The Lillies of the Field Neither Toil Nor Spin - But Reporters Do

When my daughter was about 9-years-old, we bought her a fish tank and, to make it more interesting, we bought a fish. We didn't know that we had bought a "married" fish, but we found out when the fish had babies. Shortly after the widdle fishies were born, they began to disappear. One day we had 10 fish babies, the next day only 5 and then 2. (Swim, widdle fishies, swim if you can! … Damn!) We managed to save the last fish baby from the cannibal mommy.

This was an obvious teaching moment. It taught my daughter to be careful around her mother, especially before meals. I wish we had found the way to make this traumatic incident into a sign of hope instead of a harsh reality, but we didn’t know how.

Much too long after the fact, I have finally gained that insight, thanks to the news people. The AP is reporting that only 11,000 US jobs were lost in November, the lowest monthly figure since 2007 and they tell us that “this raised hopes for a sustained economic recovery.“ Clearly, what I should have told my daughter on the third day of Fish Horror was, “Look, Allie, the mommy fish ate fewer of her own precious babies today than the last two days. That means we’ll start seeing babies reappear tomorrow.”

A few years ago the murder rate in Cincinnati declined in one year compared to the previous year. In particular, the number of gang-related homicides dropped. The police interpreted that as a sign that their efforts to reduce crime were working. I took it as a sign that, after gang members kill each other, there are fewer gang members left to kill. When all the jobs are gone, we will finally see zero job losses in one month; but we won’t know it because all the reporters will be unemployed. But surely the total lack of jobs can lead only to prosperity, right?

The slow decline in the rate of fish consumption in Allie’s tank did not predict new fish appearing. The only common factor in the eating and the birthing was that the Mother was involved. The economy giveth jobs and the economy taketh them away but one doth not predict the other.

The other strange element of the AP story is that 11,000 jobs were lost in November and yet the unemployment rate dropped. How can that be?

The unemployment rate they are using counts people who are looking for work and can’t find it. So it can drop in one of two ways: those people find work, or they stop looking. 11,000 job losses can’t mean people found work. So we have to conclude that more than 11,000 people stopped looking. (The number of people in the unemployment office went down, not the number of unemployed). They either decided rather than be “unemployed” they would be “retired” or “dead” or probably they took a job in the economy-which-is-not-officially-measured: drug dealing, prostitution, lottery ticket buying or reality show seeking.

People keep saying the economy is about to turn the corner. But which way are we turning? If you get mugged and robbed on the street, don’t let some reporter tell you that means prosperity is just around the corner. Be prepared to defend yourself when you reach the corner because, if you turn the wrong way, you might meet another mugger … or a hungry mommy fish.

The Memory Game

One evening my wife asked me to check what was on TV. I started to click around, but on the Customer Information Channel I got distracted by the promo for that movie with Sean Penn. You know. That movie where he’s a gay politician? Milk! That’s it. Somebody Milk.

In the scene that caught my attention, Milk was talking to the other guy, and looking at that actor, I thought Milk was talking to George Bush, who the other guy played in "W". Of course I found that funny - because of the type casting - so I said,
”That actor, there …”
KAREN: “Sean Penn?”
ME: “No, the one who plays the guy that shoots him… Dan.”
KAREN: “Yeah?”
ME: “The actor, who plays Dan … I can’t think of Dan’s name …”
KAREN: “Mmmm…”
ME: “Anyway, he plays Dan, who kills Harvey Milk and he also plays "W". Two evil roles. Like typecasting.
KAREN: “Ha. Yeah.” (Okay, I thought it was funnier than "Ha.Yaeh." but I moved on to trying to remember the guy's name)
ME: “James something.”
KAREN: “Yes.”
ME: “Jaaaaames …?”
KAREN: “His dad played a doctor. I mean in our time. Doctuuurrrr … Kildare?”
ME: “No. The one who worked with Dr. Welby.” At this point, in my head I was making a connection with the father actor in some commercial for auto parts with an annoying jingle.
KAREN: “But he was a doctor.”
ME: “Yeah. Oh, Dan White!”
KAREN: “Right.”
ME: Played by James something. We’re almost there. I’m going to have to go to Google.” I picked up the laptop, but then I remembered. “James Brolin!”
KAREN: “… was the father.”
ME: “….on Dr. Welby, MD”
I googled “brolin george bush imdb”. “Josh Brolin,” I announced.
KAREN: “Yes, I was thinking it was a ‘J’ name.”
I googled “james brolin marcus welby”.
ME: “James Brolin was best known for … Dr. Steven Kiley … Marcus Welby, M.D.”
KAREN: “Kiley. I was close. I said Kildare.”
ME: “Yeah. K I L. Not bad. Oh! Double-A M C O!"

