, large gold statue of Prometheus in the courtyard. How many times in my life had I seen that as background on TV? Behind Jane Pauley on the “Today” show. It loomed above the ice skating rink when the original cast of “Saturday Night Live” were involved in an “all skate” as the closing credits signaled the end of their first Christmas show. I looked up at the gilded statue of the Greek Titan—credited for stealing fire from the gods in the stalk of a fennel plant and giving it to us mortals for our use. I was in a place…a far, far cry from the small confines of that tiny little town in South Texas that I once called home. I looked at Prometheus and wondered “How did I get here?”

Perplexed look…with a slight, impish smile, thanks to several Crown and 7’s….and yes, I do adulterate my liquor on oaccasion!!!

In the fall of 1973, a boy broke my heart because he needed to be free to explore the “social labyrinth THAT IS being a high school Sophomore”. I hung up the one and sat on the floor of my bedroom on that fateful night–mascara laden tears streaming down my face and I asked myself in a plaintive, teenage wail, “What did I do wrong?”

Well friends, it’s taken me a while to find the answers, but I think I have.

For starters, I do believe that the can of Vienna Sausages came with the apartment. So did the cigarette butt, burned to the filter, found underneath it. The contents of the can I feared, was about a month away from full on decomposition. So was the cigarette. I threw both in the trash.

Matches to matches; dust to dust.

Logn story short, I got to New York through hard work and having big dreams that were worth persuing. Prometheus had through the miles and years, unwittingly lit a fire under my one-eighth Slavic ass. Why was my heart stomped on at the beginning of my Freshman year of High School? Because it just was. Luck of the draw. Juvenile heartache caused by Kenedy boys was a vital growing pain for me.

As for the rest of the questions? Well frankly, I think questioning is good, within limits. There are times you can ask yourself too many questions then fear and denial make you look for answers that just aren’t there. Realization that something you’ve wanted for a long, lone time, will never materialize, me true–in spite of your very best effort, is one of the biggest, heart rendering experiences you will ever have. It has to be something remotely akin to carrying a baby for nine months and going to great measure to carry full term and and deliver healthy, only to suffer at the end of it all, the pain and anguish of a stillbirth.

Sometimes things happen because it’s your lot in life. There’s no other explanation.

We love and loose, we attempt and succeed; we try and fail and sometimes we win. It’s life. A suck-fest turned into sheer Nirvana turned life a la Lindsay Lohan on a bender. She might be doing better these days, but she’s a fine example that someone can be cute, wealthy and successful and still have problems…horribly public problems. Just because you’re wealthy with a 25 inch waist doesn’t mean guaranteed happiness.

But that tiny-ness damn sure seems to makes some men happy.

But I digress.

Happiness is a conscious choice, is it not? Sometimes emotions and seratonin levels get in the way of the ability to fully experience it, but by and large, I think we can at times, choose to be happy.

And we also choose not to be.

In previous incarnations of my life, I would stay up all night asking questions that had no answers. Putting myself through so much worry about being so worried. No rest, no peace, no sleep…no sheep to count. I’m happy to say I an a much more elevated insomniac—now, I just count Ambien.

I’m fine, but as I’ve always said on my blog, like everyone else, I’m a work in progress. I’m in a very flat mood after writing those awfully wordy blog post. I’m not happy, I’m not sad.. I’m not anything, really. I’m instrospective, I guess and that’s made me more aware of things; like sunshine, the feel of the breeze, Nature’s vibrant use of Technicolor and of course, the nasty fecal pellets left by all the dust bunnies in my domocile. No, wait! They’re not rabbit crap; just errant cat food strewn about by a cat who never learned any manners. Whew!!! For a few seconds, thought I had a potential Sci-Fi Network mini-series on my hands.

So today, the best thing for me to do is go out and be in the world instead of just living on it. But because I’m still woefully unemployed, I’m going to scrape together a few goats, some beads, clay pots and a few stalks of corn (some people call it maize) and head over to the nearby Aztec Multi-Plex West and see a movie. I need some kind of escapist venture today. And fortunately for me and my dwindling bank account, this particular theatre accepts wampum.

Me go see heap big budget film “Paul Blart: Mall Cop”.

Reviews good.

Rex Reed say many ha ha’s.

Ironies

2009 March 1

10 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

I find it ironic that a man at death’s door can receive an aorta from a pig, survive the operation, his body never rejects the sinewy bovine arterial transplant and in months, he’s up and around and living with a strong ticker which gives him more time on this planet just to eat more bacon.

As some of you might be aware, there is in the overall price of gas at the pump, a substantial transportation fee to ship fuel by truck to established retail outlets across the country. That being the case, it’s ironic that in the American capital of oil and gas production–the Houston suburb of Pasadena, gas is always just as high if not higher at the Valero, Exxon and Texaco stations right across the highway from the very oil and gas plants that produce the stuff.

It’s ironic don’t you think, that we die as we are born. We come to this world pink, wrinkled and helpless and we die very much the same way. The only thing missing of the role of Mom. By the time a person reaches this age, the mothers are no where near, uh….because they’re dead.

It’s ironic, I think, that back in the early 70’s, the Chevrolet Nova intended to be a HUGE hit among car buyers in Mexico wasn’t, because in Spanish, the words “no” and “va” means “no go”.

Isn’t it ironic that some women claim they’ve never been in a lesbianic sexually compromising situation with another woman, YET…they’re here and alive today because of a successful vaginal birth??

Don’t you think that it’s most ironic that the several of the institutions that got us into this fiscal hell hole we’re in, are the only ones who can eventually, get us out of it?

I feel there is a certain amount of irony to Barack Obama’s self proclaimmed comparison to Abraham Lincoln. The President is a Democrat. Lincoln was a Republican. Lincoln spear headed abolition–he freed the slaves, yet Obama is seemingly trying to enslave the country with some ridiculous tax proposals and policies. For one thing, Obama thinks the FCC should have some power in limiting talk shows, because they’re mostly conservative and that leaves the Liberals without a voice? What the farouk??? I’m pounding my size 9 Hush Puppy against the pulpit in protest at the U.N.!!

For starters, they had Air America and that went limp like a straight man forced to live with Rosie O’Donnell. Secondly, there are plenty of liberal mouthpieces on the air; there’s that hagfest, ”The View”, the big three TV networks, Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, not to mention CNN and Obama’s campaignn headquarters, MSNBC. And besides, If I were Obama, I sure wouldn’t align myself with old Honest Abe at all. No sir, I’d keep my distance. I mean, after all, the guy learned to write and did his cypherin’ on the back of a big spade.

The DMV vs. A DMZ: Neither Are Nuetral Territory

2009 March 2

by Laurie Kendrick

I like to live life on the edge. I take risks. I take chances.

No, I don’t skydive.

Or race cars.

And neither do I climb mountains.

No, I’m into more daring feats—in that every year at tax time, I dare to take muh feets into my Accountants office on the afternoon of April 15th.

I walk in and her face becomes ashen, she slumps like her spine kind of bifidas. She drools a little and becomes, sad, sullen and listless. I’ve seen photos of Jewish POWs at Dacchau with more enthusiasm.

I’m not sure why she reacts to me this way. I keep strict and accurate records of every purchase during the year. Take for example, one evening about 15-years ago when I was on assignment in Austin. I bought a fellow media type an Eskimo Pie Bar Sickle things from a teeanged Hippie manning an insulated a push cart right in downtown Austin. He gave me no receipt, so I gave my friend his ice cream treat and waited for him to finish it. When he was done–or close to it–I yanked the stick out of his mouth, wiped off fudgy remnants then promptly wrote on it:

Mike G./Audio
Eskimo Pie
Gubermatorial Election
Austin, TX
11/6/94
50¢ (cash)

Yeah..I’m that precise. And if you think that was me being too anal, you should’ve seen the lengths I went to in order to obtain proof of purchase after buying a dime bag of pot for another broadcasting co-worker.

Dealers are soooooooo picky!

Anyway, it’s early March and time for me to at least, start compiling information about 2008. I was going through this pile of what not and happened upon my car’s tile and registration. Gee, I remember the hot August day which I spent at the DMV. Man, it’s still so clear in my mind.

I…I remember like it was yesterday. Yeah, just like yesterday……….

I spent most of that Wednesday morning as an eyewitness to the glacial pace that is bureaucracy…Harris County, Texas bureaucracy thank you very much.

Houston isn’t just the county seat, it’s the entire county and most of the surrounding ones–north, south, east and west. This city is huge and it continues to grow by leaps and bounds and the current population–now more than six million in the greater Houston area–is proof of that. We keep hearing about more; many more on the way. I say bullshit; they’re already here because as God as my witness, half of them were standing in line with me this morning; apparently all in need of automobile title and registration assistance.

Like just about every major metropolitan area in this country, Houston is diverse. That’s one of this city’s many plusses for me. I like living in the midst of “international flare” and on that day at the Harris County DMV, I saw it all; I saw everything.

I stood in line for two hours and 22-minutes. That offers you plenty of time to do some serious people watching. One of the first thing you notice is the silence. The lines at the DMV here in Houston are eerily quiet–no one talks unless you’re with someone you know and who goes to the DMV in a group? You go alone and you go only because you have to. It’s often a beleaguering experience you wouldn’t wish on on anyone–not even Joe Biden!!

So, the line moves slowly; rarely a word in spoken. That makes it easy to get lost in thought. Introspection is easy when boredom forces you to go inward. I have no issue with mentally inverting. Sometimes I have to go deep within in order to get a better look at what’s outside of me. And at the DMV,my view was clear. There were people all around me. Different kinds of people. God’s human bouquet.

You can tell so much about people simply by observing them. How they look is important; their hair, clothing–shoes, pants, shirts, nail color, hairstyle, they way divert their eyes; toss their hair. But how they look is often less important than how they look at the world around them.

You can see a million emotions in one facial expression. A cocked eyebrow can practically write a book. Any writer worth his or her salt should be open to these stories. They’re cheap and easy and plentiful. Writer’s have poetic license. What you can’t figure out about the woman beside you or the guy standing behind you who smells like olives and asparagus laden urine, you can make up.

The DMV is a veritable font of material.

~

ASIAN MAN IN FRONT OF ME:

He was in his mid 60’s as best I could tell and he’d just gotten a hair cut. Mr. Barber didn’t brush off the freshly clipped hair which stuck to the back of his beige loose knit polo shirt. It gave his shoulders this half simian/Robin Williams look. He had long ear hair, too. Long enough to cascade down around his earlobes. Why his barber or Mrs. Asian Man has never said anything to him about this is beyond me. And it’s not like he wasn’t aware of its presence. He knew it was there. Hell, at one point, he brushed a few strands back.

Must’ve itched.

Seriously, why do older men allow this? Unless earwigs need hair ladders to gain entrance into “Castle Cochlear”, why in the hell is the hair there and how and why does it grow that long???

That’s a rhetorical question, by the by. Please, don’t answer it. I actually know why men have ear hair. Cilia; filtering…really, I’m covered.

THE SAD, DEPRESSED MIDDLE-AGED HOUSEWIFE WHO’S GIVEN UP ON LIFE:

She had on a sleeveless house dress. Probably slept in it if the wrinkles were any indication. She had on fuchsia moccasins. No purse, no wallet. Her papers, money, credit cards, her driver’s license and what looked like an ancient Three Musketeers Bar were held together with one of those chip bag clips things. She was heavy–sloppy heavy, probably 75 pounds overweight. Her rather short five foot five frame seemed to be struggling with it, not to mention that on going battle in her psyche.

She wore no make-up and ancient bobby clips held back unwashed hair. I could tell she was self conscious about her appearance, though I doubt she had the self esteem to do much about it. She looked down most of the time and occasionally picked at a scab on her chin. She raised her arm to scratch her head and I swear that hairy armpit of hers made it look like she had Gary Coleman in a headlock. Otherwise, she was fairly motionless, moving only when the line forced her to do so. And that was probably indicative of her life.

I felt sorry for her.

She looked as if she’d been eating her unhappiness.

THE PRINCESS:

I’ve written about this woman before.

White, blond, thin and impeccably put together. Immaculate, even in blue jeans. She wasn’t so much well dressed as she was completely contrived–at least that’s how my rampant insecurity and jealousy “chose” to describe her.

Designer shoes, designer jeans, designer shirt, designer purse and tits by design. She stood five feet in front of me, facing the opposite direction (the lines of the DMV zig zag) and even though I wasn’t wearing my glasses, she seemed to have a pretty face with what looked like flawless eye make up and a complexion that was peaches and cream.

Wait a minute; check that. She’s now standing beside me. Uh….make that a complexion that’s peaches and curds.

Acne scars.

But the gorgeous three carat diamond wedding ring she sported proved that her husband didn’t mind that at all. Someone loved her. Probably very much.

I felt my face. Oh, lucky, lucky me; my cheeks were free of scars. No acne. Nothing was there….

Not unlike the fourth finger of my left hand.

Ah yes, life’s balancing act.

I sighed.

THE UNCOMFORTABLE OLDER WHITE WOMAN:

I’d say she was in her early 70’s and dressed in a suit. She protectively held her purse to her chest with both hands. It was as if she had the original Federalist Papers inside that $12.99 Shoe Cents fake brown crocodile clutch. Her eyes darted back and forth. She had a scowl on her face. She wasn’t happy; not only because she’d been waiting in line for what was going on hour #2, but because she was standing in between TPOUEB: Two People Of Unknown Ethnic Backgrounds.

I was sure at least one of the guys came from Canada. That had to have scared her to death.

THE POTENTIAL STALKER:

He was in his mid 40’s and wore green fatigues, a T-shirt of some sort and mirrored aviator glasses. His skin was pale; very pale. He was one drop of pink baby lotion away from being albino. His thinning light blond hair was combed back; product kept it in that position. It looked crispy and capable of staying in place even in gale force winds. A thin strip of whiskers that first glance, looked like a “Got Milk” milk mustache, lined his upper lip.

He was cheesy looking.

Even though his eyes were obscured by those damn glasses, I knew he was looking at me. I felt his stare bore into me. What’s so strange is that I didn’t think he was undressing me. I actually think he was putting more clothes on me!

Odd.

His Creep Quotient was off the charts. Something told me that he collected yellow “DO NOT CROSS” police tape from various crime scenes with which he was probably very, very familiar.

I got the distinct feeling he was named “Wayne”.

ANGRY BLACK MAN:

I named this 30-ish cat, “Militant Andre”. Not sure why, but I do believe the words, “Death To Crackers” which were emblazoned across his T-shirt, had something to do with it.

What I couldn’t figure out was why he was so angry?

What had Nabisco ever done to him???

~

I looked down at my watch. Two hours and 22 minutes had gone by and I finally made it to the end of the line. I was next. It was my turn. I was kind of nervous for some reason. I wanted everything to be in order because I DID NOT want to go through this again.

“Window Six is open for the next person in line!”

That was my cue.

I walked up, handed my papers to the woman as I stated my business. She looked at me, then at my papers, then at me again. She adjusted her bi-focals and then handed my papers back to me as she announced to everyone within ear shot that I was missing my emissions test results, something EVERY vehicle in Harris County, Texas has to have in order to BE a vehicle in Harris County, Texas.

I just stared at her defeated. I just spent two ARDUOUS hours and 22-painful minutes in line with at least one of Satan’s Spawn (See: THE POTENTIAL STALKER) .She can’t do this to me!! But she did and she was happy. Glad. Accomplished. Proud.

Oh yeah; I read her expression alright. This sadistic bitch loved doing this to people. This was her dream job.

Sarcastically, she said “thank you” and gave me a quick perfunctory smile that was really an unspoken, “Move along NOW, Sister”. I stepped aside as she shouted that her window was free, enabling her to piss all over someone else’s day.

I was livid and frustrated. Yes, it was my fault that I didn’t have the right papers, but that just made me angrier. I walked outside into the parking lot where I kicked the shit out of the car door.

Sweet, sweet release. I felt better. Much better.

Then, I walked to my car parked three rows back.

My JR.Prom: The Bataan Death March Was More Fun

2009 March 3

15 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

I’m in the midst of dealing with this major chasm in my life.

There’s Laurie at 14 and she’s standing on one plateau and like a Chuck Jones roadrunner1 Roadrunner and Coyote cartoon, I’m on another plateau. We’re standing face to face…maybe 25 yards apart, but the drop is deep…20, 25–50 miles deep. I’m in the process of learning to fill that abyss with feelings and appropriate reactions to those feelings.

Psycho-babble, I know.

The metaphor of which I speak, is a lot like the photo above, only I don’t actually have an ACME Excocet rocket attached to my body.

You get my drift.

I’m reflecting on things such as this because I have reason to do so. My oldest friend Cheryl (who I’ve known since Kindergarten and as fate would have it, out birthdays are one day apart. We’ll both be 50 this April) sent me some photos of certain events that occured in our youth. Events in which Laurie, The Younger was prominently featured and/or served a pivotal role. Seeing these pics spurred some memories and made me realize how much has changed….and in some ways, how much things haven’t changed a bit.

This Saddens Me

2009 March 4

by Laurie Kendrick

We now live in times inwhich we say goodbye all too often.

We’re saying goodbye to jobs we’ve held for years; co-workers and friends who’ve been laid off. We’re saying goodbye to entire corporations and our homes, cars and nest eggs. We’re saying goodbye to entire ways of life.

So, it would stand to reason as we creep perilously close to a Depression the likes we’ve not seen on more than 78 years, that we would also have to say goodbye to old friends that help comprise many of the memories we have from childhood.

(Starring Henry Fonda, Jodie Foster and I do believe the brunette kid is a very young Christopher Knight, TV’s Peter from “The Brady Bunch”. Anyone else think so?)

So, Viewmaster take your last click; the talking version, utter your last words and 3-D slides, go trash bound, the way of the Kenner Give-A-Show Projector slides…

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Amber LaPointe’s introduction to one of the country’s greatest tourist attractions came from small square pictures on a white wheel.

“It was like you could look into a world away,” said the 28-year-old from Toledo, Ohio. “My only image of the Grand Canyon was from the View-Master.”

The iconic reels of tourist attractions, often packaged with a clunky plastic viewer and first sold to promote 3-D photography, are ending their 70-year run after years of diminishing sales.

Collectors like Mary Ann Sell of Maineville, Ohio, are dismayed.

“The whole summer I was 5 years old, before I went to school, I traveled the world via View-Master. It was great, and now kids won’t have the opportunity to do that,” said Sell, 57, who owns upwards of 25,000 scenic reels.

Scenic discs are no longer a good fit for the Fisher-Price division of toy maker Mattel Inc., a spokeswoman said, and the company stopped making them in December. Fisher-Price, based in East Aurora, N.Y., will keep making better-selling reels of Shrek, Dora the Explorer and other animated characters, said spokeswoman Juliette Reashor.

Peering at images shot from the top of the CN Tower in Toronto or the rim of the Grand Canyon could induce vertigo, they were so vivid. Elvis Presley’s “jungle room” at Graceland is on a reel, and Mary Tyler Moore used the toy to check out vacation spots on her eponymous TV show.

Mark Finley, general manager of View-Master scenic reels distributor Finley-Holiday Films, insisted the souvenirs – which inventor William Gruber debuted with backing from a postcard company in 1939 – still can appeal to children.

But Clinton Brown of Columbus, who will turn 4 on Sunday, gave the View-Master that his mother, Karina, bought him a clear thumbs down.

“It’s boring,” he said, his mother’s fond childhood memories notwithstanding.

Toy industry analyst Sean McGowan with Needham & Co. said View-Master has been in decline since its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s.

“That’s not what the kids are looking for in the back seat of the car,” he said. “They’re looking for a DVD that plays on the back of Daddy’s seat.”

Based on its limited shelf space in stores, McGowan estimated View-Master brings in less than $10 million a year, compared with overall revenue of $5.92 billion for El Segundo, Calif.-based Mattel in 2008. Finley said the shops at Yellowstone National Park typically sell 8,000 View-Master sets each year for up to about $13 each.

McGowan found the scenic discs’ cancellation sad but not surprising.

“When I was a kid, everybody I knew had a View-Master, so you could sell (the reels) everywhere,” said McGowan, 48. “Hardly anybody has it anymore.”

Damn contemporary kids!!!

Don’t bitch and scream at me please, because I’m well aware of changing times, safety precautions means kids can’t tear out on their bikes on a Saturday morning and not come back until the street lights are on. I also know about the incredible technology involved in toys. But even so, I think many of today’s kids are sadly, quite clueless in manyways.

Entertainment is brought to them; they wouldn’t know how to seek it out (without a keyboard or joystick at their fingertips) if their lives depended on it.

That saddens me, too.

Blog Noir: A Detective Story

2009 March 5

12 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

IMPORTANT: PLEASE START THE VIDEO FIRST, THEN ONCE THE MUSIC PLAYS, READ WITH THE VOLUME UP–ADJUST IT AS YOU SEE FIT. IT’S IMPERATIVE THAT THE SOUNDTRACK PLAY AS YOU READ IN ORDER TO FULLY GRASP THE MOOD AND ATTITUDE OF THIS POST!!!!!

THANK YOU,

THE MANAGEMENT OF THIS THEATER

It was early Autumn and as fall mornings go, it was an unseasonably warm in Gotham. Everyone walked fast…eager to escape the heat . I looked at people and watched ‘em sweat, like a hungry fat guy at a hot dog stand where there are only two weenies left..and he’s third in line. I notice these things. Why? Because I’m paid to. That’s what I do. The name is Sphincter….Bob Sphincter and I’m a Private Dectective.

The crazy Concrete Jungle was radiating heat in every direction. I could almost feel it pulsing through my Wing Tips. My dogs were barkin’. I wanted to get back to my office and sit by the fan. I had things to do, people to see and when I walked in my small, two room office at the corner of Chow and Main, I thought to myself, ’could it get any hotter than this?’

Little did I know it would…later….and I had no clue as to how hot.

An hour went by and my secretary, Della told me that my four o’clock had arrived. I lit another cigarette, eager to see what kind of desperate piece of trash would be the latest hard luck case to need my services.

Della showed him in. He was well dressed; hair slicked back, like a typical New York swell. He sat down and I looked at him. Tall, pale, thin, black pencil moustache over his upper lip. He folded his arms and cocked his head to the right.

I reached across my desk and picked up my pack of smokes. I offered him one.

“Cigarette?”

To which he replied, “Yes, I can see that.”

Then he added, with a serious expression, like a fat man in a theater who’d dropped his full box of Juju Bees somewhere on the darkened floor, ”I’m not here for small talk, Sphincter. I’ve got to handle a problem for a client. I was hoping you could assist me with this. Can you? ”

“Don’t know the situation yet.” I lit another cigarette and blew out the smoke slowly. “Spill the goods, mack. I need details, see.”

“My name is Frank Harper. My client is Congressman Peter Lydell. He works with the Secretary of War and also chairs the White House Committee on Legal License Dispensing and Revocation..among other things. Powerful man. He has reason to believe his wife isn’t being faithful.”

“I’m listening”, I replied.

He cleared his throat. ” I need a private dick to trail Congressman Lydell’s wife. We need someone to look into her past and find out if she if she’s having an affair.”

He tossed a manila folder on my desk.

“Here’s all the information you need. And Sphincter, Lydell is a very important man. You have three days to get me this information and I warn you, don’t louse this up!”

“Why I oughta….”

“Yeah, Sphincter, you oughta keep your trap shut, see. You’re a bum and a two bit private dick. You got debts, debts I tell ya and your career needs this case and so do you!”

I felt the cold hard metal of my piece, my rod, my heater, my gun, press against my waist. I wanted to use it, shoot him right between his eyes, but I didn’t. Sure, Harper was a schmuck , but he got one thing right…I needed this case. I’d gotten involved in the numbers racket a year ago and I lost the shirt off my back. I’d been hiding out, laying low, not able to pay anything back to the mob bosses. Besides, Harper was an important man. He knew people, too so I agreed to take the case. Besides, the last thing I needed was some dirty squeal pigeon stooling on me.

Wait, I think I said that wrong.

I watched him as he walked out of my office. There was something about this guy I didn’t like and I could smell his no-goodnick nature, like I could smell a fat man who was really into sheep…………..and garlic.

I took a minute, recomposed, then opened the file and out fell a picture of a dame so perfect, with a face to match and a pair of gams that could reach Bayonne. Real looker, this broad. It was Lydell’s wife. I grabbed my hat and told Della I was leaving for the day. I had a date with an angel-face named Sheila, though she would never know it.

Two days flew by and New York was still hot; hotter than a fat guy eatin’ hot Chinese mustard you see on tables at , “Fuk So Yung’s Grill, Tap Room and Juke Joint”.

I tracked down Shiela Lydell…upper eastside. Nice apartment building, a doorman. Watched her leave; followed her to Macy’s to Gimble’s and up and down Park Avenue. She spread dough around like a fat man in a mix- master at a donut shop in Queens.

This doll liked action, too. She was out every night with the same man. He even left L ydell’s house with her. He was another swell. He looked important; like he knew things. Looked shifty, too, like he took money under the table, then would spit in your eye and call you Hazel. I’d say most likely a G-Man, involved in law or politics, maybe. Whatever he was, he looked like he was knee deep into no good.

I popped several shots of them with my camera.

Other than having an affair with this shifty character, I found nothing in her background. This dame’s rap sheet was pristine…unlike a fat man who’d been fooled by mean neighborhood kids who’d given him a torte topped with Chocolate Ganache, flavored with Ex-Lax.

The next morning, Harper arrived at my office like clockwork. I’d prepared my final report, put it in a large envelop and as he sat down, I skimmed it across my desk.

He opened the folder and started reading.

“Mrs. Lydell’s past is spotless. Her family comes from blue bloods, real respectable like. No one has anything bad to say about her, but to answer to your inital question, yes, she is having an affair. She’s been seen recently with a a man…maybe a politician who’s obviously got a dubious reputation.”

Harper then removed the picture, took one look and his face reddened, like a fat guy in a….never mind.

He stood up and shouted, “Sphincter, you idiot!! That man IS Congressman Lydell!!”

I lit up a smoke and calmy replied, “Then you have your answer. Where’s my dough, Harper?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was early winter and as mornings go, it was an unseasonably cold in Gotham. Everyone walked fast; eager to escape the the chill. I looked at reddened faces and watched ‘em grimmace in the sleet, like a naked fat man, caught eatin’ a side of raw beef while locked in a kosher butcher’s meat cooler. I still notice these things. Why? Because I used to be paid to. That’s what I used to do. The name is Sphincter….Bob Sphincter and I’m an ex-Private Dectective..

… . .THE END

More Crap + A Bonus Track

2009 March 8

by Laurie Kendrick

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you’d be Bill Belichick AND you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months–only allowing a few seconds to pass between fartonic sessions, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. Wow…that makes the average ass the Enola Gay? What a concept!!!

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet. And detective on any police force will tell you that.

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour. That explains a great deal about Amy Winehouse thinness and mental prowess.

Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure. Gee, I wonder if female dolphins ever get headaches? Do they bloat and retain water? And if they dolphinate every 28 days, do they crave krill? Tampons must be a BITCH to manipulate in a water invironment. Kinda defeats the porpoise, does it not? (I know…that sucked and was beneath me)

On average people fear spiders more than they do death.

The strongest muscle in the body is the TONGUE. Ooof.

You can’t kill yourself by holding your breath but there are many…though there are MANY people I know I wish would give it a shot.

Americans on the average eat 18 acres of pizza every day. In turn, pizza eats through 18 acres of intestinal lining every day.

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do. In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes. Wow…times have changed. Today’s, priest merely plucks altar boys.

A crocodile cannot stick out its tongue. They’re worthless when you need someone to lick a stamp.

The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated. Ants are cool. They’re strong and hardworking, yet they party like a Kennedy.

Polar bears are left handed. OK…..

The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds, that makes the catfish rank #1 for animal having the most taste buds. That’’s obvious. Batter ‘em up in some cornmeal then fry them bad boys up and they be tastin’ good.

The flea can jump 350 times its body length, that’s like Evel Kneival jumping the length of a football field.

The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the males head off. Big deal. I did that after a date last Saturday!

Some lions mate over 50 times a day. Big deal! Former President Clinton hit that number by mid-morning.

Elephants are the only animals that can’t jump.

A cat’s urine glows under a blacklight. And really, who’s doesn’t?

An ostrich’s eye is bigger than it’s brain.

Starfishes haven’t got brains. Neither does half of Washington.

BONUS…BONUS…BONUS... (Interesting word, “bonus”. Must be a boner’s Roman cousin)…BONUS.

Some sent me this video of a crazy Indian traffic jam. No rules, no cops…not an ounce of logic or sanity or injuries, surprisingly enough.

But have you ever seen this…

And actually thought this???

INSTRUCTIONS: Start the second video and once you hear the guitar playing start the music countdown, start the top video. Watch them simultaneously with the volume up. I found these quite by accident mriacles of miracles, they sync up rather well.

It’s like playing Black Sabbath backwards, man….

This Blog Is A Woman Now

2009 March 10

by Laurie Kendrick

einstein-lk-blog-2-birthday2

That’s right.

My blog has grown and matured. She turns two-years-old, this month. Wow, that’s that’s 19 in blog years and as Gary Puckett once warbled, “she’s found out, what it’s all about and she’s learning (trombone and baritone sustained “G” note) learning to live“.

Over the past two years, this blog has been through its paces. She and I have both been stalked, assaulted, we’ve argued, reasoned and laughed…a lot. We’ve refereed fights and hell, I’ve even thrown a few punches myself.

Even after all of that growth, all those experiences, it’s still hard to believe my blog baby is two! TWO!!!!!! Where has the time gone? I remember the day it was born….like it was yesterday…just like yesterday…

(Initiate FLASHBSACK sequence)

I woke up one morning in March, 2007 feeling a little out of sorts. I’d been carrying around the idea of starting a blog in my head for the past nine months and my brain was just full of stories, brimming actually, and I knew that something had to be done. My imagination was plump with vile, comedic ideas and long, rambling stories that have absolutely no social relevance.

So, I called my OB/PSYCH, who urged me to come to the library as soon as possible. I waddled into the Emergency Reading Room and told the librarian that I was there to give birth to my first creative process via the written word.

She brought me into to the ERR and told me to sit down at a computer desk and place my hands own the keyboard. I was nervous; I’d never given birth to a literary brain child before. So, I sat there all by myself and a million thoughts were running through my head.

I should tell you that at this particular point in time in my life, I was an unwed blogger. I’d be writing this blog all by myself. I knew it would be a tremendous responsibility trying to write comedy all alone on a daily basis, but I was OK with that; a lot of women were doing it…even the older ones; a guild in which which I happen to be a member. But make no mistake, I knew that I was still quite viable as an older female blogger. I was and still am fully capable of mixed metaphors and multiple sarcasms.

My OB/PSYCH entered the ERR and sat down beside me. We spoke briefly and then, he asked how I would to deliver my blog. Would I do it myself or would I use a surrogate writer? I told him that I’d be the sole writer. He then asked me how I’d raise my blog and I responded that while rather limited in style and scope, I felt it best that my blog start out in a WordPress environment, mainly because it was free, which was perfect for my situation at the time.

He agreed.

He then asked if I was ready. I told him that I was.

At first, we thought my blog was in a breach position. Someone else was already using the blog name I wanted, so that was rectified; I decided to use my own name. Seconds later, ideas started spewing forth through my fingers and the keyboard was ablaze and my screen was filled with self-perceived brilliance. Delivery was a piece of cake and relatively swift.

No precepts were used to pull posts out of me.

I immediately took my blog home to the office I had prepared for it. I painted it sunny yellow and above my desk, I hung an inspirational mobile featuring the likenesses of John Stienbeck, Pearl S. Buck and Suzanne Sommers, you know, the literary giants.

In the beginning, my blog was typical in that it had a voracious appetite. I fed it constantly. Posts about me and my life mostl. Then, as I got to know my blog and what it could and would digest. Initially, it suckled on the teat of conformity. That worked well in the beginning, but then I wanted to try new things. I wanted to pluck freely from the arsenal that was being replenished daily by my fertile imaginata.

Eventually, I attempted observational humor, then moved on to opinion pieces and satire. I recently added a little political punditry to its diet. I had to pull back a little when I realized my blog was severely allergic to some things. Namely, certain Democrats. It may come as no surprise that many Conservative blogs also suffer the same nut allergy.

My blog did as nature intended: it crawled in the beginning. Slowly, carefully.

Now, this isn’t to say that mistakes haven’t been made. Sure, I made a few along the way, but I was a first time blogger! I was overprotective; cautious… even so, I still made mistakes many times. Now, those things were bound to happen, but it was in stumbling and falling that I learned so much.

I’ve tried to be a good blogger; a devoted blogger and I believe I can say without hesitation that I’ve always been extremely attentive. I’ve cared for my blog and nurtured it. Doted on it, actually. Every other hour, I’d obsessively check its Dashboard for comments. I’d go in and change it’s disposable diatribes whenever they were messy.

It developed well. Within a few months, I taught it all about widgets and photo insertion and even how to embed videos. It was responding to me, too. Its views were increasing exponentially. I was happy. My blog was growing up.

But as I stated earlier, there have been hits and misses; successes and failures; such as the case with any brain-child. And my blog has had it’s share.

In November, 2007, it was nominated (much to my surprise) as one of the 12 Funniest Blogs in that year’s Weblog Awards. I was nervous and anxious for my little seven month old effort. It was so young and inexperienced and up against much older, far more established blogs.

Well, long story short, it came in dead last in the voting. Out of more than 19-thousand votes cast in that category, my blog received less than 250 total. It was bad; nay, it was horrible!!

The Buffalo Bills ‘71 season kind of horrible.

My blog understandably, went into a 404 systems error for a while after that, but I understood. It needed downtime to process. The nomination and subsequent loss in the Weblog Awards was it’s first real introduction to that wacky real life theory of convergence: that good and bad things often happen at the same time. It was a disappointment, but I earned many more readers as a result of that exposure.

I was very proud of my blog for that accomplishment in it’s rookie year. Very proud, indeed. It was an honor just to be nominated.

THAT FUCKING CONTEST WAS RIGGED!!!!

Oh, I’m so sorry and quite embarrassed by that outburst. You see, my humor blog suffers from sporadic and intermittent Tourette’s Syndrome. It was born with it.

You know, a mirth defect.

Anyway, we’ve recovered and life has moved on and so have we. Two years later, my blog has received just under 352-thousand hits/views (whatever they’re called) as of this writing.

The past two years as a tenant in this big, multi-family, public housing unit we call the blogosphere, has been wonderful. I’ve met some extraordinary people; some I know will remain in my life, for the rest of my life and I am grateful.

It’s been a tremendous second year and one which will witness me turning 50. I don’t kow what that milestone will mean to my blog, I guess I’ll find out. I’ll admit, it’s getting harder to come up with new stuff. I have original stuff and in some posts, I take jokes and write around the punch line in an attempt to give it a life or sorts, but that can wear thin after a while. I don’t have any computer extras and I’m limited in scope as to what can be done the Fisher/Price model I have right now. I love to write and blogging only allows a morsel of that passion to run amuk. So, I’ve seriously been thinking about writing a book soon. It would be a series of ridiculous short stories. I anticipate tens of people buying it and even fewer reading it.

Lastly, to my readers; I thank you all from the bottom of my slightly enlarged heart. I’ve given you two years and you’ve given me a reason to write. I am indebted. I appreciate your input and your support so very, very much. There are literally millions of blogs out there and you choose to read mine and you come here of your own accord, you sample my writing and some don’t come back, but many of you do daily…some hourly. You leave comments that are good, bad and indifferent. I hope you always will tell me what you think.

As long as it doesn’t reflect badly on me.

Anyway, stay with me for the time we have left together and I promise, there will be more comedy to come. I won’t always bat a thousand, but I’ll take a swing at every pitch.

Thank you for coming and don’t forget the speakers..

One Score & Seven Years From Now…

2009 March 11

by Laurie Kendrick

"I looked at Barack and I said to him, "I KNOW Abraham Lincoln and you sir, are NO Abraham Lincoln!"

The Clothes Hamper: A True Story

2009 March 12

8 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

‘

It was June, 1967 and I was eight years old.

Earlier that year, my parents decided to break free of the shackles of abject middle classdom and create nothing short of a castle for themselves and their children.

So, on a hill in the little traveled part of the small South Central Texas berg we called home–on land owned by maternal grandfather (and given to us gratis) , Mother and Daddy wanted to build a five bedroom monstrosity–replete with gables, a multi-car garage, an intercom system…and all the other 60’s era trappings that would tell the slack-jawed yokels who’d come to gawk, that the Kendrick’s had in fact, “arrived”.

This home was my mother’s self described “dream home” and in the first half of ‘67, she and my father made frequent trips to an architect in San Antonio to fine tune the blueprints. On this particular day, they’d be going back to the architect to resolve a kitchen issue and would be leaving the minute Daddy got back from a breakfast meeting.

School had only been out for summer break a few days and I had already gotten in trouble and was grounded was my punishment. I can’t even remember the infraction, but I was forbidden to leave the house, nor could anyone come over to play. This included a moratorium on playing with Jan who was a year younger and lived next door.

Anyway, I was being punished and my oldest sister, Kathy–in all her 14 year old authority– would serve as part warden/part baby-sitter that day.

My father finally drove up into the garage and started honking the car horn, which was code for “wife, get out here and let’s leave”. Out the door went Mater with a final warning, reminding me that I was NOT to step foot out of the house. Nor could anyone come over to play.

“Yes..yes. Have a safe trip. We’ll see you both when you get back from San Antonio this afternoon. Bring us back a surprise”.

And off they drove.

I went to the den and flipped on the TV. Three channels and nothing was on. I’d read every book. Every “Highlights Magazine” hidden picture had been found. There wasn’t anything to do.

The phone rang. It was Jan.

“Hey Laur, watcha doin’?”

“Nuthin’. I’m really bored. Watchu doin”?

“Nuthin’, I’m bored too. Wanna meet in the alley and play? Or climb trees in the vacant lot?”

“Nah, I can’t. Mom and Dad left about an hour ago for San Antonio and I’m grounded and can’t play outside or anything”.

“Then can I come over? Maybe we can make Brownies in your Kenner Easy-Bake oven or maybe we could make some Incredible Edibles?”

“Sounds fun Jan, but Kathy is baby-sitting me and I’m not supposed to have anyone over”.

“Well, make a deal with her!”

“OK, hold on. Let me think of something”.

Just as I put my hand over the receiver and yelled “Kathy???” she walked in the room and firmly said “No!”

“But I haven’t asked you anything yet!”

“It doesn’t matter, the answer is still no”. She plopped down in a chair and started reading a magazine. She was thumbing through a story about the fab/gear outfitting of the The Beatles.

“Jan, she said no. I guess we can’t play today”.

“Come on, Laurie, she’s teenager. Can’t you convince her? Do something. Try blackmail!”

I thought for a minute and put the phone back down.

” Kathy, remember a few weeks ago when you had that mark on your neck?”

She put her magazine down and looked at me with an eyebrow slightly raised. “Yeah, it was from an accident in Science class…So?”

“Yeah uh-huh, that’s what you told Mom and Dad, but since when are Tommy Bronwin’s lips considered “science class”?

“What are you talking about?”

“It was a hickey and NOT a mark caused by getting too close to the Bunsen Burner at school, Kathy. I overheard you and Wanda on the phone. You were talking about making out with Tommy”.

Kathy looked angry. She slammed the magazine down right on Ringo. “OK, what do you want in exchange for your silence”.

“I won’t tell Mom and Dad about the hickey, if you let Jan come over and play”.

“OK, but she has to leave before they get back which should be around four this afternoon. If she comes over now, that leaves you guys a few hours to play. So, we have a deal, right?”

“Right”. I picked up the receiver once again. “OK, come on over”.

We hung up and Jan rang the front doorbell in a matter of minutes.

Jan and I started playing immediately. We went from dolls to Tinker Toys to “Operation” and just as I was about to remove the appropriately shaped “wrenched ankle”, Jan announced she was thirsty.

She followed me to the kitchen where in the fridge, there was an ice cold pitcher of “Rootin’ Tootin’ Raspberrry”…

It was the newest flavor in the “Funny Face” cavalcade of furity powdered drinks. Just as I was pouring her a glass, I heard Kathy scream.

“They’re back! Oh no! Mom and Dad are back early. I just heard the car pull up in the drive way. Get rid of Jan! Get rid of Jan!!! If they find her here, we’ll both be grounded for life and I’ve got another Bunsen Burner session planned with Tommy Bronwin this weekend!”

Kathy was in a panic.

I wasn’t. I was calmly going to take Jan out the front….but wait!!!! Was this possible??? Mom was coming through that door. Damn! She’d gone around the front to get the mail. My father was entering through the back door. We were being tag teamed! All escape routes were blocked. There was only one thing to do:

I had to hide Jan and the only place I could think of was the the built-in clothes hamper in my parents’ bathroom.

Why there? I don’t know. It seemed like the perfect place; the ONLY place to hide her at the time.

I shoved Jan inside and closed the small, double doors just as my father was entering the bathroom. He told me in no uncertain terms to “get the hell out” and shut the door behind me. Something was obviously wrong. He didn’t look well.

I went into the kitchen just as mother was putting the mail on the table.

“What’s wrong with Daddy?”

“Oh, he had Mexican food at his breakfast meeting this morning and you know what does to his stomach. We had to make three emergency bathroom stops on the way to San Antonio before we decided to just turn around and come back home”.

Just then, I heard the bathroom fan power up. Uh-oh. He was either firing up the hibachi OR something putrid–the likes of which could only be smelled in the bowels of hell–was going down in that bathroom.

I sat at the table with my mom as she sorted through the mail. I tried to figure out what to do. Jan was trapped in that cramped clothes hamper in a hot, tiny bathroom with my father, apparently in full intestinal distress.

What should I do? Was Jan OK?

Five minutes went by and suddenly, the whole ridiculous reality of what was happening struck me as funny and I started giggling. Mother asked me why I was laughing and I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. I knew I’d be grounded until I was ten, but I had to do something because I started worrying about Jan’s mental and physical health.

Just then, the door of the bathroom opened and my father walked out and announced that he was feeling better and that he’d was going back to the office to get some work done. As he left the house, I told Mom to follow me into the bathroom.

She was muttering something about a “death wish” when we got to the bathroom door. The atmosphere was–for lack of a better adjective–”thick”.

It was horribly, HORRIBLY obvious that the Mexican food breakfast my father had eaten earlier, had retaliated in a most egregious way. It must’ve been loud, explosive and extremely painful experience for my father….. and for Jan.

I opened the hamper doors and peered inside.

There she was; silent, motionless. She was huddled in a semi-fetal position, in the far corner of the hamper. Her face was pressed against the wall. She turned to look at me, her eyes squinting in the bathroom light. She looked dazed, she was sweating profusely and her face was pale with a greenish hue. She’d stuck two of my father’s black Gold Toe dress socks in each nostril, apparently in an attempt to thwart the stench.

She was clenching one of my mother’s bras.

I helped her out, pulling off soiled underwear and dirty shirts which had stuck to her sweat-soaked clothing. I gently removed the socks from her nose. Automatic reflex and I guess, survival mode took over–she fought me on it.

Mother lit matches and waived them around the room. Futile effort—they weren’t helping.

The odor was horrible.

Garbage scowl bad.

Bayonne in August bad.

“Laurel Anne Kendrick”, my mother said in between gagging fits. “Would you care to explain why Jan is semi-conscious and lying in a pile of dirty clothes in the hamper in my bathroom while your father was making stinkies?”

I replied, “Not now Mom. Help me with Jan”.

The petite seven-year-old was shaking. Her strawberry blond hair was matted and damp. Mother and I grabbed each arm and we walked her into the kitchen, away from the “hot zone”. She was wobbly.

Jan sat down at the table and was trying to speak. The only thing intelligible was the word “water”. Mother poured her a glass and I asked her if she was OK.

She gulped down two full glasses before finally being able to say, “I’m fine”. She then took a deep breath, let it out through her mouth, then looked at mother and me. “But I think the bigger question is how’s your father? I think he’s pretty sick. I’ve never heard sounds like that coming from another human being!”

We let Jan sit for a minute to compose, we then walked her to the front door and I apologized. She said that I should forget about it, but the experience had allowed her to rule out nursing as a possible career.

She then rubbed the back of her head and retrieved a sock that had been hiding there. She handed it to Mom.

I closed the door behind her and felt my mother’s glare on my back. I turned around slowly and saw her standing there, hands on hips and then she uttered the infamous one-word sentence that mother’s utter, “Explain!”

I told her what happened and instead of getting yelled at, she started laughing. She immediately went to the phone and called my father at his office and told him that he wasn’t alone in the bathroom.

Well, as expected, I was grounded for an additional month and lectured about the importance of privacy. My sister, Kathy was placed on house arrest for two weeks for her complicity in “the bathroom affair”. We didn’t talk about it much–we still don’t, but for a while there, Daddy checked every cabinet of every bathroom he entered.

My parents eventually got new house blue prints made to their exact specs and within a year, we moved into Casa Kendrick.

The new house had four bathrooms and not one of them had a clothes hamper…built in or otherwise.

Walks of Shame: Variations On A Theme

2009 March 16

by Laurie Kendrick

I am a few weeks away from turning 50. I’m older now.

That said, I’d sure as hell like to know who the person is/was that said age doesn’t make a difference. I’d call him a pesky Iraqi extremist full of shiite.

Having lived long enough to reach this age, I can say with certainty that yes, there is a certain amount of insight that befriends older people. I began learning about this golden age, golden ryle in my late 40’s. Hindsight becomes much more focused at around age 45–46. You can look back and see the error of your ways with amazing clarity. You can also look around you in the here and now and see the errors of so many people in your realm. Does aging make you judgemental? I wouldn’t say that, but it sure as hell narrows that once vibrant, anything can happen, pie-in-the-sky, wide-eyed, the world is a beautiful place and so are its people kind of optimism. Youthful ideals and visions of utopia become blurred by the cateracts of maturity. You wake up one morning and you realize so much has changed….externally/internally. You now understand that the lines in your face and the creaking of your bones force you to see the picture from a different perspective. It’s no longer about making your first million but rather, keeping what’s left of that original million for posterity and when eating dinner at a cafeteria at 4:00 pm just to be home before the first spin on “Wheel Of Fortune”. Golden years are so tarnished these days.

