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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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!!!!
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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.
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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.
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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.
LK
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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 
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.
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(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!!!!!!”
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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One day in the relatively near future, O J Simpson has a heart attack and dies.
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.
The devil smiled and said, “OK Monica, you’re free to go…..”
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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
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 a hold of a Recluse spider bite. We’d be in hog heaven.
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.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This blog was closed as of 6/2/09. It will remain open adn readable for several months, but no new posts will be published here. I have instead, switched blogs.
Effective immediately, my new blog is Miso Laurie Kendrick. The official link to it is: http://misomanythings.wordpress.com
Please join me there for more crap like this.
Thanks,
LK
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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.
More on that in another post.
Be forewarned: if the title of this tome didn’t properly indicate, this will, in fact, be a post about my High School prom, so allow me to preface things with the following: I hated High School. I’ve had four horrendous periods in my life…..High school was the fifth one.
Know what I mean?
Back then, I was operating on nothing but glands, teenage angst and misguided youth. It was the mid 70’s and probably one of THEE tackiest times in American history. I can prove that with the photos you are about to see. Most of the ones Cheryl sent were from our Jr/ Sr. prom. It was either late April or early May of 1976. We were Juniors then and feating the graduating Seniors was what every Junior class did at the end of every school year. Banquet first, then prom and the theme of the prom my junior class produced was entitled, “An Evening In Japan.”
OR…..
“Mothra Cut One”…I really can’t remember, but it was Japanesey.
The difficulty we had in coming together and assemblying all that was necessary to produce a prom worthy of the Senior class ahead of us, was actually trying to come together on this project. You see, our class was never particularly chummy. It was divided into clicks, and while a few new faces might have rotated in and out, the clicks themselves never changed. It was, I’m sure, not unlike other classes in other cities in the year of our Lord, 1976.
There were the Cool People–Dopers or Heads as they were called. Jocks (male and female). Squares and Straights. Cowboys. The shy , modest chicks who loved studying science and chemistry; who bathed everyday and dug art that included folksy, homespun ducks waddling amuk in blue gingham bonnets and then of course, there were Band Nerds.
My Freshman year, I was all of them–save for the ducks and gingham bit. The inertia of my life , coupled with my need to try to be all things to everyone had to have been exhausting. In retrospect, I don’t know how I did it. Then again, I was young , needy and considerably thinner with a metabolism that rivaled any nuclear reactor.
Getting back to the prom now.
It was Saturday. I met with other Juniors at the HS cafeteria early that morning to paint, strip, tape, build, construct, glue, nail, draw and bitch and moan about having to do all of these prommy things.
There we were: kids from a rural netherworld in South Texas; none of us had ever had real Asian food (Chung King doesn’t count), much less ever seen an Asian person.
Oh yeah…Wait!!! 
There was Mrs. Livingston from ABC’s, “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father”, but she don’t count neither.
That Saturday flew by. We all toiled on the floor of the cafeteria and out on the sidewalk. But as the afternoon waned on, we all knew we had dates to prepare for…Maybelline God Awful Aqua eye shadow to apply, followed by a spritz or two of Estee Lauder Youth Dew, Ambergris or Patchoulli—the fragrance we applied depended on what was in store regarding the evening’s “extra-curricular activities”. Patchcoulli, I remember, was perfect to cover up the smell of a million different teenaged evils.
Most of the kids left by 4pm, insisting they needed to go home and get ready. Guys too…they had cars to wash and endure the chore of trying to make brown shoes and a black tux work.
Fine and dandy, but there was 35-feet of cafeteria wall that was left unadorned. We had run out of decorations–the class didn’t have much money in the first place and someone on their way out the door suggested that we dig around in the bowels of the storeroom and find some English Ivy and Magnolia wall paper that was used year before in the 1975 Jr/Sr. Prom entitled, “A Night In Dixie”.
Like yeah, that would work with a Japanese theme. To that, Cheryl and I cried bullshit.
We had dates, too but we looked at each other and both said, “a half assed Jr/Sr prom won’t happen on our watch!!’ So at 4:45, the cafeteria was empty, except for three very pissed off classmates left holding the decorating bag.
Cheryl, her then boyfriend, Bruce and I found some butcher paper, a few bottles of Tempra paint, brushes and with sheer will, duct tape and very little time, we pieced together some of the tackiest, hastily produced decorations in the history of promdom.
This was one of the walls.
Slapped together Asian banners on which random lettering was was placed. We copied words and letters on the back of some imported packaging for Japanese lanterns. We had no idea what we were drawing. For all we knew, it could’ve said, “Pat Morita Was A Hack”, or “Bombing Pearl Harbor Was Our Imperial Right”.
I don’t remember who drew the dragon (or is that a random tree limb jetting out of nowhere?) but he or she was a far better artist than I.
Want proof of that?
OK, for the first time in 33 years and the first time this century, I will display my first artistic prom offering before God and man… in its full mural glory.