We used to entertain ourselves with card games or Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit. Now this memory game fills the evening just as well.

The game changes with age. I see our future whenever we visit the in-laws. (My father-in-law's initials, by the way, are CRS)
DAD: “That guy there. Not the one that married the singer. The other one, who shot him.””
MOM: “Sean Penn?”
DAD: “The other one.”
MOM: “The other one’s father was a doctor.”
DAD: “I think his father played a doctor.”
MOM: “On Marcus Welby.”
DAD: “What?”
MOM: “Marcus Welby.”
DAD: “Marcus Welby?”
MOM: “Robert Young. He was on the show with the father of that guy.”
DAD: “Sean Penn?”
MOM: “He’s dead now.”
DAD: “Milk is dead.”
MOM: “I just said Marcus is dead. Welby, Kildare, Ben Casey. They’re all dead.”
DAD: “You know Sam Fishman died yesterday.”
MOM: “Oh, here’s Karen and John. Hello. We were just watching that movie where Sean Penn dies.”
DAD: “We weren’t watching the movie. It was a preview.”
MOM: “It wasn’t the movie. We were watching a preview.”
DAD: “What?”

And so it goes. Their game is like playing Scrabble back to back, with two boards. As far as I know, it’s still entertaining. And if it’s not, who remembers?

No Thanks To You

I want to express my thanks for many things, but I won’t, because it only leads to trouble.

Naturally, I am thankful for my wife who has stayed with me for over 30 years. I am thankful for my daughter who can brighten my day with a simple text message or im. I am thankful for my sister and my niece. I am thankful for my friend, Marshall. And also for my other friends. Nevertheless, I am not going to write that I am thankful for any of these people because this is where it starts to get tricky.

“Why didn’t you mention some specific reason you are thankful for me,” my sister might ask.
“Why didn’t he mention me? I’m his friend too,” Marshall’s wife will wonder, “and what about our kids? I thought he liked them.”
It begins to feel like planning a party:
“If we are thankful for the Smith’s, we have to be thankful for the Hendersons. And the Scotts were thankful for us on their blog, so don’t leave them out.”
“What about MY family,” my devoted wife will ask, aren’t you thankful for them?”

Which brings up the other problem. I like to communicate clearly and precisely. When I say I am thankful for my wife, I fear it implies that that encompasses the totality of her existence. Perhaps I need to state some specific negative thing about her just so it is understood that there is a balance. I mean, for example, I am not thankful for her talking to me – at certain times.

Now if I list everyone I am thankful for, and why, plus at least one qualifier, I will be writing forever.

Maybe I should just say the things I am thankful for, like pie and beer. But there are so many things: warm sunny days, the beach, Andie MacDowell and so on. Again, the list is too long to include it all here.

I think I will pick just one thing. I am thankful for humor.
I am thankful for being able to be amused by and laugh at the things I am not thankful for.
“Just humor? What about me?” asks Comedy.
“Don’t forget your old pal, Parody.”
“Don’t confuse me with him,” chimes in Satire.
“Who would have thought that you would overlook me?” smirks Irony.

Never mind. But, hey, I am thankful for you reading this.

You Must Remember This

Before my mom died and before we knew she had dementia, she lived with my sister and my sister's daughter. One evening the three of them were out to dinner. When Mom needed to use the bathroom, she wondered aloud whether this restaurant had a well-maintained one or a nasty, foul one.

"Oh, they have a nice bathroom here, Gramma," my niece said, "you've used it before."
"I have never been in the bathroom here," Mom assured her.
"Yes you have, Gramma."
"I should know if I'd been in the bathroom or not."
My niece was hurt by this contradiction but she is persistent when she knows she is right.
"You always tell us how you forget things, Gramma. You probably just forgot that you've used it."
Mom stiffened her spine and sternly replied, "I may not remember the things I've done, but I never forget the things I haven't done."

We have savored that little statement among the family legends and for all these years thought it was a unique item of somewhat tortured logic. Well, speaking of torture, Dick Cheney is either channeling Mom or a victim of incipient dementia himself.

To 72 questions about ways he had been involved in the Valerie Plame affair - things he had done or said - Cheney responded that he could not recall.