Come on, my fellow “former young people now in that third act we call middle age”, we see the world differently now. That doesn’t mean I’m going to start wearing knee-hi’s with sandals and wait a week in between “gettin’ my hair done” appointments at the Flo’s House of Beauty and Nail Emporium. Plus, I’ll ONLY take Geratol as long as it can be railed out. I still feel like I’m 27 in my heart, but my reflection always reminds me otherwise. That warrants lifestyle changes.

I don’t go out quite like a used to. I’m perfectly content to stay at home on a Saturday night and enjoy my own company. But because I still feel young with a calmer wild streak in me that’ll rear it’s head from time to time, I enjoy getting out and communing with other human beings.

I like going to British pub with an established clientelle. That’s code for “older”. Brits are interesting. Canadians, too. These are men old who while old enough to know better, don jerseys of their favorite soccer and rugby teams to watch their teams play and engage in rampant hooliganism. I like watching them watch their version of football. Doing so satiates my Anglophilic nature. Plus, I like my brand of football, too and and my University of Texas Longhorns were playing Colorado and I wanted to watch the game with like-minded burnt orange bloods.

This was back in the early fall of 2008. My friend Martha and I sat at the bar getting tipsy on domestic beer and watched the Horns play solid college ball. By late in the third quarter when the game was firmly secured in the “W” column for Texas, I started people watching and I noticed there were “hetero hookups” happening all around me.

You know, precursors to that horrible, nasty, carnally-based and vile concept known as “the one night stand”.

It had been a good many years since I’d gone into a bar, met a guy that I thought was cute and knew about Kafka, and then proceeded to engage in various and sordid drunken antics with said guy that almost always resulted in my swearing off men, alcohol, sex and the word “Yes” from my vocabulary. I’m not proud to admit it, but I’m familiar with those walks of shame. Drives of shame, too. Both are long and painful–exacerbated by the one/two punch that is a throbbing, morning after headache and of course, panic-inducing Judeo/Catholic guilt.

But make no mistake, I remember these hook ups very well, but as I said, it’s been years since I’ve made that dreaded trek, so when I see two drunk and horny harbingers about to embark in a little blurry after hours delight, it becomes very interesting to watch how it plays out.

The night starts out innocently enough. Two people, in a sea of humanity crammed in a pub, see each other from across the room. Strangers, but only temporarily. Wafting pheromones and over-productive glands in dire need of satiation provide encouragement and incentive to correct that psycho/emo snafu.

He sees her; he’s noticed that she’s noticed him. Apparently, they both like what they see; a few passing glances. Followed by the pretend room scan with a brief stop on her. She nods, he smiles. She gestures a toast to him and the course is plotted.

He sizes her up; she likes his build. He notices that she’s not with a male; just with female friends. She notices he’s not wearing a ring.

Good sign, they think to themselves.

He takes a gulp of fermented ambition and makes his move. She sits at the bar, knowing full well what’s about to happen next. She takes a sip of her Dirty Martini in anticipation.

And then “the conversation” commences:

HIM: Hi

HER: Hi

HIM: I saw you from across the bar and just had to come over and say hello

HER: I saw you, too. You’re cute.

HIM: Thanks. You’re pretty cute yourself. So, do you like football?

HER: Oh yeah. Never miss a game.

HIM: Wow, that’s so cool!! You’re cute and you like football. Not many of you around. I really like a woman who like sports.

HER: Well, that’s me alright. I love football; know all about it, too. By the way, what inning is it?

On that note, he orders her several more drinks and by the fourth ”inning”, he decides that’s ALSO his intention before the night is over.

You know…inning. As in her.

One more dry martini arrives which means ANY question asked, she will answer affirmatively. But she’s getting silly drunk; obnoxious and he starts to question his judgement. “But she’s so hot!”, he thinks to himself. ”Dumb as a stump, but I’d still tap that. I just wish I could put a paper bag over her brain!!!”

They go to her place. His place if she’s drunk enough. Thar carnality begins. Earlier alcohol consumption means one of two thing will happen: It will be a very short session by rapid dissemination OR, an incomplete pass because of passing out.

Then, there’s the horrid awkwardness of waking up at the same time. You become even bigger stangers to each other because sleep has removed your beer goggles. You have to get up and walk around naked in front of each other…take that morning pea….embarassed by the state of your filthy bathroom. Then again, what does that matter…he/she will be leaving in the next few minutes and you’ll say goodbye while making no plans whatsoever to see each other again.

The better option? Waking up in the bliss of temporary anterograde amnesia, thanks to six Dirty Martinis. Your head hurts and you look around and the scenery is unfamiliar, but you haven’t come to your senses. Then, he coughs or farts or rolls over and then you realize there’s someone in bed with you. You sqint, look at the clock and try to remember who this guy is. The only thing you know for sure is that you got really wasted the night before.

You plan your exit strategy. With any luck you hope whoever this guy is will be a sound sleeper so you can tiptoe around his room, gathering your clothes strewn everywhere. You look over at this stranger and you take three seconds to question your drunken judgement. Then, you hear a car rumbling on the street in front of his house. You peak out and it’s a woman!!! That wife or girlfriend is pulling into the front drive way. She’s in her very loud Glass Packed 2003 purple Mustang with Hijacker Headers—the automotive equivalent of a wife beater shirt and you notice he’s snoring; sleeping with his mouth open, drool puddling on his saturated pillow and looking frightengly a lot like Mr. Limpet.

You think to yourself, “My God!! I went home with that???”

The sound of her car breaks you of your hangover malaise and overall disgust at what’s lying beside you. That’s when the moment of urgency slaps you in your face and you make a run for it. You grab everything you you’ve found so far. You realize you can’t find your panties…well, that’s his problem now. You sneak out the sliding door in the den, which leads to the back yard, which leads you to a gate, which leads you to sanctuary—an alley will suffice.

You make your way down a couple of blocks and inadvertanly run into the people who you went out with the night before and you’re wearing the same dress. Your mouth is dry, your breath smells like the back of a fat brave’s loin cloth and your hair looks like hell; you slept on it all wrong and one side is higher than the other—-like Gumby—-and what’s left of your mascara is running down both cheeks making you look like something out of Tim Burton flick. You’re carrying your shoes in your left hand and you smell like a Koi spawning farm.

You have to explain to them that you always come to this Starbucks at 7:30 on a Sunday morning looking like you’d just had carnal knowledge of some guy named Tim…..or Tom.

or Bob.

Well, whatever his name is, he had brown hair (possibly) and his pillows smelled like ass (definitely).

Haven’t we all experienced scenarios like this or am I just a whore?

Keep in mind that was a rhetorical question.

Anyway, I woke up the next morning wondering how many of the canoodlers I watched at the pub the night before were also waking up in strange beds with even stranger people and will be forced to make that dreaded walk of shame out of that house and into their own.

I decided to Google “one night stands” and more than a few interesting things popped up on my screen. I’d like to present to you now some lyrical homages to the unfulfilling one night stand and the long, long “walk of shame” home the next morning.

The content of these videos might seem incredibly familiar to many of you. That’s why I encourage you to enjoy what you’re about to view. The music is catchy and and the videos are relatively cute and based on the skeezes I saw in them, I’d say they’re probably communicable, too.

♦

Tuesday’s Comedic Melange

2009 March 17

by Laurie Kendrick

I’m a firm believer in the restorative power of laughter and never have we needed that more than right now. Times are tough. It’s hard to smile, much less laugh when your financial future is twittering away before your very eyes.

So, small dose that this post is, it’s should still enough to make at least a little difference in the course of your day…...I hope.

Strange headlice…..I mean, headlines:

headlines11

•

Out of the mouths of babes!

•

Every year, the city of Austin, Texas holds it’s pre-Lenten Carnival blow out, held on the Saturday before Fat Tuesday.

I only went to one back during my college days and it was fun. My then boyfriend and I were impoverished as many college students are and we spent a whopping, bank account compromising four bucks on two cheap, plastic garment bags. We opened the bottom, zipped ourselves in and finished the look with Day-Glo colored taped coat hangers which we opened in the middle and wore as if the bottom wire had penetrated our heads.

I wish I had a photo of us, but alas I do not.

But I’ve got this photo taken at this year’s soiree. This costume garnered a lot of attention at Carnival a couple of weeks ago. It’s timely and collagen injected.

octo-mom-costume Is Is it just me or do you look at this photo and think of a very fertile Black Dahlia?

And speaking of Octomom, here’s how Jimmy Kimmel envisions the birthing of those eight kids to that crazy ass mom.

A Primer: The REAL Gross National Product

2009 March 18

by Laurie Kendrick

Hi Kids,

Hate to break this to you, but we are a nation of hygienically challenged sloths. Oh yes, it’s true!!! We, as a people, are just as nasty and vile as the day is long.

Disgusting even.

As they used to say in the Sixties, I’m about to lay some facts on you, man and you will NOT like what you read.

Because well, let me put it this way—there’s a pizza with a pubic hair lying perilously close to a piece of pepperoni and it’s got YOUR name on it.

I don’t know where these facts came from, but they’re so gross they have to be legit. Perhaps, they come straight from the U.S. Department of Disease and Stuff.

Read on…. if you dare.

During an hour’s swimming at a municipal pool you will ingest 1/12 liter of urine. (That’s about 2.5 ounces…oooh, give me a crumpet for dipping!)

In an average day your hands will have come into indirect contact with things that 15 hands that didn’t wash after using the restroom (I’m talking about things such as door handles, stair railings, elevator buttons, shopping carts…a co-worker, etc.)

An average person’s yearly fast food intake will contain 12 pubic hairs. (Yet you still insist on flossing?)

In a year, you will have swallowed 14 insects— while you slept! (Wow. This explains a lot! I once dated a guy whose morning breath always smelled like dead, rotting crickets)

Now here’s where it REALLY gets gross!!!

On a daily basis, you will breath in one liter of other peoples’ anal gases. Human methane exists everywhere, especially in crowded malls. (Sounds of coughing of tens of people walking behind LK in the mall)

At an average wedding reception you have a 1/100 chance of getting a cold sore from one of the guests. (Sounds of LK refilling Acyclovir prescription at Walgreen’s)

In your lifetime, 22 workmen will have examined the contents of your dirty linen basket when you weren’t home. Especially women’s clothes hampers (Sounds of frantic workmen gagging in LK’s bathroom)

Annually, you will shake hands with two women who have recently masturbated and failed to wash their hands. (Sounds of frantic hand-washing in LK’s bathroom)

Annually, you will shake hands with 26-men who have recently masturbated and failed to wash their hands. The majority of these men also fail to clean “themselves” (genitals) properly afterwards. This moisture, in combination with the snug conditions of underwear and pants can results in major germ and bacteria production (Sounds of frantic gargling coming from LK’s bathroom)

So, the moral of this story is: Americans are very horney people with the masturbatory skills of zoo chimps and the hygenic responsibility of Auqa Lung, the perpetually congested homeless Snot King, crazy-homeless-man who’s quite insane and blows his persistantly running nose a la field style without regard, who wears a parka in late August IN HOUSTON and lives in a grassy median in Montrose, a bohemian and gay friendly neighborhood that is downtown adjacent.

Natasha Richardson

2009 March 18

by Laurie Kendrick

I’m not taking Natasha Richardson’s death very well.

I’ll begin this post admitting that People Natasha Richardson I really don’t know why. Of course, the humanist in me hurts for her husband, Liam Neeson and their two sons who now must live their lives without the woman they’ve lovingly known as wife and mother. And it hurts me to come to grips that this lovely and talented woman’s life ended essentially on the slopes in eastern Canada.

She was taking skiing lessons on the Bunny Trail at a posh Canadian ski lodge. She fell on fresh powder. Afterwards, she got up, shook it off…made a few jokes and the only clue initially that there was anything wrong was that she felt a bit discombobulated and decided to go to her room. An hour later, she was nauseated , threw up once…maybe twice and had a severe headache. I’ve not yet learned when she closed her eyes for the last time.

And while I’m not a fatalist or doomsayer…nor am I psychic by any means, I knew she wouln’t survive. I was out running errands this afternoon and I knew what the headlines would be the minute I got home. When her death was confirmed via FOX, I didn’t feel vindicated in terms of my feelings. In fact, I wasn’t even sure what my feelings were. You see, I’ve never been a huge Natasha Richardson fan. I know her work and the incredible acting pedigree which permeated her gene pool, but I’ve only seen one movie in which she starred and that was “Nell”.

So, no I didn’t know her personally and I know her professionally, but only vaguely. Yet, some how, this woman’s death has had a profound affect on me. If I were to dissect it psychologically, I do believe that my reaction to this somber news is based on my own impending life milestone: the seminal 50th birthday. It’s that pivotal point in which people often look back only to come to the conclusion that they have only one choice and that’s to look ahead. You can argue if you’d like and attempt to say I’m wrong with regard to the sentence above, but I’d only accuse you of lying. Yes 50 is just another number and while that’s true, it’s what reaching this age., in my case, surviving my own recklessness, really means. I’ve gotten reflective about my life. Where I’ve been in all its good, bad and indifferent moments has lead me to where I am today. I can’t do anything with what’s passed, but I need to get control of where it’s lead me.

Therefore, I suppose Natasha’s untimely death has made me painfully aware of my mortality and that of friends and family. I was in a horrific car crash 18 years ago in which I was critically injured and not even that, in the life-altering predicate it presented, left me feeling this way.

I’m not so shallow as to find myself mourning my youth–that’s not it at all. But I have to wonder, do I have a third act??? What lies beyond the big half century mark for Laurie Kendrick? I’ve not a clue and that’s what poking at my psyche these days.

You see, I’ve lived a life that has been tentacled, reaching in all directions to the highest heights and the deepest tangled depths. Is my past prologue? I’ve won and lost. Acheived and failed. Fallen in love and often fell out of it. I understand the perameters here. The yin and yang of my life, coupled with it’s indomitable inertia. In other words, I’m human…rife with all the self-doubt and panic that comes with that particular moniker.

This is not to say that I see my 50th birthday hurling me closer to perpetual residence in the Kendrick family mausoleum, but Natasha Richardson’s death makes me keenly aware of the finality of it all. If we’re lucky, life can last decades. And if technically, death is the ending of life, the task is completed in less than a fraction of a second. And more often than not, it happens without reconciliation of any kind.

Did the unbearable pain of that post-fall headache give her any indication that she was about to depart this mortal coil? Did she have her affairs in order? Business-wise perhaps, but what about personally? Was she able to tell her husband she loved him one last time? Was she able to gather her sons for one last embrace? Did she reconcile any unfinished matters with her mom? Her sister? Did she have eveything in order spiritually?

She was just 45 years old. I can’t believe how young that age now seems to me now!! Skiing one minute…removed from a ventilator the next. Gone. Poof. Lifeless body, no soul. A lovely and talented blond-haired vessel that once spoke in a British accent that was Received Proncouncian at it’s most civilized. But as a whole, her accent skills ran the gamut.

I’ve lost many friends and close relatives in the past. Before, mourning their loss took something from me, on many levels. But news of the death of this once vibrant woman–a well known stranger–has actually given me insight.

I’m not taking Natasha Richardson’s death that well and as I end this post, I think I now know why: her death has been a tragic reminder of the ephemerality of life. It is absolutely confounding. The alpha and omega aspects of this wordly existence vexes me.

Even so, I’ve learned something this day and I hate that it had to be at the expense of someone else’s life, but I think this newfound actuity will serve me well. A thank you is in order, but that would be so inappropriate.

So long, Natasha.

Rest in peace.

Eating My Words

2009 March 20

by Laurie Kendrick

I have learned something valuable quite recently: never say never.

I promised friends and family and you, right here on this very blog that I would NEVER go back into radio…EVER! Well, I guess I lied because I’ve been presented with a wonderful opportunity to return to the Houston airwaves.

“Pinkerton On The Law” is the name of the show and it’ll be a 60-minute compendium of legal advice, legal tips and maybe even a few legal chuckles..well, to a minor degree anyway. Chad Pinkerton chad2 is the owner and founder of The Pinkerton Law Firm and the brains behind this show. This man is a gifted lawyer and extremely precise on all the legal information he doles out. His field of expertise is Personal Injury and that covers a wide range of litigation.

Commercial Disputes
Maritime & Jones Act Litigation
Industrial cident Litigation
Industrial Exposure Litigation
Auto Accident Litigation
Defective Drug Litigation,
Medical Malpractive Litigation
Commercial Litigation

Chad Pinkerton got his JD from The University of Houston and graduated Summa Cum Laude (I gradutated Thank You, Laude!!) and served as the editor of the Law Review. He got his BS at Texas Tech Unviersity (and as a loyal and devoted UT Longhorn, I’ll forgive him for that indescretion).

As for law school, he graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Houston. (I barely graduated Thank You, Laude!!!) finishing third in his class of over 300 graduates. While in law school, Chad was an editor for the U of H Law Cemter’s “Law Review”. And when he graduated, job offers literally poured in from across Texas and the nation. He settled on a prestigious law firm here in Houston. While there, he had one case inwhich the jury awarded his client a whopping 25-million dollars BEFORE assessing punitive damages. Ultimately, the case was settled for 28-milion, including attorney fees.

He eventually founded his own law firm in the Houston suburn of Webster. Currently, the Pinkerton Law Firm is handling plaintiff cases from the massive 2005 explosion at the British Petroleum (BP) plant in nearby Texas City. That blast killed 15 people and injured 170.The thing I like most about this man, other than his vast knowledge of Personal Injurty litigation, is that he dispenses advice in a friendly, homespun way that’s typical Texana. He has an unheralded personality that’s bright and up beat.

I’m hosting the show and Chad is the expert. It’ll air every Saturday morning and the first show will hit the airwaves at 10 CST Saturday, March 21st. The station is Newstalk 1070 AM. We encourage you to check out the “Pinkerton On The Law” show segment which is on the station’s website, 1070KNTH.com and look for the Saturday schedule.

Wanna hear the deep, dulcet tones of the voice behind this blog? Got a question about Personal Injury litigation that you want answered by a real lawyer and not in some Star Jones kind of way? Then listen live, on line. Just click the red “LISTEN LIVE” button in the upper left hand corner of the first page. It’s directly underneath the station logo and who’s on the the air now.

And seriously, we’d love to hear from you. Give us a call at 1-866-357-1070

That’s 1-866-357-1070.

So call, already. Listen Saturday morning, at 10 CST, March 21 for the inaugural launch of ”Pinkerton On The Law” with Chad Pinkerton and your host, Laurie Kendrick.

And we’ll be back, right after this…….

Send In The Clouds. Well Maybe, They’re Here

2009 March 23

by Laurie Kendrick

Does the vile, nasty, coarse cloud formation give you an idea as to my mood as of late?

It’s been an extremely difficult month. I’ve got 29 days left before I turn 50 and I’ve been suffereing with birthday angst and anxiety. Plus, I’m still awaiting word from that job I applied for amonth ago and to be honest, I’m going stir crazy. Utterly; madly.

This particular entity will announce their decision later this week. I’m praying to gods I don’t even believe in order to land this job. I actually want it far more than I need it. Besides, nothing else has panned out and trust me, I’ve tried. I’ve applied for 123 jobs since a post Hurricane Ike budget forced the three radio station cluster for which I worked, to downsize significantly and let’s be honest, can any corporation in these lean times, keep a full-time comedy writer and commercial copy writer on their staffs?

And if that isn’t bad enough, I’m running low on crap to write and I’m not feeling my best. I’ve the worst insomnia, I’m tired, cranky and I’m crying over tampon commercials. I have no appetite (thanks God!) and due to a sinus infection I’ve had for 18 years, Ican’t really taste anything. My t-buds are are on full consumptive anarchy..

Wanna hear the latest malady???

I’ve got inexplicable perspiration. And I can no longer blame menopause for that. In fact, parts of my body that shouldn’t have sweat glands are now sweating profusely. And my body is emitting sweaty weirdness. Is perspiration supposed to ball up upon touch? I ask because I think I’m sweating mercury.

But that’s not the worst of it—my sciatica is killing me, I can’t sit for extended periods, I get the gas even when I walk by food, rent in Boca Raton is now through the roof and my son, the doctor, never calls me!!!!

My God, I’m old…….and Jewish!!!

Before I sit shiva for my youth, I wanted to come up with a much better post before I completely go underground in the next several days or until I learn whether I need to get all my business suits, now serving as a cat day bed, cleaned and pressed.

I struggled to come up with a decent Monday post and then I remembered that a post I’d written a few years ago. I stumbled upon it an another sight and thought I’d republish it with updated answers.

So that’s what I did and what you’ll read below is an updated version. Yeah, I stole it…so what? My pilfering occured two years ago…exceeding the statute of limitations. Besides, I needed content and I’m too tired to give a shit.

Here goes:

1. What bill do you hate paying the most?

Bill Tucker. He’s my accountant. I hate that greedy son of a bitch.

2. Where was the last place you had a romantic dinner?

Third trimester; en utero

3. Do you regret losing your virginity to who you lost it to?

Yeah, after I took that “unfortunate tumble” off my bike, my piece of shit Schwinn 10-speed never called. Bikestard!!!!!

4. If you could go back and change one thing what would it be?

I would never have ever gotten involved with a particular male individual. He is and always will be my biggest regret.

5. Name of your first grade teacher?

Mrs. Doris Garner. For some reason, I remember she always smelled like pickles.

6. What do you really want to be doing right now?

I really want to be in a position to explore the use of new personal pronouns in my life…such as “ours, us and we”. I’d like to explore these possibilities while all cozied up somewhere with the man of my dreams and our dogs in our comfy, warm mountain accessible home, where on those rare occasions when I’m not perfectly embodying the metaphor of “being in love”, I’m writing the ASS out of comedy.

7. What did you want to do when you were growing up?

An almost 50 year old unemployed, old maid crone. Mission fucking accomplished.

8. How many colleges did you attend?

Five by the time I finally graduated. Yeah, I was an educational drifter.

9. Why did you choose the shirt that you have on right now?

It stunk less than the other shirts piled high atop Mount Laundry.

10. What are your thoughts on gas prices?

“Damn!!! Gas prices are high!!”

11. If you could move anywhere and take someone with you where would it be?

Seville, Spain…Estes Park, Colorado, Montreal or I’d make a fabulous homestead deep in the Texas Hill Country. Sometimes, the Hills call me like a siren. It feels like home there. Freshwater streams and arroyos. Bluffs that over look crystal clear spring fed creeks. Indian country. Ceder and Mesquite. I am home in the Hills.

I2. First thought when the alarm went off this morning?

I haven’t slept since 2003. I would commit heinous crimes if only I could actually be awakened by the harsh, discordant sound of my alarm going off

13. Last thought before going to sleep last night?

I didn’t fall asleep but I remember feeling down around by my side and thinking, “Is that a pillow or my left one?”

14. Favorite underwear?

My jock

15. Favorite thing about the opposite sex?

Despite their pedantic pleas to the contrary, men are so very easily played. We always….ALWAYS know when you’re lying. As for why we don’t call you on it? I don’t know–maybe as to not bruise your delicate egos. Maybe we hate confrontation and I know for a fact that when we catch you in your lies (and when lying, gentlemen, please learn some real thespian skills. Don’t stand there slack jawed, eyes diverting right and left and begin every sentance with a Sling Blade utterance of “Uh”) we stuff this knowledge in our mental quivers and often keep our mouths shut, eager to either trip you one day when you’ve forgotten all that we’ve remembered OR…we just want to see how far you’ll carry on this charade. But trust me, we know.

16. What errand/chore do you despise?

Anything remotely involving housework…or movement

17. If you didn’t have to work, would you volunteer?

Yes and I do. At least, once a month.

18. Get up early or sleep in?

How about “never sleep”? On those rare occasions when I actually get some shut eye, I am a ridiculously early riser.

19. What is your favorite cartoon character?

Gossamer, the big, orange tooth-shaped, Chuck Taylor High-Tops wearing monster on Bugs Bunny

Witch Hazel, the cute little brujita, also from Bugs Bunny. Every time she moved, bobby pins fell out of her hair.

and Ralph Bakshi’s “Mighty Mouse” from the early .1990’s. HILARIOUS!!!

20. Favorite thing to do at night with a guy or a girl?

I love to cuddle in bed, soft kisses are exchanged. Laughing is a must. There must always be laughter. There must also be a mutual exchange of love. I want to say “I love you” and must hear it said back to me. Oh yeah— it’s fun with guys, too!

21. Have you found real love yet?

Interesting question. I thought I knew real love once. I was just a kid then, but it was very real. At least, it felt that way. As for now? Everything I currently feel can only be classified as a deep abiding affection. Or infection. Either way, it’s curability is in doubt.

22. When did you first start feeling old?

At 32 actually. I broke 11 major support bones in a nasty car weck and I’ve creeked and cracked ever since. But when I turned 45, my sound effects of my body were suddenly accompanied by pain. Aging can be a cruel, cruel mistress.

24.. Your favorite lunch meat?

That would be meats…plural. Ham and turkey, Big Daddy!

25. What do you get every time you go into Costco?

Hives. Went with my sister once. A million shoppers hurriedly gone from one aisle to the other. It remdinded me of a slide of viral Herpes critters teeming teeming under a microscope. I walked out of there needing a drink AND Acycolvir.

26. Beach or lake?

I’ll go with a lake 90-percent of the time but I do love deserted beaches on cold, dark winter afternoons

27. Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual?

Amazingly enough, no. I eventually plan to fail at it at least once before I die.

28. Do you own property?

• Do migrant workers count?

29. Favorite movie you wouldn’t want anyone to find out about?

The video of my proctological scope exam. Set design was horrible and the landscape scenes I hear, were pretty gross. Costuming was shitty and a rectal fissure was completely miscast as a polyp. Lighting was abysmal and there wasn’t enough “B Roll” used, either. Otherwise, it was magical….downright “Charmin” even.

31. What’s your drink?

Ice cold beer makes me smile. A good Pinot Grigio is fine too and when the spirit hits me, there’s nothing like Dewars and soda.

32. Cowboys or Indians?

Neither, give me a Yap Islander any day.

33. Cops or Robbers?

Ponzi Schemers

34. Who from high school would you like to run in to?

No one. I’m still close to those who mattered.

35. What radio station is your car radio tuned to right now?

KHMX (MIX 96.5)

36. Norm or Cliff?

Woody

37. Grey’s or The Office?

The Office, I guess though I’ve only seen a few minutes of it. Never seen Grey’s Anatomy. Didn’t have to; I read the book. (Anyone? Anyone??? Any med students out there?? My God, I’m ALL alone!)

38. Worst relationship mistake that you wish you could take back?

No need to name names. I’ve had two lousy ones and one of those was sinisterly bad. They should both know who they are. We share this tragic trifecta of mutual regret. That’s all that matters. It’s dead. Buried. Never to be brought up again for fear of rampant skin necrosis.

39. Do you like the person that sits directly across from you at work?

Sorry, don’t work.

40. What famous person would you like to have dinner with?

Steven Colbert, but he’d have to cover up those damn weird elfin looking ears of his

41. Indoors or Outdoors?

Subterranean

42,. Have you ever crashed your vehicle?

I had a relative minor fender-bender last November in which a dumpster filled with Hurricane Ike debris, jumped out in the roadway and struck my car resulting in more than eight thousand dollars in damage. I wasn’t hurt physically but I my ego was bruised. I’m a member of a service that provides mobile psychotherapy. They drive a souped up, four wheel couch with a metal box of Kleenex welded to the the steel coffee table. Fortunately, they came to my rescue and were forced to use the “Jaws of Strife” to remove me and all post related stigma from the driver’s seat.

• 43. Have you ever had to use a fire extinguisher for its intended purpose?

Why yes, of course, silly!! How do you think I know dinner is ready???

44. Last book you read?

I seriously can’t remember. I don’t even reconcile my checkbook. I bank intuitively. I like risk, I like to gamble. You know, I live close to the edge. I go up to an ATM machine, put in my card and PIN and expect to see all cherries appear on the screen when I play. Tbat never happens but damn if I don’t win every time…and I get to actually pick the amount I want!

45. Do you have a teddy bear?

Not anymore. I just recently threw my “teddy bear” in the same metaphorical street meandering dumpster that attacked my car. I am Laurie Kendrick now…singular, NOT plural. I intend to stay single until I can completely cure all of those penis toting male age spots that have sullied my body’s complexion

64. Strangest place you have ever brushed your teeth?

You’re presuming a lot, aren’t you??

47. Somewhere in California you’ve never been and would like to go?

I’ve been to San Fransisco, L.A. and San Diego. Beautiful country, it’s resources: PEOPLE!!!! Influential in terms of blue state politics.

48. Do you go to church?

Do I go to services regularly? No, but I have gone (quite recently, during off hours) to meditate and say “thanks” for certain things. Sometimes, it’s all about the gratitude.

49. At this point in your life would you rather start a new career or a new relationship?

A new rcareer. Right now, I’m not seeking a relationship–of any kind. I’m looking for emotional band-aids right now and these band-aids don’t breathe, lie or deceive.

50. How old are you?

I’m a very sun-damaged 24.

Your Hair Can Predict Career Success & Failure

2009 March 22

by Laurie Kendrick

Or so sayeth Careerbuilder.com

Although polite society says that looks aren’t everything, you have to concede that they mean something. Your first impression of many people is based on appearance. Their clothes, posture, height and even hair.

Siblings and sociologists and Catherine Walter have researched how a person’s image is affected by his or her hair part. Whether you part your hair on the left or right side of your head — or not at all — influences how others perceive you and possibly even how you perceive yourself. The idea behind their theory is that your hair part alters how others interact with you, thus altering how you interact with them, and so on.

You know a bad hairstyle haunt you for years to come (as anyone alive in the 1980s will attest), but you probably didn’t expect it to have a lasting impact on your life.

This is the hair-part breakdown, according to the Walters:

Men who part their hair on the left are often popular and successful. People perceive them as strong.
Women who part their hair on the left are considered reliable and intelligent. It’s a smart move for those who work in politics or business.
Men who part their hair on the right are seen as radical and open. These men should be strong enough to overcome the stigma against men with this part.
Women who part their hair on the right are viewed as gentle and feminine. Because it is a more traditional style, it can affect how seriously they are taken.
People who don’t part their hair, can’t part their hair due to baldness or use a center part come across as trustworthy and wise.

With that in mind, here are some examples of famous faces and characters with a variety of hair parts. Let’s see if the theory holds up to their job roles.

Who: Rod Blagojevich

Job: Indicted Illinois governor

Hair part: Right

Verdict: While you wouldn’t consider scandal-ridden Blago an open person, you can’t deny that he fits the description of a right-parter who makes people uneasy and sparks negative reaction.

Who: Condoleezza Rice

Job: Former Secretary of State under President George W. Bush

Hair part: Right

Verdict: Although Rice must be cordial to the heads of state she meets with, she’s probably not overly concerned with coming across as nice and fulfilling a traditional feminine role. Her need to be aggressive and confident when the time comes probably means she makes a better candidate for a left part.

Who: Queen Elizabeth II

Job: Queen of the United Kingdom

Hair part: None

Verdict: The Walters’ theory suggests that no-parters might “lack the flair” of the other parters, but they can still come across as trustworthy and wise. If you’re the queen, you probably want to be perceived as someone people are willing to follow and listen to – making Queen Elizabeth’s tendency not to part her hair a good choice. Although, you rarely see her not wearing a hat or her crown, both good choices for distracting from your hair part.

Who: Jack Donaghy (played by Alec Baldwin) on “30 Rock”

Job: Vice president of east coast television and microwave oven programming for GE

Hair part: Left

Verdict: Donaghy is the epitome of the all-American guy whose charisma and charm help him become a beloved leader. Although he’s a little eccentric, his success as a corporate shot makes him a model left-parter.

Who: Milton Waddams (played by Stephen Root) in “Office Space”

Job: Collator

Hair part: Left

Verdict: The bumbling, loveable loser of the film “Office Space,” Milton Waddams does not evoke any of the traits of a left-parter. The thick-spectacled worrywart feigns assertion, but ultimately is a pushover who exudes no strength.

Who: Oprah Winfrey

Job: Talk show host, radio host, business owner, avid reader, lusting for Obama

Hair part: Versatile

Verdict: Winfrey’s hairstyles change daily, though she tends to favor no part and a right part. As a no-parter, she definitely fulfills the description of trustworthy and wise. When she declares an item one of her favorite things of the year, people storm retailers to get their hands on her recommendations.

As a right-parter, she definitely supports the theory that these women are perceived as gentle — after all, viewers need to feel comfortable with her. Though you’d have trouble arguing that Winfrey isn’t taken seriously.

All About Liars and Lying

2009 March 22

by Laurie Kendrick

EXAMPLE ONE: He left a few hours ago. He announced that he was meeting “the guys” for a couple of beers”. He also said he’d be back in two hours. The deadline for THAT was three hours ago. You want to know where has he been but when you ask him, he always gives you the same old answer: “Oh, well I was with the guys. I told you where I was. WE were having such a good time that I didn’t realize it was this late. Sorry.”

Is he telling the truth ??

EXAMPLE TWO: She said she was going shopping. You two have been on a strict budget. You told her as she walked out the door NOT to put more than $100 on the credit card..you know she has a real weakness for shopping and little sales resistance. She walked through the door with one, small bag but an incredibly guilty look on her face. She won’t make eye contact and when you asked her if she stayed within her budget she merely says, “Uh-huh.”

Is she lying?

Was he really with his friends, or was he (and the orchestra plays…TA DA DUM!!!) with another woman?

Did she just think she was pulling a fast one on you and the family budget?

Let’s start at the start, shall we?

We all lie. Of ALL the wrong things we humans do, lying is probably one of the most common acts that we carry out.

Most people would condemn lying….. except when there’s a good reason for it.

Most are harmless.

“Do, I look fat in my jeans?”

“No Baby, you look great!”

Lie.

“I love grilling steaks out on the Bar-B-Q. Tell me, Laurie…how’s your T-bone?”.

I chisel through the charred exo-skeleton of this piece of musculature from a once proud bovine and I smile and reply, “It’s delicious!”

Another lie.

Innocent, right? Lies are often told to spare the feelings of the people we care about.

OK, so we all fib. But this unified front doesn’t make it right. There are lies that are extremely harmful and painful and drive a wedge between two people forever. Why? Because the truth has been compromised; a bond has been broken.

This brings me to lie detection.

So, how do we know when we’re being lied to? Most people can sense it it. For me, I react viscerally to lies. Unfortunately, I’m rarely wrong.

There are ways to detect a lie without a polygraph device.

One way to know for sure if someone is lying is of course, visa vie Pinocchio like nose growth. But, unless he or she is Italian and made bt Gipetto from wood and manipulated by strings (and let’s be honest, some people are), don’t anticipate proboscis expansion to be an indicator.

Lying is an art form, really. Some are good at it and others are horrific at it. And there are, basically, two different approaches to lying. Either you are a natural, born liar and lies fly out of your mouth like spit wads from a lisper trying to say “some silly, sad , sanctimonious Sasquatch” ….OR….you have a really, REALLY hard time faking your answers. Most people fall in the second category.

Beliefs and Belief systems

What you believe is very important. Why? Well, because beliefs come from a very deep level in our neurology. Espousing things about our core beliefs can provoke dramatic physiological changes. This is what modern lie detection schemes are based upon.

Check this out: There was an interesting experiment conducted years ago in several different public school systems across the country. At the beginning of the school year, several white lab coat types went to various schools and divided a class of kids with average capabilities into two separate groups. The first group was told that they were gifted…veritable Malcolms in The Middle. The second group was told the opposite: that they weren’t “good enough”. Sneaky bastards, right? And then to further hammer this point home, researchers kept teaching the students separated and made sure they heard that they were either brilliant or below average all year long.

Well, as the school year neared it’s end, the two groups were tested and the results were mind-blowing. The ‘gifted children’ actually started performing like really gifted and the ‘not-so-gifted children’ had fallen apart academically.

This kids is a prime example that believing something can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

How does that pertain to lying? Well, if someone believes that lying is OK, then no matter what happens, he or she will always continue to feel that it’s fine to lie–almost as if that’s his or her divine right. That’s because his or her beliefs never get in the way. Beliefs aren’t going to trigger any physiological changes for you to read. And don’t even try to employ some psychological mumbo jumbo…nine times out of then, it just won’t work.

This is why most lie testing techniques aren’t fool proof. However, there IS a method, my clever readers, that even the most gifted liar can’t fool.

We’re talking about LOGICAL FACTS.

The Conundrum Technique

This consists of the following:

STEP ONE. You ask your friend a question that’s based on a detail that he couldn’t possibly know unless he was telling the truth.

Let’s say, for example, he stayed out all night long at some bar, then probably you should ask him something along the lines of, “I heard there was a big fight in that bar last night and the bartender was stabbed three times….how horrible!”

In effect, you have to lie to catch him in a lie.

Quibble over the moral efficacy of that later. Right now, you’ve got a task at hand. You gotta catch you a liar.

STEP TWO: Shut up, step back and watch for his reaction.

If he delays to respond visually or agrees with your little fake story then the bastard IS LYING, feel free to retaliate by washing his white jeans with your red blouse…in hot water.

If, on the other hand, he looks at you strangely and responds with something like, “What are you talking about?? I was there all night long and I didn’t see any fight!”

Then unfortunately, if this happens, he probably won’t snap to what you’re trying to do here and he’ll start thinking that you’re completely insane and he might break up with you. You’ll end up homeless, with not a penny to your name and you’re heart broken beyond repair because you just lost the love of your life, but at least he’s not a liar!

But I digress.

There are some things you can look for that might give away whether someone is lying to you or not. I’m talking about body language for the most part. They are, by no means, the best modes of detection, but more often than not, one or more of these non-verbal cues will indicate you’re in the presence of a liar.

1. Liars fidget. They fidget a lot. They shift their feet, they sway while talking and they gesture awkwardly and inappropriately with their hands. Subconsciously, when we lie we feel on display and this makes some people feel uncomfortable. It is this discomfort that makes one act all fidgety.

2. It’s all in the eyes! Liars don’t like to look you in the eye for too long. Or, conversely if a liar is aware of this fact, they may look you in the eye much longer than social norms dictate. Liars also blink less frequently than the norm, as if they need to keep their eyes open and on you in order to assure themselves that you believe their tale. If a person makes eye contact too little, or too much, they may be lying. At the very least they are not comfortable with the subject of the conversation. Shifty eyes, looking away and looking back quickly and awkwardly, is another sign that somebody may be lying. After all, we describe dishonest people as “being shifty” for a reason.

3. Liars touch their face and mouth a lot. This is something that most liars can’t control even if they are aware they are doing it. It is a reflexive psychological response to being untruthful, a symbolic way of stopping the lies from coming out. It can also deflect unwanted attention to what’s being said. Interesting. This behavior is most often seen in liars who feel bad about being untruthful or who are being untruthful for so-called noble reasons like sparring another hurt feelings or keeping a promise to another to hold a secret in strict confidence.

4. More often than not, liars look down when telling a story. It’s as if they’re thinking of what to say next. It’s a well known and well-studied reflexive psycho-social reaction that people who are truthfully recounting a real event look up when trying to recall the details. They’re looking up and mentally picturing the events that they are talking about almost as if they are looking at their brain for answers. Liars look down because they’re not remembering, but creating a story and they need to look at a blank canvas, like the ground, in order to spin their story and make it convincing. It’s a way of concentrating on what is being said and making it work with what has already been said, in other words convincingly lying.

5. Liars mix up fine details. Unless they’re people of genius caliber, a liar spins a lie by making a point of registering the core of what’s being said for future use, but they often forget the minor credibility building details they’ve incorporated in to their lie. An honest person is more likely to be consistent in recalling smaller details of an event than a liar because the truth-sayer has the mental picture to pull up and think of when asked a question. A liar lacks this mental picture and therefore has no failsafe way to recall smaller details.

6. People who lie tend to get defensive or they take a defensive posture with others when confronted about the lie, even if they are not actually being accused of lying. When you second-guess a liar they are quick to react in anger in order to put YOU on the defensive and deflect attention from the lie at hand. Even if you ask an innocent question like, “where did it happen again?” or, “can you tell that story over again to Bob?” a liar may get defensive, angry or irritated. In very rare cases, a liar may act like they don’t even know what you are talking about. Inconsistency and a defensive posture combined almost always signal a liar.

7. Liars very often preface everything, EVERYTHING they say with an exaggerated, “Uh…” Uttering this monosyllabic grunt enables them to buy the time they need to concoct something plausible. Beware of the person who responds to every one of your queries with “Uh.” And guess what? Men do this more than women.

EPILOGUEEPU•

So, there you have it. We all lie at times. We have to fib on occasion–certain situations require it, but there are people who can’t open their mouths without lying. These are the pathological liars who who do so to cover up some deep seeded psychological inadequacy. They can very often, beat the system. The above seven things mean nothing to them—they can lie to you by looking at you right in the eye, they never say “uh”, they never touch their faces and they do this while sitting perfectly still AND keep perfect track of their filthy, dirty BS ridden lies.

They are sociopaths and my ex-boyfriends.

In the simplest of terms: these are the people from whom you should run….. and run like hell.

I’ll leave you with this:

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.”

That makes a lot of sense; unless of course, Holmes was lying.

I Suoni Dolorosi di Silenzio

2009 March 24

by Laurie Kendrick

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a very aural woman. My sense of hearing can trigger an amazing number of memories. The experts say the sense of smell can hearken more and while that’s also true, I find that I can be whisked back to a time and place even quicker with a piece of music.

I can hear Michael Jackson’s “Got To Be There” and can be taken back to Karnes City, Texas, circa 1971.

Anything from “The Babys” and I’m back in Austin and it’s 1977 again.

The New Wave movers and shakers that were Level 42, Midge Ure, Scritti Politi and A-ha take me back to the 80’s and all the wonders of Laredo, Texas…that’s when I was younger, thinner, cuter and far more amenable to “gettin’ my swerve on”.

While music can evoke memories, other sounds can illicit certain emotions.

The sound of the door slamming shut when someone you love walks out for the last time. The silence resonates in it’s wake. If finality has a sound, that’s it.

There’s the sound of someone you care about, hanging up on you. You don’t want to end the conversation, but he has to because of business. There’s not a lonelier sound in the world than that inimitable click, then dial tone. It can be deafening.

There’s that certain silence that drones out everything you hear right after a plane comes to a full stop at the jet way. Eventually, you’ll hear sounds of muffled conversations, people standing up, stretching, opening overhead bins and the rustling of clothing and baggage as people maneuver through the narrow aisle. Depending on what awaits you in the real world outside the fuselage, this can be a most welcomed, exciting sound. Or an incredibly painful one.

Regardless, it’s always a journey’s end.

Always.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

Then, there are the sounds of conversations in a restaurant.

You can hear the rise and fall of intonation, but you can’t make out what’s being said. But you know that life is happening all around you. A 35th birthday being celebrated…a couple is lauded for sharing 20-great years of wedded bliss.

Around the room, plans are being made, plans are being shelved. A business deal is secured. Love renewed, love ending. Someone celebrates a new promotion while someone else is drinking away the pain of losing a job.

And even if you removed sound from the equation, you can look around at the expression on people’s faces and get the gist of their lives.

There’s the long married couple who are sitting together, but not saying a word. She stares off into space. His head is anywhere but there. It would be easy to imagine their life at home isn’t that much different. They simply go through the motions. Habit. Routine.

It is perfunctory.

Silence has become their common bond.

A young couple sits across from them. They clasp hands across the table…their arms span the pats of butter, the bread basket and the tiny porcelain bin that houses the Sweet-n-Lo and sugar packets. They profess their undying love for each other and then look at the older couple and swear “that” will never happen to them.

The woman feels their stare. She glances their way and notices their closeness and remembers when that was she and her husband.

“What happened to us?” she asks herself and the tuxedoed waiter places her 8oz. fillet mignon in front of her. The food has arrived. Now, the silence has a perfect excuse.

The silence at dinner will follow them home. Another silent bedtime awaits them. Hours later, they’ll awaken to a quiet morning and that will invariably, turn into an even angrier afternoon.

The anger is cyclical.

Sad.

To this couple, the sound of someone leaving and slamming the door behind them for the last time signals freedom.

To them, the sound of the click and dial tone, only means the much anticipated end of yet another meaningless phone call.

Did they fall out of love? Did they just stop trying?

Maybe, but I believe they just stopped talking.

Of Rhymes and Raisins

2009 March 24

by Laurie Kendrick

THESE ARE ENTRIES TO A WASHINGTON POST COMPETITION ASKING FOR A TWO-LINE WITH THE MOST ROMANTIC FIRST LINE, AND THE LEAST ROMANTIC SECOND LINE: RHYME

1. My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife:
Marrying you has screwed up my life.

♦

2. Kind, intelligent, loving and hot;
This describes everything you are not.

3. My love, you take my breath away; What have you stepped in to smell this way?

♦

4. Love may be beautiful, love may be bliss,
But I only slept with you ’cause I was pissed.

♦

5. I thought that I could love no other– that is until I met your
brother

♦

6. Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you, but the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl’s empty and so is your head.

♦

7. I want to feel your sweet embrace;
But don’t take that paper bag off your face.

♦

8. I love your smile, your face, and your eyes
Damn, I’m good at telling lies!

♦9. I see your face when I am dreaming.
That’s why I always wake up screaming.