This mural took up the bulk of the 35 feet that needed decorating. I went to the library to look up a photo of Buddha. I took paint brush in hand, and ended up drawing Jay Leno in eye-liner and a black turbin….pleasuring himself with a slammin’ double fister, smack dab in the middle of his Lotus position.
I remember drawing this at at 5:45 pm. Time was running out. I really didn’t care.
Ok, see this? This was the epicenter for our prom.
A little white bridge where happy couples stood to get their prom photo taken. I seem to remember that I drew the bulk of the actual backdrop which was a copied from the artists’ rendering of the actual pond/bridge scene on the floor. See? It’s almost identical. This, like the Buddha above, was drawn free hand. Artistically, I’m clueless. I screwed up on the top branches of that steroided out Bansai tree. Poor thing didn’t know whether it was drawn in front of the rice paper screen or behind it. I had depth perception issues.
Here’s a photo of two of the architects of this non-Occidental rubbish. In the lush hormonal forest that is adolescent growth spurts or the lack thereof, Bruce is the Sequoia; I’m the stump.
Yeah, I’m short.
The bargain basement band that played for our prom had an excrutiantingly limited repertoire; it knew Three Dog’s Night’s, “Joy To The World” relatively well and faked its way through a couple of endless Carpenters’ songs . They played, we gagged, they repeated. It was horribly, horribly sad.
And last but not least….
This pathetic WTF pond still makes me laugh. It greeted couples as they entered the Land of the Rising Sun. As you can plainly see, it was a kiddie pool with a couple of rocks in it and ivy of some sort barely covering the blue plastic. I think I remember, it had goldfish in it too….for a while.
We were ignorant in the ways and means of domestic marine life and put tap water in the pool. We hastily threw the fish in at 6:19 pm; they were, I’m sure, belly-up before the clock struck 6:20.
The prom started at eight.
No one noticed their demise until clean-up the next day.
So, as I rapidly approach 50…that cursed half-century mark…I reflect back in my life and yes, I have a few regrets. This tragic prom is one of them. Over the years, I’ve often wondered why I’ve had very little contact with members of the Senior Class of ‘76 and now, I think I understand why.
They’re still pissed.
Then, I look at the photo of that poor excuse for a limpid, Asian pond and I think… Jeez, just how much pot did we smoke back then?
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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
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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..
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… . .THE END
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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…
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And actually thought this???
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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….
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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.
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..
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"I looked at Barack and I said to him, "I KNOW Abraham Lincoln and you sir, are NO Abraham Lincoln!"
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Strange headlice…..I mean, headlines:
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Out of the mouths of babes!
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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.
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.
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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)
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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)
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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, 
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.
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I’m not taking Natasha Richardson’s death very well.
I’ll begin this post admitting that
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.
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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 
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).
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…….
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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!!!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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’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.
.
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
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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?
♦
But I only slept with you ’cause I was pissed.
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!
That’s why I always wake up screaming.
♦
♦
Except for maybe ‘Go to hell.’
Two parts vodka, one part lime.
♦
♦
.
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
.
.,
This is a response to a previous post
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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:
I didn’t even give them a chance to melt.
Thanks Uncle Bob. Your wisdom is always welcome here.
.
Love,
Laurie
.
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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.
Like the rest of the band members, Reggie was overshadowed by people like John Entwistle, John Paul Jones, Jack Bruce and others.
.
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?
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.
.
T
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.
♦
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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:
People are calling this “a ghost”.
What do you think?
Well, call me “Burt Lahrie”, because I do believe in spooks. 
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. 
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:
Tell me I’m wrong.
You…you and your clouds!!
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.
.
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:
And think of Russian Matruska dolls
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.
Not to mention the fact that Mike has a very unusual look, which to me makes him an identical twin of a Troll Doll.
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!!
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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!
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GOOD LORD!!!!!
Here’s an interesting comparison:
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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:
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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!!
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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”.
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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:
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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.
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Take a gander at Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg…..and a monkey whore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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“…
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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?
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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”.
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There’s the always festive binary Easter egg…perfect for the basket-clutching, pocket protector wearing, aspiring arithmetician/egg hunter of your progeny
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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
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A rabid rabbit
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Below is the anthropomorphic bunny that’s jaundiced due to extreme liver maladies.
Did anyone else read Watership Down?
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The Easter Bunny or freakin’ Grendel?
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Oh, petulant rabbit….
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Lepus???? Hell, he tried to kill us!!!
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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???
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This bunny was recently made partially deaf and he’s still damned pissed about it.
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And Josef Stalin, Yuri Turischeva and Peter Rabbit gather as the first edition of the “Communist Bunnyfesto” goes to print.
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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…
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Other Easter specialties for you include the famed Moais of Easter Island
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Massive rainfall from a late season Nor’Easter inundates Hoboken, N.J.
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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!!
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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.
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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!!
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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…
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.
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Who knew that so many national and global leaders (past and present) were such intrepid size queens?!?!?
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And here, too!!
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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!
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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.
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..……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.
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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. 
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.
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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.
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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 p