"Expressing uncertainty on many areas he was being questioned about and refusing to discuss another area altogether, Cheney was emphatic on at least one basic point.

According to the FBI summary, Cheney said there was no discussion of using Plame’s employment with the CIA to counter her husband’s criticism that the Bush administration had manipulated prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

"You didn't expose Ms. Plame CIA status as punishment for their charges that you lied about Iraq."
"I ought to know if I outed a CIA agent for political reasons."
"You have repeatedly told us that you forget things, sir. Maybe you just forgot putting her life in danger for revenge."
Cheney stiffened his spine and sternly replied, "I may not remember the things I've done, but I never forget the things I haven't done."

Light Up This Guy Like a Flame

Recently we watched the original, 1980 “Fame” movie about a performing arts high school in New York which was remarkable because there was only one gay kid in the entire collection of dance, theater and music students.

Montgomery MacNeil’s homosexuality is not just presented as an anomaly; he reveals it as his response to the theater class assignment, “tell us your most painful moment”. Montgomery explains to his classmates that his therapist told him the condition is “probably a life choice”. Monty morosely relates that he is “getting a lot of help” and he is amused by the irony of being “gay” when it dooms him to a life of never being happy. His parents were divorced and he tells about going someplace with his mother, where it was “like we were lovers.” What!? The creepy factor totally obscures the outdated implication that not having a male role model may have led him to his “life choice”.

This was the attitude about homosexuality 30 years ago; imagine what the attitudes were a decade earlier – when I was in junior high school.

When I was 13, we had a sex education assembly at school. Dr. Agee talked about many things including that then taboo subject. We were all giggling, when suddenly she said something that hit home. And this is the only thing I remember her saying that day: “it is unclear how homosexuals get that way, but one theory is that boys who grow up in female dominated households become gay”.

My parents were divorced and I lived with my mother and older sister. Sitting through the rest of that lecture in a cold sweat, I realized that female domination was like a poison, slowly turning me gay. Back in the 60’s, we didn’t have any gay, prime-time role models like Elton John or Rosie O’Donnell or even movie characters like Montgomery MacNeil. All we had was Liberace - and they didn’t acknowledge his sexuality. I would ask my mom, “Why does that man dress all sparkly and talk funny like that?” She wouldn’t answer me, she’d just switch the channel to Gomer Pyle USMC, and say, "There, watch that Jim Nabors fella. He’s a Marine."
(Surprise, surprise, surprise, when it turned out Jimbo was gay.)

So my family situation was making me gay and I didn’t know exactly when it would happen. It could happen slowly, or the swish might be flipped overnight.
The fact that the girls in school, sporting their new, perky breasts in soft, fuzzy sweaters caused me to have an erection did not entirely reassure me. I was 13 years old – the mechanism was still getting calibrated - a bowl of oatmeal could give me an erection. I needed a way to know for sure what I was.

So, what I did, I kept a stack of Playboy magazines under my bed and I would periodically test myself to see if I could still have a “complete” experience with the centerfold. There were frequent pop quizzes. One day I did 12 separate tests – January through December – all home runs -- but as I started through the batting order a second time, my fears were confirmed. No reaction. I tried holding the magazine in the other hand. Nothing

The next day I pulled out the magazines to say goodbye and, I don’t want to go into detail, but clearly I was hetero again. Apparently it switches back and forth. That’s what that one guy told me in college.

Nevertheless, the rest of my life, despite my lack of attraction to men and despite my positive experiences with women (including marrying one and fathering another) I still have lingering doubts and I look for signs.

The things that worry me are:
I don’t fix my own car or even change own oil
I don't read in the bathroom and I often pee sitting down.
My life is still dominated by women.
I still REALLY like oatmeal – I don’t know what that means.

The main thing that proves that I’m a heterosexual man is that I have retained the skills I developed with those Playboys: my hands are strong and I can work a remote -105 cable channels in a 5 minute commercial break and back to the show I’m watching, without missing a second, baby.

The shows I watch now have more openly gay characters than those we saw in the 60s or even the 80s. I haven't seen the new "Fame" movie; I hope it has a more enlightened portrayal of gay people. In the United States today, a lesbian can grow up to be the daughter of a (former) Vice President. However she can't marry her mate. Maine just became the 31st state to officially reject same-sex marriage.