♦

10. My feelings for you no words can tell,
Except for maybe ‘Go to hell.’

♦

11. What inspired this amorous rhyme?
Two parts vodka, one part lime.

♦

Advice from Uncle Bob

2009 March 25

10 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

Dear Laurie,

I know you have a pivotal birthday coming up and while presents are wonderful and I have no problem in obtaining one for you, I thought this 50th birthday of yours deserved to be a little special, so my gift this auspicious year will be different.

I’ll preface this letter by telling you that I think I’ve only recently learned that life is about risk, taking chances and at least, occaisionally glimpsing over that scary proverbial edge. As you know, I just turned 74 in January and I’ve come to the sad conclusion that I’ve spent my life in a safe vacuum, unwilling to do anything that might affect my health, well being and longevity.

But all I did was compromise my happiness.

I reflect back on my life, as I’m sure your doing, and I didn’t think I had any significant regrets, but I do. Your Aunt Stella and I were too frightened, for reasons that I can’t even fathom now. We read every self help book; believed every news report about the evils of eggs, saccharin, beef, red M&M’s, alcohol consumption and smoking.

What predicated this letter to you? Realization mostly, inspired by a recent visit to a new doctor.

After the first check up when the test results came back, he called me back into his office. I asked him how I was doing medically. He told that I was fine “for a man of my age”. As the family knows, I’ve tried to live the healthiest life possible, but even so, his response alarmed me.

So, I asked him, “I’m not sure what that means. I consider myself to be a very careful, very healthy 74 year old guy. I’ve tried to live by the book, so what do you think, Doc? Will I live to the age of 80 and beyond, maybe?”

The doctor just looked at me and cocked his head. ”Well, answer a few questions for me. Do you drink alcohol of any kind to any degree? What about drugs? Do you eat red meat, Bar-B-Q beef and pork with all the trimmings and endure periods of stress and insomnia?”

“I do none of those things. I sleep fairly well, too!”

He squinted his eyes. ”Do you work out? Race cars? Do you gamble, bowl, watch sports, play pool, have evenings out with the guys?”

“Oh no, no! I exercise in moderation only. I don’t want to risk injury. Gambling is a vice I want to live without, thank you and sports is nothing but relatively civilized savagery”.

He asked, “No lifting weights, crunches?”

“Never. Plus I rarely socialize. My wife is my best friend. It’s pretty much just her and I. We watch educational TV and documentaries and we ONLY listen to classical music and the occasional opera. Candide and La Boheme are my favorites. And I’d never risk life and live by driving fast. In fact, obey all speed limits. I’m proud to admit that I drive conservatively in my American-made sedans. Had them all my life.”

He continued on with this questioning. ”Do you like being in the sun, sailing, playing golf, swim, tennis, jogging, cycling or hiking? What about yard work?

“I do none of those things. I’m extremely fastidious. I hate getting dirty. As I’ve told you, I live life very safely. I don’t tempt fate. Unprotected exposure to natural sunlight is a carcinogen!”

He then asked, “What about sex, in your marriage bed or extramaritally?”

“Oh no!” I answered him. My wife and I care for each other, but we agreed to stop having sex 17 years ago. We figured our bodies didn’t need the over exertion. We’re celibate and we couldn’t be closer! Nor would I or could I ever even contemplate an affair with some tarted up floozie. I believe in the sanctity of marriage and celibacy only adds to the quality of ours!”

He looked puzzled and removed his glasses. ”Really? All you’ve told me is true?”

I proudly responded “Yes!!. So lastly, do you think I’m going to live long enough to reach 80?”

He shook his head. “With the way you’ve lived your life, why would you even give a shit?”

Needless to say, that gave me pause.

I started thinking about what he said and frankly, that’s convinced me that I’ve probably never actually lived my life. I merely existed in it. I merely experienced whatever came my way. I never sought anything. Life happened and fear of something I’m not even sure of forced me to live under a rock and, I suppose, a bunch of lies. Namely those which I told myself.

I don’t want you to wake up 30-years from now and wonder if you’ve done enough, read enough, loved enough, been loved enough, helped others enough and laughed enough. I don’t want you to die without ever having seen Barcelona or the Turks and Caicos islands. I want you live your life and take chances. It’s completely worth the risk. Live your life in Technicolor, Laurie. It’s like that damn candy commercial, Laurie: that one that urges young consumers to feel the rainbow.

You’ve got a lot of life ahead of you. In many ways, the best part of your life has yet to unfold. Grab it and go. Anticipate all the wonders that are being laid out before you. In many ways, turning 50 is a gift. It really is. Maybe you don’t regard it as such now, but you will in time.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must end this tome and make plans for this evening. I’m taking your aunt Stella out for a romantic dinner and dancing. I’m thinking steaks and a terrific Pignot… maybe a bottle or two. Then, I’m calling the municipal airport to inquire about skydiving lessons for this Saturday and if I can secure a lesson at that time, I plan on driving above the speed limit to get there faster, while listening to rock music on the radio and eating peanut M&M’s.

I hope they melt in my hand.

Regrets, Laurie; they’ll age you before your years. So, carpe anos, Darlin’!! And have fun on your birthday. Hope it’s a great one!

Always,
Uncle Bob

Thank You, Uncle Bob! Advice Taken

2009 March 27

by Laurie Kendrick

This is a response to a previous post

Dear Uncle Bob,

Thank you for your letter. It contained sage advice.

You know, I’ve lived a very interesting life and I’ve rarely held back doing what I’ve wanted to do. Accomplishing this was more pressing in my younger years. But make no mistake, I had a good time just living. But back then, I suppose I felt as thought I had all the time in the world to make errors. I don’t feel that way now. I’m learning the defitinion of “finite” with the passing of each and everyday. Want to know something else, Uncle Bob? I’m OK with the past four decades. I can look back on my life and smile for the most part. That being said, I really don’t have any regrets regarding what I’ve done….but rather, who I’ve done. But those demons have been released and I continue working on forgiving myself for any indescretion that 25 years later, still makes me cringe. Very soon I’ll wake up and realize that’s rapidly moving water under a very steadfast bridge.

Even so, turning 50 has taken my mind to the most irrational places. Worry, fear…have I done enough in my life? The answer to that question is yes and at 50, I still have plenty of time to affect change where needed and really, I have nothing to fear. Intellectually, I know this. It’s just that the numbers of five and a zero, loom large.

I will turn 50 whether I want to or not. As long as I continue to draw breath, aging is an unavoidable fact of life. I’ll soon accept that. In the few waning weeks I have left of living in the 49th year of my life, I’ll just talk myself down from that miserable, lonely ledge and be grateful for everything. I appreciate this new mindset. I’m beginning to see that every mistake I’m made was actually a positive move. In other words, I’ve often been right, even when I was wrong.

And you know better than most, Uncle , life is very hard. On good days–if we’re lucky–for many of us, all we can aspire to is just settling at the level of “maddening”. It’s not always easy living in the constance effigy and apogee of existance. But this–be it good, bad or indifferent–is our lot in life. To quote Dorothy Parker, might as well live.

I can make no promises–I’ve learned better than to do that, but I will do my best to start loving better and being loved better. I’ll read more, be less cynical, be silent more, go inward more and count my soul’s blessings more often. I might try Ethiopian food, learn what Samhain is all about, learn the Tanakh, learn more about fiscal and emotional charity and all the while, I’ll doff that weight loss nonsense that’s plagued me my entire life and just live life a little easier.

Certainly sweeter.

Here’s proof:

mandms

I didn’t even give them a chance to melt.

Thanks Uncle Bob. Your wisdom is always welcome here.

Love,

Laurie

This Struck Me As Funny

2009 March 28

11 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

For all you oldsters and you know who you are….

This is a video of the Archies’, “Sugar, Sugar”, from 1969–”The Year of Our Lard”. It’s sweet enough to give you Type 2 Diabetes.

Comment shared by ”Jared From The Subway”.

Add one Reggie Mantle as the bass player and you have perhaps the greatest rhthym sections in music at that time or since. These dudes definitely layed it down, thus building the foundation for Archie’s searing riffs and Veronica’s stellar keyboard work.

Like the rest of the band members, Reggie was overshadowed by people like John Entwistle, John Paul Jones, Jack Bruce and others.

It’s a damn shame.

Sarcasm rocks….not unlike Jughead.

The Real Days of Future Passed

2009 March 29

11 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

I’ve always been a fan of the Moody Blues, but to be honest, I’ve never understood what the title of that album meant. However, I do believe it might be an apt title of this post because I have a tendency to think a lot, reflect a lot and and that usually ends up with me writing a lot of letters of apology for sins committed some 36 years after the fact. I remember contemplating what life would be like as I turned 50. And here I am, at the precipace of the half century mark and realizing it wasn’t at all how I had mentally constructed it all those decades ago.

My life is a melange of things. That’s no different than anyone else, I suppose but if you’ll induge me in this brief introspection (you only have 25 days left to ride this age focused, angst ridden storm out, Kids!!) I think of my youth and it all centers around the age of ten through mid-way 14. That was before life got so incredibly complicated and as a result, I cherish those carefree days. My past, with it being so focused on that particular era of my life, in is enrexorably connected to my life long friend, Cheryl and my sister, Karol.

And then there was the music.

AM radio was all we had back then and TV wise, we only got three channels–four if you included PBS, which we rarely did. We watched everythingl the intro, plot, conflicts–all that man versus man stuff–and we even knew the credits.

Bing Crosby Productions was at the helm of “Hogan’s Heroes”.

William Asher (who would later direct his wife, Elizabeth Montgomery in “Bewitched”) sat in a canvass chair in a beret, jodhpur, with a megaphone in hand on the set of “I Love Lucy”.

Wilbur Hatch conducted the Desi Arnaz Orchestra.

Color was by Deluxe; cinematograpy was handled by Karl Fruend and and of course, le San du Cosmetique, Max ‘By God’ Factor applied make up to the entire “Lucy” cast, including Bill Frawley…and that took some doing. You know, Willie was in the throws of abject acholohism when he co-starred in that iconic sit-com. Every once in a while, if you look down at “Fred’s” hands, you can see him battling the DTs. I’m talking real Hugh Beaumont caliber of shakes. He’d try to cover them up by placing his hands in his trouser pockets. You could still see the tremors through the pants. Well, it was either that or he was feeling cocky all day!!!!!

But I digress…

What I’m getting at is the fact that the years 1968 through the first half of 1973 are 24k gilded nemories for me. Memories keep us young and that said, I’m about to lay on you a Fountain of Youth via the written word and with video.

Karol is just under four years older than me. In The Glory Days, we used to do what the kid’s today call ‘hanging out”. As a reminder, we grew up in Small Town, Texas. We road around a lot. OPEC adored us. We’d get in Karol’s old 61 touquoise Dodge Dart, aptly named ”Eunice”. We’d drive by people’s houses and honk madly. A couple of honks for a friend, multiple honks for best friends…..abject squealing and long, olfactory numbing horn blasts for boyfriends.

Although my father owned a successful Chrysler dealership, Pater always insisted that our first cars were older models. Much older models. Karol’s first horseless carriage had push button gears and a black painted metal dashboard that everyone scratched their names upon. Those unfamiliar with Eunice, or Karol or strange Kendrick ways, would get in the car and swear the car was named “Henry Gilley”.

We wore a lot of Hang Ten shirts, the early 70’s adolescent version of the Izod and inspired by the Bunch Brady.

We’d keep on, keep on, keep on wearing them all the time. Remember Hang Ten clothing with the embroidered feet?

hang-ten-logo2

Karol and I loved Hang Ten. We had shirts, pants; pant suits with button flies that looked like hands. We thought we were styling; real small town haute couture. We’d often don our Hang 2-Fives while watching Saturday morning cartoons.

Don’t EVEN try to lie about this, Karol! You know it’s true.

MEMORY #1

The intro to the Hardy Boys Show. Karol and I really dug the vest wearing, blond Hitler Youth lookin’ one.

♦

Neato.

This most memorable “Peter Pan Peanut Butter” commercial from 1972 features Her Majesty, Alan Suess. If you remember, he was the ascot wearing cast member on “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In”.

Way out, Daddy!

♦

This Christmas commercial from 1971, features bubbly. It brings back bittersweet memories for my sister and me.

Yeah….booze…hooch….firewater…sauce. Sweet Lady Liver Killer.

♦

Now, this golden moldy oldie is from 1965 and frankly, I can’t believe I found the intro on You Tube.

I was six and a big fan of the show, “Shenanigans”, a Saturday morning game show for kids. I even had the board game and all I remember is the theme song from this show and that the board game consisted of an obstacle course of sorts. It had a tiddly wink section you had win because if you didn’t you couldn’t progress , you wouldn’t win all the ’shenanegans”, whatever those were. That part of the game was called Pie In The Sky.

“Shenanigans” was hosted by veteran star of stage and screen, a one Mr. Stubby Kaye. Picture him as a mid century Jack Black, only more Jewish.

Yowzah, man.

♦

This also goes way back and if anyone else remembers this Saturday morning show, I’ll force Karol to eat her hat. It’s “The Double Deckers”, which featured a bunch of kids in London who hung out in this old double decker bus in a lot or something. I think they solved crimes, or debated the subtext of the book, “Silas Marner” or argued the pros and cons of voting Labour vs. Conservative.

It was a politically correct show for the radical Sixties. It had a token Black child and the requisite Nerd King who was pudgy, wore glasses, smarter than everyone else, who’s play clothes consisted of britches (of an almost Fauntlerian style), a startched, button down shirt and a bow tie.

I’ll bet he hated gym class.

♦

Remember “Love American Style” where ugly old cats like Milton Berle could mug it up with 60’s B-List actresses like Rosemary DeCamp?

The Cowsills sang the intro one year and then they were replaced with the Doodle Town Pipers or some shit.

♦

I loved “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour”. This clip contains short clips and mostly vintage commercials from the late 60’s. Look carefully at the tux wearing men in the beginning. You’ll see a very young and very brunette Steve Martin along with Grammy Award winning composer Mason Williams. The big and tall hulking guy is “Super Dave Osborne”. All three were writers for the show.

Enjoy the commercials. You’ll be amazed at what the brain trusts on what Madison Avenue considered advertising in the 60’s. Signs of the times, I guess.

♦

Here’s one you’ll remember. This commercial won all kinds of awards for it’s presentation. Remember the Gulf No-Kocks gasoline commercial? Crude? Yes. Archaic looking? Indubitively. Cutting edge for it’s time? Definitely. Animators used “stop motion” photography to make it look as though Gulf gulping commuters were all butt propelled.

♦

THEE MOST obnoxious commercial ever produced:

♦

Here’s one trippy, trippy floor wax commercial:

♦

This takes me back. Animated ass and all!!!!

♦

Candy coated popcorn, peanuts and a prize:

Rest in peace, Jack Gillford.

♦

Coke….classic commercial. Dig it!

♦

Tonight, on the ABC Movie of the WEEK:

♦

We’ve Got To Get It On Again. I’ve been saying that since the summer of ‘72

♦

The Addrissi Brothers also sang the intro to “Nanny and The Professor”

I cannot account for the slow speed of this version. I guess it was from the album, “The Addrissi Brothers: The Quaalude Years”.

Don’t bother listening. It made me tired.

Groovy.

♦

This one will take you back:

♦

Well kids, that’ll do it for this traipse down Memory Lane. I’ll be back later with more commercials and TV intros. And providing you kept your High School and college Ousley’s to a minimum, you might even remember some of them.

In the meantime, I’m off to commune with Morpheus. My Gerital has run it’s course and my Sominex is kicking in.

Safe and restful sleep….sleep….sleep.

Classic and Funny TV Moments From the U.S., U.K. and Japan

2009 March 30

by Laurie Kendrick

The videos you are about to watch have been around a while, but they’re perennially funny…at least to me they are. Hope you’ll find a few laughs that I KNOW you need at this particular time and place.

Our first offering is from a British game show called “Catchphrase”.

♦

This one of my all-time favorite clips: “Whose Line Is It Anyway”, featruing a wanton and shiney, Richard Simmons. Very,very funny!

♦

From “In Living Color, circa 1991: the brilliant Jim Carrey as every cheesy televangelist you’ve ever seen. Behold, the Reverend Carl Pathos.

Wait till he starts singing!

♦

And from Japan, a show that perfectly exemplifies how to publically objectify men and their toilet doins’. This one ALWAYS has me laughing to the point of weeping.

♦

The Ghost of Tantallon Castle

2009 March 31

13 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

This very large edifice in Scotland has been in the news as of late.

Tantallon is a mid-14th century fortress, located about three miles south-east of North Berwick, in East Lothian, Scotland.

Tantellon Castle

It sits atop a promontory (I’m thinking that’s a big chunk of rugged coastline) opposite the Bass Rock, looking out onto the Firth of Forth, and since it’s Scotland, the fortress would also be adjacent to the Fifth of Gin.

The reason why it’s in the news? The photo below:

tantallon-ghost

People are calling this “a ghost”.

What do you think?

Well, call me “Burt Lahrie”, because I do believe in spooks. cowardly-lion I do, I do, I do believe in spooks.

BUT….

This photo makes me seriously doubt its legitimacy despite the three so-called photographic experts who looked at the snap shot, taken by a tourist in early 2008, and deemed it “untouched”. Now, I’m wondering how in the hell that could be? The image is too well lit to be in the window of a dark 14th century fortress without sunlight directly peering into said window. I mean, go back and look at it! Even the colors are way too vivid, the facial markings (to me anyway) seem too well defined considering the distance from the camera to window AND you can barely see the bars across the entity’s face. Granted, they’re thin bars, but still distinguishable. Look to the right and to the left of the face, which in and of itself, looks like it’s half in front of the bars in the window. It looks weird, plus the color seems so bright and in this case, unnatural all things considered.

So, as ghosts go? Nah, I don’t think so and mind you, I am by no means an expert. I can’t use a camera, much less a computer program to insert and/or remove photgraphed images. Hell, I think ‘photoshop’ is a little kiosk in the mall where you can drop off your film and have your photos ready in an hour.

And I really couldn’t determine whether this “ghost” is a he or a she.

Here’s a slightly closer look.

Take a good look. Study the face.

I did and I’ve determined that the “ghost” is actually a photo of a human being that had in fact been Photoshopped in the window. I’m convinced of this and in fact, I think I know who it is.

I first thought the image resembled a cranky Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. ray-bolger11111

I thought I saw a resemblance in the delightfully pointed eyebrows. That would be the max “Factor”.

Then, I looked more closely and realized that isn’t who it is at all.

But then, who is it?

I spent most of this morning trying to figure this out….and then it hit me. When you look at the next photos, you just might see the same thing I did.

Here’s another picture of “the ghost” for your edification.

After careful, deliberate study, I am convinced…CONVINCED…without a shadow of a doubt that this is actually a photo of:

Academy Award winning actress, Anjelica Huston in a period costume and based on her expression in the fortress window, I’d say she’s suffering from severe gas, too:

anjelica

Tell me I’m wrong.

You…you and your clouds!!

The Lewd, Lasciviousness That Produce Can Produce

2009 April 2

14 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

flasher

Butter vs. Margarine: You Decide

2009 April 6

by Laurie Kendrick

Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it
killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the
research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure
out what to do with this product to get their money back. It was a
white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow coloring
and sold it to people to use in place of butter. .

Do you know the difference between margarine and butter?

Both have the same amount of calories.

Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams compared to 5 grams.

Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over
eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard
Medical Study.

Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.

Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few
only because they are added!

Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the
flavors of other foods.

Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around
for less than 100 years .

And now, for Margarine..

Very high in Trans fatty acids.

Triple risk of coronary heart disease.
Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and
lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)

Increases the risk of cancers up to five fold.

Lowers quality of breast milk.

Decreases immune response.

Decreases insulin response.

And here’s the most disturbing fact….. HERE IS THE PART THAT IS
VERY INTERESTING!

Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC..

This fact alone was enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and
anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added,
changing the molecular structure of the substance).

You can try this yourself:

Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it in your garage or shaded
area. Within a couple of days you will note a couple of things:

* No flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that
should tell you something)

* It doesn’t spoil, rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional
value ; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny icroorganisms
will not a find a home to grow. Why? Because it is nearly plastic.

Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?

I haven’t used margarine in more than a decade. Butter is better.

Separated At Birth

2009 April 6

by Laurie Kendrick

A couple of posts back, I suggested that the much publicized ghost of Tantellon Castle on the coast of Scotland, bears a striking resemblance to Academy Award winning actress, Anjelica Huston.

It was pretty spot on if I say so myself. It got an amazing number of hits from all over the world.

Well, those are time-consumming posts, but very fun to compose and when I’ve done them in the past, the reviews have been through the roof. In fact, about two years ago (maybe less) I wrote several posts similiar to this one—comparing peoples’ looks to other people….or things….or stuff. I was very, very lucky in the comparisons I found on my own. I pilfered a couple from other sites but the majority are mine. In fact, I’ll be mixing the best of the old posts with new stuff I’ve found.

And of course, there will be comments with almost every picture.

Enjoy!

Bobby Hill. The round-faced perpetual 12 year old brought to us by FOX and Folger’s Coffee.

I took one look at him:

bobbyhill11

And think of Russian Matruska dolls

nesting-dolls-11

One of my favorite movies of all time is “The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming”, one of the funniest movies ever, starring Carl Reiner and the magnificant Alan Arkin. One periphery character is Stanley, the airplane mechanic who baby sits a dirt runway and a wind sock. This character is played by Michael J. Pollard. He also appeared in the movie “Bonnie and Clyde” as erstwhile gangster, C.W. Moss.

Back in the 60’s, his face would’ve been a familiar one. Back then he had a very active film career.

nesting-dolls-michael-j-pollard

Not to mention the fact that Mike has a very unusual look, which to me makes him an identical twin of a Troll Doll.

nesting-dolls-troll

I was perusing the Google Images pages and saw this lovely picture of St. Helen of Thomas…the venerable and Liberally beatified Washington reporter for Knight-Ridder, AP, UPI and Highlights Magazine.

I took one look this pic and the ravaging effects that time and gravity have had on Helen and only one….ONE corresponding image came to mind.

I looked for this particular picture for hours. Now, it’s a little dark and had to be blown up a bit, but I think you’ll see the resemblance:

Here’s Helen…

And here’s her arboreal Doppelganger:

HA!!!!! I laughed my ass off when I finally found this photo of the Talking Apple Tree, from the orchard scene, right before the Tin Man is discovered in The Wizard of Oz.

This picture convinces me that Helen and tree were in fact, separated at grafting.

I saw this particular photo of former Secretary of State, Donald Rumsfeld not too long ago and IMMEDIATELY thought of the perfect accompanying pic–especially being the Wizard of Oddity that I am.

Sometimes, it all about the pose.

This comparison is just HILARIOUS in my opinion!!

This one I discovered back in the summer of ’07 had me crying, kids! I’m not kidding! TEARS were streaming down my face when I made this connection. I found it quite by accident late one night. You ready?

Here’s former Presidential Advisor, Karl Rove:

And THIS is a relatively current mugshot of Mark David Chapman, the man who killed John Lennon:

I freaked when I saw how much Flava Flave looks like this Ugly Ass Dog!

GOOD LORD!!!!!

Here’s an interesting comparison:

This is pretty funny, actually: Nancy Pelosi’s smirk makes her look The Scarecrow’s. twin sister. Sometimes, it’s all about expressions and head angles.

Now, refresh my memory…which one of the above actually needs a brain???

This one might be a stretch:

This is the well-tatted and inked all to hell Travis Barker, the drummer from Blink-182 and a punked out kitty with a lot of hair product. I elongated the feline photo and that helped.

Rocker Bret Michaels REALLY needs to stay out of the sun and moisturize, moisturize, moisturize!!!!

If not, THIS is what he has to look forward to in the next 15 years…

This pic is that of a very young Bret and yessir, that’s an old Yasser!!

Love the head gear….Old West meets Middle East.

Here, Hillary is seen here eating a little nosh.

So is one of her flesh eating constituents from “Night of the Living Dead”.

Christopher McDonald is an actor that you’ve seen in plenty of movies. Recognizable face, but it’s doubtful you’d know him by name. He was the game show host in “Quiz Show”. He played Louie in “Chances Are” and Louise’s husband in “Thelma and Louise” and that’s just a partial listing of his roles.

I think he and FOX news anchor, Shepard Smith look a like:

•••

Muqtada al-Sadr (مقتدى الصدر—for those of you playing the “She’s Gotta Tikrit to Ride” home game) is the fourth son of a famous Iraqi Shi’a cleric, the late Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr. He’s also the son-in-law of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir As-Sadr. While ol’ Muqtada doesn’t hold any official title in the Iraqi government, he is one of the most influential religious and political figures in the country.

Jerry Ferrara is the portly, tubby, scruffy actor who plays Turtle on HBO’s series, “Entourage”.

This comparison is incredibly right on, or so sayeth Laurie. Game…match…set, Mofo.

. .

Take a gander at Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg…..and a monkey whore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Former Veep, Al Gore has been in the news so much lately…talking all ’bout Global Warming and what have you. Here at Laurie Industries, we’re glad that he still has time to commune with the people from all over and with just the right amount of ribald gesticulation.

Here, Al is addressing what’s surely an enthralled crowd and he’s hammering home salient points with what’s known as “jazz hands”…and a lowly little hamster pays homage to the Global Savior by responding in kind.

This combo makes me laugh! Odd isn’t it how when side by side, all four “hands” look awfully similar!

Let this serve as a “global warning”, my friends.

Record mogul Phil Spector is many things.

He is a leviathan when it comes to music. He’s produced epic songs and albums that have become “the music of our lives”.

He’s had several “hair looks” in recently. He’s seen here during his “Dirty Dandilion” look.

In the mid to late 80’s, I was dazzled by the comical stylings of Brother Theodore. The German born comic actor, did some stand-up (or should I say “schtand up”–he had a hell of an accent) but his forte was character driven roles. He was weird neighbor on Burbs with Tom Hanks and in a host of other movies. He died in 2001, but leaves behind a legacy of hilarious performances.

I hadn’t thought of Brother Theodore UNTIL I saw this photo of Senator John Warner–the “other” Virginia Ham.

Kids, when I literally stumbled upon this drawing of an ogre, there as only one person that came to mind. I searched TWO HOURS for just the right picture of this guy. I knew in my gut it was out there…

And it was.

And when I finally found it, it was laugh out loud funny.

This next comparison will be debatable. This is the best photo I could find that demonstrates that either actor Kelsey Grammar looks like a younger Fred Thompson OR…..former actor/politician, Fred Thompson looks like an older Kelsey Grammar.

Here’s an interesting look at disgraced NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak and FOX News Host and “drop-the-last-syllables-of-every-word-she-utters” Anchor, Greta Van Susteren.

The two only slightly resemble each other, but I wanted to include Miss Greta in the mixed because like Lisa, she has that now familiar look on her face. You know the one–the look that clearly indicates she’s thinking….

“Oh great! I need to be in goddamn Rupert Murdoch’s office in 15 minutes and I’ve just soiled my knickers/panties/drawers. Ouch! It burns!! Shit!! What the hell did I eat“…

My Dilemma

2009 April 8

by Laurie Kendrick

I am, I think, a godly woman. At least as far as my own interpretation of God, The Universe, The Cosmos or Marianne Williamson is concerned.

But today something happened that perplexed me a bit.

I had to make a deposit at my branch bank in a nearby strip center. I looked toward the front door and there was this pathetic soul, a man with a broken tennis shoe sole (sock exposed) held together with rubber bands and black masking tape. He was shabbily dressed entirely. Thin, missing several teeth and wearing the obvious sign of delusion: a fur lined parka in 80 degree weather.

I passed by him, knowing full well what would happen next.

“Ma’am, I haven’t had anything to eat and I’m starving. Can you help out a veteran, please?”

I didn’t respond immediately. I stopped in front of him and looked in his careworn eyes and got the vibe from his that was in fact, very hungry.

I told him that I’d see what I might be able to do for him after my banking transaction

While standing in line in the bank, I remembered how many times I’ve given needy-looking people, three to five dollars— only to end up paying for their next bottle of Malt Liquor or Ripple.

I knew the risks involved. But I wanted to take a chance. As I made my deposit, I realized that I was fortunate enough to have something to deposit and I chose to give this dignity shredded man the benefit of the doubt. If he is hungry, it’s my duty as a good and decent human being, to feed him.

I went to the adjacent grocery store’s deli and I bought him a six inch turkey sub, a bag of Fritos and two bottles of water.

I walked outside and he wasn’t there. I saw several police cars in the parking lot and I figured that the cops told him to move or either picked him up. I got in my car and looked around, determined to find this hungry man on the chance he hadn’t been arrested.

I saw that he’d moved to the other side of the parking lot under a tree and he was feeding the birds with what looked liked very stale bread.

How hungry can this man be if he’s giving bread to the pidgeons?, I thought to myself. Well, maybe he’s just kind and channeling the spirit Audobon and wanted to share what he had with nature.

Or maybe he’s a living, breathing test of my character and spirit.

Or just a downright liar.

I drove up to him and handed him his a bag of lunch.

He politely said, “No thank you ma’am. I need money for shoes. He slowly lifted up the ravaged sneaker he was trying to keep securely on his foot.

“But when I walked into the bank, you told me that you were very hungry!”

“Yes ma’am but I need a new pair of shoes!”.

“Then you don’t want this sandwich, chips and two bottles of water?”

“No, I need money for shoes.”

“You don’t even want the water?”

“No, but thank you anyway”.

I drove off feeling angry at myself for having been taken in—again—by a homeless person, no matter how courteous.

I’d just spent seven bucks on a fairly decent lunch for this man and he didn’t want it. He was hungry alright, but not for food– he wanted money.. The guise didn’t matter.

I debated briefly on going back and asking him his shoe size. There was a shoe outlet a few blocks away, but I decided against it. It would be an additional waste of my time and money.

You see, I believe in angels unawares. He could’ve been one, or as I said just there to test my decency as a human. But I studied my feelings. I felt half put out and half angry at myself for having attempted to help once again. There is frustration involved with good intentions.

As I was about to exit the parking lot, a woman in a late model Honda tore out of the parking lot and barely hit me by a scant few inches.

Literally.

I went through the intersection–I had the right of way–and she just parked in her coveted parking spot without a wave of apology, or a passing “I’m sorry” from her window.

A few expletives rumbled from my mouth and I drove away.

Well, a few hours went by. I arrived home and a friend of mine called, so I explained my afternoon to him. He listened and then summarized all the events and said he felt that I earned “God points” today.

God points? He explained that’s what God does when you do good things in his name. You get passes; you get spared from experiecing bad or negative things.

I repeated that I wanted to give food to this man because he told me he was hungry. He looked the part and even though I’d been taken in by so many homeless people before, I wanted to believe that he was hungry and bought him a sandwich because that’s what good people do. The Golden Rule applied far more than God did.

Some might argue that that’s what the Golden Rule is all about.

I asked him to explain “God points” to me and he said by merely intending to help a man who believed was hungry was still a good thing to do. Because had I NOT tried to help, the near collision I had in the parking lot, could’ve resulted far differently.

I believe in the basic prinicples of Karma, but Vedic tenets confound me. I’d like to believe that we get a karmic kick back on occaision, but my intentions to help this poor “hungry” guy were real and to be honest, done in private. I looked around to make sure no one was looking. I didn’t do it to reap acknowledgement and/or kudos from others. He asked for help, and I tried to deliver.

I then asked him to explain the old adage, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”.

He didn’t have an answer.

There are plenty of wealthy Houstonians who donate gobs o’money to charities and dole out new furniture and generous amounts of new clothing to Hurricane Ike victims……as long as it’s accompanied by a press release and a camera crew. Yea, yeah—PR is what it is, but generosity should come from the heart and soul; not for publicity.

God points, huh? Sorry, but finding favor with the Almighty was not my motivation.

I’m not sure what I’m asking here, but I’d love your opinion of all that transpired in the course of my day. Please bring it—whatever it might be: spiritual, Christian, Wiccan, Jewish, Chesterton, agnostic..Anton LaVey’s view of the world.

Just please don’t call me an idiot for at least wanting to help this man and then making every effort to deliver.

I knew the risk, but not every person down on their luck wants crack rock or a bottle of Mad Dog. Every once in a while, you act out of faith and not by logic or some homeless odds of deceit from an actuarial table in your head. Yes, I’ve been burned by those claiming to be hungry, when they really were just jonesin’ for whatever beverage or substance that brought them to their knees in the first place.

I will not give money if it only contributes to furthering their derilection.

But then again, is giving food to these people another way of contributing to their downfall?

Happy….

2009 April 9

by Laurie Kendrick

But if hunting for eggs is definitely on your “to do” list this coming Easter morning, here are a few decorating suggestions for Monsiuer Lapin should he ever free the top of his head and ears from the jaws of certain Black Lab death.

Gone are the days of standard issue pastel colored eggs. The eggs of 2009, are very different and certainly, far hipper .

Proof of this, is our first offering. Imagine as an ovum, the robbot character of Bender, from ”Futurama”.

•

There’s the always festive binary Easter egg…perfect for the basket-clutching, pocket protector wearing, aspiring arithmetician/egg hunter of your progeny

•

And of course, what holiday honoring the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ would be complete without a KISS four pack.

Nothing says Easter like a hard-boiled tribute to four aging, Jewish rock stars with prostates the size of Ace Frehley’s base drum.

EVIL BUNNIES

A rabid rabbit

Below is the anthropomorphic bunny that’s jaundiced due to extreme liver maladies.

Did anyone else read Watership Down?

The Easter Bunny or freakin’ Grendel?

Oh, petulant rabbit….

Lepus???? Hell, he tried to kill us!!!

Happily medicated bunny. Just took a hit of Eggstacy.

One more thing: is it just me or does this Easter Bunny look a lot like wider-eyed version of former child star and currently testosterone laiden, Haley Joel Osment during his “The Sixth Sense” days???

.Now

This bunny was recently made partially deaf and he’s still damned pissed about it.

evil-but-deaf-easter-bunny

And Josef Stalin, Yuri Turischeva and Peter Rabbit gather as the first edition of the “Communist Bunnyfesto” goes to print.

OTHER THINGS “EASTER”

As a child, I never fully appreciated finding a gallon jug of vinegar in my Easter basket. As an adult however, I completely get it. These days, when my Easter Vinegar arrives, I feel so special…all Easter Sunday long, I’m like this happy, little Massengirl.

Keeps me feeling Easter fresh on Easter Sunday…

Other Easter specialties for you include the famed Moais of Easter Island

Massive rainfall from a late season Nor’Easter inundates Hoboken, N.J.

And from “The Wizard of Oz”, the highly recognizable red and white nyloned, ruby slippered limbs seconds before the shrivel up underneath a modest farm house from Kansas as flown by Dorothy.

Yes, it’s the Wicked Witch of the East(er).

And finally, Happy Easter everyone, but if you’re Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Baha’i, Sikh, Rastafarian, Hindu, Greek Orthodox (“So, wait just one week already!!”) Pagan, Wiccan, Native American, an Atheist, a Satanist or from certain parts of Middle Eastern Detroit, you just have yourself a nice weekend!!

“See You In Fucking Hell”

2009 April 15

22 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

This is a video shot by U.S. Marines, pinned down on top of a building in the rubble that once was a city in Iraq. The shooting back and forth had been going on for a while and the Marines felt it had become monotonous, so they decided it was time to stop this nonsense.

Besides, they had other things to do.

They marked the sniper’s rooftop location opposite them with a smoke grenade to mark the target, then called for close air support.

A few minutes later, an F-16 from the 192nd Fighter Wing of the Virginia Air National Guard and provided what the Marines had requested.

Watch, listen….do it a couple of times. Digest eveything. Once you’ve done that, I want your honest reponse to what you’ve just witnessed. Wha are your first emotions after viewing this? Good, bad, indifferent? There’s no right or wrong response here. I merely want to know what you think.

Please click here.

The Propellerheads Featuring Shirley Bassey

2009 April 16

by Laurie Kendrick

My opinion only, but although this video is 12 years old, I still think it’s a hip, overhand finger-snap, cold stone groove.

Dig this, cats!!

Dear Readers;

2009 May 4

by Laurie Kendrick

Two weeks ago, just prior to my birthday, I woke up one morning and felt sluggish. As the day progressed, I began to feel worse. I’m talking aches, pains, lethargy, and that way too familiar itchy tickle sensation in the lower portion of my throat and chest.

Upper respiratory infection? Maybe. Bad cold? Could be. Swine Flu? Probably. That night, my fever soared to just under 103°. It took a mere 45 minutes to reach that temperature. I had a varied version of the intestinal thing happening, too. It was nothing but a steady eruption of fevered farts. They’re the worst. Nasty and powerful. Battling them could be the plot of a Dino di Laurentis disaster movie. I was also verging on delirium. I kept thinking I was in Russia. I’m not sure why.

But I decided to soldier on because this flu stuff is old hat for me. I’ve contended with ailments of the mouth, nose, throat and various respiratory infections since I was en utero. Each year, I can lay odds with anyone in Vegas, that I will invariably experience two major outbreaks of something microbial. On the day I fell ill, I realized I was in the throes of the second and God willing, the final health related malady this year. December and January are sick months for me and round two usually arrives in mid to late Spring which forces me to seek Sulfa drugs and what not.

I have a weak respiratory system, apparently. It’s susceptible to allergens, mold and armpit stank. I get congested at the drop of a hat, which was always great for my career as a broadcaster. And on those days when it felt as if little Matt Roloff sneaked into my room in the dead of night and jammed two Tampons up each nostril, I’d always …ALWAYS have newscasts that included the letter “m” in every other word.

It was an unavoidable fact of life for me.

Imagine, “Good borning. It’s 2 P-Emb. This is F-Emb News Channel, 97-Five and now here’s Bartha Bartinez, with your bajor headlines….”

Not pretty.

When I get like this, I dream of :

a crew from Roto-Rooter, auguring my nasal passages.
snorting acetone
nasally inhaling fire
applying something like one of those fuzzy, twisty pipe cleaner things and shoving it in one nostril and pulling it out the other side…waxing on and waxing off that nasty mock guacamole that’s all up off in there
praying for sweet death

As it always does, my head felt huge, pressure filled and swollen like John Tesh’s and consequently, I was forced to breathe through my mouth and I do, I do, I do loathe mouth breathers.

But such is my life when sputum and snotum are the order of the day. I’m still enduring after effects weeks after the fact. The flu has gone, but I still has left-over evils wreaking havoc. Because of that, I have learned to hate the color of all things verdant. I’ve blown my nose and wondered when I ate avacados during this dreaded plague.

And the past several mornings, I’ve awakened with a stuffed up nose, a dry mouth, parched throat and for some reason, Octo-Mom lips. I get out of bed and make a mad dash for water, anything wet to moisten the Sahara like conditions enveloping my esophagus.

But that morning, I woke up with a little something extra.

Parched and dry? Most definitely, but as I reached for my jug o’water in the fridge, I felt something small and cellophane-like on the back of my tongue. I tried to spit it out, but alas, I could not. I was spitless. So, I reached in and pulled out what looked like a wing….from a fly.

Had I felt better, the thought of ingesting a fly in my sleep would’ve made me gag and leave an identifiable trail to the nearest porcelain bathroom receptacle. But on that day, I felt too ill. I merely removed the severed wing from Laurelsbad Caverns and disposed of it. I think on the floor.

I’m not sure why I (or why anybody for that matter) would be appalled by this aspect of nocturnal feasting. Statistics say that we humans, in one year’s time, consume up to 14 insects…WHILE SLEEPING!!! If that’s true, then we will consider my little fly snack to be the first entry into my Orwellian “abdominal farm” for 2009.

I can handle that, but later that afternoon while suffering minor gastro-intenstinal distress, I allowed a small amount of the methane menace to escape. And when I did, I didn’t hear that tale-tell gurgle blart, booming rectal concussion.

Nay, I swear I heard…

fly-fly-fly

Two days later, my fever broke and I felt better but a little hr, my fever hovered aroundjpTwo days later, hours after consumming a potent Fiber One bar, I discovered the other wing and unfortunately, like so many downloads, it too had an attachment.

I felt nothing as I sent the tiny, single-winged corpse to it’s watery grave.

Size Matters? In Politics, Apparently So

2009 April 18

by Laurie Kendrick

Who knew that so many national and global leaders (past and present) were such intrepid size queens?!?!?

. . . .

And here, too!!

. .

E tu Hamid Karzai? E tu????? Mary Matalin, former Republican Advisor and now author, informs us in universal sign language that hubby, James Carville apparently has a “short story”, too!

We here at Laurie Industries wanted to see the role that size plays in the Presidential Bedrooms in the White House. Therefore, we surveyed 50 American registered voters from across the country and asked them who they thought (in the previous and current administrations) was/is the happiest, most contented First Lady.

. laura-bush-size-queen ..……OR……

THE WIENER OF THIS SIZE CHALLENGE:

Michelle Obama

Democrats win that round….and apparently by a much longer and larger margin.

BUT…who did the survey indicate was/is the happiest president in office?

……..OR……/

Congratulations President Bush! That Laura is some kind of woman!!

This poll was taken orally.

.

Joyeux anniversaire à MOI!!!

2009 April 22

25 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

Today…this date; this particular April 22 marks the 25² anniversary of my mother’s third and final Cesarean section delivery.

Otherwise known as my 50th birthday. happy_50th_birthday_color_small

That’s right..rally ’round. Please leave greetings. Wish me the best, especially you readers from the U.K.and Rangoon.

Now then. Jeez….where do I begin At the beginning, I suppose.

The elders called her “Nonie”, which is Native American for “Runs While Criticizing Daughters”.

A little bit about my human incubator: My sainted mother is short…4′9″ as of this writing,but make no mistake, she is incredibly tall and stalwart in every possible way.

She’s still an impressive woman, one year away from reaching octogenarian status, but don’t let the age fool you. She’s been successful in an industry that traditionally, has put more than a few good ol’ boys on their collective asses. She’s smart, tough and as we say here in Texas, “don’t mess with Mama.” She divorced my father more than 30 years ago. They continue to be disparate personalities. His name is Louis, so of course, that means my sisters, Kathy and Karol and I, are all productions of NonieLou Studios.

Over the years, my mater regaled me with stories about my nine month relationship with our obstetrician. He who used to marvel at my how active I was en utero—apparently, I’d kick a lot. He called these the actions of a very impatient child who once born, would be on a mission in life. The good doctor once said when he extricated me from my uterine hostel, he thought he saw random scratchings on the walls of my fleshy, vascular-rich cavernous dwelling.

Then, he looked closer and saw this:

And realized I was an artistically precocious fetus, as well as an impatient one.

And why not? I had things to do, people to see. Besides, I gestated inside another woman for nine months. Then, I spent about 18 years incubating beside her and now, 32 years later, I have become Laurie Kendrick–an incredible specimen that grew from concave titted sapling to this incredible adult/woman/sister/daughter with no concept of the tautological constructs that exist in contemporary English.

Because it’s my birthday and I have almost everything I could ask for—almost—I’ve decided that I’m going to give something, instead of asking for something as I would ordinarily.

My present to you is unsolicited advice.

You see, I’ve learned something very important in recent days. I learned that if you seek approval from others, you’ll only be disappointed. Besides, you have to be OK with who and what you are before anyone else will.

I also learned that as a species, we humans aren’t very nice to each other. Some of us can be cruel. Vicious even.

Murderous, too.

We hear about illegal immigrants here in Houston who spent three days carjacking women, knifing one who refused to give up her keys because her four month old baby was still in her car seat.

That 36-year-old mother of four died a few hours later.

We hear about children raped and murdered by Sunday School teachers in California; about CEO’s who give themselves 500 thousand dollar bonuses as a reward for enduring the loathsome task of firing a third of their company’s work force.

We hear about Ponzi schemes and hackers looking to steal identities as we sit and piddle on our Googles and play with our Yahoos.

We hear about muggings, break-ins and robberies, and we hear so much about the dissolution of loving relationships, due to self-centered behavior.

We hear a lot about destructive , toxic people.

Abused husbands and wives; emotionally tortured boyfriends and girlfriends.

There’s cursed, cursed infidelity.

There are women who are left with nothing when their worthless husbands (and “baby daddies”) walk out on them, leaving them to raise kids as best they can. Single motherdom makes these women incredibly angry, bitter and resentful. They’re miserable so they make other people miserable.

And there’s way too much of that in the world.

So, last year in honoring the formation of my 49th ring around my trunk, I wrote down a few things I felt strongly about and decided to make that my new screed and they all still hold true a year later. If by some chance you want to give me something for my birthday, then think about these things for a second, then please, employ them in your life:

Be tolerant, but make sure your tolerance has a cap. Don’t take abuse of ANY kind. Ever
Don’t take people for granted
Love grandly, but not stupidly. There’s no such thing as unconditional love. You should never love someone who hurts you or inflicts ANY kind of pain on purpose
Be polite
Thank other drivers with a little wave or something when they allow you to merge into the lane ahead of them
Be kind
Be considerate
Intent never precludes action and actions ALWAYS speak louder than words. Do what you say you’re going to do
ALWAYS try to understand the incredible dynamic involved when these three words, “I love you” are spoken. Say them often and mean it
Don’t lie. Be honest with others and yourself, especially
Be generous with your time, your money and your affection
Never waste time. It’s too precious

And lastly, when everything is said and done, know this: people are made to be loved and things are made to be used. The reason why there’s so much goddamn strife in the world today is because we confuse the two. So often, things are loved and people are used.

That’s no way to live…

Or love.

~~~

Well, there you have it.

With maturity comes wisdom and acuity, and I regret that these are newfound things in my life at this stage of this whacky Milton Bradley existence, but I want you to know that I meant everything I’ve written in this post. I want you to find happiness. I mean that. I want this more than anything.

It’s my present to you.

I did this last year and swore I’d do it again and just like my 49th birthday, I sincerely hope that once again, I can give…..just as good as I get.

Here’s to humanity.

Here’s to the return of joy.

joy-behar .

No, I’m not talking about this joy.

I’m talking about the good kind that doesn’t make your gag reflux go achtung and result in herniating your uvula.

And one more thing, I seriously considered halting blogging altogether once I reached 50, but now that I’m here, the view isn’t so bad. You were right all along, Driver and David L.

Over the past few days, I’ve been going through that vast record collection I call life and I picked up that huge LP with 50 tracks and studied it long and hard.

Much to my suprise, I still have a B-side.

The Tao of Aging

2009 April 18

by Laurie Kendrick

You reach a certain age and you take a look at that image in the mirror that looks like a MAD Magazine bad artist rendering of yourself and you think, “Damn! Where has all the time gone??” tao-red

Oh, it’s there mt friend. Oh yes…it’s there. Look down: it’s in those two, pendulous salami tubes you used to call breasts.

It’s in that expanding propane tank you call a gut and that prostate gland, now the size of the Epcot globe

Wednesday, I officially “reach that certain age”. While I still look damn good (a few years ago, Strom Thurmond slobbered in my direction), it’s sad to see so many beloved, iconic toys and animated characters age…the very ones that entertained and enthralled me while airing on ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS if you consider “Davey and Goliath”, which we rarely did.

In honor of my big 50th BD tomorrow, I decided to look up a few of these old toy and cartoon fave raves of mine, just to compare how good I look and how wrinkled and crinkled they’ve become.

As we all know, Barbie that Mattell fashion doll that every little girl and effeminate boy adored, turns 50 this year.

Apparently, she spent a lot of the time scampering (sans sunscreen) on the beach at Malibu.

old-babrie

That old gray mare just ain’t what she used to be. AND YES, I MEAN MARE!!!! Ever seen her naked?

♦

Jeez, look at Popeye. His jones for spinach must’ve turned into ones for prunes.

old-popeye

♦

Good Lord! Charlie Brown??????

old-charlie-brown

♦

Tweety Bird turned 60 in March!!

tweety

Hydro-encephaly at his age? Never good.

♦

Feast your eyes upon Ken. Two photos here: Ken then; Ken now

old-ken

TSk…tsk…tsk. See his temples? My, he’s gotten older………..and gayer.

♦

You won’t believe the way TV’s Theodore Cleaver from the sitcom, “Leave It To Beaver” looks.

old-beaver

Hhhh’mmmm…..wasn’t he killed in Nam?

♦

Look how distinguished Bugs Bunny looks!!!

old-bugs-bunny

Wow, 69-nine years old and only one gray hare.

♦

And finally, he’s not a cartoon character or even from my youth. He’s from my recent past… 2007 to be exact. That’s the year Javier Bardem won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor from the critically acclaimed flick, “No Country For Old Men”. I merely wanted to update you on a few just

He’s seen here, in the role that made him famous:

javier-bardem-old2

The brooding Spanish actor must be suffering from the dreaded Oscar curse. His once meteoric career has now faultered and in just two short years!!! He now gets bit parts on Infomercials and:

scooby_doo-villain

he plays a villain in occasional dinner theatre productions which focus on four teenage actors and an aphasic Great Dane, who drive around in a psuedo-psychodelic painted mini-van and solve mysteries while etrying to cope with Casey Kasem’s irritating ‘younger man” voice uttering “Yikkees”.

Bardem usually dons a monster or ghost costume to make sure a certain piece of property seem haunted and in doing so, that thwarts buyers from purchasing the old grist mill so the mean nemisis can sell to Big Business Paving for big dollars so they can convert the land into extended 20 mile lane of I-97, through Mapleville, Any State, U.S.A.

Bardem’s only line thus far has been, “And I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!!!”

See gh.

Prompting: A White House Necessity

2009 April 27

by Laurie Kendrick

obama-pees11

Happy Belated Penis Day!!!

2009 April 29

21 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

dick1

My apologies.

In between turning 50 and dealing with the emotional upheaval created by being unemployed, unloved and completely unamused by it all, I have been remiss in not properly acknowledging a day that is of vital importance to every straight woman and gay man on the planet.

Penis Day.

It protruded onto the scene earlier this month in Japan. It’s a long holiday–lasting the first weekend in April. It’s a simple affair. No Vesuvian-like eruptions of fun and all its fluidity. It is instead, a semenal moment in which our non-Occidental bretheren to the East celebrate the penis. Often feted with parades.

Modern day Japanese celebrate “Penis Day” as a rite of seasonal passage. It’s Springtime and spring springs to mind newness, birth and rebirth, and of course, fertility. And we all know the penis is one of two ingredients needed to pinpoint the real, grass roots definition of creationism.

And celebrate, they do. They have for centuries. This particular Japanese festival in Komaki, celebrates a statue of a penis to which Geisha and her lovely bevy of prostitutes prayed in the 17th Century to protect them from sexually transmitted diseases.

THE HISTORY OF PENIS DAY

Legend has it that a demon in the statue would manifest itself as the deity “Tamponisu” and would hide inside the nether privates of a young girl and upon having sex, that enabled her to castrate every one of her husbands on their wedding nights. Why? Because it was thought that the penis is a font of disease.

Welcome to penile institution that is marriage, honey!!!

In response to this, a local blacksmith fashioned a large, iron phallus that was used to break the demon’s teeth, leading to the enshrinement of the big metal penis. God only knows then just HOW the demons teeth were bashed in if in fact, it was “inside” the young girl. Perish the thought.

Oh, and I should mention that almost all of the penises in modern day Komaki are hand-carved (as if there could be any other kind) and made of wood.

All things considered, when venturing into the realm of American lexicon and euphamism, wood is quite the appropriate substance.

dick4

Apparently, it’s good luck to stroke the ceremonial penis. I, however, have never found that to be plausible.

Nowadays this large, fully aroused penis festival is used to raise awareness & money for HIV/AIDS research.

THE EVENTS

If you ever go to the Penis Day festivities, you will see lots and lots of bandana sporting locals parading a giant penis around the streets gyrating it to the pulsating rhythms of penis songs. In Japan, this mode of music is called “Gag Time”. It’s an interesting undulating beat.

But I digress….

The parade leads to a temple where the huge penis is erected and then the rest of the day is spent paying homage to the phallus. And there are two big events that evening: one is a mock war in which Japanese get to laugh at Western religion. It’s a battle royale between Jews and Genitals and the object of the fisticuffs is to argue which is better: wholesale or retail. And then that’s topped off with an auction in which penis-shaped radishes go to the highest bidder.

I used to know a guy in college named Dick Garnish…

The locals force open the door to the temple with this ramming rod.

dick5

THE COLOR AND PENIS DAY PAGEANTRY

Local maidens in traditional cockstume, don the almighty penis as part of the parade procession.

dick6

♦

dick7

MAKING MEMORIES

For tourists, souvenirs are plentiful. You’ll find shops along the parade route engorged with penis shaped trinkets and what not to remind of you of that very spatial day.

dick9

As you can plainly see, Buddha represents Japan’s girth of a nation.

Concession stands are rife with penis shaped treats. At this particular festival you will put nothing in your mouth that’s not penis shaped and you will drink imported Vodka only from penis shaped vessels. The locals will tell you that nothing helps celebrate “Penis Day” better than a shot of chilled Russian Jackov. As the logo states, “When you say Jackov, you’ve said a mouthful. Please swallow responsibly”.

Well, that’ll do it for this post. Happy Belated Penis Day, ya’ll. And next year, I encourage you to celebrate this wonderful tribute to the male dork. You’ll have fun, plus it’s a great party.

Don’t blow it…or do.

Our ObamaNation: The First 100 Days

2009 May 1

13 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

. obama-office

He is our president…elected by the people; not by a handful of Liberal agenda pushers fully convinced that “real change” represents ANYTHING not related to George W. Bush or that damned party he represents. No, Obama didn’t steal the election as he did in 2000, then again in 2004. That was a vast right wing conspiracy–the very same one that forced Clinton into having DNA rife stogie sex with that chubby, Jewess, White House intern.

Bush was also in cohoots with the CIA and NSA to “create” 9/11. The top secret government-backed disaster was the perfect prelude needed to turn the Orwellian paranoia of Big Brother into a reality. The so-called terrorist attack with fake 757’s and government placed bombs on all 110 floors of both WTC towers which killed just under three-thousand people, paved the way for the The Patriot Act. With that in place, the government can be everything that Alex Jones, David Icke, Art Bell, Courtney Brown, Zacharia Sitchen and every mentally impaired paranoid schizophrenic across the globe believes is true.

Not to be a pessmist, but come on!!! Bush was a bad man and Dick Cheney? Evil incarnate. He was the puppet master and pulled W’s strings for eight years and look where his actions have left this country. God knows how many additional terror attacks on American soil were thwarted, yet all he wanted was oil and to see that his cronies at Halliburton benefitted from it all.

As I said……evil.

Good thing Obama comes with no strings attached. No one is dictating political moves to this neophyte politician. He’s certainly the master of his domain and knows full well what bowing before Islamic fundamentalists and Hugo Chavez will do to this country.

I applaud his courage for bucking tradition. His philosphy of spending, spending, spending is exactly what this country needs during a time in which we teeter perilously close to a Depression, the likes of which we’ve never seen in this country.

But then again, that was Bush’s fault. He allowed the country to fall into emotional and fiscal disrepair. Why he was never charged with treason still amazes me.

But everything was automatically rectified on January 20, 2009. Bush left the White House and Obama and company moved in. We asked for change; we asked for solidarity; we demanded improvement.

And that’s exactly what we got.

It is, isn’t it?

To answer that audacious question, let’s take a look at everything Obama has done in his first 100 days in office:

Picked up a record number of airline mileage points – all on taxpayer expense.
In this day and age of troubled times, allowed First Lady to bring a cadre of staff including hair stylists, maniucurists, make-up artists, secretaries and fashion consultants to accompany her to Europe for the G-20 conference. All that and she still looked ridiculous while standing next to the near flawlessness of France’s First Lady, Carla Bruni Sarkozy.
Broke the Guinness Book of Records of flawless teleprompter speaking until this past week.
Made Bush’s deficit look like chump change.
Found more ways of raising taxes than all prior Presidents over the past 55 years combined.
Successfully surrendered and/or admitted full guilt for everything from war crimes to jaywalking to every country in the world in record time.
On an official state visit at the White House, he gave British PM and family, White House Souvenir Shop trinkets and 25 U.S. videos to a man who’s battle with vision has been well publicized.
Committed additional faux pas by trying to be hip in the global peepers by giving an 80-year old monarch an IPOD….a device perfect for a reigning despot who’s suffered significant hearing loss in recent years.
After having never run anything, he successfully became the Chaiman of the Board of General Motors, Chrysler and several major banks in just a few months.
Officially named NBC ”Secretary of Propaganda”.
Fulfilled his military obligation by agreeing to allow a few Navy SEAL sharpshooters to whack a couple of Somalian Pirates. Some in the Obama Adminstration admitted they felt sorry for the pirates, and even fewer claimed these maritime antics were the result of Somali anger toward poverty and harsh living conditions in their country, not to mention Bush and the evil GOP’s harsh treatment of the populace in Mogadishu. It was as if Bush and his Republican cronies ordered the 1993 U.S. military backed apprehension of Somali warlord, Mohamed Farrah Aidid and his subordinates reportedly hiding in a Mogadishu marketplace. The capture was well thought out—they had the intelligence to back up their intent. The incident was only supposed to take 60 minutes or less. Fifteen hours later, 1000 Somalis were dead, along with 19 American GI’s and a few Black Hawk helicopters.
With his unyeilding spending, created Pork Flu.
Fully convinced that TamiFlu is the name of sickly chick in one of the Dakotas.
Successfully scared the living feces out of New Yorkers by allowing Air Force One to hover around Manhatten at sky scraper level for a photo op without telling the 9/11 scarred masses about it. It wasn’t even April Fool’s Day. But after looking out of their windows and seeing this huge 747 looming large on the horizon, most New Yorkers named the day, “April Stools Day”, since that was the by-product created in undergarments that day.
Hired everyone he said he wasn’t going to hire into his administration.
Created more “Czars” than Russia ever had in its entire history.
Has become the hippest, most rock star-like President in history. Makes Clinton look like a hack.
Is the only President who has made Chris Matthews’ legs tingle.
Thinks Keith Olbermann is not only sane, but brilliant.

And what did Bush do in his first few months as president?

Not much. He just presided over a White House Easter Egg Hunt, opened a few schools, vacationed at his Texas ranch, then dealt with the worst domestic terrorist attack in American history.

But then again, he “created” 9/11 just to hammer home his agenda.

Musings On A Sunday Morning

2009 May 3

16 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

thinking

This morning, I was mindlessly flipping through the many channels of my TV, which is hooked to the large and rather unsightly satellite dish poised on the railing of my balcony. I pay 200 large each month to gain access to subscription TV channels.

I like variation.

They like infomercials.

There’s little to watch on an early Sunday morning and while access to cable and satellite grants you a much wider selection; there’s still very little choice. That’s when programming lapses into this ”Lamp Unto My Feet” mode. Religious shows are about all you can find. Oh yeah sure…the Beverly Hillbillies is on TV LAND but those are only good when filmed in black and white. The versions playing now allow you see how brown and dingy Irene Ryan ’s (TV’s “Granny”) teeth really were.

Not exactly the vision I want to wake up to.

As sprituality is concerned, I haven’t been much of a church goer in recent years. I’m not sure why. I think for me, reading and certain aspects of enlightenment stole orgnized religion’s thunder. I’ve discovered that my prayers are always answered in the affirmative or the negative as often at home, as they are when I’m begging, grovelling and deal brokering in a cavernous Catholic church.

But today, my channel flipping landed on a local station that was broadcasting Houston’s religious wünderkind, Joel Osteen. I listened to his homespun SE Texas delivery. I watched his broad smile and eyes that become the tiniest of facial slits when he goes happy face. Jesus often comes into play in Joel’s homilies, but God always seem to be le sujet chaque dimanche matin.

Then, I wonder why he even has to make distinctions between the two. I was taught as a young Catholic sapling that God is comprised of three persons: “And noooooowwwwww……Welome the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit to the stage!!!!!!!!!”

In early 1999, my niece was killed in a traffic accident. I hadn’t been to mass in probably 12 years prior to her funeral mass that her uncle…a bishop and promiment figure among Texas Catholics, kept talking about Holly already being in Heaven with Jesus.

When did that happen? I was always taught that we were buried facing east so when Gabriel comes down from the heavens to blow his clarion indicating the end of days, we would rise again…a la Jesus. Once our life-brimming bodies are resurrected, we emerge from our graves and like so much ectoplasm, we’d float right on to Heaven. I can’t remember where I was taught our spirits go in the interim, but I seem to remember that spirit and it’s former humanly vessel will be united in some way when the world ended.

And then there’s the Rapture. That was never part of my Catholic lexicon as the nuns, priests and well intentioned lay people tried to teach me diocesan Catechism. But I think the Rapture inidcates Stage One of The End. I’ve heard religious zealotry describe it as something of a flash: one minute you’re here, the next minute you’re not. You’re sitting at your desk then suddenly, the din created by toiling in cubicles ceases and you’re all alone. Those who disappeared into thin air got lucky–they lived good, God and Jesus fearing, sanctified lives and that earned them a big ol’ E-ticket to come on up to groove in paradise for forever and ever, Amen.

But if you’re the one left wondering what the hell happened……well, get used to hearing that word a lot because hell on earth is about to unfold before your eyes. Watch for four really ugly men on horseback whose very beings represent war, pestilence, famine and death.

I can’t fathom perpetuity…infinity. Eeschatology is a difficult concept to swallow. Does Hell last forever? What happens to it at the end of the world? What happens to a fully raptured planet? It’s remains empty and whithers away do to neglect? What happens after all the good people who ascend upward to the Heavens above and the bad ones fall to the very depths–is that all there is? We part ways? Half gets to experience sublimnity while the other half are sent to toil amid the flames? Why must we even have an end? What’s the logic in destroying this embattled, but still beautiful planet?

Why can’t we just come back as enlightened people each time?

And what about the acceptance of Jesus Christ as lord and savior serves as the ONLY way one can gain entrance into the kingdom of heaven???

I don’t get it. Moses, Abraham, Jesus’ grandparents and anyone else who lived and died before that first auspicious Easter when Jesus died. He wasn’t their Messiah. He wasn’t even born yet. So, logically one could surmise that based on this particular infallable Christian tenet, that Moses, King David, et.al. are in Hell. Apparently, so are billions of Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and tribes who live primitively near a savannah in Africa or near the banks of the Amazon who’ve rarely seen cultivated man, much less know squat about Jesus or the God I’ve been referring to….what about them? Are they hellbound??? Condemned to hell for innocently being ignorant of Christian ways and means?

Why?

And why death and its permanence? To think we only get one shot at life seems to defeat the purpsoe.

When man first supposedly emerged from the promordial glue of Life as living flotsam, then began walking upright, then learned about the positives attached to eating protien riddled, brain-feeding meat along with the invention of simple machines and fire, we soon began to learn that life worked better if it included structure. Needed was a leader, his followers, workers, nurterers, hunter/gatherers and if they were really lucky and progressive thinking, they’d understand that some semblance of a democratic process was the only effective way to live communally.

And here’ are a few more things about me. I adulterate my Scotch with soda; I’ll put ketchup on a lesser quality steak and I believe in evolution. I think it’s ongoing, actually. Well, to a degree anyway. Who can deny it’s in play while watching the amazing growth cycle of a child from zygote to toddler to teen to adult? Who can’t see proof of evolution when looking at a once, youthful, dewey, fresh face, now wrinkled and jaded in appearance and NOT understand this process is real and happening before our very eyes?

Furthermore, I don’t buy the reality that God clapped his hands seven times over a seven day period and that created the universe and all who live in it. I kind of think man has been always been around; that reincarnation exists as we live. Sorry all you Vedas out there, but I believe this has some credibility. Think about it: Monkey people/knuckle draggers turned cro-mag, turned thinkers. Every time man as a species dies out which happens all the time, a new and improved version arrives on the scene. Over the millenia, life taught our forefathers keep building the proverbial better mouse trap. They learned that a split level Tuscan style condo with a modernized kitchen and media room selling in the lower 400-thousands (and city adjacent) serves as a much better dwelling than a lowly cave. People represent progress. When you think about, it’s hard not to believed that as humans, we aren’t recyclable. It just doesn’t seem plausible to believe that all that spirit,spunk and talent and brilliance just simply evaporates into the ether.

What a waste.

And who will replace us? Those who live in sky towers; who drive flying jet cars, who can cook roast beef dinners for 12 in mere seconds and have busy body robotic maids with Brooklyn accents named Rosie?

We are poised right on the brink of the Jetsonian Era.

Nevertheless, we are as we have been, as we will always be: greedy, jealous, slovenly, lustful, proud, anger ridden and gluttons for both food and punishment. Simply put, we are human. Programmed to be errant. And if we’re lucky and normal, we’re also programmed to understand how to rectify our errancy.

When I think about the future, I see a blur. It’s dizzying; hard to even try to see it in a sensical manner. I used to see it in amazing clarity. Youth makes the view 20/20. If you’ve been able to place enough life in your quiver, you begin to understand how this whole process of life works. You live and you understand you’re in far more contr0l than you ever thought possible.

Faith that good things can still happen is as tough as living in a limited world and believing blindly that a religious prophet once had to prove his prowress to ignorant people by walking on water, healing a leper here and there with a touch of his hand and turning fish into loaves. These people, so limited in scope, couldn’t possibly wrap their heads around logic; but they could easily and readily understand magic and mysticism. Magic for them, was visually tactile.

And that’s made it believable.

A metaphoric firey charriot (or a perfectly timed meteor) racing across the sky explained more to these people than a text ever could. As mentioned above, faith often needs proof in order to stay in the cranial forefront and that’s what Jesus’ apostolic followers gave these people. They gave them an option. The uneducated who couldn’t keep up with ever evolving intellectualism of Judaism, needed something else. Christanity got the nod. Proponents needed these souls to believe. So, the story goes that Jesus Christ could die like a human; but like a god they intended him to be, he couldn’t stay dead. He’d be back.

If someone doesn’t believe this, shouldn’t he or she have the right to ask if the Bible’s authors were nothing but propagandists???

It’s easy to think this way. Today, miracles don’t happen in a biblical context. Never again will we see anyone walk on water. Those kind of miracles don’t exist–unless of course, you think the invention of a Wave Runner is the next best thing. No one produces loaves from fishes anymore. We do it today in mass production with flour, water, yeast and riboflavin in gigantic ovens which produce thousands of loaves everyday.

Lastly, I think miracles are idiosyncratic. They’re what you need them to be. Personally, I don’t think of my life as existing in a chasm of religious goal orientation. I don’t necessarily worry if I slip up on the controls of those ten idioms that Moses was so closely attached, I’ll be condemned to hell for perpetuity.

Save for murder. Nor am I a fan of infidelity or coveting neighbors’ stuff either.

I also believe we endure periods of hell in our lifetimes. Fire and brimstone are used euphemistically. Hell is prison. Hell is lonliness. Hell is helplessness. Hell is being mentally and emotionally skewed. Hell is hunger, drought, unemployment and loss.

Hell is poverty. It is lonliness and grief. Hell is burying your baby. It’s kissing your husband’s lifeless face in the waning seconds before the life saving equipment is shut off. It’s looking back on a life poorly lived knowing full well that your particular clock that controls everything, is about to strike 12.

Hell is regret.

Far be it from me to gaslight your Godly reality, whatever that might be. I want you to believe in what you must; in whatever gets you through the night. I’m no different from any other human who’s ever walked on this big blue marble. I’ve loved and hated and accomplished and failed. Uderstandably, after living a life rife with arrears in faith, hope, love and mankind in general, I understand what it’s like to want and need to believe in the possibility that something better could happen somewhere else, at some other time.

But when specifically never comes hard and fast. You question why. This is where the inexcplicable, but all purpose explanation–” everything happens in God’s time” comes into play.

Faith is all we have, really. Whether that’s geared at God, Allah, Vishnu or the Druidic “Green Man” or the Denver Bronocs, we all need to believe in something. Everyday I wake up in the morning to face the day ahead and I understand just how vital that is. Prayer is important; it is empowering. Belief in a higher power is important too….but so is the belief in ourselves. That we’re often in more control than we realize.

I have only recently understood how relevant that is to the story line behind the “The Wizard of Oz”. There she was, this misplaced Kansan named Dorothy, galavating around this strange land in ruby slippers thanks to a tornado and her farmhouse’s open pier and beam foundation. She learned at the very end of her long, difficult journey to the Emerald City, that by clicking her slippers together, she alone had the power to go home the entire time, she just didn’t know it.

You see, she never needed a wizard.

She simply needed wisdom and so do we, folks.

So Long, Dominic…

2009 May 5

by Laurie Kendrick

FROM CNN:

Dom DeLuise, who spiced up such movies as “Blazing Saddles,” “Silent Movie” and “The Cannonball Run” with his manic delivery and roly-poly persona, has died, his son’s publicist said. dom-d

Publicist Jay Schwartz did not disclose the cause of death, but DeLuise, 75, had been battling cancer for more than a year.

DeLuise was surrounded by family when he died in a Santa Monica, California, hospital Monday night, acording to his son, Michael DeLuise..

DeLuise was most famous for his supporting roles in a number of Mel Brooks films, including 1974’s “Saddles” — in which he played a flamboyant musical director who led dancers in a number called “The French Mistake” — and 1976’s “Silent Movie,” in which he played the assistant to Brooks’ director Mel Funn. He was also in the Brooks-directed “The Twelve Chairs” (1970), “Spaceballs” (1987) and “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” (1993).

But he could also assay more serious roles, most notably in the 1980 dark comedy “Fatso,” in which he played an overweight man trying to wean himself from comfort food. The film was directed by Brooks’ wife, Anne Bancroft.

Dominic DeLuise was born in Brooklyn, New York, on August 1, 1933. In the 1960s he had bit parts in a handful of movies, including “Fail Safe” (1964), but became well known as a regular on “The Entertainers” and a Dean Martin variety show. He had his own summer replacement show in 1968 and was a regular on Glen Campbell’s “Goodtime Hour” in 1971-72.

DeLuise had three sons — Peter, Michael and David — who all became actors. He told Larry King that it was the “joy of my life” to work with his oldest son, Peter, when he directed the film “Second Nature.”

His wife of 40 years, actress Carol Arthur, appeared in several movies with him, including “Blazing Saddles” and “Silent Movie,” according to DeLuise’s Web site.

DeLuise worked closely on several films with pal Gene Wilder, who in 2002 told Larry King that of all of his co-stars, DeLuise “makes me laugh the most.”

♦

Well, there you have it; a brief summation of a life lived in service of making others laugh.

I always liked Dom DeLuise and thought him to be a kind and gentle man. Laughter was important to him because he knew that it was important to his fans. And when it came to delivering the comedy, he rarely ever failed.

I realized that he was everything I thought him to be when he came to KLOL-FM, a now osbolete, but once storied and widly popular FM rocker that raised generations of SE Texas. I worked there for most of the 90’s and in 1997, I had the priveledge of booking him as a guest on the Stevens and Pruett Show, a Southeast Texas morning radio staple. The show was hilarious, if I say so myself and a little on the blue side of comedy.

Simply put, Dom DeLuise had a blast doing our show and was, in a word—wonderful. He was bright and alive and you couldn’t help but be drawn to him.

His handlers called me before the show and made said something to the affect that Dom would require sustenance for his hour long interview. But it had to be something had “protein and was kind of diety“.

I went to a supermarket not far from the station in order to buy and comply. I knew he loved his food. He was something of a chef in his own right and I knew he’d written a few cookbooks, but he never bemoaned the fact that he had always been rather tubby. To the point where I often mistook Dom for Cajun/Creole Chef Extraordinaire and fellow heavy weight, Paul Prudhomme when he was at his heaviest.

See the resemblance?

Anyway, I bought a half pound of sodium reduced ham and turkey and a 4 oz. container of small curd cottage cheese and a small box of Triscuits.

I took it back to the station where I proceeded to make “Dom’s Diet Crepe WannaBe’s a la Laurie”.

He arrived a few minutes later and with black coffee, a large bottle of water and a lovely, doily-covered wicker tray containing his ham and turkey roll-ups, surrounded by a sea of Triscuits.

He walked in at 8:45 AM and when the show ended an hour and 15 minutes later, the meats and cottage were gone and I had just under a quarter of the box of Triscuits left. I of course, kept a few and stried to sell the rest to the higheast bidder.

No takers. I gave a few away and actually, ended up saving the box, but for some reason, I didn’t get him to sign the box. I shake my head in disbelief when those moments of clarity hit and I realize I didn’t get the box autogaphed.

I certainly regret it today.

After the show ended, this lovely man, sated from a rather impromptu brunch, stood up and hugged the entire staff, then graciously thanked us for a wonderful morning. He also agreed to photo ops.

You are about to see one such opportunity.

I was walking back from the KLOL staph bathroom and noticed Dom was hugging one of the administrative assitants. They were blocking my entry back into the studio. So, I was able to hide behind Dom as he hugged young Dot, but balls and audacity took over when I heard the photographer count to three. So when Mr Minolta got down to ”three”, I lept out. Oh yeah…that’s not a zit on my nose either, though 12-years after the fact, I can’t remember exactly what it was.

Anyhoo, here’s my goofy, unbecoming large mouth bass impersonation that was regrettably, captured on Kodak paper for posterity:

lk-dot-and-dom

Goodbye Dom. Sleep well and thank you for the memories.

“I’m Not A Monster!”

2009 May 6

22 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

I grew up in a small town just 50 miles SE of San Antonio. Consequently, I grew up watching San Antonio TV programming…local and that which they had to broadcast due to network affiliation…three of them. We had few options as far as TV viewing was concerned. But that was OK, we knew nothing different. At the time we thought cable was either strong and metallic and often used in commercial construction OR…something you shat. But we had our share of entertainment progrms.

For example: one of the main things that kids grew up with in the SA- TV market was this homespun series on the CBS affiliate, KENS-TV, every Friday night at 10:30, immediately after the news. It was entitled, “Project Terror” and was an early weekend taple for every kid I knew.

It had a most memorable intro, which featured an animated atom and this scary sounding alarm that honked it’s way through the intro, which considering the schlock factor of most of the flicks featured on “Project Terror”, was often scarier than the movie itself.

Just for you San Antonio area kids now in your mid-to-late 40’s a of course, the 50-plussers: I present you with a newer, modified version of the reason why power usage soared every Friday night . That’s because when the scarier movies were shown, we often we ended up sleeping with the lights on.

Not exactly the way we all remember the intro, but it’ll trigger memories and for those of you not from the SA area, it’ll give you an idea of what the original opening appeared.

It was a ritual with my mid-sis, Karol and me and whoever was spending Friday night with us. We’d get into our pajamas then make popccorn, cookies or brownies (sometimes both), then we’d raid the fridge at Casa Kendrick for Cokes, ice cream….whatever that was cold and slurpable, then in the early 60’s, we settled in before our black and white Zenith.

After 1968, viewing took place in front of our massive solid state, color Curtis Mathes.

We’d watch such late 50’s horror classics as “The Screaming Skull”, “The Tingler”, “The Fly”, “13 Ghosts” (the orginal)….even “Plan 9 From Outer Space”.

Two hours later, when the movie ended, we believed tha the_tingler t we could someday land on the moon, meet vampire Martians and live with what looked like huge, nasty centipede looking creatures which could call our spines home.

Then, there were movies about dead bodies being reanimated and of course, a woman was attacked by a evil-doer with a vile of acid. Her face was essentially burned off, yet the Mad Scientist over in yonder castle was just crazy enough to attempt to give her a face transplant, thanks to the grave robbing of the recently dead.

THAT was entertaining, but impossible. A face transplant??? An extremely interesting, but far-fetched concept to wrap one’s pre-pubescent head around.

But here I am , some 44 years later and Vincent Price, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosse ’s strange “science fiction movie doctorin’ “, is now science fact.

Please read the following story. I found it absolutely amazing.

♦

CLEVELAND (AP) – When Connie Culp heard a little kid call her a monster because of the shotgun blast that left her face horribly disfigured, she pulled out her driver’s license to show the child what she used to look like. Years later, as the nation’s first face transplant recipient, she’s stepped forward to show the rest of the world what she looks like now.

LIia Culp's before and after photo, supplied by the Cleveland Clinic

Her expressions are still a bit wooden, but she can talk, smile, smell and taste her food again. Her speech is at times a little tough to understand. Her face is bloated and squarish. Her skin droops in big folds that doctors plan to pare away as her circulation improves and her nerves grow, animating her new muscles.

But Culp had nothing but praise for those who made her new face possible.

“I guess I’m the one you came to see today,” the 46-year-old Ohio woman said at a news conference at the Cleveland Clinic, where the groundbreaking operation was performed. But “I think it’s more important that you focus on the donor family that made it so I could have this person’s face.”

Until Tuesday, Culp’s identity and how she came to be disfigured were a secret.

Culp’s husband, Thomas, shot her in 2004, then turned the gun on himself. He went to prison for seven years. His wife was left clinging to life. The blast shattered her nose, cheeks, the roof of her mouth and an eye. Hundreds of fragments of shotgun pellet and bone splinters were embedded in her face. She needed a tube into her windpipe to breathe. Only her upper eyelids, forehead, lower lip and chin were left.

A plastic surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Risal Djohan, got a look at her injuries two months later. “He told me he didn’t think, he wasn’t sure, if he could fix me, but he’d try,” Culp recalled.

She endured 30 operations to try to fix her face. Doctors took parts of her ribs to make cheekbones and fashioned an upper jaw from one of her leg bones. She had countless skin grafts from her thighs. Still, she was left unable to eat solid food, breathe on her own, or smell.

Then, on Dec. 10, in a 22-hour operation, Dr. Maria Siemionow led a team of doctors who replaced 80 percent of Culp’s face with bone, muscles, nerves, skin and blood vessels from another woman who had just died. It was the fourth face transplant in the world, though the others were not as extensive.

“Here I am, five years later. He did what he said — I got me my nose,” Culp said of Djohan, laughing.

In January, she was able to eat pizza, chicken and hamburgers for the first time in years. She loves to have cookies with a cup of coffee, Siemionow said.

No information has been released about the donor or how she died, but her family members were moved when they saw before-and-after pictures of Culp, Siemionow said.

Culp said she wants to help foster acceptance of those who have suffered burns and other disfiguring injuries.

“When somebody has a disfigurement and don’t look as pretty as you do, don’t judge them, because you never know what happened to them,” she said. “Don’t judge people who don’t look the same as you do. Because you never know. One day it might be all taken away.”

It’s a role she has already practiced, said clinic psychiatrist Dr. Kathy Coffman.

Once while shopping, she heard a little kid say, `You said there were no real monsters, Mommy, and there’s one right there,’” Coffman said. Culp stopped and said, “I’m not a monster. I’m a person who was shot,” and pulled out her driver’s license to show the child what she used to look like, the psychiatrist said.

Culp, who is from the small town of Unionport, near the Pennsylvania line, told her doctors she just wants to blend back into society. She has a son and a daughter who live near her, and two preschooler grandsons. Before she was shot, she and her husband ran a painting and contracting business, and she did everything from hanging drywall to a little plumbing, Coffman said.

Culp left the hospital Feb. 5 and has returned for periodic follow-up care. She has suffered only one mild rejection episode that was controlled with a single dose of steroid medicines, her doctors said. She must take immune-suppressing drugs for the rest of her life, but her dosage has been greatly reduced and she needs only a few pills a day.

The clinic expects to absorb the cost of the transplant because it was experimental, doctors said. Siemionow estimated it at $250,000 to $300,000. That is less than the $1 million that other surgeons estimate it costs them to treat other severely disfigured people through dozens of separate operations, she said.

Also at the Cleveland Clinic is Charla Nash of Stamford, Conn., who was attacked by a friend’s chimpanzee in February. She lost her hands, nose, lips and eyelids, and will be blind, doctors said. Clinic officials said it is premature to discuss the possibility of a face transplant for her.

In April, doctors at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston performed the nation’s second face transplant, on a man disfigured in a freak accident. It was the world’s seventh such operation. The first, in 2005, was performed in France on Isabelle Dinoire, a woman who had been mauled by her dog.

♦

Almost incredulous, right? But it’s a reality and one I am lucky enough to have seen in my lifetime.

Technology never ceases to amaze me.

Your Thursday Nun Joke

2009 May 7

by Laurie Kendrick

Two Nuns are running late for Mass. nuns-on-bikes1

Instead of wasting time on hailing a taxi, they decide to ride their bicycles while taking a shortcut which includes several back streets of the older part of Rome.

One nun peddles along and looks around at the unfamiliar territory, then leans over to the other nun and says, “I’ve never come this way before”.

The other Nun giggles and whispers, “I know what you mean. It’s the cobblestones!”

vile weekend humor: “can you spare $5?”

2009 May 7

by Laurie Kendrick

This is the second in a series of tasteless jokes. Did you see Thursday’s entry? It’s about nuns.

And you’re back……

Now, enjoy this weekend’s tasteless offering:

Sally Struthers loves kids....in a nice mushroom sauce!!!!

Hi, I’m with “The World’s Hungriest Kid Foundation” and I’m here to tell about Zani.

He’s a nine-year old boy living in Namibia. He has only one arm and one leg, and a malformed foot.

Each day this brave nine-year-old rides seven miles to school along dusty roads that are littered with craters from land mines, on a bicycle with bent wheels, no brakes and only one working pedal. The working pedal is on the side of his missing leg. And the poor lad’s deformed foot continues to have difficulty in mastering the pedaling process.

He even has to balance the few schoolbooks he has on his head, sneezing all the while due to allergies to native grasses.

So, please dig deep in your heart and wallet and send me a mere $5. Broken Bike Wheels That’s all. Just send me five bills and I’ll send you (with free shipping and handling) a gently used DVD of Zani trying to ride his bike.

It’s fucking hilarious!!!!!

A Bush Joke

2009 May 11

by Laurie Kendrick

Karl Rove calls former George Bush at his new home in Dallas.

“Mr. President, I’ve just received a threat on this office and we believe it’s a very viable one, Sir”.

“Aw, come on now Rover! You know we get 368 threats everyday—and that’s after we left office. I’m retired now. Them threats is all idle. Shoot!”

“Well that’s actually the idea, Sir. They’ll do just that IF you don’t give in to their demand”.

“Oh? And what’s that?”

“Well, Mr. President…they want you to make long, languid love to a woman. A virgin, Sir. And a Democrat”.

“Now come on, Karl. You know I’m a happily married man. I took a vow to stay faithful to my wife. I ain’t gonna make no Democrat–much less a woman. By the way, who’s making this demand?”

“The Mafia, Sir”.

“That Soprano fella?

“No Sir. The real mafia…La Cosa Nostra, the Black Hand..that “thing” of theirs”.

“Well that’s very different. I suppose my death would severely cut back on the amount of time I’d get to go to the ranch and move around tree limbs, kick shrubs and what not. I guess I’ll do it, but I have a few conditions myself”.

“Alright, Mr. Bush perhaps we can negotiate that with their Consulieri. What are your conditions, Sir?”

“First of all, she’s got to be blind so she can’t see who’s defiling her”.

“Yessir, go on”.

“Secondly, she must be a mute…can’t talk so she can tell no one about the egregious act I’m being forced to committ”.

“Yessir. Anything else, Mr. President?”

“Yeah Rover–one more condition. Thirdly..she uh…..she uh…..she….”

“Yessir…go on!”

“She’s got to have big ones….Like this!!!!!!”

Yeah….I know. Old joke, but when I saw this photo of “W”, I had to do it.

Calling All Border Patrol Agents:

2009 May 11

by Laurie Kendrick

Be on the lookout for a 1951 Chevrolet sedan with cherry red body and white hardtop roof. Last seen in the vicinity near the International Bridge in Laredo, Texas, 3:21 PM (CST) , May 11, 2009.

Eyewitness accounts indicate illegal immigrants might be transporting the vehicle.

Occupants are considered armed and barefooted.

Caution: Very smelly feet

Small Town Life and TV Trivia

2009 May 12

by Laurie Kendrick

BEING ENTERTAINED, CON Y SIN COLORES

I was a kid in the 60’s; a teen in the 70’s. TV was my world. TV SET 1

What I find so vastly different between then and now is all the color we see on the tube. And I mean that it in more ways than one.

I remember the first time I say down in front of a color TV…..wow. The first program I remember watching in color was “Bewitched”.

I had no idea that Endora has red hair, that the Stevens’ living room carpet was brown. I had no idea that Uncle Arthur was gay. But Uncle Artie sure reminded me a lot of our Aunt Charles.

I suppose the first black person I saw on TV was in a crowd scene on an old black and white version of “The Andy Griffith Show”, circa 1962. Ever noticed that anyone NOT from Mayberry, even if they were from Mount Pilot or Raleigh, sounded like they were born and raised in the Bronx?

What was that all about.

Then, the second time I saw Black person on TV, was on “The Dick Van Dyke Show”. Laura had just given birth and she and Rob thought the hospital had mistakenly given them the wrong baby–NOT Richie “Rosebud” Petri. Something about the baby’s footprints or something. Rob was convinced the baby actually belonged to the Peters family, an easy mistake since Rob and Laura’s last name was similarly spelled. So, Rob tracked down the Peters and explained the situation and invited them to his home, you know, the one in New Rochelle on Bonnie Meadow Road.

There’s a knock on the door; Rob answers it and the fun ensues when Greg Morris and his wife step inside. See, Greg Morris is a black man, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! The hospital COULDN’T have switched the babies for the obvious reasons. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Innocuous by today’s standards, but cutting edge for its day, especially considering the Civil Rights movement at the time.

What’s strange to realize is that there were probably people watching who were repulsed–for lack of a better word–that Rob so kindly invited a young, black couple into his home, his white man’s palace. Stranger still is this sentiment was felt all over, not just in the South. Prejudice has never known geographic boundaries.

After that, came “Julia”, Dianne Carrol’s groundbreaking role about a young African American mother and nurse, trying to raise her son, played by Marc Copage. Lloyd Nolan played the old crumudgeonly doctor for whom she worked. Whenever he’d arrive at the office, he’d throw his cap from across the room and it would always hit the peg in the hat wrack. Her son’s best friend was a little red-headed white kid named Earl J. Waggedorn.

Why I remember this trivial minutia is beyond me. Lord knows that from 1973 through most of 1988, I tried my best to ruin all of my brain cells and their capacity to retain anything.

But I’m not the only one. Other people my age remember these things too. Could this be because kids in my generation actually watched TV because that’s all we had to do back then?

When we watched, we watched thoroughly. We got into it…completely immersed im to network programming. We watched everything–the intro, the show itself, the commercials; the opening credits theme….even the credits.

Here’s proof:

“Calvada” was the name of the production company which produced “The Dick Van Dyke Show”.

Wilbur Hatch actually conducted the Ricky Ricardo Orchestra.

“Journey to the Unknown” on ABC. The intro was a single camera walking through a deserted amusement park. The series was creepy….Rod Serling-esque and produced by the Brits and it always featured B-list American actors. I suppose if it were on the tube today, we’d see the likes of Dustin Diamond (TV’s “Screech”), Omarosa, Lou Ferrigno, Cheryl Ladd and Melissa Gilbert in spooky scenarios.

The facade of the Stevens’ house that we saw each week on “Bewitched”—brought to you by Chevrolet, was situated in suburban New York (the one on Morning Glory Circle). It’s still used today, most recently used in a fairly recent Chistmas Fruit of the Loom underwear ad. Oh yeah, the interior was used in “The Patty Duke Show” (…”because their cousins…identical cousins and you’ll find…they laugh alike, they talk alike…at times they even walk alike….you can lose your mind!!!!!”)

Don Fedderson produced “My Three Sons”.

Jay Sommers wrote “Green Acres”.

“Welch’s” brought us “The Flintstone’s” when the animated show–based on Jackie Gleason’s “The Honeymooners”– was on prime time. Wrigleys and Kool Cigarettes also got into the sponsor ad action in the late sixties. And anyone remember all those in-show commercials? I remember Pebbles grabbing her stone-honed, grape juice-filled sippy cup and saying in her best Jurassic baby talk dialect that she was jonesin’ for Welch’s ”Goo-goo, Gape Goo”. Barney and Fred were out behind the house puffing away on Kool’s or Salem’s or Pall Mall’s or Winston’s or Marlboro or Chesterfield’s.

Max Factor–the brilliant Hollywood make-up artist and founder of his own make-up line of the same name–did make-up for most of TV’s elite in the 50’s and 60′.s

Archie and Edith Bunker lived at 704 Houser Street; Lucy and Ricky lived at 623 East 68th Street.

“Botany 500″ dressed Gene Rayburn on “Match Game” featuring the drunken actics of The First Lady of Goodson/Todman game shows–Miss Charles Nelson Riley and the raspy voiced stylings of Brett Sommers (Mrs. Jack Klugman)

Color was by “Deluxe”; lenses were all Panaflex, thank you very much.

“Sky King” was sponsored by Nabisco and when he banked his plane to the left, the wingspan formed the exact same shape as Nabisco triangle and the logo came spinning out at the viewer.

Bing Crosby would haul out his family to help him host, “The Hollywood Palace”. His daughter, Mary Catherine, would grow up to shoot J.R. Ewing.

Speaking of Bing, two of the biggest production companies in Tinsel Town were owned by Lucy and Desi and Bing Crosby. The two constantly duked it out for producing credits back in the day. Danny Thomas was a producer to be reckoned with, too.

Nope, kids today don’t watch TV as we did. We didn’t merely watch it…we studied it.

Do you think today’s 8-year old would know that Ishiro Sakahura is one of the Art Directors for ”Dora the Explorer”??

No.

Or that most NBC sitcoms are filmed at Sunset-Gower studios in Hollywood?

No.

Today’s kids have more distractions, more stuff to do, but less space in which to do it.

Dangers lurk everywhere these days and parents rarely let kids play in a fenced in backyard without proper supervision.

Sad.

And sometime, what doesn’t get them outside of the home, gets them inside their homes. Neglect and abuse are rampant.

When I was a kid on a Saturday morning in the summer, my friends and I got on our bikes at 9am and came back home in time for supper. Our mothers didn’t know where we were and more often not, didn’t worry. It was a different time and I think it’s because we were a different people. More trusting, less worried maybe. Shit has always happened, but back then, it didn’t seem to matter that much or we never heard about it. Perhaps we were more mindful to keep family business within the family.

The blissful ignorance of yesteryear.

That’s not to say I was always 100-percent safe and never got into trouble. When I did however, my grandmother always found out somehow and never punished me—she let Mater and Pater do that, but she tried to ensure whatever it was I did, would be the first and last time I’d ever do it. My grandmother was the Queen of Cautionary Tales

I couldn’t sleep near an open window, lest the Gypsies would steal me in the night and make me dance for the money they’d throw.

There’s the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.

There was Texas’ own Bonnie and Clyde, not to mention other vile, shoot-to kill Highway men were looking for little girls just so they could turn them in to little corpses.

And the Black Dahlia murderer was still on the loose.

Not to mention the fact that my grandmother felt certain Lee Harvey Oswald had an equally insane brother lurking in every tall building, though that particular fear factor never held much water. The tallest thing in my hometown was the water tower…with Class of ‘77 sprayed in Halloween orange across the side.

She’d also regale with stories that every little town had at least one Bates Motel in it.

Obviously, my grandmother stopped reading the newspaper after 1964.

“The Middle Wife”

2009 May 13

by Laurie Kendrick

Originally penned by an anonymous teacher and sent to me via e-mail.

I’ve been teaching second grade for about 15 years now. I also have two children of my own, so nothing that spews forth from a child’s mouth surprises me. But this story was just too funny for me not to share It’s truly the best birthing story I’ve ever heard.

Here goes:

When I was a kid, my favorite part of school was those days in which we had “Show and Tell”. So, I’ve often included that as part of my classroom curriculum. So I always have a few sessions with my students a few times each month. I believe it helps them get over any shyness and usually, show-and-tell is pretty tame. So, if they’ve got an item or an experience they want to share with theirclassmates, I say, “bring it”.