Baby hold me tight
Cause you can make it right
You can shoot me straight to the top
Give me love and take all I've got to give

I feel it coming together
Let us give marriage a try
Gay!

Travels With My Dead Mother

Mom had been dead for a while, so driving to New York with her in the back of the van freaked out my daughter. Allie always sat back in the third row seat, which meant Mom was right behind her. But since Mom was packed under all the luggage, I really thought Allie was over-reacting. At least Mom wouldn't be lying up on the top shelf of the closet anymore.

When I was little, riding in the station wagon, I liked sitting in “the way back”, a third bench seat that faced out the rear window - still with my mom, but far enough away to be alone with my bizarre thoughts and fantasies. I was an independent child, just like my daughter.

We had picked up Mom from my sister’s house in Las Vegas, after having our own private memorial service. Mom didn’t want a regular funeral – at least she hadn’t mentioned it recently, so my wife and daughter and I were just taking her remains back to her hometown of Niagara Falls to be buried. We flew her first to Cincinnati, packed in the big suitcase, because we weren’t sure about the rules for putting a heavy, sealed, wooden box of ashes in the overhead.

When I was little, my grandfather and his second wife moved to L.A. to live near us. When her step-mother died, Mom flew us all back to Niagara Falls for the funeral. During the service, my sister and I had to sit out in the lobby of the funeral home; I still don’t really know why. But, like sitting in the way back, I was just far enough away to be happy and secure. And my sister was with me.

Allie never had a sibling and wasn’t used to competing or sharing. I didn’t want her to start distracting me from driving by yelling from the back of the van, “Grandma’s looking at me!” or, “Grandma’s touching me!” so we had put Grandma securely beneath everything else we had brought along for our vacation. We were dropping her off in Niagara Falls on the first leg of our tour around the state of New York. This was not immediately after my sister handed her off to us. I was gainfully employed so I couldn’t take time all at once to vacation in Las Vegas with my deceased mother and then run off to New York with her; that’s why we left Mom in the closet of our house in Cincinnati for a few months.

When I was little, Mom would sometimes leave us with her newly-widowed father while she went to work. My grampa didn’t relate to us very well, but one thing that always worked for everyone was when he would buy us glazed doughnuts off the Helms Bakery truck. My sister and I would try to nibble them slowly in a competition to have the last bite left so the winner could proclaim, “I have a doughnut and you-ou don’t”. Grampa didn’t play; he was there in the next room smoking his pipe, but far enough away that we could be alone with our own bizarre games. When Grampa died, I was visiting my grandmother on my father’s side and I didn’t go to Grampa’s funeral; I’m not even sure there was one.

Allie hadn’t gotten to spend much time with her grandma because of the distance between Las Vegas and Cincinnati. The few years before she died, my mom suffered from dementia; she still knew who Allie was, but Allie didn’t know who Grandma really was. Until she got sick, she was the grandma that fell asleep in our living room while reading and snored really loudly. She was the grandma that revealed to Allie where Dad had learned to make horrible puns. But she was also the grandma that taught Dad to make mince pie.

When I was little, Mom had stories about growing up in Niagara Falls during the Depression and about her dad who worked on the railroad and her brother who became a big deal at G.E. in Syracuse, NY. She told us about her mother dieing when Mom was a teenager; how Mom had to take over preparing meals for the family and how her dad liked mince pie. She told us about her best friend, Helen, whom she still kept in touch with “back home”. Mom told us she had bought a plot to be buried in there.

So at not-quite-nine-years-old, Allie sat in the back of the van with her dead grandma behind her, traveling to Niagara Falls, New York. It was kind of like National Lampoon’s Vacation meets Little Miss Sunshine. Niagara Falls looked like it had not changed since the 1930s. This was the US side, not the touristy, honeymoon destination in Canada. Best Friend Helen was still living in the house she grew up in. Some of Mom’s other friends also still lived in town. We bought a grave marker and buried Mom while everyone told a few stories of the old days. My mom had been the adventurous one who traveled around Europe after WWII while others stayed safe in their hometown. Mom had been the smart one who had to work to help send her brother, the goof-off C-student, to college because he was a male and girls didn’t need higher education. Mom was funny, a good friend and beloved.

When I was little, I knew some of that, but mostly Mom was just Mom, going to work to support us, driving the station wagon while I played in the way back, making pies. My sister told me she was thinking about Mom yesterday and that made me start digging up these old memories. I will pass them off to Allie so that Grandma is more than that box of ashes haunting her from the back of the van.