Well, one day, several years ago, this little girl, Erica, a very cute, bright, outgoing kid, takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater. She appears to be very pregnant.

She then holds up a snapshot of a newborn infant.

Then, she announces quite proudly, “This is Luke, my baby brother, and
I’m going to tell you about real birthday. Ok, first, Mom and Dad made him as a symbol of their love, and then Dad put a seed in my Mom’s stomach, and Luke grew in there. He ate stomach for nine months through an umbrella cord. They let me watch the whole thing.”

Erica is standing there, with her hands on the pillow, back slightly arched and I’m sitting there, trying desperately not to laugh and regretting that today of all days, I didn’t bring my video recorder to school with me.

The kids are watching her in amazement. Their eyes are fixed on every movement and they’re hanging on to every word.

She continues.

“Then, about two Saturdays ago, my Mom starts saying and going, “Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!!!!”

That’s when little Erica puts one hand on her hand on her stomach; the other hand around her back and groans as if she was in severe pain.

‘My mom walked around the house for, like an hour, shouting ‘Oh, oh, oh!’

Now darling girl is doing this strange but hysterical duck walk while groaning and moaning the entire time.

”My Dad called the middle wife, who delivers babies, but she doesn’t have a sign on the car like the Domino’s man. They got my Mom to lie down in bed like this.’”

Then Erica lies down with her back against the wall, legs still spread and still looking very pregnant.

“And then, pop! My Mom had this bag of water she kept in there in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up like a water balloon and spilled all over the bed, like ‘Psshhheew!’

Erica now has her legs splayed with her little hands mimicking water flowing out of her little private parts.

“Then the middle wife starts saying ‘push, push,’ and ‘breathe, breathe!!’. They started counting, but never even got past ten because all of a sudden my brother comes out. He was covered in yucky stuff that that my dad said came from her play-center, (placenta) so there must be a lot of toys up inside there. When he got out all the way, the middle wife spanked him, I guess for crawling up there in the first place.”

Then Erica stood up, pulled out the pillow, took a big theatrical bow and returned to her seat.

I’m sure I applauded the loudest. Ever since that episode, when it’s show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder. You know… just in case another ‘Middle Wife’ comes along.

Mahmoud In The City (Redux)

2009 May 14

by Laurie Kendrick

Personally, I don’t think Iranian madman and freakishly frequent smiler, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been in the news enough lately. I intend to correct that by republishing an old post (from the early fall of 2007) which focused on the “Persian Perversion’s” controversial visit to New York City.

Come back next week. I’ve got fresh crap waiting in the wings.

♦

My friend, Miriam Lansing’s husband’s brother’s next door neighbor’s great nephew’s college roommate, Donnie, is a bellhop at the hotel where Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stayed during his recent trip to New York City. Donnie’s girlfriend works in the hotel’s Housekeeping department.

While she and her crew were cleaning Ahmadinejad’s suite, she found the Iranian potentate’s photo diary of his New York visit. She stole it. (Obviously, her therapy regarding her issues with kleptomania isn’t going as well as Donnie’s family had hoped!)

But we’re pretty darn happy about i that because Miss Sticky Fingers had the good sense to send the stolen booty to us here at Laurie Industries. We were told to do with it whatever we wanted.

Well, we wanted to publish it, so here it is.

*******************************************************************************

DAY ONE:

Dear Diary,

America is nice country. People here greet me on side of streets with many sign. Here is photo of me after making touch ground at Kennedy F. John Airport.

See? Mahmoud very happy!! Big smile. Proof to Americas that me is nice guy, sure!

The nice peoples gave me tour of New York. We went all over to see sights and famous things. Here is me at Tall Green Statue Liberty Lady with Torch Standing in the Water. I wave back at her.

Again, I happy to be in America.

DAY TWO:

Here I am at foot of Empire Building of State looking up. Yes, I like tall building….is nice. Here is happy photo of me proving I like.

DAY TWO AFTERNOON:

Food very good in New York. Many tasty bistros. After rowdy UN address, I very hungry. Here is picture of me ordering two house specials at counter at “Osama’s Wings and More” on East 83rd.

And here is picture of me to enjoy pretty view of ducks in pond in Central Park.

OOOPS!!!! How did THAT get in there????

DAY THREE:

Here is photo of me in meeting.

I no want to go big Jewish settlement called Brooklyn. I ask body guard and security detail to please passover that place. They say no!!! Must go. So, I say OK. I be nice, smile and shook the Great Satan’s hand anyway.

LAST NIGHT IN NYC:

Me feelings still hurt about audience response at Columbia when I say “no homosexuals in my country, Iran”. I not really sure what they are!

My security mens say last night in city must be spent out and about. Take my mind off feelings from speech. We go to inspect famous New York City night life. I no drink but I like to smoke Egyptian ciggies and look at mens. Oh, scuze me. PR man tell me that is womens. I like to look at womends. Not really sure what they are either!

Here is me and nice guy I meet name Lance at “The Manhole”, a club in very, very friendly part of New York called “The West Village”.

Lance teach me new American words such as “fabulous” , Leather Daddy” and “I’m a bottom”.

Well, I try and go sleep because it’s been very long night and my buttocks have pain inside…in my Suez Canal .

So, goodbye for now, Dear Diary. More tomorrow from home in Tehran, inshahallah!!!

Allah Akbar and long live ME!!!

XXOO,

Moody

Marriage Is All About Sharing

2009 May 16

by Laurie Kendrick

An old couple, obviously married for decades, entered the fast food chain slowly. They shuffled to the service counter. There, the old man placed order for one hamburger, French fries and a Coke.

He and his wife waited quietly at the counter. She never said anything; he did all the talking. When their hamburger, drink and French fries were ready, they grabbed the tray, then shuffled to a booth , sat down and unwrapped the plain hamburger and carefully cut it in half, placing one half in front of his wife.

He then carefully counted out the French fries, dividing them into two piles and neatly placed one pile in front of his wife.

He took a sip of the drink, his wife took a sip and then set the cup down between them . As he began to eat his few bites of hamburger, the people around them were looking over and whispering. Obviously by-standers were thinking, “That poor old couple – all they can afford is one meal for the two of them. How incredibly sad!!”

As the man began to eat his fries a young man came to the table and politely offered to buy another meal for the old couple. The old man said, they were just fine; money wasn’t an issue. They’d been married for 49 years and were used to sharing everything. People closer to the table noticed the little old lady hadn’t eaten a bite. She sat there watching her husband eat and occasionally grabbed the cup and sipped its sweetened, carbonated contents very slowly.

Again, the young man came over and begged them to let him buy another meal for them. This time the old woman said with something of a speech impediment, “No, thank you, we are used to sharing everything. Always have”.

Finally, as the old man finished and was wiping his face neatly with the napkin, the young man again came over to the little old lady who had yet to eat a single bite of food and asked, “Can I help you ma’am?”

She responded firmly and rather garbled that their situation is as her husband described; they have money, they’re just used to sharing everything”.

dentures in glass

Then the young man asked, “Then, what’s the deal? Are you waiting for something?” “Yes, I’m waiting for my turn with the teeth!”

She answered,

Why Am I Not Married?????

2009 May 18

by Laurie Kendrick

I have heard over the years that the older a woman becomes, the less likely she’ll EVER be able to find a suitable mate. In fact, I was told recently that I stood a better chance of being kidnapped by a band of depressed Stalinists/Leninists and sold for cigarettes to a gang of Jewish abolitionists in the Sinai, then shipped to Key West , where I’d be imprisoned by Kelly McGillis and forced to work as her Cabana Chick and beaten daily with pocket watch chains and sensible shoes.

Maybe.

Lately, my life has been a rag-tag tale of not very much. I’m still unemployed, home, alone, living almost full time in front of a computer keyboard and waiting by a phone that never rings.

I lost my gig on Halloween last year. Since then, I’ve sent well over 350 applications all across the country using every job board known to man and the end result? Nothing, nada, zero, zilch, bupkis…one very big neg.

Gee, am I depressed? Uh, yeah!!!!!

And yes, I’ve resorted to a few behaviors that would indicate that I am. I’m sad and lonely and junk food has become my solace. And I should mention that yes, I’ve even delved into a vile, nasty habit that I’ve always tried to avoid like the plague……smoking. Plus, my housekeeping habits have fallen by the wayside, somewhat.

I hate it but my nerves are shot, I’m stressed, saddened, lonely and so unemployed that so cleaning is the last thing I want to do. And, I’m so damn broke that I’vehad to resort to hooking, turning tricks…you know, being a whore. On Saturdays, I traipse around the very busy intersection of Chow and Main where the other working girls ply their trade. But they charge 20 dollars and up for their oral services. Not me. As someone unemp0led herself, I’m keenly aware of these recessionary times in which we currently live, so I charge accordingly. My cost is 10 cents. Yep, only one thin dime.

This past Saturday, I earned $6.10. Two days later, I’m still tired, still sore and for some reason, I no longer like cheese. I also see the futility of my tricking days. The amount that is $6.10 isn’t enough to survive. I can’t live on that!

I worried about my situation as I drove home from work early Sunday morning. When I got home, I couldn’t open my door, so I borrowed my neighbors battering ram and entered my humble apartment.

Once inside, I looked around and realized that I really needed to clean up my act. COMPLETELY!!! My cigarette and fast food habit had taken over. Today would begin “OPERATION SHOVEL”.

Just before I grabbed a hoe, a rake, a broom, mop and the Houston HAZ-MAT team, I decided to take photos of my apartment for before and after pictures. You know, for posterity.

My first offering is a pic of the corner of my living room. I spend a lot of time there. What you’re about to see, is the result of a very panicky Friday and watching a day long marathon of the series, “Snapped”, a 30-minute program dedicated to women who have arrived at the end of their emotional and mental ropes and as a result, murdered people. Watching that calms me down.

I sit right there and watch TV all day long, when I’m not on the computer praying to gods I don’t even in to help me land a decent job You know, I had no idea that a cotton/linen blend couch covering was also comprised of flame retardent asbestos. I;ve learned that it’s perfectly OK to stamp out a cigarette right on the arm!!

couch 1 cigarteets table in corner s

If you’re a native of Southeast, Central or South Texas, you’ll recognize my love of WhataBurger large-sized drink cups.

♦

Next up is a wider view of my sofa and coffee table. Yes, as the empty bags, cups, bottle and I’ve gained a little bit of weight, but I’ve been able to modify damage by entsifying my smoking, coupled with the occasional bout with bulemia.

couch 2 cups, cigarettes and three quarters of couch

♦

This is my kitchen table (I think)

couch 4 pizza boxes and cups

♦

My kitchen has always been a “problem area” for me.; even in happier times. The trouble is actually with the spatial limitations of counter space. I’m hardly a minimalist, but as you can plainly see, there’s simply not enough counter space. Thank God my ironing board comes in handy as an extender.

couch 6 kitchen roning board plastic jugs

♦

This is my bathroom. Small, but at least it’s mine and I share it with no one.

couch 11 toilet better view tootsie roll holder

Despite the way it appears, my toilet is still fully functional. I just have to move a few things around to allow access, but it’s in fine working order. The stain in front of the commode isn’t a stain at all. That’s just where I mark all my encounters with rust colord tornadoes. So, far I’ve on chased only one, but I intend to cover that bowl by June!!!

Also, my mother would KILL me if she knew I kept the candy box (I love mini Tootsie Rolls) in the bathroom.

♦

couch 8 cigs on keyboard

See? Technicolor proof that I DO work on my computer. It’s an inarguable fact….no ifs, ands and plenty of butts.

♦

Lastly, my bedroom.

couch 14 wider shot of bedroom

I actually prefer sleeping on real box springs.

Swine Flu’s Lasting After Effects

2009 May 19

by Laurie Kendrick

Swine FLu Face

My Exclusive Interview With…

2009 May 19

by Laurie Kendrick

DATELINE: Houston, Texas. May 18., 2009. Interview takes place at a coffee bar.

LK: Hi Jonny!

JQ: Hello LK

LK: I want to thank you for your time in allowing me this exclusive one-on-one with you.

JQ: Yeah, it’s like, hey, what have I got to do with my time. I’ve been unemployed off and on for the past 45 years.

LK: Well, at least you’re back in the public eye again, although I hate the reasons why.

JQ: Tell me about it. I come out of obscurity, NOT to appear in an Extra “Where Are They Now”…oh no, no. Instead,I get summoned from Nowheresville to testify before a Senate sub-committee on unsafe, unsavory, unethical and possibly even criminal behind-the-scenes practices and activites on Hollywood production sets.

LK: Well, I know all about some of the things that have happened on LoriMar sets and I hear those Sit Ubu Sit..Good Dog people can be even worse, but are you going to sit here and tell me it’s just as bad in the world of animation?

JQ: It’s worse, LK! What I’m about to tell you, will shock you. I’m going to reveal a few things that went on behind the scenes on the Jonny Quest Show set. Incidents, places, people and the things they committed. Plus, I have photos to back them up. The studio camera wasn’t rolling, but one gaffer was popping still shots like crazy. I’ll show you the photos and I’ll explain each one. I really shouldn’t, but let’s just consider this a prep for my upcoming appearance on Capital Hill.

LK: OK. Go ahead, Jonny. It’s now your show.

JQ: First, Let’s take a look at the show itself, LK. You’ve got two single adult males who galavant all over hither and yon with two pre-pubsecent boys. Everyone could see the homo-erotic subtext that seemed to exist between my father and Race. My father never leaned that way. But Race? We’ll get to that in a minute.

But I have to admit, I always wondered why I wasn’t in school? Not even studio school.! Why was that? Odd too because I was never far from the set, other than location drawn in third world countries where even the uncivilized natives spoke fluent English.

But there was more to it than that.

I mean, look at me. QUEST Jonny photo Here’s a still of me from the opening credits. I was a good-looking kid. Healthy, polite, smart, had my own show and I was über fit. It’s no surprise that me, the whole package, was a total magnet!!

LK: Are you inferring that you were a magnet to all the chicks?

JQ: What chicks?? Unless you consider Hadji one, which apparently Race often did. We only had men, grown men around us 24-7. By magnet, I mean I seemed to attract the predators on set and there were plenty of them.

LK: Do tell.

JQ: Well, this is where Race comes in. Man, he was the biggest offender of them all.

LK: Really? I had girl friends who thought he was the cutest thing, even as a colorful and much older man. QUEST Race Bannon face headshot

JQ: His looks covered up pure evil, LK. Roger “Race” Bannon, by God, was always, you know, a gay.

LK: A gay?

JQ: Yeah. Here’s that bastard’s back story, LK. He was hired by my father initially to be his ponderously butch factotum, you know as in an all purpose fetch-all, but his part then emerged as my Dad’s strong arm and gun toting heavy. He was a man’s man, a real lady killer, but then we found evidence that that was only a facade; a role he was playing on and off the set.

Race made inappropriate sexual advances towards me, Hadji, my Dad..the entire cast and crew. He made Hadji and me very, very uncomfortable. Other kid actors felt the same way. In fact, they hated heing extras on our show.

Here’s why…

QUEST Race naked with kids in submarine

See what I mean?

He liked us kids to hang around on the set, in nothing but our Garanimal briefs. He LOVED days when we were scheduled to be drawn underwater.

Plus, I found photos of his fondness for bondage in the glove compartment of the Quest Foundation’s hydrofoil.

QUEST Race likes bondage pic 2

And this one, too.

QUEST Race into bondage

Did I mention drug abuse on the set? I remember that one episode drawn in Morocco. It was entitled:

quest curse of cannabis

After shooting one afternoon, Race forced my father at gun point to make a beer bong out of a test tube. He made all of us take massive hits from it. I don’t know if I was stoned or not, for dinner that night, I’ve never had better couscous and mutton and I don’t even like sheep!

Quest Beer Bong

And from the same episide, here’s a shot of Hadji and me, forced by Race to peruse his favorite magazines and stuff.

I was ordered to look through a Mail Order Groom Catalog which featured hairy Quest Johnny Hadji read Blue boy mags from Race men dressed in sheets from one of those ends in “Stan” countries.

Race told me to find a suitable looking potential “husband” who owned livestock…a few goats and a camel and a man who had all of his teeth. I don’t think I have to tell you how difficult that was.

Yep, that was my job. But I actually think Hadji had it worse.

Race forced Hadji to read one of his favorite magazines. The pages were wrinkled, stuck together and I remember Hadji telling me the thing smelled like Clorox. He’s also had to write a detailed, hand-written report on one of the articles.

He eventually wrote on “The Ins and Outs of Fisting”. We had no idea what it meant, but I think we walked out of my dressing room with Hadji having a far better understanding of that which comprised the act.

I say that because I could hear Hadji softly crying while trying to write the report. I guess I’ve lived a sheltered life, because while I know a few things, I still don’t know what the term “fisting” means. I forget what Hadji tried to tell me about what’s entailed in this process, but I definitely remember the magazine cover:

QUEST Blueboy mag

And now, after all of that, I have to testify about my life as a kid on a very jacked up cartoon set. Man, life is weird.

LK: Wow, Jonny. That’s some heavy stuff! Do you have any idea what happened to Race? Where he is now and what he’s doing?

JQ: He’s doing time.

LK: Really?

JQ: That bastard was a hack actor who tried to get gigs after our show went teats up, but he could never find anything. Not even in commercials or as an Infomercial hawker.

His reputation as a Chicken Hawk, Maneater and sexual deviant was legend in Tinsel Town. He was turned down for roles all the time. As you can see, he even auditioned for QUEST race fights in audition for A Ha video the popular 80’s group, A-Ha to appear in the video for their huge smash hit, “Take On Me”.

But Race didn’t get the part of an angry, wrench-clutching SS officer and sadly, that ultimate rejection began his downfall.

About two years later, he was broke, lost his hair and gained alot of weight.

LK: How much weight?

JQ: You know now iconic red, double breasted Mark Linsday looking shirt which he never removed?

LK: Yes.

JQ: It was so stretched around his portly body, that the material looked pink. Anyway, he discovered Jim Beam and that became his constant companion. I guess he needed money and companionship, so he went on a bender and ended up getting arrested. He was busted while trolling for sexual favors at truck stops not far from Camp LeJune. QUEST race perp walk after arrest

Here he is trying to cover his face in his perp walk, heading into jail.

But everyone knew it was Race. It was his trademark, solid Liquid Paper colored hair that never moved in the wind or under water.

That’s besides the point.

The reality is I don’t like that guy. Never have, never will. For all the horrible things he’s done, I’m glad he’s in prison. A lousy jerk wad guy like him will eventually get it in the end.

LK: Jonny, if he’s in prison, you can bet on it!

JQ: Oh, before we close this cara-a cara, I’d like to tell your readers to look for me on an upcoming episode of “South Park”. It’s only an extra’s part. I’ll be Angry Crowd Member # 3. They’re re-drawing my legs as we speak. I have to do something in order to create a much better ending for what will no doubt be my upcoming E! True Hollywood Story.

LK: Good luck with that and your appearance before the Senate sub-committee.

JQ: Thanks. Can I ask you a question?

LK: (I nod in the affirmative)

JQ: tDo I still look good in my blue dungarees and black turtle neck?

LK: You do, Jonny. Dare I say you look hot, especially in Houston in late May.

What Evokes Emotions Within You?

2009 May 21

by Laurie Kendrick

Emotions cover a wide array of feelings: anger, disgust, jealousy, sadness, joy, fear, pride and even apathy. Feeling nothing is still something. Other pics bring forth recall. Memories that are either good or bad or gloriously bittersweet.

That said, I’d like for you to take a good look at the following photographs and let me know what, if any, are your emotional reactions/responses to any or all of them.

Again, no right or wrong answers here and feel free to answer as many or as few as you wish.

SYMBOL Foreclosure sign

SYMBOL burning cigarette

SYMBOL Hollywood sign

SYMBOLS soldier crying

SYMBOL Closed sign

SYMBOL Peace sign

SYMBOLS big chief tablet

SYMBOL young arab

10.

SYMBOL katrina superdome

11.

SYMBOLS flat tire

12.

SYMBOL cowboy boot

13.

SYMBOLS Road closed sign

12.

SYMBOL cocaine

13. For this image, ignore the silliness of the check’s slightly finer print. Instead, please focus on the the large red letters stamped across the front.

. symbols RETURNED CHECK

14. What do you think when you see this picture? Or worse, seeing it in your rear view mirror

15.

Charlotte’s Web of Lies

2009 May 26

by Laurie Kendrick

(Sorry, but this a re-post from last summer. I have been busy and felt uninspired and not very creative, so this is your minimum daily requirement of Laurie for today. Oh and Aniche, my darling, I’m a writer; just like you. That means I write all kinds of stuff. NEVER, EVER think that I could or would become nothing but a “proper, serious writer”. I write in all kinds of genres; but I’m a comedy writer by trade and by preference. Even so, please know that I’m very serious about everything I write. Thanks for stopping by. It’s been forever.)

♦

A friend called me late last night, rousing me from a blissful Unisom/Benadryl/Valerian followed by Vodka induced slumber.

You see, I am Laurie of the Non-Sleeping Kendricks, so when I can manage to get a couple of hours of shut eye, it’s something of a triumph for me and a rare one at that. But because we hadn’t talked since well before Elliot Spitzer fell from grace and allowed prostitutes to blow his political career (wait–did that come out right???) , I forgave my friend for his indiscretion.

We talked about a variety of things; namely my days of living along the Texas/Mexican border. He asked if I’d been there lately and I told him that I went early last summer. I was there for only a few hours, but it was good to go back. Mexico has such a vibe. Well, sadly these days the vibe could be deadly. The drug cartels have just ruined the country. They’ve all but destroyed Nuevo Laredo, a once thriving town (and a damned fun town of well over a million people) that lies just across the International Bridge at Laredo, Texas.

In recent years, there have been deadly shoot outs on the streets of Laredo, including one which took place not far from one of Nuevo Laredo’s most prestigious neighborhoods, Colonia Longoria, a beautiful area that was home to some of the cities wealthiest families. Old oil and ranching money. It was a skirmish between Mexican troops, a couple of tanks and from what I understand, what’ was left of a branch of Pablo Escobar’s very heavily armed family of drug lords.

Anyway, there are a few cities along the border that are still safe. One of those is Acuna, right across the Rio Grande river from Del Rio.

So, I went there a few summers ago to satiate my Mexican jones. And yes, as they say, “when in Rome; do as the Mexicans do”, so we partied .

It was a wild time.

But the wildest time I THOUGHT that I had had was that which experienced once I arrived back in Houston.

So, the next thing I know, I’m standing in front of my door and for some reason, my key didn’t work in the lock. Good thing I kept a spare battering ram on my key chain. Two good hits and the door opened.

Well, apparently, my cat Charlotte did EXACTLY what I told her not to do in my absence. She had a huge party. Debris from a good time had by all, had been piled up by the door. Tender Vittles had been crammed into the keyhole. How I hate kitty party hijinx!!

I could feel the anger rise from within. I left strict instructions for her NOT to have anyone over, much less a party!

My place was wrecked. The litter box was filled to capacity. Apparently, when that was filled to the brim, my carpet served as vomitorium from the night before. There were horked up hair balls all over the place.

I made my way into the dining room. Catnip and rolling papers were on the table in plain site. Empty bowls of water and milk were strewn about.

A lamp was lying on its side. My leather couch had scratches all over it.

Some of my rare, vintage LPs from the early 70’s were all over the floor. Cat Stevens was blaring out of the speakers.

And just where was my furry, quadru-ped daughter/child?

I opened my bedroom door and to my shock and dismay, I saw little cat clothes strews everywhere. My bed was also in dissarray. Sheets tangled up; the comforter had been kicked off the mattress. I looked out on my Astroturfed deck and there she was in a bikini, reclyning on lounge chairs, with a filthy, dirty, shameful Tom cat, also in a woman’s bikini!!

What sicko, perverted shit had my kitty/daughter been up to???

The only words that could tumble forth from my lips were “Whore, slut!”

The filthy neighborhood pimp daddy feline grabbed his collar and hissed at me as he ran passed. He couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Good thing too—I was livid. He was still in his bikini. Oh, how I hoped the other tomcats would see him dressed like that.

Charlotte was obviously embarrassed and place a beach towel on top of her scantily clad body.

“Young lady! I raised you better than this!!! What do you have to say for yourself?” I screamed.

Charlotte just started at me, blinking slowly as if to absorb my questions.

“Answer me!!” I demanded.

‘Meow”.

Yes NOW, I want you to explain right this minute!!!”

“prrrrrr”

“Per me, that’s who!”

Silence.

I went back inside my bedroom and demanded that she followed. She jumped up on my on bed and I sat down beside her. Charlotte merely stared into space. She seemed different, more adult looking. I told her to to get dressed, but keep swimsuit on. Kendrick women are known for their ardent attention to mammary support, I composed myself before I spoke, I’d felt absolutely nauseated at the thought of my beautful furry child engaged in vile carnality with that…that…filthy Orange Tabby. I realized then that it was too late to have that special mother/daughter talk.

“Look Charlotte–I love you, but this is extremely risky behavior. You’re a Kendrick–you were raised on Iams, not Cat Chow. You’re accustomed to the finer things in life. Do you want to throw all that away? You will if you continue this way. Do want to ruin your life by having your first six to eight kittens by the time you’re a year old?”

She still just stared at me and licked her front paws.

“I guess some of this is my fault. I shouldn’t have left you alone. You weren’t ready for this kind of responsibility. What do you say we just write this off to bad judgment and having access to excess, OK? Help me clean up and we’ll never speak of this again”.

She looked relieved. She then jumped off the bed and onto the kitchen counter. I kicked aside some cat toys which were littering the floor and just shook my head while assessing the mess.

I turned my attention back to Charlotte.

“Well, Miss Kitty, before we bury the subject, I do believe I have a right to know who you were with in my bed”.

Whenever the cat has her tongue, Charlotte will start performing pantomime, which she did in this case. Her front paws were circling about wildly and after a few minutes, I got the gist of what she was trying to convey. It was something about Greeks or maybe it was the Greek alphabet.

Yes, that’s it. She was trying to explain something about the Greek alphabet.

As best as I could figure out, the male she was canoodling with was fat and Greek. No wait! That should be the words Greek and frat. As in fraternity. And I think she was trying to tell me “Sigma”…..yeah, that’s right. Sigma. But Sigma what?

“Mew”, she answered.

“Sigma Alpha Mu???? The Jewish college fraternity?”

“Really???? Charlotte, this is wonderful! You’re dating a Sammy? A nice Jewish male???? Your great, great grandmother Esther would be so happy!!!!”

I was practically spinning like a Dreidel, elated by my daughter’s choice. Then, I stopped and asked, “So, my beautiful feline, what’s your new Jewish boyfriend’s last name?”

Charlotte ripped off her four tiny bras and exposed all eight of her teats and in her little feline voice shouted at the top of her lungs, “KATZ!!!!!!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I woke up in my hotel room the next morning, head pounding and unable to move my my face. The remnants of mascara and sweat from the night before had somehow compounded into this incredible polymer that had literally glued my right eye to the pillow case.

As I tried to separate my face from the cheap percale, I realized that slamming back Mescal Tequila on a wild Saturday night in Mexico with four dashing Latinos all named Paco will make you dream some weird shit.

Ask & Ye Shall Receive

2009 May 27

by Laurie Kendrick

I would like to believe that people come to my blog for a myriad of reasons. I hope their primary reason would be because they want to laugh, to emote. But lately, there are those who have come here to call me a political idiot, completely unfunny, a “Dennis Miller Wannabe”. They question my IQ, my genetic coding, call me a hack and so forth.

It is for this reason, that I often peruse the search engine terms on the administrative portion of my blog, just to see how visitors arrive in order to read my vainglorious, but yawn inducing fest of prolix.

Dennis Millerish? Hardly. He’s been writing like me for years!

Despite that fact, I get the strangest search terms tha tbring people to my blog:

A lesbian reach around (???)
exposed frozen cat nipples
lewd behavior/HS principal
crotch conquest
corn and your rectum

That’s just to name a few.

I also get plenty of emails from people curious about a lot of things. Why they ask me, I’ve yet to determine. I’m just an unemployed journalist who blithers almost daily on a blog. Nevertheless, I get asked about writing, quantum physics, astronomy, entomology, psychotropic drugs, emotional pathologies, child rearing, stained glass making, crocheting, nuclear fusion and of course, the inner workings of the excretory systems of mammals, reptiles, rodents and someone’s 84 year-old Uncle Sherman. The questions literally run the gamut.

In fact, a Mr. Richard Feder from Ft. Lee, New Jersey recently wrote in and asked,

“Dear Laurie,

Why is bird doo doo white?

Signed,

A Mr. Richard Feder

Ft. Lee, New Jersey”

Well Richard, thank you for your query. Let me preface this response with the following: I am not, nor have I ever been a veterinarian, nor am I an ornithologist….hell, I don’t even like raisins, but I will try to answer your question to the best of my limited ability.

Bird caca is chalky-white because it consists of this chalky-white paste which the White Coats call urate. Urate is made of uric-acid crystals which are a by-product of bird kidneys. What you actually see is the color of the whitish crystals. Now, within the urate is a chunk of stool–doo doo, caca, poo-poo, Number 2, fudge, a pinched nasty. a chocolate Linsday Lohan. This piece is usually hard and tube looking, and gets its color from the bird’s diet.

Bird feces is also an good indicator of the bird’s health. That’s one of the first things veterinarians look for. You see, checking doodie is their duty. Fecal hues range from greenish for birds who eat plant seeds and green vegetables, brownish for brown birdseed, and even a reddish color for those birds who eat strawberries.

For shrimp-eating seabirds, it’s pink!

Tippi Hendron in "The Birds" as interpreted by Barbie, performed at London's Royal Albert Collins Hall, Circa 1967

Then, that can ONLY meen that the poop of the birds that feasted on Tippi Heddrin’s hair in “The Birds”, must be the color of Miss Clairol Morning Mist Blond Shade #4A???

To top it all off, bird poop contains a tiny sprinkle of urine. Why only a sprinkle, you ask? “Aside from the ostrich, birds don’t have bladders and can’t carry a lot of water around. They’d be too heavy to fly

and that’s why ostriches can’t fly”, explains one bird brain at small college in Florida.

As mentioned above, caca color can indicate a myriad of things, including poor health. Abnormal colors like red urine and urate may be signs of internal bleeding (other than a diet of red berries). Brown tinged urate may also signal lead poisoning, and green or yellow skittles urate may mean liver disease.

This colorful spectrum could also be an indicator of poor health in humans.

So, the next time you “shit a rainbow”, I suggest you seek medical attention immediately.

♦

Well, there you have it. I guess this could be the first in a series of posts I’ll call “Ask Laurie”. Therefore, if you have a question that you’re just too damn lazy to Google or inquire at Ask.com yourself, send it to me via e-mail and I’ll make every effort to copy and paste the answer from somewhere and then make a joke out of it. Be my first victim(s), won’t you?

I can be reached at laurie industries at gmail dot com.

Gullibility

2009 June 1

by Laurie Kendrick

Should we assume when a nationally known pet food manufacturer insists that it’s new, improved product now has a new and improved taste, they’re telling the truth? Does the phrase, “four out of five dogs prefer the flavor of new and improved Beasty Chunks”, actually make a difference to you and your shopping list?

When the ad proclaims, “Hey kids, tell your mom you want Chunk o’Chocolate, now with 25% more Brazil nuts!” Do your kids hear the commercial and then jump up and spell out “Hurrah” in semafore? Or are most kids up and dictionary bound to find out what they heck a Brazil nut is?

Or…

“OxyWash now has Freindium Paranoidathol cystals. Just don’t get none onya”., says the announcer. Mr. Big Voice. Then you think you yourself, “It’ll kill my family, but By God, my clothes with be cleaner and brighter than ever!!”

We are all humans, I think. That being the case, why is there a part of our consciousness that believes a good part of everything we’re told? Why do we beleive a great deal of everything we hear?

Because when it’s new and improved and promises love and hopes and dreams, we desperately want to believe it’s true.

Or is there another part of us that’s just the opposite? We doubt the sincerity of any and every thing that we’re fed? We’ve become just that jaded??

I’ve often thought about cops and detectives, who deal with liars on a hourly basis.. They develop a sixth sense about the truth and the people attempting to extol it. Suddenly, lies become palpable. They can hear a lie being told from a mile away and in a way, seasoned cops can almost feel them. They have texture.

There are those who can lie at the drop of a hat. But the world consists of smart people who are stupid liars. The bad liars, you’re embarassed for them, but the good liars…they”re impressive. To watch them at work is something to behold. They don’t need to preface everything they say with a very pregnant, “Uh………….” at the beginning of every lie- filled sentence. They’re smart enough to pull from their mental quivers one of a million different scenarios they have their disposal. And this brilliant recall happens in less than a fraction of a second. Amazing, really.

One more thing: never lie to a liar who’s smarter than you. You’ll lose every time.

Some men will turn on the romantic charm and promise the moon for a crotch conqeust. Anything to seal the deal, while many women, play the fairer sex, femme fatale bit to the hilt. We know when and how to become completely obsequious and allow our men to engorge their egos, as we allow them to think that they, the rulers of the roost, are smart and wise and the fixer of all things broken and/malaligned.

Women. We’re a brilliant species, really. Far more advanced in many, many ways and I don’t say that just because I am one.

We have to be manipulative and able to cajole, gear and steer at the drop of a hat. Men , now you can snipe all you want, but I firmly believe that you’re happier men as a result of this. Your egos need our bolstering. And it’s really not all that one-sided. Actually, we’re all aware, at least subconsciously so, of what we’re doing to each other. It’s in our genetic coding for men to woo and women to wow. You know, quid pro quo. Ultimately, a woman’s intrusion supports the man’s intrustion. It was all part of the divine plan.

Then, there’s that old adage that we’ve heard forever. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. That’s even more of a reality for people. If a woman is a steadfast liar at say…age 45 and has been for decades, unless a dramatic life altering event occurs forcing her to change, she’ll always remain a lying, scheming bag of nag.

If a middle aged man is and always has been a sociopath, completely devoid of empathy, sympathy and concern; a compulsive liar, delusional, selfish, lives all alone and presents agoraphobic tendencies because he has the social skills and personality of a traffic cone, and therefore, frightened to death of intimacy and ONLY allows his self involvment in his “work” to be his only consort, well, he isn’t going to change either.

Gee, that was oddly specific …

I’d like to hear from you. Tell me your horror stories. I want to learn about the strangest, weirdest, most mentally fractured whack job, Hitlerian thinking, virulent jerk you’ve ever dated, ever were engaged to, married to or paired with at work. And tell me how you broke it off, ended it, got out of it, etc. The demented partner can be male, female, gender debatable, I really don’t care.

Basically, I just don’t want to feel all alone and that stupid.

Thanks for your input.

June 2, 2009

2009 June 2

35 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

This morning, I woke up and heard a bird singing in the tree outside my balcony. I stepped out to listen to it. It’s shrill discords echoed in the quiet of the morning. I listened for a while, then picked up a small a log and threw it in the general location of the singing little prick. Today is not for joyous song; today is for dirges.

You see, there is a funeral to attend.

There’s been a death in my family. It wasn’t an accidental death; it was due to self-inflicted belief in something intangible…an ideal. Laurie Kendrick was someone I knew, but admittedly not that well. From what I understand, she was kind and tried to make a difference… in her world, at least. She was smart and funny. Well educated; the pride of some part of Karnes City, Texas. She made people laugh and when she walked in a room people noticed. Heads turned. But oddly, they never noticed when she left.

Today, we bury what’s left of her innocence and her ability to trust.

In other words, we bury her.

Laurie Kendrick was 50. She had no children and she never married, but a few months ago, she felt she had one shot left at finding that elusive brass round thing we all hope to grab hold of. The ring turned out to be zinc and her grip was never secure enough.

There will be no funeral service and no internment. Unhappy endings have no start or finish.

They just end.

She is survived by a cat and a blog.

♦

Actually, band and pep squad, this is my last blog post. I am retiring. I’ve been contemplating quitting for several months now and a recent event has convinced me it was time to go. It won’t be easy, because I loved this little blog, it suddenly stopped being relevant in my life. In fact, I had to come to terms with the fact that it had become a hindrance and ultimately it’s ended up bringing me more heartache than joy. Blogging took over my soul for a while, but not any longer. Sometimes, spinning your wheels and looking at a menu from which you are forbidden to order, just leaves you exhausted and empty. Very, very empty. Yes, I did indeed loved my blog, but it’s also leavning me feeling rather empty. That’s why I find it rather odd now that my one time reason for living is now my reason for leaving.

Heartache was the reason it began; defiance is the reason it is ending. But it won’t kill me. In fact, it’s the reason why I won’t go quietly into the goodnightof post relationship malaise. Business relationships, personal relationships, friendship….all of efforts of human contact. I can talk big now and try to convince us both that I’m fine and in a way, I am. And in a way, I’m angry as hell, but then again, arrears of faith always hurt.

My God, life is so strange. Ifyou listen, Change is audible. It has a crescendo. It gets louder as it approaches and then once it’s made its presence known—-deafening silence. You open your eyes and listen. Reality is harsh. It always sounds like pain.

But enough of that drivel. I’m going out into the world to apply salve all over my life and then, once my wounds have healed, I will endeavor to seek self-actualization and maybe in the process, I’ll discover why my life has been this ridiculous lightning rod for emotional chaos and the intgrusion of goddamned soul crushers hell bent on spreading it.

Then, once I realize my actualized self (the new and improved Teflon coated La Kendrick), perhaps I’ll do a little fishing, learn how to knit, tinker in my workroom, become a Joe Biden groupie. Maybe, I’ll start a one-woman show about the life and times of TV’s Screech from “Saved By The Bell”. Perhaps, I’ll do a little restorative stand-up around the Houston area while searing those in my past who I once thought would be in my future. And the audience will think….”Oh yes, Laurie Kendrick. I remember her. She’s still pissed.??? Wasn’t she once a man???”

Maybe I’ll take some classes at Berkeley and try to grasp the concept of doing nothing for something. Maybe I’ll determine how to find the problem to the answer. Maybe I’ll head east and sit in on Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing and make fart sounds every time someone stands up or bends over.

There’s a chance I might start writing critiques of fine wines and then in a fit of whimzy, I’ll crank e-mail several Napa area vintners and tell them that Mondavi is Italian for swill.

Hopefully, I’ll learn to stop forcing so many issues and trusting so easily. Love is so important to me. But finding it is alot like searching for those intrepid little Lady Bugs. Look for them and you’ll never a single one of them. Forget about them…relax, do something else and they’ll be all over you.

Life’s like that and I guess I’ve been forcing the issue.

Perhpas, this self-imposed blogging free zone will result in my writing a book or two.

God help him, if I do….

So, thank you all for your support. You’ve been great. I think a few of you have been with me from almost the beginning and I am indebted.

You have helped make this one of the most memorable two years of my life. Color me jaded, yes, but educated, too. I will emerge ash covered from this unwitting Phoenician lair, a much stronger woman.

So, onward kiddies. Move forward. Proceed through the blinding dissonance of words, while learning the real, inarguable definition of what hopeful is and what heartache isn’t. Never confuse the two. Never toy with someone’s heart. If you needsomething in your life; to quell boredom or to put texture in your life,, do it by adding kindness, respect and charity.

And remember what I’ve always said about endings: never, ever look back. It will only turn you into a pillar of Mrs. Dash. Hurt feelings yes, but even in the midst of ruined Maybelline, we must always watch our salt intake.

A Final Note

2009 June 4

17 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

I want to make something perfectly clear: the selfishness and deceit of someone else didn’t force my hand regarding the termination of my blog. I don’t always lose my mind, every time I lose my man. My God, if that were the case, I’d be Rosemary Kennedy in a lithium colored party dress, standing wall-eyed in someone’s garden on Martha’s Vineyard, playing a tambourine without the metal jingles.

You see, I have to be honest with you–I make horrendous choices in men. I find replications of my father and that turns me into the real Goodbye Girl. In fact, I’m marriage primer. If you want to find the woman of your dreams and get married, date me. Invariably this always happens. I’m a marriage repellent and while this is true, it’s decidedly NOT the reason why I’m stopping the blogging process. No, I stopped blogging, mainly because I grew tired of constantly feeding the beast.

Comedy is easy; but that’s only when it isn’t difficult. I don’t always think people understood my humor and that’s fine. I didn’t always hit a home run, but I never cowered while up at bat. And yes, sometimes I got dark and brooded a bit and sometimes I wrote from what’s left of my heart. Writers should never be one trick ponies. I’m proud of that fact that I could negotiate the creative lines.

While blogging had its merit for me, it got to the point where I no longer cared for the blogosphere that came with it . It had gotten too clickish for me. I am reminded of snooty sorority girls on the University of Texas campus, circa 1977. People hide behind anonymity to argue, to insult….to woo. It’s become something of a meat market for the nefarious and let’s be honest, these wiley tightwads know it’s certainly cheaper than e-Harmony. As a result, it became too predatory for me. So that, coupled with the daily wear and tear on my creativity comprise the reason for my wanting out.

I could blame the Internet, but I won’t. The Internet is an amazing thing. Al Gore should be completely laughing maniacally about his vainglorious creation, but it can also an impious arena. It allows some to be obscured, cloaked in fantasy and that allows to do anything we want; we can pretend to be anything we need to be. Words paint the perfect mosaic and if we’re gullible and vulnerable enough, we get sucked in to to each syllable. . We get conned and believe the horseshit thrown our way because if we’re needy and desperate enough, we’ll find a way to deny it all, by distorting reality. At the very least, we’ll pretend that bullshit is part of the courting process.

Not long ago, I wrote on my birthday post that often, we don’t love wisely. The runs the gamut, too. Husbands, wives, girlfriends, old friends, family…business associates. In our search for OUR needs and OUR wants, we’ve eliminated empathy from the equation. We hurt each other and feel no remorse. Oh yes indeed…we lie, we cheat and we steal. Maybe not in terms of the law, but I assure you, larceny is involved.

Deceit for some is a skein of wool, to be played with at their liesure, but every ball of yarn comes unravelled and loses it’s appeal. That means the ruthless little cat fucker needs to find another one. He gets so bored so easily when someone discovers the chink in his armour. What fun is it then to play when you can no longer pull the wool over someone’s eyes??

I’m not here to preach. I’m imperfect; I’ve hurt people before, but I’ll tell you what, after lessons learned in the past few months, I’ll never do it again. You can’t play chess with someones emotions. People are too fragile these days and once hurt, it’s difficult to recover.

But the strong do just that: they recover and inevtiably they learn that disappointment is an unavoidable fact of life . Heartache while damning, can also be used as an educational tool, IF we allow ourselves to be enlightened enough to view it in that way. I now have an almost Pavlovian response to assholes. I’ve aquired an early warning system of sorts. Discerning this has been lesson to learn.

Color me wiser.

As for ever blogging again, I’m still contemplating that. You can take the blog away from the writer, but a writer still needs an outlet and dare I say, validation, too. So, if I come back, I’ll do so after a break and IF I do, I’ll damn sure blog under an alias. But I’ll let you know when and where I land. If you’ve ever left a comment, you left your e-mail address. At least most of you have left legitimate ones. When the time is right, I’ll send out the mother of all mass mailings.

For the time being though, I’m taking a very healthy step toward self- actualization and perhaps in an oddly distorted way, this blog has helped me do this. Time will tell, but for now, thank you all for your support. Even you assholes. You actually made me a better person, once I realized your damning comments were your manfiestations of your problems; not mine.

In closing, I can only say that every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

And then I’ll also leave you with this: It’s a horrifying thing to see death coming at the hands of your own creation. This is true of Oedipus and his father; Baron Frankenstein and his monster; and metaphorically speaking, of Laurie Kendrick and her blog.

But I know a decent priest, a shrink and an alchemist.

See you soon.

Are You Looking For Me?

2009 June 20

by Laurie Kendrick

Hello. My name is Laurie Kendrick. You might remember me from such blogs as the one you’re currently perusing.

Since this is the age of Change, courtesy of the Man currently dwelling at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in our nation’s capital, I have decided to comply. Change is painful, but vital. So, I’m officially declaring this old blog to be null and void, though it’ll remain up and open and readable at least until Brad and Anjelina decide to marry and adopt a male Yap Islander with webbed toes, between the ages of 34 and 36.

So until then, feel free to read the ass out of my archives, but with this exception, there will be no new posts on this blog.

I know what you’re wondering. You’re probably thinking, “but Kendrick has such an ego? What will she do for an outlet?”. How sweet to think me that conceited and according to some complete tools here in Houston and living in near the Shepherd/Durham vicinity of the city’s near north side, I’m completely self- absorbed, too.

Then call me a walking Kotex with wings because perhaps, I am. But hey, if my issues prove to be a humor enfuser for you and your life, because we all know that laughter is restorative, do my character flaws really matter?

I think not. Therefore, vanity, thy name is Laurie because I have it on divine authority that there’s a new blog here on the sphere and it is and will what this old blog was and more.

Check it out, won’t you? Cleck here.

And remember: no seating after the curtain goes up, no cover charge any time, please remain a full six inches from your screen whenever reading and NO TOUCHING!!!!

Michael Jackson Never Could Say Goodbye

2009 June 26

by Laurie Kendrick

But I’m afraid this time, you’ll have to, Mikey.

I thought I’d go ahead and share my feelings on a very mournful day for Hollywood and former pre-pubescents from the early 80’s. Let me say this first: I am sorry that news of Farrah Fawcett’s death some five hours earlier has been overshadowed by the media overkill that is being given and will continue to be given to MJ’s death. Farrah spent the last five years of her life living it in pain. Cancer isn’t always a death sentence, but in reality, it often is.

I’m sorry Farrah died. I was by no means an ardent fan, despite her being a fellow Texan and I was way too heterosexual to find her anything other than a pretty young woman. Even so, I think when she got sick, she was strong as long as she could be and put up a worthy fight against this malignant nemesis. True, having fame and money helps; it supplies the troops and ammo needed to fight the battle, but all the money in the world can’t reanimate a body horribly, viciously ravaged by cancer. Death is often the only reprieve when that’s the case and today, Farrah Fawcett finally found hers.

But Michael? His death is preliminarily being blamed on massive heart attack and rumors are circulatin that hard core prescription drugs may have played a role. But there’s something about the oddness in his life that kind of makes you think dying in the way he did could be the ONLY way to add final punctuation to his life sentence. I first became aware of this small, talented nubian male child in the late 60’s. The Jackson Five’s first chart topper, “A-B-C”, served as my first introduction to their music. A few years later, in the fall of 1971 when I was 12-years old, I had matured enough to associate some emotion with his songs, namely “Got To Be There” and “Ben”. Then, by the spring of 1973, as I was finishing up my eighth grade year and preparing for my Freshman year in High School, I forgot all about Michael Jackson.

That is, until early 1980 when I was finishing up college in Austin, Texas. I remember eating eggrolls on the floor of the apartment of a gay couple with whom I’d been friends. The radio was on and as as the Top 5 Countdown started counting down, the number 5 song that night was MJ’s newest single, “Rock With You”. That song started his meteoric second career rise and he was untouchable…until he started allegedly touching a lot of young boys in inappropriate ways in the early 90’s. His fate was sealed then. His career took a slam and really, would never recover. He started hemorraging money and when that happens, “friends” can rarely be found. He fought off criminal charges, lawsuit after lawsuit and reacted accordingly by getting new noses, new cheeks, lips, dangling his oddly named baby off the railing of a balcony in Germany, speaking with such a soft, high lilting voice that sounded like he’d been a lifelong member of Castrotti and of course, blaming vitiligo for his ever increasing mellanin decreasing.

That, my friends, is called a ‘deep end” and Michael Jackson went off of it with a two mile running start. It was said he had kept the Elephant Man’s bones in his home; he had a chimp/love interest named Bubbles. He slept in a hyperbaric chamber, married Lisa Marie Presley in one of the oddest pairings since vodka and iced tea and he had an unusal penchant for children. Where did this odd behavior come from? I’m thinking Papa Joe Jackson. I met a friend for cocktails earlier today. We’d just heard the news that Michael (who by the way, at 50 was just a few months older than me) had just died of an apparent heart attack. My friend insisted that Michael’s slick and hip dance moves were actually learned much earlier in life, when Michael was a child. Those slides and whirls and twirls and moonwalking were actually things he learned to dodge Joe Jackson’s belt in one of the crazed bastard’s ritual “ass whoopins”.

I think Pater and Mater Jackson knew their talented kids could get them out and keep them out of all those “hard times” in Gary, Indiana. It’s been said that Joe was exacting and a task master and probably secretly (and maybe not so secretly) resented his sons – Michael in particular, for achieving more in his young life than Joe had in all his years on Earth. What you’re about to read is no great globe shattering treatise on Michael’s life or psychopathy and what I’m about to impart has probably been said before, but personally, I don’t think Michael was a pedophile. At least, I doubt that was his initial intention. Now, wait a minute—before you order the tar and feathers, permit me to explain.

I think Michael was robbed of his childhood. He was just eight when he started fronting the band with his four other brothers. How many eight-year-olds do you know who have full time jobs, travel all over the world, apepar on Sullivan, Carson, are interviewed by Mike Douglas AND have a huge fan base of pudgy, acne faced pre-teens screeching their names? As a child, Michael was forced into having a particular priority that he didn’t want and perhaps, never understood: to help make the Family Jackson more financially solvent. Think about it: that’s a hell of a lot of responsibility for a child and a young Black child in particular, who was entering the Anglo dominated world of entertainment just as the water from the high pressure fire hoses in Selma and Birmingham were just starting to dry out.

Michael was surrounded by adults on an almost continuous basis. Record mogels, sound engineers, agents. He probably got to play some with his brothers while on tour but keep in mind, they were several years older. The truth is, Michael wasn’t allowed to be a kid. He grew up physically, but not emotionally and when he had so much discretionary income, he made every attempt to experience a childhood he never got to have. I submit for your perusal: Neverland Ranch with it’s llamas and Ferris Wheels, carousels, roller coasters and whatever else Disney was no longer using in California or Florida. I think he looked in the mirror and was confused by what he saw versus how he felt. I have no idea what really happened inside Mike’s Neverland manse. I’ve heard all about the “Jesus Juice” and other things he’s accused of using to ply these young boys into submission. And if anything ever happened, I’ll be the first to publicly admit these actions are completely despicable, not to mention, illegal and unforgivable. I’m not excusing his actions, I’m merely examining possible explanations as to what might have prompted all of his odd behavior.

In closing, Michael Jackson lived as he died – in the spotlight. But it’s more of a spotlight still burning from the past. In the early 80’s, he was a god. Worshipped by throngs were mere days away from seeing his image on a flour tortilla. He had money beyond the dreams of Avarice, but as with Farrah Fawcett, inall the moneyall There were triumphs and disappointments, gossip and innuendo, facts and fiction, drugs and sobriety, happiness and sorrow. He was a lonely man in a sea of humanity. He wanted love and never really found it. It’s ironic that he literally died from a broken heart.

But irony knows celebrity, though. It knows it well. In fact, it was there when a fast living James Dean died in an even faster car.

It was there when comedian Sam Kinison, having just achieved three months of sobriety, was driving his Trans-Am on a Nevada highway in 1992. An extremely drunk teenager hit Kinison’s car with his truck and killed the funny man. Just as Sam was getting a grip on the demons of addiction that plagued him, he was killed at the hands of someone who was carelessly indulging in his own.

RIP…across the board.

“I’ll take Paul Lynde to win!!”

2009 July 1

by Laurie Kendrick

hollywood squares

It was a game show that prided itself on being rather progressive. It pushed boundaries in terms of it’s risque entendres and even as a kid, The Hollywood Squares made me laugh.

A BRIEF HISTORY

It began as a black and white pilot on CBS in April of 1965. That pilot was hosted by Miss America pageant host, Bert Parks and the original seats in all nine squares were kept warm by Cliff Arquette as his comedy persona and alter ego, Charley Weaver. (Trivia: Cliff is the grandfather of Roseanne Arquette of “Desperately Seeking Susan” fame and her sister, Patricia Arquette, of TV’s “Medium”) Wally Cox was there, as was gravelly voice Rose Marie, her Dick Van Dyke Show co-star, Morey Amsterdam; Jim Backus (the voice of Mr. Magoo and of course, Thurston Howell, III from “Gilligan’s Island, 1960’s B-lister, Abby Dalton; Canadian warbler, Gisele Mackenzie,;50’s TV game show host and walking ashtray, the painfully thin and pointy looking, Robert Q. Lewis and actress, Vera Miles.

CBS shot a second pilot hosted by someone named, Sandy Baron, but chose not to pick up the show’s option with either host. It hung around in Goodson/Toddman limbo for about a year or so before it was snatched up by NBC. Network execs chose Peter Marshall as host, a job he held for fifteen years until 1981. During most of its daytime run, it dominated the ratings until 1976.

While The Hollywood Squareswas a legitimate game show, the premise of the game largely acted as the background for the show’s comedy in the form of the zinger/joke answers. Contrary to popular misconception, Paul Lynde’s often hilarious one liner responses were extemporaneous, out-of-the blue gems of uncompromised hilarity. The show’s writers gave the lines to the stars prior to their “real” answer. The stars were also given question subjects and plausible incorrect (“bluff”) answers prior to the show. So, yes, they were briefed before production and that helped them with bluff answers, but they were otherwise hearing the actual questions as they were asked on air.

I figured the the stars were given pithy responses before hand, because let’s face it, John Davidson, Vincent Price and Julie Newmar weren’t exactly known for their comedic prowess.

And that’s what made this show so funny. Read on to remember some hoot from many, many years ago.

•

Q. Paul, what is a good reason for pounding meat?
A. Paul Lynde: Loneliness!

Q. Do female frogs croak?
A. Paul Lynde: If you hold their little heads under water long enough.

Q. If you’re going to make a parachute jump, at least how high should you be
A. Charley Weaver: Three days of steady drinking should do it.

Q. True or False, a pea can last as long as 5,000 years.
A. George Gobel: Boy, it sure seems that way sometimes.

Q. You’ve been having trouble going to sleep. Are you probably a man or a woman?
A. Don Knotts: That’s what’s been keeping me awake.

Q. According to Cosmopolitan, if you meet a stranger at a party and you think that he is attractive, is it okay to come out and ask him if he’s married?
A.. Rose Marie: No wait until morning.

Q. Which of your five senses tends to diminish, as you get older?
A. Charley Weaver: My sense of decency..

Q. In Hawaiian, does it take more than three words to say ‘I Love You’?
A. Vincent Price: No, you can also say it with a pineapple and a twenty..

Q. What are ‘Do It,’ ‘I Can Help,’ and ‘I Can’t Get Enough’?

A. George Gobel: I don’t know, but it’s coming from the next apartment.

Q. As you grow older, do you tend to gesture more or less with your hands while talking?
A. Rose Marie: You ask me one more growing old question Peter, and I’ll give you a gesture you’ll never forget.

Q. Paul, why do Hell’s Angels wear leather?
A. Paul Lynde: Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.

Q. Charley, you’ve just decided to grow strawberries. Are you going to get any during the first year?
A.. Charley Weaver: Of course not, I’m too busy growing strawberries.

Q. In bowling, what’s a perfect score?
A. Rose Marie: Ralph, the pin boy.

Q. It is considered in bad taste to discuss two subjects at nudist camps. One is politics, what is the other?
A. Paul Lynde: Tape measures..

Q. During a tornado, are you safer in the bedroom or in the closet?
A. Rose Marie: Unfortunately Peter, I’m always safe in the bedroom.

Q. Can boys join the Camp Fire Girls?
A. Marty Allen: Only after lights out.

Q. When you pat a dog on its head he will wag his tail. What will a goose do?
A. Paul Lynde: Make him bark?

Q. If you were pregnant for two years, what would you give birth to?
A. Paul Lynde: Whatever it is, it would never be afraid of the dark..

Q. According to Ann Landers, is there anything wrong with getting into the habit of kissing a lot of people?
A. Charley Weaver: It got me out of the army.

Q. It is the most abused and neglected part of your body, what is it?
A. Paul Lynde: Mine may be abused, but it certainly isn’t neglected.

Q. Back in the old days, when Great Grandpa put horseradish on his head, what was he trying to do?
A. George Gobel: Get it in his mouth.

Q. Who stays pregnant for a longer period of time, your wife or your elephant?
A. Paul Lynde: Who told you about my elephant?

Q. When a couple have a baby, who is responsible for its sex?
A. Charley Weaver: I’ll lend him the car, the rest is up to him

Q. Jackie Gleason recently revealed that he firmly believes in them and has actually seen them on at least two occasions. What are they?
A. Charley Weaver: His feet.

Q. According to Ann Landers, what are two things you should never do in bed?
A. Paul Lynde: Point and laugh

For Walter

2009 July 3

by Laurie Kendrick

TWalter

Walter Minter Tarpley was my best friend. We had a strangely initmate love/hate relationship that only a gay man and a straight woman can have. Our disagreements could divide a nation; our good times bordered on criminal but life with Walter was fun.

He didn’t believe in much, except that a good time was had by all and he lived his life that way. His carelessness bothered me at times, then again,he made me realize that I wasn’t really the hip, happenin’ chick I thought I was. He was liberal. Tim Robbins liberal. I was Conservative and aging to the point of being politically on par with Elizabeth Dole, save for the fuel injected Southern hair.

We argued about the ever growing abyss between the two parties, but we cared a great deal for each other. I thought we’d be friends forever; but forever only lasted just over two years.

He died two years ago; July 4th 2007. I can’t let an Independence Day go by without thinking specifically of my best friend and how his life changed mine and how his death, altered the way I look at life.

I wrote this post two years ago. I republish it today.

For Walter.

♦

Twenty years ago, I dreamed of meeting one man that I could be friends with for the rest of my life…one man to laugh with, cry with….share my most intimate thoughts with.

He was given to me on a warm and sunny August day in 2005.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Walter came into my life quite by surprise, but hardly by accident. He sent me an e-mail at the radio station where I worked. It took no time at all for us to become friends and when we did, I found that I adored Walter.He was devilishly handsome, brilliant, crass but polished, opinionated, fearless, acerbic, openly gay and hilarious.

To me, he was Perfection.

He was also a tortured soul. As was I, when we met. One would think that two fractured people would just create a pile of emotional shards. But that wasn’t the case with us. We seemed to provide the bonding needed to keep each other together. I think it was laughter that served as the consummate adhesive. We became best friends.

My relationship with Walter was rather cloistered. Few people understood our connection. I’m not sure even we understood the degree of our closeness. That was fine with us; we preferred it that way. When other people listened to us speak, it was as if we were speaking Esperanto. We jokingly said we spoke “TarKen”; our own language which was interspersed with many expletives and the requisite “Filthy” and “Dirty”, all spoken in a feigned British accent we used.

Few “got us” and that was OK. We held on to each other, only letting go only when the other stepped free, but even so, the bond was never broken.Nor can it be. We were content knowing that we’d found each other. We were happy to have found a certain “punctuation” to the paragraph of our lives.

We just clicked…my cup to his saucer—mismatched, chipped and crazing down the center, but still beautiful, even in it’s damaged state. Perfectly flawed.

Walter entered my life at a time I needed him most. He brought joy and laughter where there was none. He helped me learn to live again. In fact, he was best time I’ve ever had. He felt like home. Comfortable, safe and secure. Like a hug, accented with the aroma of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, wrapped in a soft, familiar blanket. He never dismissed me or made me feel anything less than extraordinary.

He was never aloof, nor did he ever exist passively in my life. He was a willing participate–fully involved, concerned and more importantly, he was there when I needed him. We were good about being there for each other. Walter understood that Life is inconvenient. So is Love. Neither will ask for permission. Both can be obtrusive. He was never too busy for me, even when I was. H e was kind in the sense that he never decreed me as anything other than one of his very best friends. What an incredible honor!

We had our disagreements. They were legendary. And vicious!! Imagine a film recording of Joan Crawford telling off the board of Pepsico on a continuous loop that plays at painful decibels.We never stayed mad at each other; at least, not that long.

Ultimately with Walter, I always felt loved. Unconditionally so. I could be thin, pudgy, hair perfect or teased up to a dizzying Elsa Lancaster’s Bride of Frankenstein height. I could be sans make-up or with a full compliment and wearing something that fashion-wise, would’ve have been considered only luke-warm from five seasons earlier. That didn’t matter.

To Walter, I was always just Laurie. No pretense.

To me, he was always Walter. No pretense.

One night he asked me why I couldn’t have been born a gay man. On that particular day, I had to fire six members of my staff. I was crying in his arms. I was wearing this silk blouse with, pink feather scuffs. I looked up at him, mascara streaming down my face and said, “Take one look at me, Walter. Look at what I’m wearing then take a gander at my make-up! I have to ask you, what makes you so sure I’m not?”.

Our friendship was enduring and so incredibly special. W e had this idea that we’d grow old together. That we’d live long enough to comb gray hair, use our AARP discounts at dinner, complain about arthritis and those damn kids and their crazy music. We thought surely one day, I’d be Blanche to his Baby Jane. Aging wouldn’t matter as long as we could view the process through each other’s eyes. Together.

But the Universe had other plans. It gave me Walter, but the one thing it couldn’t give me was a relationship with him that could be measured in years. He was only in my life for a mere 23- months. That was all. Even though I have many brilliant memories that could rival the most dazzling, star-filled constellation, I must state that this is all so incredibly unfair.I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I’m still not. My first hello to him–seemingly uttered just yesterday– still resonates on my lips!!

I wanted more time. I needed more time for one last look at his wonderfully handsome face; one more chance to absorb the warmth of his smile; to hear that wicked, wicked laugh; to read his soulful eyes; to feel the touch of his hand.

God, I sometimes question your existence and the pain I feel right now is representative of one of those occasions. But if you are real…if you do exist, then please give me strength.Help me fully understand this conundrum—that sometimes, people are put in our paths for special reasons. Is it because sometimes, it’s to force us to give of ourselves and sometimes it’s for us to receive? If so, then that means sadly, tragically, these beautiful, divine human gifts must also leave our lives for special reasons.

Why Walter left mine is something I’ll never, ever understand, ut I know why he came into my life. And that was to save my life and I’m a much wiser and richer woman for my all too brief experience with this angel. In some ways, I’m alive, here today because of this man. I love Walter and always will.

His death cannot negate my feelings or the relationship I’ll continue to have with him. The love lives on because I do. And I live on because this precious man gave me a reason to do so. His friendship gave my life back to me.

I went to his memorial service and saw his ravaged body lying in the coffin. He would’ve hated that. He would’ve loathed how his make-up had been applied and how badly he was lit. I made myself look at him. That wasn’t him, but I needed to see him one last time. I fought the urge to cry as I touched his drawn face. I stood there and smiled for a few fleeting moments when I thought about life and how everyone has to die. This was Walter’s time to go, but unlike everyone else, Walter also knew how to live.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Twenty years from now, I’ll dream of how I met that one man who I wanted to be friends with for the rest of my life…one man I laughed with, cried with…shared my most intimate thoughts with.

And I’ll remember how he was taken from me on a warm and rainy July day in 2007.

The Strange. The Sorta Odd. The Kinda Creepy

2009 July 5

by Laurie Kendrick

Is it just me or is there anyone else out there who like me, Julia Roberts thinks Julia Roberts is an OK actress, but hardly a Hollywood goddess?

She just isn’t pretty in my opinion. Her head is huge, her mouth goes ear to ear. I’m sure she’s a nice person and a perhaps even quite talented with a script in hand, but physical beauty? Only if you’re really into Pez dispensers.

Otherwise, I’m just not seein’ it.

♦

I was skimming through the satellite this weekend and stopped on the Disney Channel. Hannah Montana was on. I watched it for a while, embarassed by the horrible writing and even worse acting. That’s when I decided to regard series lead actress, Miley Cyrus as strange. For starters, she’s been 16 for the past four years and her voice has a creepy timbre to it. I had a deep voice as a child and young woman, but she’s vying to be the next raspy talking Brenda Vacarro, Suzanne Pleshette and Rose Marie in terms of vocal stylings.

She’s a woman child in the strictest sense.

Did I mention that I find her completely annoying, too?

♦

So, I was watching something on some channel Sunday afternoon and up flashed Barbara Walters on the screen. I was startled at what I saw.

You see, when an esteemed actors or newsperson (especially for those with XX chromosomes seething throughtout her DNA’s doube helix) starts to age physically, the Director of Photography will often try to help out the magicians in make-up by filming the woman through a soft filter or gel screen which attempts to soften the facial lines and wrinkles. You can tell if a lens of this nature is being used in the shot. It has an almost ephemeral quality to it.

In Babs’ case, I could barely discern it was a human being, much less her specifically. I found the whole attempt to make this octogenarian appear young and vivacious quite funny. ectoplasm

She just looked out of focus.

Well obviously, this is a case of ‘Vanity, thy name is Barbara’ and I would suspect the image of her on our TV screens will only get worse in the future. I imagine that by spring of 2011, she’ll simply come across on camera as ectoplasm.

So come on, Barbara—suck it up like fellow journalist, Helen Thomas. Helen don’t care about her looks no more. She don’t go for no Vaseline schmeared on the lens. Helen is open and honest about her hideousness. Gravity and age (and apparently political heat from Obama love) are combining to contort her face into sort of odd Picasso-esque face melt.

Case in point:

This is a photo of Helen from 2000.

HelenThomas

We can see evidence of face melting back then; some nine years ago.

Here’s Helen in present day, photographed not long after she attended a White House Press briefing:

melting face2

I like your moxie, Helen though I suggest you do something about that eye popping thing that’s happening. I’d suggest having your physician check your thyroid.

♦

Dakota Fanning is also kind of creepy. I don’t think she has ever been a child. She had such an adult-like countenance about her. I doubt if she ever played; pretended to run a store, a hotel or a brothen as we did when we were kids. I’ll bet her memories of childhood consists of nothing but sound stages and craft services.

Sadly, that could contribute to some fairly strange behavior as an adult. Oh, you know…Michael Jacksony stuff. Perhaps she’ll some day collect llamas, sleep with Eric Stolz’ facially mishapen mask used in the movie of the same name; buy Allen Funt’s bones (anyone??) and pal around with a large Rhesus monkey named Soapy Orbs.

This is quite possible since Dakota’s father’s full name is actuallyJoseph Jackson Fanning.

♦

I am no longer a fan of Brad Pitt. I thought he was the cutest thing next to squeezing my ass into size 6 jeans when I first saw him in Thelma and Louise back in the early 90’s. I thought he was a decent actor, too but then I saw him in the movie, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. You know that scene in which he comes back to the hotel room with breakfast after he and Anjelina’s character spend a night of debauchery together? She’s just woke up and still in bed, a flower in her hair and he’s standing by the window looking at her. As he does, his nostrils flaring like some scent horny simian preparing to pounce on a nest of tasty, tasty termites.

Haven’t been able to look at him since.

♦

Finally, I can’t get into the show, Desperate Housewives. I can’t trust a situation (real or from Tinsel Town) in which the females characters are all thin, decent looking, perfectly coiffed, expertly made-up and wearing amazing clothes that don’t possess ANY elastic around any waistband at any time.

Ah yes…to someday be able to walk through a door at the same time my stomach does.

Oh, the pain. Oh the pain!! Dr. Smith11

R.J. Has Lunch In Mexico

2009 July 6

by Laurie Kendrick

It was 1958 and at this time of year the the shadows grew longer all across El Rancho Feliz. It was fall in South Texas. The temperatures were by no means cold, but considering the mercury held steady at 106 degrees most of summer, the cooler temperatures offered a most welcomed reprieve.

Inside the sprawling ranch house, Juana the cook cleared the table. Hers had been a sumptuous meal; fried chicken, mashed potatoes swimming in a cream gravy. Fresh green beans with sautéed with onion and pork renderings. Fresh biscuits and for desert, chocolate cake…just as El Jefe likes. And tonight “El Jefe was happy.

He liked be called “The Boss”. He liked being shown the respect he felt he earned.

He finished his supper and walked out to his front porch sit sit for a while. He did this every evening; it was a ritual. He needed to sit and commune with his ranch, to remind himself of what it took to amass two thousand head of cattle and the 15-thousand acres on which his herd roamed. The oil and gas wells that ‘them old boys from Houston brung in’ certainly helped. Their proceeds helped fed the beast that was his ranch; El Rancho Feliz. Cattle was king to Raleigh Joe Rassmussen.

The shrewd cattleman was 69 years old that night. He fancied himself to be a fair man, but his rivals didn’t think that to be the case. It was his mindset that nothing can ever be achieveed by playing it safe….or nice. It was intimidation that acquired El Rancho Feliz as much as actual dollars or financing through the Farm Bureau. That earned him the title “That son of a bitch Rassmussen!” to his enemies.

He was ‘sir” to everyone else.

But to his loving wife, Etta, he was simply, R.J.and she was the only person who called him that.

His reputation for being rough and tough was legend in these parts, butMiss Etta could take the sting out of venom. He loved this woman. She’d been his wife for 28 years and quietly stood by him through thick and thin. Her place was to support her husband and to remain silent; in complete submission to her man, though he always seemed to heed her gentle suggestions. She was his rock in many ways; they’d been through so much together; emotional feast and economic famine. She’d also given him four children, though Bud had been killed in combat while fighting in Korea. The loss of his only son damned near killed R.J. He was a proverbial chip off of R.J.’s block. This ranch was destined to be his and out of the four kids, he was only one to really appreciate what it was; what it stood for. The three girls resented it for keeping them isolated in a place that seemed to move at a difference pace then the rest of the world. College offered them escape. It proved to them that there was in fact, outside of the hot, sparse confines of the northern Sonoran desert.

“That’s OK.”, R.J. tried to convince himself time and time again. “They’ll learn to love this place someday. Right now, they have no idea how much this ranch is a part of them, but it is. It’s always fed their souls. It always will.”

Etta walked out on the porch with a glass of ice tea in her hand. She sat down in the rocking chair beside her husband. It was quiet. No one was around for miles. It was easy to become one with the land when that’s all you can see for miles and miles. There was a light breeze; a slight rustling in the shrubs which lined the porch. There was peace. Words were uttered without ever being spoken. This was a magic time for the Rasmussens; when the past and future converge in the present and a nuclear fusion of color stemming from a western sunset could only punctuate the moment.

“I have to drive to Monterrey tomorrow”.

“Why R.J.?”

“I gotta take care of that land matter with Salinas. That damned fool don’t seem to know what a property line is and I saw some of his cattle on our land the other day. Had the double S brand on ‘em and everything. I’m tired of fixin’ fences with him, both literally and socially. I hope we can reach some kinda agreement, but I doubt it. He don’t know half of what goes on at his place.”

“Mr. Salinas doesn’t know what’s going on at this own ranch? How’s that, R.J?”

“Don’t you know, Etta? I didn’t tell ya? He’s one of them ‘gentleman ranchers’. He’s some sort of banker in Monterrey and hardly ever leaves the city. He don’t care about land. This just some kind of investment to him. He’s got hired hands managing it for him and I don’t suspect any of them gotta clue as to how to run a lawnmower, much less a ranch”.

“Well, alright then. You be careful and bring me back some of that good Mexican vanilla, OK?”

“Yes ma’am. Vanilla it is!”

“And R.J., please don’t stop at that filthy, little dirt floor hole in the wall outside Monterrey and have those…those…well, you know; those nasty meat things you like some much!”

“Etta honey, they’s Mountain Oysters. You know, bull testicles and I’m sorry but I will most certainly stop by that dirty old wall hole and eat me some of them thigns. You know I love ‘em and no one else in the world can fry ‘em like that cook they got. Alfonso is his name. You eat ‘em with some onions and chiles wrapped up in one of them soft flour tortillas and bite down and then you…….”

“You hush up now, R.J. Rassmussen or your gonna make me sick at my stomach!”

He laughed at his wife’s feigned nausea. She claimed to hate Mountain Oysters, even though she’d never ever even tried one. He always suspected this hearty woman from good Texas stock reacted that way just to make her husband smile.

The next day R. J. got his truck and headed south to Laredo’s International Bridge. He crossed into Mexico without a hitch and drove down the highway. The mountains were just ahead. That meant that little dirty, dusty café that Etta reviled was just around the corner. He’d been there many times. This was all familiar territory to him.

There it was: “El Restaurante del Lago”. There wasn’t much to it. You couldn’t even call it a building, really. dIt was basically a couple of old softdrink and beer billboards half propped up by post and half leaning against each other. A crude awning covered a few tables, a dirt floor that was perfect for dancing on Saturday night and in the back, there was a hastily made deep fryer and stove. The place was wired for electricity, though R.J. could never figure out how they did it. A jukebox in the corner played some conjunto music.

“Hola, Senor Rassmussen. Es good you come today!”

“How you doing Manuel. Good to see you, too. Is Alfonso cookin’ up them specialties of the house today? I sure can smell somethin’ good.”

“Today we have the food you like. You want a tequila and you wait?”

R.J. nodded and noticed a few oldtimers sitting in the corner. They were dark skinned and looked tired and worn down. Hard work in the hot north Mexican sun had aged them beyond their years. They said nothing and with the exception of a periodic sip of their beer, they were motionless.

R.J. could smell Alfonso demonstrating his craft at the deep fryer. His taste buds were prepped and ready to savor this treat. Manual brought him a jigger of tequila and a few limes and J.R. sat there, sipping it slowly in anticipation of his meal.

The waiter brough him a plate and R.J. looked down to see two very large lightly fried mountain oysters with a some onions, jalapenos and a few tortillas on the side.

Manuel barely had time to deliver a plate to the old men drinking beer in the corner when J.R. have eaten everything on his plate, and motioned to him again, asking for another plate.

“Si, Señor Rassmussen!”

He finished his plate and noticed that the two other diners were also enjoying particularly large, rotund Mountain Oysters. He sipped the rest of his tequila. It tasted good. Life was good.

Just then, Manuel brough him another plate.

“Fresh from the bull fight in Secorro across the calle, Señor Rassmussen. Perfecto, no?”

R.J. looked at the plate. This time the portions were considerably smaller.

“You say these is fresh bull balls from over to the bullfightin’ ring across the way?”

“Si, the battle just happen now. These are very fresh!”

“But they’s so small lookin’ Manuel. The other ones was so much bigger. Why is that? What the hell happened?”

Manual grabbed the dirty white dish towel that was flung over his shoulder and started swatting at flies.

“Well, Señor Rassmussen, sometimes de bull wins!”

R. J. started laughing and picked up a flour taco full of the specialty of the house and looked at it.

“Well olé then, goddammit!”

TV’s Opening & Closing Credits: What Makes A Legend?

2009 July 16

by Laurie Kendrick

I have stated many times here on this blog that my television viewing habits rarely include major network programming. Yes, I got sucked in by American Idol this year and I’ll catch the occaisional So You Think You Can Dance episode, but other than that, I don’t watch that all often.

I am blissfully ignorant of most current network shows. This includes complete ignorance regarding the cast, the show premise and it’s title theme and closing credits. Don’t even ask me about corporate sponsorship.

But somehow, in the midst of chaos and vulgarity surrounding coverage of the self-adorned Deity of Pop’s circusy funeral, the brain trust at E! Online somehow managed to find the time to compose a compendium of what it deems to be the best closing credits in TV. From what I understand, in BIG TV’s desire to make more by selling more ad time, credits (both opening and closing) aren’t what they used to be. Now, opening credits are merely brief chyron generated names and titles that run on the bottom of the screen throughout the first minute or so of the show’s first act. Closing credits run as a rapid fire, non-recognizable sidebar-like aside, usually during a network promo. This way, Best Boys and Continuity Directors will never get the praise and recognition they deserve.

Here’s E!’s list which is italicized; my added input is enboldened in red:

BEST CREDITS

24: When Jack Bauer intones, “The following takes place between…” we all get excited. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen 24.

Lost: We heart the Lost title, but if you want something a little more complex, check out Lost Video Island for a ton of fabulous Lost credits mashups. (The Cold Case one is surprisingly excellent!) Lost? Uh, sorry. Never watched it.

Supernatural: At first glance this is just a simple, albeit creepy Supernatural title, but the show has changed up the accompanying visual each season. Season two was flames, season three was smoke, season four was a flock of evil crows. Good stuff. The actor who plays the older brother is cute and worthy of future Mr. Kendrick status. But our first date cannot include conversatioans about his performance on “Supernatural”. I’ve never seen a full show in it’s entirety.

Weeds: Ever since Agrestic burned to the ground, each Weeds title has been a tiny moving diorama that depicts a key theme or scene from the following episode, and it’s always a thrill to see what they do and hunt for the cannabis-leaf Easter egg hidden therein. Smoked a mess of it in high school and college, but watch it? Nah. I don’t get Showtime on my cavalcade of satellite programming.

BEST BROADCAST CREDITS

NBC gets ragged on a lot in the TV media for miscellaneous fumbles and failings, but they are doing one thing damn well: TV credits sequences. ABC seems to have given up on having credits, all of CBS’ dramas seem to have the same credits (driving beat over a montage of faces), and nothing on the CW or Fox strikes us as characteristic or memorable as the credits produced by the Peacock. Among our faves:

Chuck:The Chuck credits are fun as heck, not least because the visuals are the perfect Chuck-style combo of geekery and adventure. Never even heard of this show.

Medium: OK, Medium is on CBS now, but we’ll give NBC the points just the same since that’s where this sequence launched. Eerie and mystical, just like Allison DuBois’ gift, this song and these visuals never get old. All I know is that it stars a bunch of blond chicks.

Southland: The combination of sepia-tone police archive photos and that snake charmer song are the perfect setup for Southland’s vérité approach to the modern police drama. I only know “Southland” as being the name of the parent company who owns 7-11 stores.

The Office: The credits for The Office may be one of the best antianxiety medications known to man. I cannot watch NBC’s “Must See Thursdy TV” or whatever colloquial nickname it has. And I’ve tried. God knows I’ve tried.

BEST CABLE CREDITS

Cable, especially premium cable, is the place to go if you’re dying for an endlessly watchable credits sequence. Because they are less dependent on ad revenue, they can amuse themselves with quaint things like “art.” E! Online’s best of the best are:

Dexter: The blood orange is a master stroke, but every element of Dexter’s morning routine conveys the purpose and style of the series. Again, a series of these….?????…..appear over my head

Mad Men: Is it a visual collage? Is it a dream? Does it have something to do with 9/11’s Falling Man? Is that a retarded question? No matter the meaning, Mad Men’s credits are magical. More of the same

True Blood: Sometimes we wish True Blood the show looked as good as True Blood the credits. I don’t know from “True Blood” either.

The E! Online article merely states that the above list of credits is what it considered to be the best of the current trend of “blink and you miss the credits”. The article is by no means a list of some of the best of all time.

If that were the case, E! would have to consider the closing credits to the hilarious but short lived ABC series, “Police Squad”. The series, which only lasted one season back in the early 80’s, was the forerunner of all the Zucker brothers produced and directed ”Police Squad” movies which also tarred Leslie Neilson.

The series was funny but was doomed to fail because it required viewers to pay attention. The bits were quick and rapid fire. Subsqueqntly it died a painful raitings death.

But it lives on on someone’s old VHS tape and of course, in parcelled sequences on You Tube. As I mentioned, the closing credits were as funny as the rest of the show. It always included the actors standing still in a fake freeze frame (which was trite and typical of 60’s era sitcoms and dramas), while the rest of the unwitting world continued to move around them.

Here’s a prime example:

My Personal WTF Moment of Political Zen

2009 July 7

by Laurie Kendrick

I am a native Texan and on those occasions when my family can spin it right, we call my generation of Kendricks, the fifth one that has lived and toiled on the hallowed soil of the mythical Lone Star State.

That said, I know all about those homespun Texas witticisms that have garnered so many natives so much attention in recent years.

Dan Rather, a son of Texas himself, was ridiculed for his “that dawg don’t hunt” metaphoric contributions to CBS’s prime time coverage of the 2004 presidential election.

I knew every one he uttered. Hayseed, perhaps but that’s how it is. And not just in Texas. This mode of analagous speech is ubiquitious through the South, too. Having been raised with them, I know what each means, so I’m not shocked when I’m in a rural area, say in far East Texas…and I’ve no idea where I am because I’ve never been there before and I stop to ask a farmer working in his field about directions and he tells me to go up the road a ways, then take a left dog leg where Homer Johnson found that sick, two-headed calf during the big rains that Asa Krieger’s bunions accurately predicted.

This is what I call a hayseed GPS, which only works if you’re from the area and know all about Homer Johnson’s penchant for wandering around outside in torrential thunderstorms.

It is true, these sayings are familiar and I can translate their meanings for the most part, but even so, I still cringed every time President Bush tried to speak extemporaneously. He wasn’t the orator that Clinton is or Reagan was. His public eloquence was often lacking. I was/am a Bush fan and a fairly loyal Republican, but even so, I prayed every time Bush offered that deer-in-the headlights, blank stare before commenting.

I was often uncomfortable in moments like this.

I’m also very uncomfortable every time Obama flack, Robert Gibbs opens his mouth.

I took an instant disliking to Gibbs during the campaign. There’s something about him. I think it’s his very efforted attempt at glibness and how he resorts to that idiotic sounding laugh when ever he feels cornered.

I’ve watched him at White House press briefings and I have to change the channel. Actually, thanks to the geniuses at Sony, my TV can be programmed to scramble satellite reception whenever he comes on the screen. The same applies to that glad handing, grandstanding walking embarrassment, Congresswoman Shiela “I Wanna Be Angela Davis” Jackson Lee (D., Texas…more on her in tomorrow’s post).

But the other day, the damn system didn’t scramble fast enough and I actually had to watch Gibbs standing at the podium in the press briefing area, having what started out to be a seemingly innocuous Q and A exchange with Chip Reid, a White House Correspondent with CBS, which by the way, vyed furioiusly with MSNBC to be the official campaign headquarters for Obama.

Chip got unusually testy with Gibbs. THEN, St. Helen of Thomas chimed in. For those of you who don’t know Helen, the longtime Washington reporter is notorious for being a rabid Liberal, has covered presidents dating back to Eisenhower. She always sits in the front row and one can expect Helen to ask pointed questions. And in this press briefing, she gets a few in with Gibbs who true to form, responds innapropriately with school girl giggling and jejune commentary.

Gibbs comes across here as something of a mockery of the nervously defensive, fertive glancing, chain smoking Nathan Sturm–comedian Martin Short’s character mock up of a lawyer representing Big Business, USA.

And when did Robert F. Kennedy Jr. start sounding like an aging Kathering Hepburn?

Anyway, let me reiterate: the real news worthiness of the video you are about to see has more to do with what Helen and Chip Reid say to Gibbs and Gibbs’ glib responses.

I dunno, but me thinks something is a wee bit amiss in the White House’s Obama Administration/National Media Make Out cubicles.

See what I mean about Gibbs? He’s like the band nerd in High School who was hell bent to grow up be somebody someday in order to some day rub it in the phases of those big, mean upper classmen who kept stuffing him inside the bass drum.

And furthermore, what happened with the love fest between Obama and the mainstream media whicho diligiently helped get him elected? Has Obama lost his luster in their eyes? Has their attention deficit finally reached a certain level of near dismissal? Whoa. I mean WHOA! Have certain members of the Liberal press somehow become ”ooh look a shiny penny” A-D-H Dee-mocrats??????

And not only that, it’s hard for me to take Gibbs seriously because he reminds me of Eggbert, Warner Brothers’ silent, bespeckled brainiac son of Prissy the Chicken, a spinster pullet who’s always tried to make unamused Foghorn Leghorn her animated husband.

Permit me to refresh your memory.

Here’s Gibbs and Eggbert side by side. You tell ME YOU can’t see the similarity.

Robert Gibbs Eggbert5

eggbert1

Cleavage Unto Me

2009 July 10

by Laurie Kendrick

I’m not a fan of tattoos. Sorry, but I’m not. And this dislike hasn’t been something that Time has bestowed upon me either. No, my friends, I didn’t like tattoos decades before my boobs started sagging south toward Tierra del Fuego.

As for why I don’t like them, well, I suppose that’s because back when I was a post-pubescent sappling, Hippies were in and all of my contemporaries wanted to be them, so every guy I knew had long hair and so did the chicks. Long, straight hair parted down the middle. I recently looked at my high school yearbook from 1975 and laughed out loud when I poodle saw all these Vidal Sassoon clones. The guys just let their hair grow out in any old way, sans rhyme or reason. Depending on the cut from whcih they grew their hair, their do’s were often mishapen, short in some places and very curly in others. We’re talking extremely patchy spots of hair. kids. It gave some of the guys the appearance of a show groomed Standard Poodle.

The girls were more consciencious about their hair style (or lack thereof in 1975). We trimmed our split ends. And for the maverick short hair girls who spat in the face of long-haired reason, they bought assloads of Short and Sassy Shampoo because that cute Olympic Gold Medalist, Dorothy Hamill (the ice skater) hawked it. But really when you think about it, why bother marketing a shampoo specifically for short hair? Does the shampoo “know” the hair it’s cleaning is short??

My point here is that today’s illustrated people who strive to be different by turning their entire bodies into a tattoo canvas, end up being just like everyone else; just like the Hippies and the wannabes more than four decades ago. I guess you could even take that back further and lump Bobby Socksers, Zoot Suiters, and 1920’s ear Flappers into the mix as well. We as human, have some sociological need to be a part of the whole, as it were. I guess we’re all born with an innate sense of community.

But the difference is, you can always change your clothing style and you can always cut your hair, but a tattoo is forever and when you grow up and realize that that huge pot smoking butterfly that now spans your shoulder blades; the very one that was so hip and cool 18 years earlier, now looks kind of odd when you hand the restaurant cashier your AARP card.

And yes, I know there’s lazer removal and other things that claim to de-art your body, but let’s be honest here, you can remove the color but there’s always a scar.

If you’ve got a tattoo(s), fine. Live and let live. I’m trying very hard not to judge here and you may be (and you might always be) quite content with all your tattoos until the day you die. Bitchin’ for you, but I’ve known several people (mostly women) who pass a certain age find the experience of getting a tattoo most regrettable. So again, this is just my opinion; something that’s only relevant to me and yes, of you must know, I too was a style lemming back in the day. I tried to mock whatever style graced the cover of Ingenue magazine and the way the kid dancers dressed on American Bandstand. And perhaps one could say that by virtue of the purse I carry and the sunglasses I wear, I still am a follower, but the good news is that I will never have to be surgically detached from either.

OK, now that I’ve spilled my thoughts on tattoos, my sister sent me these photos. The guy has an interesting calf tattoo and wanted to give the image more texture, a 3-D like depth and let’s be honest, a pair of 38 DD’s.

tatts1

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tatts 2

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tatts 3

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tatts 4

A Very Short Story

2009 July 11

Click here for this big ol’ steamin’ pile o’ weirdness.

by Laurie Kendrick

I make every attempt to be a reasonable woman, but being the errant human being that I am, I often fail at the effort. At least I try and considering that I now grace the era of Middle Age (with a life of hijinx and escapades under my belt), I remain savvy in terms of the way of the world…except for ways and means in the Arab states. Some might even think me moderately intelligent.

But you might question all of my own bluster once you see the video I’ve included in this post because it is, if I may use an algebraic metaphor, “ridiculous cubed”.

But you know me; that means I HAD to post it..

BACKSTORY

To be honest, I don’t know if there is one.

I was perusing the IntraWeb last year and happened upon the very definition of filmed insanity. This black and white video involves a big ol’ hot mess of giddy dwarfs, simulated urination with an impressive projectile stream of Silly String—I think-– plate throwing (perhaps, they’re Greek dwarfs), vegetable tossing (perhaps they’re Polish), a very brief shot of poultry free-ranging it in a vacant lot , the massive consumption of alcohol, maniacal laughing, high pitched but completely unintelligible conversations–possibly in another language – (German maybe?), a self-propelled early 1950’s era panelled delivery truck driving in circles being pummelled with the damdenst things and last and the unceremonial incineration of several Geraniums still in their pots.

All of it is utterly strange, completely incongruous and believe it or not, Frederico Fellini was NO WHERE in sight. All that was missing was a sad, maudlin clown; a drunken, half-naked woman traipsing in some Romanesque fountain at dawn and of course, balloons.

I’m not sure why it was filmed or where or what it represents, but I feel sure it could have been a meeting of the Lollipop Guild (Local #335) and their angry wives, completely run amok.

Are you ready? Then open your mouths wide, baby birds, cause Mama’s about to drop you one sweet, fat, stranger-than-hell night crawler.

If you watch it, that will be 1:53 seconds you will never, ever get back.

And you’re welcome.

I Saw “Bruno”, Then Went To Lunch

2009 July 12

by Laurie Kendrick

Ordinarily, that single sentence in the title would suffice in terms of describing my Sunday. But here in Laurie Land, things are never as they seem. I’ve been given the innate ability to be in a common, every day occurance and see the strangeness in it. Is it a gift? I doubt it, but it often makes for great blog posts.

A little bit about “Bruno”, if I may. It had a few laugh out loud moments; which is rare for me. But my guffaw moments weren’t always in tandem with the rest of my fellow movie watchers. I found myself laughing at the little things in the scenes for which you had to look or watch and the movie is rife with these subtleties.

If you were to ask me, I’d say go ahead and go – -to the earlier cheaper showings and do so because I doubt seriously if Sasha Baron Cohen can pull off another Borat. Former 2008 presidential candidate, Ron Paul (R., Texas) has a cameo in the flick and even though the whole thing was obviously set up, Ron Paul’s performance was delightfully uncomfortable, which completely worked considering the scene.

One would seriously have to believe that star cameos and each invidual reaction to their part in both of Cohen’s movies which focus on the tried and true “fish out of water” genre, are set up. That’s fine; it worked in Borat and it works in Bruno, though I doubt if Cohen could pull a third (similiar) movie out of ass, which in this movie was well photographed.

And frequently photographed.

After attending the five dollar matinee, I decided to treat myself to French inflenced Vietnamese food. There’s a restaurant here in Houston, on the near SW side of town, that makes absolutely incredible Franco/Viet cuisine.

It’s called Vietnam Coast and it has a pan sauteed garlic and onion shrimp dish that makes you want to develop festering boils. Yes kids…it’s that good. If you’re ever in Houston and find yourself in this part of town, Vietnam Coast is on Hillcroft, in between Richmond and Westheimer. Get the garlic shrimp but preface your meal with a Thai Lemongrass and Shrimp soup.

Oy to the Vey, it is delicious!! Seriously, to all my Houston readers: go there, sample their delectable wares and tell them Laurie sent you. They’ll have absolutely no idea who that is, but what a great conversation starter it could be with any member of that crazy ass, multi-ethnic Benneton ad Vietnam Coast calls its staff.

As I sat at my table, alone in all my solitude, I do as I always do: I looked around and became bemused by who and what dines around me. My table was smacked dab in the middle of the restaurant, so I had an almost 346 degree view. Ok, so logistics, including well placed urns containing bonzai trees and an oddly located cashier’s booth makes it impossible for tables to completely encircle me.

To my lower right, there were two middle aged therapists who over pot stickers and edamame, discussed their higher selves vs. their authentic selves.

Boring.

My attention went counter clockwise. On my upper right, there was a man also dining alone and he sat quietly reading a book. In fact, he only nodded and pointed when it came to addressing his waiter. He was really into this book or at least, pretended to be. Reading, I think, in a public place, not only “informs”, but it can be the perfect shield in terms of preventing you from conforming into a member of polite society. They book presents a convenient barrier. Keeping you in and others out. I pictured this man living a very insular life.

At one point he held the book in one hand as he stretched a bit. I strained my eyes to see the title. I couldn’t tell but it was written by either Tolstoy or Telstar—I didn’t have my glasses on.

Then, to my lower left, a mere two yards from me sat two couples. One couple dominated the entire conversation. They talked pedantically about their dog child which apparently is compensating for her barren status. It’s black and white and I think named Dora. Then they went on talking about a recent trip to the Balkans or the Falklands…I also can’t hear worth a damn. But whatever the location, I learned that the countries taxi drivers are gruff and once you’ve reached your destination, they’ll 86 it right on our of there before giving you back your change.

Their audience who they were holding captive with incessant talking instead of bars, smiled politely and nodded polititely and feigned a laugh as if on cue.

I thought about the extremely vanilla looking couple sitting across from them…the talkative ones. It wasn’t as though they dominated the conversation, they were despotic about it. Their hostages checked their watches a few times, sighed, too and I knew that were at their wits end. Yet the vanilla couple still blabbed on and on and when She stopped for a breath, He filled in the gap.

I wondered if they were like this with each other. Did they talk non-stop at home, or was it just something they could do when other people were there to there to talk to….that they listened or not, didn’t seem to matter. l Perhaps they didn’t talk at all at home and this lunch served as a way to vent all that silence.

Then I wondered what life was like at home. Would they tell the other couple goodbye and go home to a silent afternoon, an even more quiet dinner? And would bedtime contain more things left unsaid? Angry nights turn into angry dawns and everything in between is inconsquential when a marriage is in peril.

“How said!”, I thought to myself.

To this couple, I would imagine the sound of someone leaving and slamming the door behind them for the last time signals freedom. To them, the sound of the click and dial tone, only means the much anticipated end of yet another meaningless phone call.

Did they fall out of love? Did they just stop trying?

Maybe, they just stopped talking.

They paid their bill and one couple when their way and the talkative couple went theirs. I watched the talkers walk to their car, where they stopped and chatted a bit. She picked some lint off His shirt. He never stopped talking; She never stopped listening. She folded Her arms, looked down and kicked a pebble near Her foot; He stood there, hands on His hips a la Yul Brynner.

Then all of a sudden, they looked at each other, smiled, embraced and gave each other a brief but passionate kiss. He moved His hands down her arms; She cupped His face in Her hands. They broke their embrace, then He got into the driver’s seat and She want to Her side of the car.

They drove off with Her hand, rubbing the back of His neck..

I took a long sip of my tea as the waiter placed my check and a fortune cookie in front of me. I opened it, but I have no idea what is said. All things considered, it could easily have read, “Dumb ass. Wrong again. Stick to making fun of Helen Thomas”.

Whoa….could my impressions have been more wrong????

I left a $20 on the table and walked out the front door to my car with my head down like a despondent Charlie Brown at Christmas time.

Oh My God, Kendrick!!!! What The F—????

2009 July 13

8 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

Little known facts about me:

I love watching “Extreme Forensics” and “48 Hours: Hard Evidence” on the ID network. I should mention here that I read and watch a lot about serial killers and the way and means in which they’re caught. Well I am. Had I not ventured into the world of broadcasting, I would’ve loved to have be an FBI Criminal Profiler. Had it not been for all pesky psychology, I’d be one today.

I am also fascinated by tornadoes. Always have been; always will be. They scare the hell out of me, but they fascinate me. Someday, the future Mr. Kendrick and I will shell out about 12-thousand of our discretionary income to go on a tornado intercept junket in the midwest smack dab in the middle of twister season. I would like to see one before I die.

For that matter, I’d like to see a future Mr. Kendrick before I die, too!

Another thing that absolutely fascinates me are spiders…specifically Black Widow and Brown Recluse spiders.

Decades ago, when I was a neophyte human being, black widow spider1 we’d spend weekends and the bulk of a summers at our house in Rockport (not far from Corpus Christi on the Gulf of Mexico). The home was typical of beach construction….built on stilts with a an open kitchen and great room, with bedrooms jutting off of that. On the stairs outside…about the fourth step from the top, there lived a Black Widow spider. She was shiny and dark and that red hour glass symbold on her stomach, meant instant death for small insects and of course, any male that wanted to mate with her. In the darkness under that step, she’d found a mate. He was this ugly brown thing…very much dead..all caught up in the webbing in the corner of arachnidial lair. She was consumming him in pieces. There would always be less of Mr. Widow everytime I’d take a peak.

Spiders fascinate me. Tornadoes fascinate me. Catching elusive criminals fascinates me. Anything with aboslute power (absolute power in the natural world, that is) can grab and keep my attention for extended periods of time.

We all know the damage that tornadoes can infict. Greensburg, Kansas comes to mind, but are you fully aware of the power of spider venom? Especially Brown Recluse spider venom?

We’ll begin with avery brief primer on a Brown Recluse Spider bite.

In a short period of time, the venom from one of these spider bite has the ability to cause major tissue necrosis, which is the death of living cells. The venom comes into contact with the living cells and they simply die. The result is a very painful and gruesome “flesh-rotting” open wound

As soon as two hours after the bite, or as long as a week, recluse spider bite the area may become painful, itchy, hot, swollen, red and tender. An irregular ulcerous sore, caused by necrosis, will often appear that is from 1/4 inch to 10 inches in diameter. It will give the appearance of a very large skin boil with an obvious, pusy core.

Prompt medical attention is the best defense against preventing the necrosis. The wound is often described as being dark colored in the center, surrounded by a reddish area with a narrow whitish separation in between the red and the blue. This gives it the famous “bull’s eye” pattern.

If the wound is becoming necrotic, it will often begin to turn purple within 24 hours. If the sk brown recluse bite in does turn purple, it is likely that necrosis is on the way and will then turn black as the cells die.

Eventually, the necrotic core will fall off and leave a deep pit. A sinking blue-gray impression in the skin is the result. This is due to the lack of a good blood supply to the center of the wound.

As for Black Widow Spider bites, they’re bad but hardly the as painful or necrotizing as a Brown Recluse bite.

The black widow spider produces a protein venom affects the victim’s nervous system. This neurotoxin protein is one of the most potent venoms secreted by an animal. Some people are slightly affected by the venom, but others may have a severe response. The first symptom is acute pain at the site of the bite, although there may only be a minimal local reaction. Symptoms usually start within 20 minutes to one hour after the bite.

A Black Widow spider bite can result in pain at the bite location, followed by cramps, abdominal pain, weakness and tremor. Large muscle groups (such as shoulder or back) are often affected, resulting in considerable pain. In severe cases, nausea, vomiting, fainting, dizziness, chest pain and respiratory difficulties may follow.

The severity of the reaction depends on the age and physical condition of the person bitten. Children and the elderly are more seriously affected than young adults Local pain may be followed by localized or generalized severe muscle.

Blood pressure and heart rate may be elevated. The elevation of blood pressure can lead to one of the most severe complications.

The Black Widow bite can also create a boil-like bite which often has to be lanced.

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The videos you are about to see are as disgusting and repugnant as it gets. They contain attempts by doctors and drunken buddies to lance and or pop various spider bites.

If you are easily offended by anything you can imagine that could be construyed as spider bite by-product, then stop reading here. It’s really gross, people.

Why people felt the need to film First Aid on their spider bites is beyond me. Then again, why I felt the need to post these videos also means my decision NOT to venture into behavior and psychology based Criminal Profiling was the right decision.

Again, these videos are not for the squeamish. Seriously, don’t watch if easily offended. The last thing your computer screen needs is to be decorated with a sprayed on, pre-eaten texture applied with esophogeal torque.

OK, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Offering #1: A doctor attempts to repack the Brown Recluse bite with packing. This wound appears mild….comaparitively speaking.

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Offering #2: After viewing this, I will NEVER order Dairy Queen Soft Serve Ice Cream again and neither will you.

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Oh my, my, my my my, my, my, my…..

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This video is a prime example of the necrotic nature of the Brown Recluse bite. I have it on good authority that because of the dead and dying cells and skin in the wound, these bites are also pungeantly vile.

Vomit inducing vile.

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And the pièce de résistance my grossed out friends??? This offering from some poor cat who was bitten by a spider on his cheek. This video is parcicularly vile because after watching this seemingly endless font of contagion emitted by the wound, I really couldn’t tell if it was a spider bite or a pus filled clown car!!!!!!!

New Music: Well, It’s New To Me

2009 July 14

by Laurie Kendrick

I rarely do anything without music in the background. I drive with it; work with it. I relax with as I flip through various satellite music stations as they play the soundtrack of my life. And for the longest time, that soundtrack seemed stuck in channel five of my Lilfe’s eight track cassette. See? I'm NOT artisitic! I can't even draw conclusions

And for a while there, I did everything while musically stuck in the early 70’s. But I’ve expanded my horizons and lately, I’ve been more willing to entertain new artists, new sounds, new styles.

Some of this music might be old hat to you damned youngsters, all hopped up on Bluebirds and Goofballs (which by the way, you’re all pikers when it comes to that, but that was yesterday. Today, I’m a mature but young enlarged hearted 50 year old. I take my Centrum, do a hit or two of Geritol every morning and I rail out a big ol’ fat line of Benefiber before each meal). Since I’m old and set in my ways, I might not intentionally go out and seek the new and different stuff, but I like what I like and I know what I like when I hear it. And let’s be honest, new music doesn’t mean it has to be produced in the last two months. New is anything that’s not old to old ears.

Huh?

I digress…

Take for example, songstress Linda Kiraly. I’ve just discovered her music. Now, I’m usually not drawn to the young hipster chicks who try way too hard to be sexy and sassy, but I like her voice. As far as her looks go, well, the minute I saw her, I jokingly said she looked like she just crawled out from under an old Eastern Bloc rock.

I was close.

She’s an American born singer of Hungarian descent. The 26-year-old Brooklyn native moved with her family to Hungary in 1999 and she made a name for her self by singing Hungarian songs with titles comprised of nothing by consonents. She was a hit, too but lost credibility after flubbing a few lines of the Hungarian national anthem she was singing at the grand opening of a new gulag or something.

This 2007 release, “Can’t Let Go” is her first English language hit and it’s all about dysfunctional relationships–something I know very little about.

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In recent weeks, I’ve falled in love with this little carb lovin’ ,cherubic faced Brit. Her name is Adele and apparently she just won a Grammy or two and I’ve only learned that she existed. I like her…wanna know why? She’s chubby. Right freakin’ on for her not becoming this Rodeo Drive clone of ambulatory bone.

Here’s one of her songs, “Chasing Pavements” and dig the artistry and composition of this video. It’s like a Milos Foreman production.

Well done, I’d say.

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And then there are the Kings of Leon, which my cuddly, Teddy Bearish, Moo Goo Guy Pal, John turned me onto early last Fall. Listen to the very beginning of the song. When I hear it, I’m always amazed at how much lead singer, Kevin Followill sounds like Journey front man, Steve Perry (before testiculuar dissention).

I like these guys. When I first heard their names, I thought they were a Tejana band from deep en la corazon del Sur de Tejas, pues no. Estan de Inglaterra.

They’re British.

♦

I also like the band, “Carolina Liar” (and trust me, I knew one of the biggest). This song, “Show Me What I’m Looking For” is played incessantly, not so much on radio here in Houston, but on TV; on an Overstock.com commercial. The overkill we hear is called “power rotation” in the business. That means it’s plaued ALL THE TIME. And I assure you, O paid for the priveledge of being annoying. They’re getting what they’ve paid for. This song gets stuck in every noggin with whom I’ve spoken. So much so that you want to insert warm Pine Sol laced knitting needles into your ears, then regard Ernest Borgnine as one of Hollywood’s hotter, older leading men.

Still a catchy tune though.

♦

And this song is hardly new; it’s six years old to be exact, but my über hip twenty-something nieces and nephews think it’s hilarious that their old aunt who’s lived half a century has this song down as one of her top ten faves of all time.

And why shouldn’t I like it? I am, after all, a real down to Mars girl, you know.

For My Texas Readers

2009 July 15

by Laurie Kendrick

Believe me when I tell you that I HATE excluding my readers who aren’t from the Lone Star State, but the subject matter of this post only pertains to Texans right now and frankly, only Texans who live in areas in which electricity provision is deregulated. In other words, areas which allow you, John and Jane Q. Public, to pick and choose which provider you’d like to use.

For example: if you live in San Antonio and Alamo Light and Power (or whatever it’s called ) is the ONLY electrical game in town, then you’re out of luck. I think the same might apply to the Dallas and Austin metro areas as well as Beaumont and select points up and down the Texas/Louisiana border.

That kind of sucks for you, then friend. Houston is a huge, sprawling metropolis, but at least living in Houston, we get an option to whom we pay what in terms of electricty rates. And Wednesday afternoon I excercised my option.

I signed up for Star Tex Power.

Now, please don’t misunderstand the reason for this post. I’m not a shill for this energy provider. I’m not getting one red cent for this, nor am I getting any additional discounts on my electricity. I get the same rate you’ll get if you sign on. I’m doing this because it’s the right AND smart thing to do. And really…. I don’t know about you, but I signed on because I rather like the idea of saving as much as 25-percent on my electricty bill each month.

Don’t believe me? Well, believe Alan Lammey then.

He’s a Houston-based energy analyst who has this uncanny sixth sense when it comes to the petro-chemical industry. Alan was our on-air “go-to” guy at the last radio station where I worked. We went to him for all everything oil and gas related. In fact, we called him “Petrodamus” for his spot on prediction of oil and gas futures. He still does that and now, he’s selling energy via Star Tex Power on the side.

I signed up for Star Tex Power Wednesday afternoon and as a result, I’m going to be saving anywhere from 35 to 40 bucks per month!!!! Texas is broiling under a very relentless summer sun this year and that’s wreaking havoc on our montly power bills. Personally, I’m convinced that Al Gore has hired the Star Wars defense system to hold gigantic hand held hair dryers on us to further line his pockets, er..uh, I mean prove his point that Global Warming is a harsh and bitter reality.

Weel, the debate over climatic change might never be resolved, but we can ALL agree that times are very tough right now and economically, we’re all hurting. We have to save where we can and again, for you Texans who live in deregulated parts of the state, why not save as much as you can as far as your entergy provider is concerned?

Star Tex Power can help. I’ll let Alan take over. Here’s a copy of an email he sent to me Wednesday afternoon.

♦

Hi Laurie and of the blogosphere’s many Lauridians:

I appreciate you signing up with StarTex Power, LK. Compared to the rate you were paying with Reliant Energy (Houston’s principle carrier), you’re now saving about 25% per month! Plus, you’re no longer paying that pesky $5 per month service charge either! How cool is that!!!

Now is absolutely is a perfect time to switch to a lower electricity rate because rates are so low and I think they’ll remain this low between now and September. In fact, I believe that around September, it will be the bottom of the natgas and electricity market — and then we’re off to the races again on electricity rates. Up they’ll creep.

I’d love for you to help me spread the word to your friends and readers. The word is natural gas prices are currently eight year lows; the cost of electricity is at multi-year lows as well. I’d be signing up for at least two to three years at this point, and get yourself locked-in, because we probably won’t see these low rates again for several more years.

As you now know, one of the lowest cost, highest quality, most reputable providers in the State of Texas is StarTex Power. If any of your Texas-based blog readers are interested in saving money on their electricity, please tell them to take a look at StarTex Power, located at http://www.startexpower.com

Please choose “Radio” as the referral — and that’s because I do their radio ad’s for them. Also, place “radio” in the space for promotions code.

Here’s StarTex Power’s fixed rates. Check it out:

12 months – 10.8 cents per KWH

24 months – 11.7 cents per KWH

36 months – 12.4 cents per KWH

StarTex really has some of the lowest rates in the market. Plus, out of 51 electricity providers in Texas, they’re one of only three to get the Better Business Bureau’s Satisfactory/Excellence rating. Let me tell you something LK, THAT’S who you want to be doing business with!

So readers of LK”s blog, if any of you have questions, please feel free to email or call me anytime. Just a reminder, if you sign up, please make sure you select ‘Radio’ as the referral.

Many regards and happy lower energy rates!!
Alan Lammey

The Texas Energy Analyst

Energy Analyst and Consultant

Host of ‘Energy Week’ on 950 AM KPRC

Ph: 281-658-0395

Website: www.TexasEnergyAnalyst.com

♦

Well, there you go. I think it would be well worth your while my fellow Texans, to check out Star Tex Power. And for those of you NOT living in in the Lond Star State, hopefully you all can just move here. Hell, that might end up being cheaper in the long run!!!

But I’d seriously re-think Dallas.

Walter Cronkite 1916-2009

2009 July 18

by Laurie Kendrick

Ninety-two years. That’s a tremendous lifespan for anyone, but it’s especially long for a journalist. My people aren’t known for their healthy lifestyles.

Walter was born in Missouri, but his family moved to Houston where he was cronkite raised. He had the good sense to attend the University of Texas where he persued a Journalism degree and worked for a small Austin radio station as a sports anchor. He was fired by a boss who told him he’d never make it in the biz. So very often, this declarative from station managers has preceded some of the most successful careers.

And Cronkite’s career exemplified success.

Upon news of Cronkite’s death Friday night, I was asked if he had any influence on my decision to venture into the crazy world of broadcasting. I didn’t know the answer to that question, but later realized there was no way he could not have influenced me.

I was raised with Walter Cronkite. I learned about the latest anti-war protests on some college campus. I learned about the number of B-52’s that were downed in Vietnam that day; he told me about the latest firefight over some jungle hilltop and I knew the number of body bags that would soon be returning to the States.

My earliest memory of Walter Cronkite was at four years of age. Few believe I can remember anything about the Kennedy assination on November 22, 1963 but I’ve recited certain facts of the day that my mother verifies. Cronkite is part of that memory. My mother was rocking me after lunch in an attempt to get me to take my nap and she was doing so while watching her favorite soap opera, “As The World Turns”. I remember the screen went black and suddenly Cronkite’s voice broke the silence and announced that JKF had been shot while riding in a motorcade through downtown Dallas. A few minutes later, he came back on to announce that Kennedy had died. My mother, then a card carrying Democrat, started to cry and a few minutes later, so did Cronkite.

He did something that no network anchor had done before: he showed his emotions.

He didn’t sob; he didn’t wail, there was no gnashing of teeth. It was brief and polite and all things considered, it was appropriate. Nevertheless, I think it stunned some people. America was used to seeing their stoic, stone-faced network news anchors in overtly humanistic roles.

But Cronkite changed that.

And the man didn’t hide his boyish enthusiasm when Neil Armstrong landed the lunar module on the surface of the moon. I was ten on July 20, 1969. I had been raised with the space program. By that time, even landing on the moon bore a degree of mundanity for me, but for my parents, their contemporaries and Cronkite who were raised in a world of limitations, improbabilities and Flash Gordon, landing on the moon and the journey it took to get there, was colossal.

While my TV relationship with Walter Cronkite started waning in the mid 70’s, my appreciation for his style, his efforts and his professionalism never ceased. As network news shows go, Huntley and Brinkley did it first, but Walter did it better.

He was called, ‘the most trusted man in America” and we believed it…perhaps for reasons we still don’t know. You just had a sense with daily ministrations of Cronkite’s baritone and often monotone delivery, you were getting nothing but the facts; the real story. He would have never made the news he was reporting.

He would never have called President Bush (41) a wimp to his face; he would never have launched a smear campaign against a sitting president (Bush 43) by publically maligning and bending reality regarding his military history.

Cronkite would never have done half the things that so many newscasters do today.

It’s odd, you know…odd when you reach a certain age and you start to look at things differently. Life and death and the fine line which separates them while not foremost on your mind, becomes more of a concern. I’ve been thinking about Cronkite’s life. It spanned 92 years. He saw war, death and violence and he saw wrongs that were never made right. He reported on good things too I suppose, but those so rarely ever get press.

I made it a point to watch Cronkite’s last newscast in 1983 and I remember doing so with a slight lump in my throat. Not because I was some ardent fan and not because I was in Journalism school at the time and there because I had been duly inspired by his 19 year reign as America’s premier newsman. I watched because goodbyes are often historic and this one was. His departure also represented the end of an era and sadly, the beginning of a new one.

I firmly believe network news coverage changed after Cronkite left the anchor desk and it’s only gotten worse since news programming has become so ubiquitous in recent years. News people are now TV stars more than anything else. Beauty has replaced ability. Ken dolls anchor while Barbie and a cadre of hair and make-up stylists are out in the field reporting on day ten of Michael Jackson’s allegedly mottled penis and how it once owned a set of Ghandi’s gilded steak knives.

When Cronkite left, so did many if the good things about network news.

Nuetrality died.

And sadly, that’s the way it is.

From South Texas To The Moon

2009 July 20

by Laurie Kendrick

The moon.

Moon quarter

Shakespeare wrote about it. He penned the following for Juliet to say in her balcony scene with Romeo. When the young lad attempts to promise love’s allegiance to her by swearing by the moon, Juliet chides him:

Swear not by the moon! The inconstant moon? That monthly changes in her circled orb? Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

Here, Juliet accuses the moon of being “fickle” because it changes shape all the time. ‘Twas not the case, as we now know. The moon’s inconstant shape exists ONLY because of the Earth’s inconstant shadow, courtesy of the sun.

There have been jokes about the wonders of the light and dark comparisons of night and day. Here in Texas, the Aggies of Texas A&M University are the butt of many jokes. One states that the school’s Engineering and Astronomy Departments joined forces to build a spacecraft themselves and will blast off with the hopes of reaching the moon, but in order to beat the blazing heat from the sun, they plan on launching at night.

I’ve looked at the moon many times in my life and many times since July 20, 1969. I was ten years old that day; that incredibly auspicious day. It was summer and in the small South Texas berg where I had been born and raised, mothers were making their kids do the exact same thing my mother did. She made me stay in that summer night. Usually my mother was concerned about my incessant TV habits in the evening, but this time she was encouraging my viewing. For that night, history would be made: Neil Armstrong was going to be the first man in history to walk on the lunar surface.

Yes, it was exciting. This was indeed a first. But I was well aware of science fact. Oh sure, I’d seen the 50’s era, schlocky science fiction movies about landing the moon; the scary, evil aliens who lived there and the green cheese surface on which they dwelled. But my reasoned and contemporary view of space exploration (even my sophomoric view) still difference from that of my parents. My mother and father both in their early 40’s on that date, were in sheer awe of what TV images the night would bring. But unlike my parents, I completely believed it was possible that a man walk on the moon. A lunar landing was hardly improbable.

I was raised smack dab in the middle of the space race. The Russian’s had Sputnik and Yuri Gregorian; the United States had John Glenn and the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. I knew as much about NASA as I did the characters on ”Jonny Quest” and “George of The Jungle”, my favorite Saturday morning cartoons. My life had been unduly influenced by NASA and the space program. Why, that very morning after I woke up, breafasted on bacon, eggs and a cold glass of Tang.

Four days earlier on July 16th, a Saturn 5 rocket blasted off from Cape Kennedy, with three men perched inside it’s nose cone. But tonight, an ordinatory space mission, would become extraordinary.

We watched TV as a family that night, gathered around the hearth-like hutch which contained a 20-inch Zenith color TV. Daddy turned off the lights in our maple panelled den to further the effect. I remember my mother admonishing him because he’d switch channels from Walter Cronkite on CBS to Jules Bergman, Science Editor for ABC News, hoping to get the best picture possible.

apollo_lm The landing of the Lunar Module or LM also known as the Eagle, though NASA afffectionately called it the LEM, was a slow painstaking process, but considering the historical nature of the even, even the most impatient man garnered every ounce of forebearance he could.

At about 4pm Texas time, we heard those magic words transmitted over a squeaky microphone uttered from 98-thousand miles away.

”Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

Houston was the very first word uttered from the moon. Take that, Dallas!!!!!!!

And that word and those that followed, ushered in a new era of space exploration. I remember my father saying, “Mars is next!” as he toasted the grainy TV image with a Scotch and water.

Then, the two astronauts inside the LEM, prepared to make history again by walking on the moon. I can’t imagine what Niel Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin must have felt when the looked out the craft’s tiny windown. Michael Collins, was forced to stay in the command module or Columbia as NASA referred to it. He would orbit the moon a few times while his astro-collegues walked on the moon.

Shortly after the LEM landed, Buzz Aldren grabbed the mike and said this:

Shortly after landing, before preparations began for the EVA (extra hvehicular activity), Aldrin broadcast the following:

This is the LEM pilot. I’d like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way.

He then preformed Holy Communion privately. This was never made public and with good reason. At the time, noted Atheist, Madalyn Murray O’Hare had brought a lawsuit brought had filed suit against NASA because the crew of Apolla 8 read from the Book of Genesis. Asa result, NASA demanded that their astronauts refrain from any kind of religious activities while in space. Aldrin told no one about his plan for Communion–he didn’t even mention it to his wife and it was years before his actions were made public. Aldrin was an elder at Webster Presbyterian Church in Webster (the Houston suburb which serves as home to the Johnson Space Center). His communion kit was prepared by his church’s pastor, the Rev. Dean Woodruff. In fact, the Webster Presbyterian Churc still has the chalice Aldrin used on the moon, and commemorates the special Lunar Communion each year on the Sunday closest to July 20th.

There was a five hour time lapse between the LEM’s landing the moon walk. The plan was for the astronauts to sleep. As you can imagine, that was the last thing on their minds and instead, they elected to prep for the moon walk.

And shortly before 1o pm (CST), Armstrong began his very long descent down a very short ladder. He had some trouble getting his life-support system held in that huge pack on his back, but managed to squeeze through. Onced situated atop the ladder, he tugged at a D-Ring beside the ladder and out popped a stowed TV camera attached to one of the LEM’s tripodic legs.

Everything he did from that point on was televised.

Then, Buzz Aldrin exited the craft and became the second man to walk on the moon’s surface. He and Armstrong planted a flag and attached a plaque to it which read, “”Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.” Then, the pair frollicked in the moon’s gravity…1/6 that of the Earth’s. They also collected some lunar soil samples and picked up a few rocks.

Afterwards, they climbed up the ladder and back into the LEM and prepared to jettison off the moon’s surface to rendezvous with the Command Module orbiting overhead.

Next stop: Earth.

I don’t remember much after Armstrong and Aldrin re-entered the LEM. I Apollo_11_crew_in_quarantine do remember the three astronauts were quarantined for health reasons aboard a Naval war ship which helped retrieve them after splash down.

But do I remember almost everything that happened the night the Eagle landed. Shortly after Aldrin closed the hatch that night, I walked outside to join my father. He was in the backyard staring up at the moon. He didn’t say anything; he just put his arm around me and continued his upward gaze. I looked up, too.

I wondered if the two Men On the Moon were looking back at me. I had the urge to wave, but didn’t when I remembered that earlier, Walter Cronkite had informed us that we were watching the lunar events unfold along with more than 600-million around the globe. In the vast configuration of thigns, I felt very small in a vast sea of humanity that I would never fully comprehend. That night, the Earth suddenly felt so huge and the moon seemed so tiny.

And then another rare event happened that night; the child in me took over and mature logic left. And out in my the darkness of my backyard, under my father’s gentle caress, I no longer looked at the moon as a orbiting satellite of discovery and exploration. It had reverted back to being simply the moon; the greyish, white round thing up in the night sky; the very thing that a nursery rhyme insisted a cow had jumped over. And the Man In It smiled at me just as he always had, but on the evening of July 20, 1969, he seemed a bit happier.

I instinctively knew it was because hey had company over for the very first time.

Apollo11-moon-footprint

Would You…….???

2009 July 23

by Laurie Kendrick

If a woman was in a store with her very unruly child and she began spanking said child, would you (a complete stranger) intervene? Or would your intervention depend on the extent to which the spanking escalated?

If a woman was in a grocery store with a child wailing over the fact that Mom refused to buy his favorite Captain Crunch variety, would you scowl and ignore or approach her and ask her to take the diminutive banshee out of the building?

If you were walking along the sidewalk and witnessed an older person fall or take a tumble, would you keep on walking or would you stop to help?

Would you pull over after witnessing a minor traffic accident to offer help or would you keep on driving thinking someone else would probably stop and help?

If you lived in an apartment building and the neighbors were playing Rap music with the base cranked up to 11, would you call building management, the police, knock on their door with your hands over both years or would you suffer in silence so you wouldn’t step on anyone’s toes ?

If a woman exited a bathroom and had her skirt or dress hiked up in panty hose (do women still wear these restrictive things invented by Torquemata??) exposing her portly rear end to the world, would you tap her on the shoulder and let her know? Would you do the same if you are a man?

If a man exited the bathroom with his fly unzipped with a slight protrusion in progress, would you let him know? Would you do the same if you are a woman?

If you saw a 20 dollar bill on the floor of a semi-intimate cocktail party (say 28 people are in attendence), would you quietly pocket the dough or would you take it around the room asking your fellow guests if they lost a $20?

Would you tell a complete stranger that his/her spouse or betrothed is having an affair?

If you witnessed a co-worker who was fertively glancing to the left and right, swipe a ream of paper, a hox of paper clips, five Post-It Notes stacks, a few pens and a three-hole puncher, would you notify your supervisor?

Would you feel badly if you learned the co-worker ultimately had permission to take these items and you jumped to the conclusion of stealing?

Would you discipline someone’s else child?

If you were at a dinner party and the entre tasted as if it had been already eaten, would you politely force feed yourself? Would you take a few polite nibbles and make a meal out of the side dishes and bread? Or would you allow your gag reflex to do your talking for you?

Would you go to a wedding, a shower, retirment party or a birthday celebration without a gift and reamin silent, refusing to apologize for coming empty handed?

Let’s say you’re introduced to the the very homely newborn of a friend or colleague, would you make cooing sounds and offer “sweetitudes” thus sparing the new mom’s feelings or would you ask her which tree it fell out of?

At Least My Nails Look Good

2009 July 24

by Laurie Kendrick

Once a week, my dear friend Martha Martinez (of the S chipped nails an Antonio Martinezes) and I meet for a day of being female. The excursion often includes a leisurely breakfast, shopping and when the chips are down, as in across all 20 of our bodies’ digits capable of nail growth, it’s time to right the aesthetic wrongs.

Not only was my polish chipped on my fingers and toes, the overall state of my nails was deplorable. My mother always insisted that you can tell a lot about a woman by the way she keeps her nails. I know I look down at other women’s feet in a checkout line or as they splay out against the hard floor in the bathroom stall next to me. If I see brindled nail polish that bears an uncanny resemblance to a Rorschach Ink Blot Test, then I instinctively raise an eyebrow. If I look down and see the same harrowing appearance on my toes, I quickly drape some toilet tissue over both toes.

Then, I hightail it over to the farrier to have my hooves buffed.

Today was one of those days. I met Martha for breakfast. We dined on tacos and planned our day. Shopping first. I had earrings to buy (and God help me, I bought waaaaaaaaay too much) then we would have a full compliment of work down on our nails. You see, it was compulsory. We are being escorted this weekend to cocktails at a higher end establishment, followed by a performance of Cirq de Soleil, and we didn’t want to look like rubes.

I don’t often get manicures. I’m a pedicure kind of gal, but I looked d spork own at my hands earlier in the day and I was mortified. My nails were uneven; damned near jagged and resembling one of the incredibly utilitarian fork/spoon utensils called a “spork”; the kind that Church’s and KFC unabashedly hand out with any of their variety meals.

Hey kids, need your fillet of-guess-what served on your plate by Lunch Lady Doris who don’t got no serving fork?

The Health Department be damned! Why, use your nails, Hair Net!

lunch lady Yes, my hands could’ve been Doris’…. one of those Slovak looking broads, with a hair-baring wart growing somewhere prominently on her full, round face that stares at you as she serves up pre-eaten looking portions of meat amalgams in your High School cafeteria.

We go to a nice little salon on Houston’s SW side. It’s run by and staffed with sweet little Vietnam women, as are many salons these days, Plus, Houston has a vast Vietnamese population which exploded around the time Saigon fell. Needless to say there are nail salons on every corner.

Martha got a mani/pedi and I got a manicure with a change in toenail polish. I chose a deep purplish-brown color. I wanted drama and Martha chose a variation on a theme of her pinkish/red favorite.

We finished within minutes of each other and were escorted as we shuffled toes up, to the ultra-violet booth where we’d allow hands and feet to absorb hundreds of rads in an effort to dry faster.

We were just about to pack up and leave when one of the ladies came over to make sure we were dry. She chatted with us, well, as much as the mutual language barrier would allow us and then she walked away.

And in the course of her exit, she farted. She didn’t expelled gas–that would’ve been too lady-like. No, this diminutive 5′1″ waif of a woman, cut a fart. It was a silent, but one that permeated this incredibly, horribly, flower-wiltingly acrid expulsion of intestinally processed nastiness.

I surmized she had been eating corpses in full decomposition.

I smelled it first as it wafted up my nostrils like the fingers of some ectoplasmic demon. I looked a Martha with a pained expression. A fraction of a second later, she also inhaled a blast of pure evil.

We both started laughing, mouths covered for fear we’d ingest what only could’ve been the same gas used to kill all those Kurds in provincial Iraq a decade ago.

Martha covered her nose and fanned herself with a magazine. I quickly grabbed some rose scented some hand lotion on the counter and swabbed a substantial portion under each nostril—a little trick I learned from watching Quincy and The Silence of The Lambs.

It was funny, yet repulsive.

Obviously, I’m not a man and I’m rather ignorant regarding the seedier side of commercialized sex. Consequently, I’ve never experienced the particular carnal delights that men often seek, but I have heard of the term “happy endings” , especially where Oriental massages and certain pleasures are concerned. I know it’s come to mean the culmination of a sex act. I’ve been told it often has to do with the mutuality of something called “a 69″.

Well, I have to tell you my Brothers, I’m glad I’m not a man because if THIS one reprehensibility is what a “happy ending” is all about, then I know for a fact, I could never handle the remaining 68!!!!!!!

Kendrick On Films

2009 July 26

by Laurie Kendrick

In 1972, I was 13 years old. Nothing spoke to me louder than the movie, “Billy Jack”. The film centered around an Arizona school for free thinking teens hampered by adults who were so caught up in their materialistic, gimme, gimme ways.

Remember the character of spoiled Bernard, who’s fat cat, wild horse rounding-upper Daddy who’d sell the beautiful, free ranging equines for dog food, bought him a gold Corvette for a whopping 6K (according to circa 1971 Blue Book prices) was the nemesis. He and his father represented the entire conflict between the good and kind pacifists at the school and the evil, moral compass lacking D-list actor/assholes living in the nearby village.

We’re talking about an ass-backwards berg that would have an ice cream parlor which ONLY offered chocolate and vanilla flavors while keeping them in separate freezers.

What??? No Neapolitan????

A lifetime ago, I thought the movie was brilliant. If spoke to me.

Screw the establishment!

And right on to “Never trust anyone over 30″, the once iconic phrase that Jack Wienberg, an enlightened and hip student at the University of California Berkeley coined back in the 60’s.

But times have changed.

Here it is, 37 years later and now I’m part of the establishment of which I once thought so poorly. I now regard the sexagenarian Weinberg to be a total Pinko Lefty Commie bastard.

But if aging and politics are to be considered, he’s probably a card carrying member of the GOP and thinks Pat Robertson is a little too Liberal.

I saw “Billy Jack” a few months ago. What a silly bunch of tripe…and that’s just my opinion of the acting, costuming, producing, plot, casting, sound, screenwriting, lighting, direction, cinematography, best boying, gaffing and craft servicing.

It is perhaps, the single, most jejune celluloid effort I have ever seen. Unless, of course, you include “Love Story”, which I am.

Right off the bat, I can tell you I”ve always thought the acting was horrible, even back at age 11 when I could channel the spirit and arrogant opinion of a one Miss Rex Reed.

The premise cactually could’ve been incredibly poignant, but everything Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal did or uttered came across so eye-rollingly contrived.

And that complete horseshit line, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry”, especially when a very unemotional Oliver Barrett says that to his even less emotional father (played statue-like by that Hollywood hunk o’ man, Ray Milland), is such a crock.

AND SCENE: It is snowing outside Cedars-Sinai Hospital when Daddy Barrett learns that his Catholic plebian daughter-in-law, Jenny Cavalieri Barrett has just succumbed to cancer. He apologizes to his remote and distant sone by saying “I’m sorry” and that’s when Son Oliver stops him in in mid-sentence and drops that famous line on Daddy. This, after book author and screenwriter, Erich Segal would insisted the two have never, ever been close.

The American Film Institute named the flick one of most romantic movies in the history of movie making. Personally, I thought “the entire “Die Hard” series, was by far more of a tear-jerker; certainly more rife with poignant and tender moments. I mean, when Bruce Willis lost his shoes and had to walk on all that shattered glass–I ask anyone who saw Part One in the theater, was there a dry eye in the house???

Plus, Ali McGraw’s nostrils flared while attempting to make salient points and that for some reason bothers me to no end. Brad Pitt did that a few times during “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and I was completely turned off by the man and the movie.

And again, that stupid, stupid phrase, “love means never having to say you’re sorry”, as if love will prevent you from ever hurting another or being hurt.

It doesn’t work that way. We’re human beings first; made fragile at times, by our emotions. Love is the one emotion that makes most normal human beings, their most vulnerable.

It would indeed be a completely idyllic concept to live pain free, but that’s not reality. Wars don’t always occur on foreign soil; the first salvos are often launched in living rooms and battles can often include the weaponry of words, hostility and heartache. Sorry, Mr. Segal–lovely concept this…this phrase of yours, but it only exists on the imaginary sound stages of Hollywood or on the pages of something Simon and Schuster published decades ago. It doesn’t fly in the face of reality.

To me, love means having to say you’re sorry. And while I hate romantic strife like the next person, I’ll happily take a little of the texture that the ups and down create, over the painful discomfort and fakery involved in constantly walking on egg shells.

Secrets of Yesterday and JFK

2009 July 28

by Laurie Kendrick

It is not an unusual occurance for me to suffer prolonged stints of insomnia. Whenever my life takes a surprising course, my sleep cycle suffers. Therefore, if you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time, you’d be able to deduce that I rarely ever sleep.

Sadly, TV viewing (cable and satellite offers little reprieve) isn’t conducive to the insomniac’s needs in the middle of the long, long night. I mean, if the “Giant Ladder System” and “Lose Two Inches To Your Waist Instantly” are what you deem to be great TV, fine. But I don’t.

On those long nights when I can’t sleep, I often watch old TV game shows from the early 60’s. The Game Show Network is good about running the oldies into the wee hours of the morning.

The grainy, black and white brain child what's my line from veteran TV game show producers, Goodson and Todman, known as “What’s My Line”, is one of my favorites. The game show ran for an unprecedented 18 seasons, from 1950 to 1967 on CBS. It focused on a group of elegantly dressed panel members (women in long dresses; men in tuxes) who tried to guess the strange or unusual occupations of ordinary members of the American public.

FOR EXAMPLE: ”Ten down and no more to go. Therefore, panelists, I’d like for you to meet, Mrs. Iva Lee Finkelstien, Brooklyn’s ONLY female, one-armed haberdasher who’s also a blind albino with one polydactyl left hand!”

polydactyl hand 2

Everytime I watch an episode, I marvel at how formal and civilized everyone seemed back then. ‘Twas a polite society indeed…or so it would seem.

It was rather pretentious too, and on that, there’s little doubt.

After the show’s intro, a panelist would enter from offstage, assume his or her place at the desk, then introduce his or he Arlene Francis r fellow panelists who was seated to his or her right.

I remember once hearing that obnoxious, gravel-voiced Bennett Cerf, the publisher and co-founder of Random House, introduce Arlene Francis and that HUGE trademark, diamond heart pendant she’d always wear, by saying that he was “always charmed by her elan and perspicacity”, as if those were two words were frequently bandied about over the dinner table in most blue collar American homes in a post Eisenhower existence.

The panelists for “What’s My Line”, have always consisted of funny, pithy and well educated people. Noted thinker and funny man, Steve Allen was a guest panelist for years, but when he left to start “The Tonight Show”, he was replaced by 50’s comedian, Fred Allen (no relation) and little known Hollywood director, Martin Gabel who was also known as Mr. Arlene Francis would often make guest appearances as a panelist. I should mention that his wife, the doting woman of Armenian extraction named Arlene, was known for being a lesser known actress, but a rather prominent radio and TV talk show personality at the time.

The show was hosted by a man who I can only describe as a seemingly kind and friendly elitist. TV and radio newsman, John Charles Daly held the honor of show host for most of the show’s18 year run. He was an eloquent man. He’d been married several times, but seemed to have found the love of his life in a one Virginia Warren, daughter of Supreme Court Chief Justice, Earl Warren. This important tidbit becomes a little more relevant later in this post.

But one of my favorite panelist of all time, was that crazy ass Dorothy Kilgallen, the newspaper reporter and columnist. I’d watch her talk in amazement. This photo indicates a wide, brimming smile, but in everyday pose, her mouth was small. I wondered how she ever formulated words and sentences out of that centimeter wide opening, which I swear was the tiniest pie hole, I’d ever seen?

Not only that, but she didn’t have the personality the other panelists. The others could laugh and make jokes, she never did. She seemed more focus on getting the answers right. And not only that, I thought she maintained such a straight laced countenance because she had no choice–her expressionless face might break otherwise.

But Kilgallen’s “What’s My Line” stoicism, wasn’t what fascinated me; what actually enthralled me was her life and especially the way she died.

A little bit about her if I may: reporting was in her blood. Her father was a higher up within the Hearst newspaper monopoly. She had something of a Patrician background and travelled a great bit as a young woman. She dropped out of college to accept a gig as a reporter for the New York Journal, a Hearst publication, I might add.

Kilgallen covered her share of fluff….Broadway, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and bits of Hollywood gossip, but she was also known as a hard-hitting reporter. She delved into crime and made some waves; especially as a female reporter in a world of male dominated news. She was heralded for her coverage of the Dr. Sam Shepperd murder trial. The physician was charged and convicted for the 1954 murder of his pregnant wife. There are those who feel certain that the television series and David Jansen vehicle, “The Fugitive” were loosely based on Sheppard’s story, though this has always been denied by the show’s creators.

But being the Kennedy assassination buff I am, I was always intrigued by Kilgallen’s role in the investigation. (The bulk, but not all of the following was taken from DemocraticUnderground.com).

For starters, Kilgallen was was the only reporter to interview Lee Harvey Oswald’s killer, Jack Ruby. Not only that, but she found fault with what the Warren Commission gave as the official story regarding who killed Kennedy…how and why. Sadly, that became the last story she ever pursued.

She died mysteriously in November 1965, after being threatened, but the cops never probed further.

She had a good contact within the Dallas Police Department, who gave her a copy of the original police log that chronicled the minute-by-minute activities of the department on the day of the assassination, as shown in the radio communications. This allowed her to report that the first reaction of Chief Jesse Curry to the shots in Dealey Plaza was: “Get a man on top of the overpass and see what happened up there.” Kilgallen noted that he lied when he told reporters the next day that he initially thought the shots were fired from the Texas School Book Depository.

Dorothy challenged the credibility of Howard Brennan (who supposedly gave police a description of the shooter). She wrote articles about how important witnesses had been intimidated by the Dallas police or FBI.

On Sept. 25, 1964, Kilgallen ran an interview with one of the witnesses to the shooting of Officer Tippit whom the Warren Commission never questioned. Clemons told Kilgallen that she saw two men running from the scene, neither of whom fit Oswald’s description.

Dorothy also approached one of Jack Ruby’s lawyers, Joe Tonahill. Surprisingly, Ruby (who fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald, who was suspected of assassinating John Kennedy) agreed to talk with her. Some have speculated that Ruby would not have told her anything important, but Tonahill strongly disagrees. “This interview with her was a very significant point in his classless life,” Tonahill asserts. He affirmed that Ruby “cooperated with her in every way that he could, andtold her the truth as he understood it. It was just a very agreeable conversation between them. I just can’t understand people doubting the sincerity of that interview.”

The attorney, who observed the two talking, said that “I don’t think there was any doubt about it… Jack was highly impressed with Dorothy Kilgallen… Of all the writers that were down there during the Ruby trial — about 400 from all over the world — she probably was the one that, to him, was the most significant.”

Kilgallen never published any information she obtained from her private talk with Jack Ruby, but Ron Patakysays that’s because she was “saving it for a book.” She was under contract to Random House, Bennett Cerf’s company, to produce a tome that was supposedly going to be a collection of stories about the famous murder trials she had covered.

One of the biggest scoops of Kilgallen’s career came when she obtained the 102-page transcript of Ruby’s testimony to the Warren Commission. Readers were shocked at the hopelessly inept questioning of Ruby by Chief Justice Warren, and by Warren’s failure to follow up on the leads Ruby was feeding him. Attorney Melvin Belli called Dorothy’s scoop “the ruin of the Warren Commission.” We should remind you that all of this took place at the same time she was a panelist on “What’s My Line?”. It caused an uncomfortable riff between Dorothy and host, John Daly. Don’t forget , I told you to whom he was married, earlier in this post.

Kilgallen claimed to have extremely relevant information gleaned from her private interview with Jack Ruby that could stop the presses. She told no one, save for her husband, and kept notes with her at all times. As stated earlier, everyone believed she was saving the news for an upcoming book, bound to be a blockbuster.

But that never happened.

On November 8, 1965, Kilgallen was found dead on the third floor of her five-story townhouse, just 12 hours after she appeared, live, on “What’s My Line”. Her hairdresser, Marc Sinclaire, found her body when he arrived the next morning. Her death was attributed to a fatal drug overdose. What’s interesting here is that no one knows for sure whether her death was considered a suicide or an accidental death.

By the way, the notes on the Jack Ruby interivew, the ones she never allowed out of her sight, were nowhere to be found after her death.

In closing, because of her open criticism of the Warren Commission and other US government entities, and her association with Jack Ruby and that “explosive” 1964 private interview with him, some speculate that she was murdered by members of the same alleged conspiracy that murdered JFK. Her claims that she was under surveillance by the FBI led to a theory that some people had a motive for killing her. This is partially based on the fact that throughout her career she consistently refused to identify any of her sources

Her death certificate cites the cause of death as “undetermined”.

Incredibly, information from the Freedom of Information Act, accessed by reporters in the years following her death indicate that the CIA had 53 field offices around the world watching her on her foreign travels. Given this context, it is hard to see her untimely death as a mere accident.

There is no statute of limitations on murder, and there are enough people still alive who know full-well what really happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963, but will that ever happen? Will we ever know the complete truth regarding the Kennedy assassination and what’s considered to be it’s vast ”cover up”?

There are those who have said that full disclosure will happen in the year 2043 (I’ve also heard the year to be 2028, too). Those years were chosen for revelation, perhaps to ensure the deaths of every person involved. I don’t know if this is true or not, but it would be lovely to think that my great nieces and nephews might someday know what I never will. Something tells me that if this revelation should ever come to fruition, the list of names and the entities involved would be astonishing and much larger than we ever thought possible.

Dorothy Kilgallen once wrote, “Justice is a big rug. When you pull it out from under one person, a lot of others fall, too.”

In the case of the JFK assassination, wouldn’t it be lovely to think so.

Faith Or Ignorance?? You Tell Me

2009 July 29

by Laurie Kendrick

Having reported on the news most of my professional career, it’s truly the last thing I want to encounter in my life as a civilian. I am blissfully unaware of most current events. The story your about to read unfolded throughout most of 2008, but I only recently found out about it.

Here’s the story:

Wisconsin father, Dale Nuemann, charged last October with reckless homicide for not taking his dying daughter to a doctor, told police that he believed God would heal her. He went on to say that when she lapsed into a coma, he merely thought she was sleeping.

Eleven-year-old Madeline Neumann lost a battle with undiagnosed diabetes in March of 2008 at her family’s rural Wisconsin home. She lying on the floor, surrounded by people who’d been praying for healing. It wasn’t until she stopped breathing that someone finally called 911.

Prosecutors say her father, Dale Neumann, had a legal obligation take his dying daughter to a doctor or a hospital.

Neumann told investigators that in the weeks leading up to Madeline’s death, he noticed that was a “little weak and a little slower,” something he attributed to puberty. Her condition deteriorated, and the day before her death, Madeline could no longer walk or talk.

“We just trusted the Lord for complete healing,” he said. “We didn’t really sense it was like a life-and-death situation. We figured there was something really fighting in her body. We asked people to join with us in prayer agreement.”

Neumann said it never crossed his mind that his daughter might have lost consciousness.

According to Neumann, “I didn’t believe at all that the Lord would even allow her to pass.”

Neumann also told detectives that even though he’s convinced “sickness is a result of sin”, his daughter’s death hasn’t shaken his faith or belief system.

The family does not belong to an organized religion, and Neumann’s wife, Leilani testified that she and her husband have nothing against doctors. But, she said, she viewed Madeline’s illness as “something spiritual.”

Leilani Neumann was convicted of second-degree reckless homicide this spring and faces up to 25 years in prison..

Dr. Joseph Monaco, who worked on Madeline in the hospital emergency room, said she was “very, very emaciated and wasted physically.”

♦

I hear stories like this and I get very angry. And not only that, people like this make me angry. I’m talking about those who believe God will handle everything in a flash, like one of Samantha Stevens’ (TV’s “Bewitched”) magical finger snaps.

As if even Almighty God can take someone in the latent stages of Level 4 Cancer; when the death rattle has begun, that suddenly He/She will make that poor emaciated creature well, then hope on out of their one-time death bed ready to dance a hula.

I wonder when people (even those who are limited in scope as the Nuemanns) will understand that God isn’t this better-than-a Vegas-act magician!! Sure, mmiraculous events still happen these days. Granted, they’re not as convincing as the Bible would have us believe, but miracles still occur. The problem is people aren’t aware of them, or take them for granted. It’s hard not to witness childbirth or a massive suspended bridge connecting two land masses across a huge body of water and not marvel at the miracle of technology.

But technology isn’t magic. It’s applied science. Therefore, I suppose my question at this point is when will people understand that God isn’t magic? And when we people understand the role they play in their own survival?

I’m not an incredibly Godly woman. While I believe in a very defined higher power that works for me, I also believe in the power we have within us. God given power, one could say. I believe in our power to affect change and that covers an extremely broad scope.

The Nuemanns are what I called “literalists”. They can’t see beyond the words of the Bible that they firmly believe are ccompletely infallible.

OK, cool whatever floats your boat, but if they would have chosen to educate themselves to what exists beyond the scope of this book’s text (and sorry people, but we’re talking about a book here, that no matter how you slice it, was physcially written by man) they wouldn’t both be facing lengthy jail sentences.. They are guilty of ignorance, extreme provincial thinking and misappropriation of faith. In my opinion, they’re faith is wrong. It’s oddly scoped. They are entitled to believe as they see fit, but where has it gotten them? Jail time and a daughter who’s dead. I pity them them for thinking that all illnesses are the result of sin. That speaks volumes about these people.

Sadly, they were looking for a miracle; one of those Lazarus type resurrection deals. At the time that happened and if that ever happened in the first place, that could have been described as such solely for the benefit of an even more ignorant and unenlightened group of people…..early man.

You know, the needed the magic to believe.

What the Nuemanns failed to realize in their own (and yes, I’ll say it) STUPIDITY is that had they taken their daughter to a hospital, she would probably still be alive. And if anyone would like to take that further and split hairs, we can do that: That said, one then could argue that God paved the way for medical technology to be as cutting edge as it is today. He gave people the drive and the intellect to invent these mmiraculous processes, such as dialysis, tumor removal and neurosurgery. The list is endless.

Go have a mole removed by laser surgery and then argue that point with me.

I don’t have more to say about the subject other than it reminds of a parable I’ve heard for years.

A man was caught in a terrible flash flood.

He prayed, “Lord, save me!”

Shortly after his prayer, a boat paddled towards him and the people urged the man to get in.

“No thank-you”, said the man, “The Lord is going to save me”.

An hour later, a motor boat drove by and the people urged the man to get in.

“No thank you”, said the man, “The Lord is going to save me”.

The water continued to rise; so much so that the rescue efforts were significantly hampered. The man, at this point, was clinging to the roof-top; floodwaters were about to completely engulf him. He knew his life stood in the balance. Then suddenly, a helicopter flew overhead and lowered a rope ladder next to him as he clung to the roof for life.

“Don’t worry about me. The Lord is going to save me”.

Shortly after that, the man drowned.

As he stood before God in Heaven, he asked Him, “Lord, I trusted in You–Why didn’t You save?”

“Save you???”, replied God, “I sent you two boats and a helicopter! What else did you expect?”

♦

Well, there you go.

Maybe it’s just me, but I do believe that sometimes we haveto make the effort to see the ecclesiastical forest for the trees. As this case perfectly exemplifies, do the alternatives really give us much of an option otherwise?l

Really, What’s The Difference???

2009 July 31

by Laurie Kendrick

Yesterday, Red Sox slugger, David “Big Papi” Ortiz has admitted that a New York Times article was correct when it name the Left Fielder as one of the players to have tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003 .

The Dodgers’ Manny Ramirez didn’t deny the report either. The former Red Sox starter star who’s Ortiz and Manny already served a 50-game suspension for a failed test earlier this season, was also named in the Times report.

What’s interesting here, is that while Oritz admitted being on the last, he insists that he has no clue as to how or why he tested positive in the first place.

The next few weeks should be interesting.

Performance Enhancing Drugs.

Three words that have plagued the once stellar and untarnished world of baseball for years.

In December 2007, I wrote a post about America’s pastime and certain players’ use of anabolic steroids and how that has failed a country full of wide-eyed baseball fans ,who still believed their heroes were naturally gifted and that plus, conditioning, practice and drive allowed them to earn the term “slugger” the old fashioned way; NOT through chemistry.

While my opinion regarding the use of steroids hasn’t changed in the two years since originally writing that post, I’ve also chosen to look at the subject from a different perspective.

One could argue that PEDs (performance Enhancing Drugs) give fans more bang for their buck. Jose Canseco accused baseball superstar Mark McGwire of being a steroid pin cushion not long after McGwire’s record breaking season in 1998. That’s when he wowed the country and baseball fans around the world were completely wowed when he and Sammy Sosa both surpassed Roger Maris’ 61 homerun record in a single season.

Maris achieved that feat in the early 60’s and did it through grit and guts and probably a whole helluva lot of gin, but let’s face it, alcholol isn’t an enhancer unless of course, you consider that it helps make make homely people much prettier at closing time.

But herein lies the question I want to pose:

cosmo cover What really is the difference between any player using anabolic steroids AND a model who’s achieved superstardom in the world of fashion, glamour and thin, corporeal perfection courtesy of boob jobs, butt lifts, lipsocution, tummy tucks, Botox and collagen puffed bee stung lips? And then even with all that there’s the magic of make-up, lighting and technology. Her photographs are often air brushed and retouched to enhance her looks even more. It suddencly ceases being natural and becomes man-made and technolically enhanced.

Like an injection of Andro or any of the the countless other types of gym candy usesd to bulk up.

I’ve included a video, that was produced by Dove two years ago. It’s made the rounds on You Tube and in email inboxes and and perfectly exemplifies the concept of enhanced beauty. And in many cases, where there was none intially.

Granted, the model only poses for a camera and with the exception of long, enduring hours under hot lots and a photographers glare; there’s very little physical exertion or the need for a specific skill set. In baseball, it’s imperative that you have raw skills or you wouldn’t be playing professionally, be it on farm teams or up in the Big Show.

Nevertheless, if a model is paid ridiculous amounts of money simply for looking good while being photographed, how is that any difference from a player who juices? How is the enhanced beauty of a model any more wrong than that of a pro-player who shot up to give himself an edge in the game?

As I see it, a model is already pretty. Nature has been kind; Max Factor even kinder. That said, beauty is enhanced through all the applications and methods listed abve.

A truly talented baseball player can already hit a ball close to the Green Monster in Boston, but a few shots in the butt with PEDs can often mean the difference between a base hit and a homerun.

Fashion magazines sell more magazines when a beautiful woman graces the cover. In 1998, when the homerun record breaking drive was in full swing, baseball franschises sold more tickets and the game as a whole, had higher TV ratings than it ever had before.

So really, what’s the difference?

Let’s just say for instance, it’s ultimately determined that there is none bythe various regulating commissions, could you ever foresee a day when models are fined and suspended from multi-million dollar photo shoots or fashion shows for what amounts to be the very same offense as steroid users in college or professsional sports?

Seven Things About Me. Curses, Tagged Again!!!

2009 August 1

by Laurie Kendrick

There’s this “thing” that permeates the Internet and it’s big among bloggers apparently. It’s a “tagging” mechanism as best as I can tell. You see, a blogger picks you and then you’re supposed to take keyboard in hand and publish a post revealing seven things that no one else knows about you. You then select a couple of other bloggers to do the same. They write their seven things and forward it on to other bloggers and it continues ad nauseum.

As a rule, I don’t do well at playing all the reindeer games that come my way. My friends and family know well not to include me in those email questionnaires in which you have to name ten things which all beginning with the first letter of your last name. Unless they can alloweme the chance to be creative and be obnoxious with the answers, I rarely participate.

AND WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT EVER SEND ME VIA EMAIL A MONEY ANGEL, A MAGIC KINCAID PAINTING, A LUCKY LEPRECHAUN OR A CAUSE-CREATED CYBER CANDLE THAT HAS TO GO AROUND THE WORLD TWICE OR ELSE LITTLE TIMMY’S GREAT AUNT VELMA”S BEST FRIEND”S CABANA BOY’S NEPHEW”S SON WON”T GET THAT TESTICULAR TRANSPLANT HE”S WAITED FOR SINCE A QUIRK DURING PUBERTY PREVENTED PROPER TESTICULAR DESCENT.

But because I’ve been asked to participate by two bloggers whose talent and overall lovely online coutnenances impress me, I will oblige. The lovely Ginny from Obi’s Sister tapped me (as it were) several weeks ago to do this, but life happened and well, I just didn’t have the time to write one thing about me, much less seven.

Then, earlier this week, the dashing Paul from Amused Cynic tagged me, so I decided this very morning, I would fulfill both obligations.

I find it interesting that anyone would want to read the musings of my frenetic, unyielding mind. I mean, that’s something I grapple with on a daily basis. I think to myself, “What kind of narcissistic A-hole am I to deign opining in a blog almost everyday and expect a regular readership?”

Well, then call me Lotus Flower and put a mirror in my hand ’cause baby, here goes:

(According to the rules of this seven things thing, I’m supposed to include the seven things from the two bloggers who tagged me)

Ginny’s list is first:

1. Music. It evokes so many memories from my life.

2. Watching my kids perform. When they were little, it was goofy dance recitals and goofier little league. Now it’s orchestra concerts and soccer games. Even though they’re grown, they are still adorable and I just want to pinch their little heads off.

3. Nature – the beauty of God’s creation.

4. Fine Vintage Linen

5. Rain

6. Chocolate

7. A crisp autumn’s afternoon in Athens, GA. There’s a spot on the UGAcampus, on Sanford Drive behind Rutherford Hall and the Myers Quad, where a line of tall gingkotrees drop their golden leaves. Gold above, gold under your feet, the quiet, crisp air, the waning sun through the branches…with a little imagination, you can see what the Fellowship saw when they entered Lothlorien.

And now here’s Driver’s list:

1. Definitely music. Not only does it evoke memories, it is in my DNA and I am part of its archaeological record. I’ve listened, played it, lived it, written it, written about it. I taste it. I dream it.

2. Watching my kids perform. Definitely. Although the oldest is now performing on the stage of life, and doing quite well at it, I still get to see the younger one acting and playing on the college stage. A great excuse for an overnight in a college town.

3. My guitar/amp collection. They were never intended to end up as a collection, and they don’t appreciate it. They were my tools. When I stop in for a visit and pick one out, plug it in, and wank on it for a while, the others stare at me reproachfully from their hangers on the wall. That is changing. With the kids gone, I’m emerging from my temporarily-induced Pamela Brown phase and, like Rumpelstiltskin, starting to remember my true identity. Have you ever tried re-stringing a dozen guitars? Getting back to “all of my good times, all of my runnin’ around.”

4. Travel. I never feel so alive as I do when I’m traveling. The first thing I do when I get “there,” wherever that is, is pick up one of the local real estate throw-aways, knowing full well that if I bought a place and settled there, it wouldn’t be “there” anymore and all the fun would be gone.

5. Cooking. We all have to eat, and you might as well eat the good stuff. Cooking is creative, an outlet in itself, with the added benefit of being edible and tasty.

6. Which leads to subsistence living. Not true subsistence living like the cave men, but the Euell Gibbons variety, where you go out and gather your own food and then take it home and make a great meal out of it (see 5, above). My ideal retirement abode will be a place where I can saltwater fish in the backyard at high tide, gather clams and mussels at low tide, grow a substantial garden, and gather wild berries and other ingredients. New England coast, probably, which has always felt like home to me, even though I’m a native NYCer.

7. Sittin’ on the dock of the bay (see all of the above). Sitting on a dock in the backyard of a cottage on a saltwater cove in Gloucester, MA, with an Ipod, a line in the water rigged for striper, a growler full of fresh Cape Ann Brewery Brown Ale, an acoustic guitar to strum in case fishing is slow, my kids coming and going (they still like to vacation with us), and prospects for another great family dinner

Wow. Ginny’s and Drivers seven things are all nice, thoughtful and some are rather deep.

Here’s mine.

1. First on my list has to be, dusk on cold, clear afternoons. I don’t know why, but the nip in the air, the incredibly elongated shadows, made even more so by the setting sun, has always captivated me. It’s an almost ethereal time for me and I can gaze upon this particular light of day anywhere in the world and I’ll still feel that tingly shiver that goes up my spine. And when I feel that, I know at least for a few minutes anyway, all is right with my world.

2. My favorite day or the week is Friday. It’s the end of the work week and the beginning of two days of not having to work. But to me, it’s more than that.

When I was a growing up in Small Town South Texas, Fridays had a palpable feeling to them. Whenever it’s Autumn in Texas, everything changes color: you look around and almost everywhere you look, you see oranges, deep golds and of course, Wilson Football brown. Football season is something altogether different in Texas.

Friday nights: High school football
Saturday late mornings; afternoons and evenings: College ball
Sunday/All Day: Reserved for that particular style of gridiron action that only the pros can ‘throw down”

I guess the excitement has stayed with me almost 33 years after I left my hometown. I was a cheerleader in Jr. High and High School, so Fridays have special meaning. Certain memories become habits we never want to break.

3. I have a fondness in my heart and soul for contemporary and/or rock music that’s well orchestrated. As in, enfused with a full orchestra. I’ve always loved the Moody Blues for the way the group married the two sounds and made music that was oh so was rich and embracing. Head Moodys, John Lodge and Justin Haywood were geniuses in that regard. So too was/is the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson. In between (the alleged) daily rails of Peruvian Flake alternated with (alleged) Klonopin, Lithium and Librium adminstered (allegeldy) by an extremely controlling shrink who expemplified the overly prescribing, “Dr. Feel Nothing” and lucidity, Wilson produced some incredible music. Epic tunes, really. People often talk about the musical wizardly of Lennon/McCartney. While I’m in full agreement with with that that powerful writing duo, I don’t think Brian Wilson has truly ever gotten the appropriate recognition he is due.

4. I have a school-girl-in-pig-tales kind of crush on a much younger man with whom I used to work. He is a beautiful soul with a beautiful soul. He’s kind, decent and incredibly, incredibly handsome. He is also married to a lovely woman whose goodness radiates from her very being. My crush goes unspoken and will remain that way, but if there could ever be a realistic option for an alternative universe to exist and the elusive future Mr. Kendrick could one day enter into the picture and assume his rightful place by my side, then this other worldly man, would fit the bill in every possible way.

In my fantasy, the perpetual 25 year old Laurie marries him. He also has the babies.

5. I am addicted to Coke. The sweet, brown carbonated liquid knows as “The Pride of Atlanta”, not the white, powdery, illegal mood enhancing substance also known as the Pride of Columbia. This fermented, highly caloric, and fattening beverage fizzified ( I swear) by Satan himself, is the bain of my tubby existence, but as I see it, I have so few joys in my life, why the hell not? Coke fills so many voids. My sister, Karol is also an addict.

Plus, I don’t drink coffee. It is my caffeine equivalent. Now, how in the hell I ever survived 26 years of working early morning hours in radio and TV without finding myself completely addicted to Java is beyond me.

6. Christmas is my favorite holiday however, I love the monthly lead-in to it more than I like the day itself. And Christmas Eve feels more Christmassy that Christmas Eve. I come from a very dysfunctional family–no big surprise there. My family members’ love/hate relationships with each other is legend. And while I love the colors, the sounds and the smells of the holidayand regardless of how sweet and lovely the concept of Christmas is and should be, we stopped “celebrating” it years ago when fighting ensued over the choice of “gifts” purchased for each other. There was …oh, let’s just say there was some unpleasantness. So, to simplify the holiday, while trying to make it less tenuous for all involved, we’ve elected to call it “The Annual Kendrick Family Holiday Receipt Exchange”, instead.

Yes Christmas is my favorite holiday, but Thanksgiving runs a very, very close second. There’s something about waking up on that Thursday morning to the smell of the festive bird already roasting in the oven. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t find the combined aromas of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme all that enticing at 8am, but on Thanksgiving morning, somehow it works.

7. This last entry will be a combo. Many people might be surprised at just what an incurable romantic I am (yes, I want desperately to believe in fairy tales, but reality won’t let me), I will also admit, as I have many times before, that I like ghost stories. A lot. I don’t care about bigfoot or UFOs and aliens. Those things bore me. But the supernatural, as in witches and their craft, plus ghosts and hauntings fascinate me.

And by hauntings, I don’t mean that as it pertains to people who are plagued by actual battle scars or emotional or psychic injuries that won’t heal. I ache for these people. I know what it’s like to have those kinds of wounds. It hurts and keeps you awake at night and mourning throughout the day.

But if I can end this list of little known things about me with #7 being the true summation of all the honest to God things I love, want, pray for, crave and desire more than anything in the entire world, it would be to wake up every morning and face a world that exists and thrives completely pain free.

8. I also like to dream.

The Great Added “S” Debate Is Over

2009 August 2

Want proof? Then click here: the use of the word “anyways” is grammatically incorrect.

by Laurie Kendrick

On Sunday, a friend and I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning discussing a myriad of things including writing, life, avoidant personality disorder, quantum physics, the relevance of Myanmar’s Scorched Earth policy in the new millennium, Lemon Pledge’s lustrous shine on domestically made cherrywood armoires and of course , the word “anyway” versus the word “anyways”.

That reminded me that I’ve also had the very same conversation with legendary Houston Sports Anchor, Craig Roberts. Mr. Roberts is now host of the wildly popular, “Sports Off Center” on Channel 55 here in Houston. Catch it when you can; funny show.

Craig and I met in 199o during the local tryouts of idiots who were arrogant enough to think themselves physically capable of being perfect foes for an upcoming American Gladiator show to be filmed in Houston. Remember that post Saturday Night Live show that was briefly very popular when the 80’s became the 90’s .

Craig and I hit it off instantly back in 1990 and we’ve had the pleasure of working together off and on for the next 18-years. He is brilliant and funny and my friend.

Craig and I both share a mutual disdain for the word “anyways”. That added ’s’ is simply wrong and it will always be wrong regardless of how, when or why it’s used….colloquialisms not withstanding. Even if it were correct, it would still sound so wrong.

Anyways????

There’s a redundancy to making the word plural. You see, the prefix “any” already indicates plurality; more than one. So, adding an ’s’ to the word which is effectively a grammatical quantitative is the annoying equivalent to the patently offensive use of double negatives.

I went out with a guy once who used the word “anyways” incessantly and it grated on my nerves. Unfortunately, it became a deal breaker in the relationship.

Now, before you get on your high horse to remind me how completely shallow and imperfect I am and then lambaste me with, “What right do you have to chastise anyone for using ‘anyways? It’s a perfectly good word and sorry if it offends you, you Miss Know-It-All- Blondie Blowhard!!”, I will beat you to the punch. Call me what you will; accuse me all you want, but the reality is I am right in this case and while I don’t want to do this, I must because frankly, the need to feel completely vindicated compels me.

As in wrong.

Case closed..

Wanna help out an old alter girl? Then please click here.

Her Obvious High Q…

2009 August 2

by Laurie Kendrick

….lives in blissfull ignorance on her chest.

Could this, the insular “brilliance” of one mortally engorged woman be a contributing factor behind California’s being broke and breaking even further????

Never make fun of the South again…..EVER!!

The only thing missing was a verbal homage to “U.S. Americans who aren’t able to do so because uh….Osama people out there, who don’t have maps and our education in every county like Iraq and Africa and such as and should help the Iraq and Asian countries and everywhere and with such as maps so we can secure our future for U.S. Americans everywhere!!!

Such as.

;

Laurie Kendrick For Hire. Seriously.

2009 August 3

14 Comments

by Laurie Kendrick

Well, in typical Kendrick fashion, that big , bad ass job with a local government agency didn’t happen. It fell flatter than Debra Messing’s chest.

After seven long, arduous months of waiting and after having two interviews, my references and background checked and a ton of writing samples submitted, they decided NOT to full the position. At all.

I have never waited for a job for that long in my life.

And as a result, I feel as though I’ve lost some of the wind behind my sails. And then a phone call this morning told me that a side gig I’d been depending on, is ending in two months, so here I sit….like some short, unloved and unwanted plate of shrivelling liver sitting alone and drying up on this long, poorly heated buffet of disappointment.

But my pity party has to be short-lived. I’ve cried a sufficient amount of time. Expressed fear and disappointment to two friends, so now it’s time to put on my big girl panties and fix my situation.

I’ve already spent the young day apllying for jobs and cold calling and cold e-mailing companies and corporations not even advertising for gigs. So far, nothing. I’ve also devided to revisit something I’ve done once before. Unfortunately, it yielded no results, but I’m willing to try one more time.

I’ve appealed to my readers here on my blog before and I’m not too proud to do it again.

Hire me.

Seriously, I am an accomplished journalist and college educated (BA Journalism/ Minor in History) . I’m an award winning writer and reporter with 26…count ‘em, 26 years worth of major market experience in TV, radio and print under my belt.

Need a writer? How about a Media Liaison? What about a court jester? I look dazzling in harlequin silk. Need a Copy Writer? Comedy writer? Someone to write professional hate letters? I do all of those things very well.

I’m affordable, I don’t eat that much and I’m short, so I don’t take up that much room. I type 65 wpm. Can speak and read Spanish proficiently. I also speak Jewish, Brooklyn, Eastern European, Texan, Southern with a decidedly Alpharetta accent and that no-accent Midwestern accent.

I bathe regularly, never come to diner at anyone’s house empty handed and I ALWAYS return my shopping carts to the appropriate cart stall corral thingy in the supermarket parking lot. I look 12 years younger than I am and act 25 years younger.

I have really cute shoes.

I clip coupons.

I believe in my own benevelence. I am humble but can apply healthy and reasoned narcissism when needed. I’m quite popular and a very driven a go-getter. I think being late is a character flaw. I’m extremely creative and keep greeting cards for every occasion in my desk draw at work. I’m trustowrthy and always maintain an accessible-to-everyone basket of candy bars (the good stuff, not that cheap crap) on my desk.

I’m fun to work with and a blast to be around, especially when I make jokes at other people’s expense. I’ve never been fired for something of my own accord and the HR department loves me.

I am unencumbered by children and a spouse (that’s an entirely different post) and willing to travel formy job and will to relocate just about anywhere in order to get a job.

I’m serious people. Perfectly serious. This not a joke. This time, I really, really, really need your help.

My situation is reaching critical mass in more ways than one, so come on faithful readers, do a sister a solid.

Acording to my blog’ Site Meter, I currently have an average of about 1, 230 hits on my blog each day. Of that number, someone reading must be in a position to hire or works for an organization that’s hiring or knows someone who knows someone who’s hiring.

I really want to work and in that regard, I really need to work. Anywhere. I think I’ve shot my employable wad here. I want to stay in Houston. This is home, I really like it here, but unfortunately, all signs seem to be indicating that H-Town no longer has anything to offer me.

So, what do you say? Can you help me? A resume and writing samples can be made available upon request.

All interested parties should contact me at lauriekendrick at aol dot com

Thank you from the bottom of my enlarged heart.

When Hair Becomes A Gray Area

2009 August 4

by Laurie Kendrick

I had a seminal birthday a few months ago, but as the clock struck 12 midnight on 50th anniversary of my birth, my body didn’t start changing as if on cue. The on-going process of aging started 50 plus years ago; at the very moment of conception.

I have noticed a few more gray hairs and in the damndest places, I might add. I’ve also noticed far less hair as well. All indicators that I’m no longer spry and agile.

Now, in the past when I’ve noticed physical benchmarks indicating the passage of time, I have acknowledged age gracefully and there have been times, whenthis was done with unpardonable vehemence as I kicked and screamed, but that was yesterday. I’v, decided that I will no longer allow myself to be mortified by what time has wrought on mybody or my hair. Aging happens naturally to every living being.

So, why not embrace it? I mean, what can I or you or anyone, really do about aging?

The steady scalpel of a seasoned plastic surgeon can remove the appearance of aging from my body, but it can’t remove the chronological age. Ask Joan Rivers. Underneath that 55 year old looking face (well, face of a reptile these days) lies a 75 year old body. So, a surgeon can only do so much. He or she can’t remove the scars and the experiences that even at their worst, give life its piquancy. And all things considered, why would anyone want these removed?

About the only thing we can do besides embracing the process of aging and try to wrap our ever increasingly graying noggins around the concept.

And that’s the reason for this post.

I want to help all of us to better understand the process as it pertains to some of the more obvious, visual cues, such as the graying of our hair.

Michelle Burford recently penned a piece in AOL about gray hair and all the truths and myths surrounding the phenomonon. I’ll redact a few pieces of info from her article and add a few salient points of my own. This way, you won’t leave this blog without having a well-rounded education on all things gray hair.

So what causes it, you ask?

Let’s start at the start, shall we?

Each hair on our bodies (especially the scalps on our heads), contains two parts:

a shaft (shut your mouth) - the colored part we see growing out of our heads
and a a root - the bottom part, which keeps the hair anchored under the scalp

The root of every strand of hair is surrounded by a tube of tissue under the skin known as the follicle. Each one contains only a certain number of pigment cells, which continuously produce melanin. And that gives the growing shaft (then you can dig it) of hair its color of brown, blond, red, and anything in between.

As we get older, the pigment cells in our hair follicles gradually die. When there are fewer pigment cells in a hair follicle, that strand of hair will no longer contain as much melanin and will become a more transparent color – like gray, silver, or white – as it grows. As people continue to get older, fewer pigment cells will be around to produce melanin. Eventually, the hair will look completely gray.

People can get gray hair at any age. Some people do so prematurely…at a young age – as early as when they are in high school or college – whereas others may be in their 30s or mid to late 40s before they see that first gray hair. How early we get gray hair is determined by our genes. Early? Late? No getting around that. Now this means most of us will start having gray hairs around the same age that our parents or grandparents first did. And while we’re on the subject, skin tone and facial wrinkles (which are inevitable) are also genetically dispensed.

For that, I dutifully thank my mother.

When I first began to notice a few grays, I wasn’t upset but because Vanity, The Name Is Laurie, I tried convincing everyone who gazed upon those silver strands that it was actually platinum and that he or she never really knew his or her colors.

When most normal people begin to see the first signs of gray hair, you’ll feel a pinch of anxiety, then you look for excuses. We all blame stress first and foremost. You job or lack thereof, insomnia, your philandering, lying cheating spouse…even those damn kids .

But here’s the truth about your silver locks: You wouldn’t gray any sooner or any more if you got all the sleep you needed and had angels for kids.

Now, continuing on with Burford’s AOL piece.

“It’s based on a collection of genes,” says Jerry Shapiro, MD, adjunct professor at New York University’s Lagone Medical Center, adding that scientists don’t know whether the gray gene is passed on maternally or paternally. Most people begin graying in mid-life when the cells that produce pigment in hair become depleted, but the timing of that process is pre-programmed by your DNA. There are certainly other factors that affect gray hair — and many that don’t.

In this article, Burford asks Dr. Shapiro to separate fact from falsehood.

Fact: Ethnicity is a Factor

By age 50, most people can expect 50 percent of their hair to be gray, but when gray first appears seems to be determined, at least in part, by ethnicity. According to a 2005 study published in the “Journal of Investigative Dermatology,” a white person will begin graying in his or her mid-thirties, Asian people will start noticing a little silver in their late thirties — but black people generally ward off the gray strands until their mid-forties.

Myth: White Hair Is Reversible

When it comes to preventing or reversing gray, tales abound about what might do the trick from massaging your scalp with a coconut oil and lemon juice cocktail, to eating iodine-rich foods like bananas and washing hair in butter. According to Dr. Shapiro, such claims are unsubstantiated malarkey. “There is absolutely nothing you can eat or take to make your hair dark again,” he says. Dr. Shapiro suggests that you save yourself the headache of battling nature — unless, of course, you do so with a bottle of hair dye. But coloring gray hair ain’t so easy. Experience should tell those of us who know all about Clairol and Grecian Formula For Men that coloring gray is an exercise in and of itself. Keep reading to understand why these wiry bastards are so difficult to color.

Myth: Gray Signals a Short Lifespan

Your salt-and-pepper mane has nothing to do with longevity. Scientists in Copenhagen studied 20,000 people trying to examine the link between mortality and signs of aging such as gray hair, baldness, and wrinkles. The study’s conclusion: Gray hair doesn’t signify that you’ll have a shorter lifespan than your non-gray counterparts.

Myth: Plucking Speeds Growth

I’ve always thought this old chestnut was a crock. Everyone has plucked a few gray hairs in their life, but others didn’t grow back two fold because one of plucked. ”Plucking simply doesn’t accelerate the growth of gray hair,” Dr. Shapiro says. Once you uproot the silver hair, the follicle that produced it will bring you another strand exactly like it, since once a follicle goes gray, it will never revert. Then over time, says Dr. Shapiro, the neighboring follicles will join in the party, whether you pluck them or not.

Fact: Hormones Play a Part

Though gray hair isn’t usually a symptom of your body’s overall health, there are rare cases in which gray can indicate a hormone imbalance or a thyroid condition. Talk with your doctor if you notice gray hair cropping and also are feeling unlike yourself.

Fact: Gray Hair is Hard to Dye

Ever noticed that your silver strands seem to stubbornly resist chemical coloring? I have and short of grabbing a yellow Magic Marker and painting it up from tip to stern, I have tried coloring a la Loreal. If you’ve noticed the difficulty yourself, Dr. Shapiro says it’s not your imagination: Each fiber of gray hair is wider in diameter and contains a central core of air that makes it less permeable than non-gray hair. “That’s why gray hair doesn’t take to dye as easily,” he says.

Myth: Sun Increases Gray

Too much exposure to the sun’s harmful UV rays is known to be harmful to your skin and eyes — but there’s zero evidence that the sun actually turns your tresses gray, says Shapiro. “Gray hair is produced in the roots,” he says. “The sun can lighten the hair that has already grown out of the roots — but it cannot make your follicles begin producing gray hair.”

Myth: Smoking Worsens Gray

While it’s true that smoking undermines one’s general health and can lead to premature aging, smoking doesn’t hasten the onset of gray. Says Dr. Shapiro: “There is no scientific proof that smoking causes or speeds gray.”

Myth: Stress Causes Gray

“Many people ask me whether President Obama is graying faster because of the pressure he’s under,” Dr. Shapiro says, and as onerous as the job of leader of the country is, Obama’s graying hair is likely the result of age, not his demanding schedule. “Stress has nothing to do with it — the timing of our gray is based on our genetics,” he says. There’s one rare exception, notes Dr. Shapiro: alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease that causes the loss of pigmented hairs and can leave a person gray in as little as two weeks. The condition’s cause is unknown, but scientists think it is stress-related.

OK, here’s where I disagree with the good doctor. Pesonally, I have noticed that in periods of stress, I get grayer. Eyesbrows, especially. I do think that periods of intense and prolonged stress can exacerbate and quicken the graying process.

Am I all alone here or did anyone else notice that Jo Beth Williams’ hair at the very end of “Poltergeist” after enduring all that chaos with them spooks and such, suddenly had two shocks of whitish gray streaks down both sides of her head…streaks that could make Pepe Le Pew jealous????

Jo Beth Gray

…..

The Passage of Death?????

2009 August 7

by Laurie Kendrick

When did the word “passed” replace “died”? Is “passed away” or “passed on” to be perceived as easier phrases for the bereaved to digest?

I don’t get it.

Why then do we not hear the Media say, “Seven U.S. soliders “passed away” after their tank struck an IED on a Baghdad freeway?”

We never hear that 101 passengers on an Aero Flot DC-10 “passed away” when their plane crashed near Minsk’.

Back when I spent hours behind a microphone, ’passed away’ was never the term du jour. Someone was either (and most emphatically) dead or had died. There was no mincing of verbiage.

If a woman is brutally murdered (God forfend) by a malignant societal reject, does she “pass away” at the hands of a psychopath?

Has actor and former Brat Packer Judd Nelson’s career “perished”?

No, I feel certain his career DIED in the 90’s.

This week, legendary 80’s teen angst film director, John Hughes suddenly stopped living due to a massive heart attack. He was in the park New York City and just collapsed. He died, plain and simply. Was ‘passing’ involved here as much as a complete and total and instantaneous physical shutdown?

I can understand how one could view the physical and existential transition of life and death, especially since the two words are polar opposites of each other. Therefore, I get “passing” from one plain to another.

Fine. Cool. We’ve established that, but can anyone tell me me when this phrase of passing become vogue? I hear people use it a great deal these days. .

Perhaps, it reared its head about the same time people started “killing” in their client presentations.

Or when the term ”murdered” the opposition in that court case became popular.

How about that “soundly defeated” House Bill Whatever Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee Needed To Get Her Mug In Front Of The Cameras This Week.

Maybe its because man started “annhilating” the pristine nature of the Alaskan outback.

I just have to love the American use of words.

So much so, that I’m looking forward to seeing the Texas Longhorns “oppress” the Aggies again this Thanksgiving./

Children’s TV Programming of Yesterday

2009 August 9

by Laurie Kendrick

I was born in 1959. My own perception of “modern times” begins in that year. Everything that happened prior is deemed archaic; before my time. So, I don’t know much about “Howdy Doodie” or Clarabelle the clown or any of the other live action or animated offering produced prior to the year of my birth.

But stuff from my era?

Bring it on.

My long time friend, a one Mr. Ralph G. has known me even longer than any other of his contemporaries. You see, we were born five days apart…same small town; same hospital. Ralph’s mother left the hospital with young Ralphie swaddled in a blanket, as my very pregnant mother waddled into deliver me. I have been “told” that I was a stubborn baby, not wanting to exit my soft, safe uterine compound. That’s not true. I wanted out, but no, my mother’s doctor wanted to deliver me C-section as my two older sibs had been born and he was playing golf in a huge charity golf tournament for inbred, mono-browed, mouth breathers in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. By the time he got back to town, I was efforting to exit on my own Baby Carrier , with so much determination, my legs were practically hanging out of my mom’s uterus!!!! I do believe that was a rather traumatic event for me.

Perhaps, that’s why images like this are so disturbing to me!!!

Anyway, Ralph and still talk several times a week and he marvels at my memory. It’s still sharp as a tack…as are the angles of skin folds that now comprise my ass.

We’ve spoken about watching Saturday morning cartoons and other aspects of children’s TV programming back in the 60’s but his kiddie recall is fuzzy.

I doubt if Ralph remembers this. I’d be surprised if anyone remembers this, but I watched it on Sunday mornings right before heading off to Mass. At least, that’s when the ABC affiliate in San Antonio had it scheduled.

It was called “Discovery ‘66″ and the digits would change depending on the year in which it would be produced and broadcast and it allowed kids to travel the world to learn about such things that would turn out to be so incredibly important and beneficial in our lives. For example: we learned why natives in parts of undeveloped Congo drank cow urine as a health panacea. We learned all about the three foot wide stone wheels considered to be currency among Yap Islanders.

And we learned why there are no kennel clubs in Korea.

To this day, I still love the show’s intro. It was this kicky little number which I always assigned an American Bandstand score of 86 to; you know…just for the beat.

Remember this one, Ralph? What about your older brother Henry, who, from what I understand, reads my blog fairly regularly and enjoys it, when of course, “it don’t contain too much crap!!”

Nothing? Anyone???

I stopped watching cartoons in the spring of 1971. I had just turned 12, was sporting a bitchin’ 13-year-old’s bod, so cartoons were for kids…but I could still be enticed into watching the occasional epic, Sid and Marty Kroff part action/part animated combos.

puffnstuff There was “H.R. Puffinstuf” which starred Jack Wilde, who went from the Artful Dodger in both the stage and screen version of “Oliver”, to a magic flute playing, high water pants wearing foil to this red-headed, chubby and tall walking larvae in tiny white cowboy boots.

This is becoming cliche among the last stage Baby Boomers such as myself, but you can’t help but wonder what Sid and Marty K. were puffin’ on when they conceived this idea.

It was the late 60’s, we were all trying to be hip and happening (even Johnny Carson wore love beads and an ascot during this period) and everything was about the psychedelic Hippies.

Peace. Love. Dope.

But nothing short of a hit of blotter could prepare any us for the penultimate Sid and Marty Kroft mind-meld known as “Lidsville”.

Soooooooo trippy. Plus, the damn show intro lasted just under two minutes!!!

“Lidsville” (which by the way, was filmed at Dallas’ famed “Six Flags” park) was all about young Mark’s attempt to get back home from this insane land of Day Glo colored freaks who lived and worked in talking buildings in the shape of commercial headware. As I said, trippy. Then add to that the addition weirdness of Charles Nelson Reilly in make-up that’s NOT DRAG!!!!

One would indeed be hard pressed not to assume that the Brothers Krofft fertile imaginations hadn’t been fueled by the most ferocious of the CIA’s MK Ultra experiments.

I mean, H.R. Pufinstuf? Lidsville?

Speaking of, I have to laugh every time I think about referring to an ounce of marijuana as “a lid”. That’s what we called it. Our lids always came in a flip top plastic baggy. The same kind kind used primarily when your Mom made a few lunch time Regular Joe sandwiches for your “Red-hating, Nixon-loving, sig McCarthy on every Pinko on every corner” Dad.

I’d role mine up and keep it in my the eight track player of my stereo. I think ten bucks was the going rate for about a four-finger lid. This weight of measure was brilliant. One sumply measured up to four fingers full from the bottom of the bag to which ever finger (four or five fingers) you wanted to use as a meansurement. You could also shell out two to three dollars for a match box filled with pot.

That’s so laughable today.

But for those of you freaks, past and present, ever wonder where the phrase ,” a lid of pot” comes from?

I found this tome written by an anonymous contributor on WikiAnswers:

The term ‘lid’ of marijuana goes back to the 60’s. Back then, you could buy a ‘lid’ or a ‘can’ of pot. The can was aproximatley 1 oz, the lid was 1/8 oz. The term came from the practice of breaking up a brick (a kilo or later a key) of tightly packed marjijuana and storing and selling it in Price Albert tobacco cans. A can held aproximatley one ounce. The lid would hold aproximatley 1/8 oz. No one weighed it really, it was all done by eye. By the time I was in high school in the early 70’s, the term can had gone away and the term lid referred to an ounce.

Color yourself schooled. You’re informed. You can die now.

One final note about “Lidsville”. I had forgotten that it was supposed to be a teen star vehicle for a young, nubile Butch Patrick, who at 13, was only a few pubes away from his days of portraying Eddie Munster in the TV series, “The Munsters” in the mid-’60′.

Wow. He’d grown up considerably. Firm, young body, emerging from boy to young man. I’d forgotten how cute he was in this show. Really cute.

Can I do time for that????

Things You’ll Never Hear Me Say

2009 August 19

by Laurie Kendrick

• Here, you finish this for me. I can’t eat another bite.

• I’ll pay you back. Promise.

• Oh, that was George Clooney calling again. Why did I ever give that guy my number? What a pain in the ass!• How do these jeans make my ass look?

• Noam Chomsky’s writing is just a little too Conservative for my tastes.

• Jim J. Bullock did amazing work on TV’s “Too Close For Comfort”. He was robbed…ROBBED of the Emmy, I tell ya!!

• Why of course I’m a registered Democrat.

• I’m getting up an hour early so I can be the first to enter the gym the minute the lights go on. 5 am Spin Class…YIPPEE!!!!!!

• Mr. Vick, I’m looking for a good home for my beloved dog, Scraps.

• Let me pick up the tab. Really. Please…allow me.

• Mu’Ammar Qaddafi is so hot. Those Libyan bitches are lucky!!

• I hate beer.

• I refuse to eat carbs.

• I think Hillary Clinton will be the best Secretary of State this country has ever had!! I think Bill and his vast diplomatic experience, will help guide her….especially when it comes to properly educating our children.

• I’ve never eaten pot brownies.

• I’d kill to see “Boys To Men” in concert.

• Boxing promoter, Don King has one bitchin’ hair style. Wish I knew his stylist. Think it might be Consolidated Edison?

• Wow, I should NEVER have told David Carradine that I’d hang with him.

And the last that you’ll never hear me say…

• OK, just this once, but is there any actual “blowing” involved?

So, I’m In The Hospital, Right….

2009 August 12

by Laurie Kendrick

On this past April 26th, I quietly commemorated the 18th anniversary of a nasty, nasty truck- freeway overpass- semi-dry creek bed below accident I had in 1991.

I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that it was bad . I broke 11 bones and was injured all to hell. It happened on a stretch of Interstate 10 about 35 miles outside of san Antonio. I was transported to an area hospital where I would eventually under go three surgeries in the almost three months I was a patient there.

I also broke my ankle mortis, the little bony box thing that comprises the ankle. These, coupled with other injuries meant I had to lie in a bed, encased in this pelvic sling thing…a strong piece of material of some sort that was suspended from a bar above my bed. It stabilized my pelvis and gently squeezed it together. My doctors chose to go that route because my leg breaks required a full leg cast from butt to toe. It was in my best interest to remain in bed and immobilized.

I hate hospital gowns, so my mother bought me these hip looking T-shirts (well, “hip” in my mother’s mind. One said “Benny Goodman Rules” and another one read, “23-Skidoo, Bitches!!”). Mindful of my broken shoulder, she cut them up the back so I could put them on with relative ease.

For three months, I lived in a world of pain, uncomfortable plaster casts, horrible food, lousy TV and that nasty hospital smell that still permeates my olfactory system’s memory banks.

Birth, death. Illness, wellness. Each defining moment within these walls has a smell. And disinfectant only exacerbates it.

They are loud, bombastic, ballsy, in-your-face, unfiltered and few possess any semblance of social boundaries.

But I love ‘em!!

Nothing was said.

I was mortified.

Well, what felt like a millennium later, he dropped the sheet, completely crimson-faced. I knew I had to say something, but the only thing I could muster was a question.

I asked, “How do you like my impersonation of Lincoln?”

He didn’t miss a beat and replied, “It was good, but as presidents go, I thought it was a fairly decent portrayal of Bush!”

♦

UPDATE: Steve and his life partner, Ron have been together for eight years now!!

Balls, Man…Just Plain Balls

2009 August 13