Sex, Nude Beaches, Schwarzenegger,

exploding ketchup, Mennonite secret agents, romance and an old woman with a dead cat and a bottle of vodka: my new movie will have it all.

While in L.A. I needed to get a hamburger, fries and some iced tea because I had a headache and that is my secret remedy. We went to a coffee shop in Santa Monica where I was sure I could get real iced tea. You would think that is something easy to find, but in California, it is not.

All the way down the coast, at every restaurant we went to, Karen would ask for plain brewed iced tea. “Sorry we have only mango (or “paradise” or raspberry or passion fruit or avocado or salsa) flavored tea.”

The Santa Monica coffee shop was the one with “paradise” iced tea. Regular, caffeinated tea being the key to the headache cure, we ordered hot tea and a glass of ice. That’s when the waitress brought over the sabotaged ketchup. The bottle had been filled to make it look fresh and new, but the ketchup inside was spoiled and was building up botulism or e coli or some kind of bio-hazard gasses.

I don’t know which of us the assassination attempt was meant for, but it was Karen who picked up the bottle first, taking the bullet like James Bond’s girlfriend. She twisted off the cap and the gasses exploded, propelling sour ketchup across her purse, her clothes and her lunch. The waitress quickly disappeared, probably to go into hiding and avoid telling her bosses that she had failed to stop us from drinking real iced tea.

As I munched my French fries and watched Karen clean herself up and get a new plate of food, I started to wonder: Why does California not want us to drink iced tea? Are the Mennonites who are following us actually agents of the state in disguise? If Karen gets sick, what are the net assets of this coffee shop worth and how would I change the menu after we own it (besides adding real iced tea.)?

It was then I began to formulate my idea for a screenplay. A couple, celebrating their 30th anniversary, drive down the coast of California searching for real iced tea, as creepy, albino, Mennonite, state secret agents attempt to stop them.

Oh, I'd throw in a subplot about “rekindling the magic” or some crap like that, so there would be exploding condiments for the guys and smarmy love stuff to bring in the female demographic. The lead characters would have some Harry-Met-Sally-romantic-comedy sort of repartee, like debates about whether it’s “iced tea” or “ice tea” and is it “exploding ketchup” or “exploding catsup”. There would not be a lot of sex in the movie because, while we enjoyed it, the video aspect of 30-year anniversary sex is probably not a big box office draw.

Who would play me? I’m thinking John Cusack, who, according to imdb “is, like most of his characters, an unconventional hero. Wary of fame and repelled by formulaic Hollywood fare, (he plays) underdogs and odd men out--all the while avoiding the media spotlight” which describes me to a “T” and he looks exactly like me. My wife would be played probably by Andie McDowell, who could be her twin, though I could see Helen Hunt or Jodie Foster in the role. But I’d have to give a screen test to Penelope Cruz, Megan Fox and some other younger women just to be sure I had the right person.

I won’t reveal the surprise ending where we find out what the state is up to, because I haven’t figured it out yet, but it involves a showdown with the Governator himself and a mad car chase on the L.A. freeways. But we will wind up, as in real life, at the tavern where we had dinner with my dad the last night of our trip. It’s in L.A. and he’s been eating there for at least 50 years. The waitresses, I am quite sure, are the same ones who first served him back when Eisenhower was President and they serve real food and real iced tea. So, we wrap up this flick with something about returning to our roots and the basics of life and yada, yada, yada, we go home happy and headache free.

I figure I can bankroll this feature with the settlement from the coffee shop, if only Karen would agree to fake near-death from food poisoning

Endlessly Infinite Coincidence

Last Summer, while on vacation, I experienced the musical/literary coincidence of hearing the title line in the song “I Was Looking For a Job When I Found This One” at the exact moment that I read that sentence in an unrelated book.

My recent Spring vacation now has its own musicliterary coincidence, though this is more of a stretch.

While we were in Carmel, we stumbled upon a quaint little restaurant (they really need to repair the sidewalk outside their front door). We went in to check it out and I was surprised to see, on the hostess stand of Carmel’s “most romantic restaurant”, CDs of the soundtrack from “The Endless Summer” for sale.

Now, the name “The Endless Summer” may sound romantic but, if so, you are confusing it with “A Summer Place”, a sappy soap opera of a film that teen girls watched while their boyfriends were fantasizing about riding waves around the world instead of their girlfriends.

I was pretty young when both of those came out – still learning about love and sex from New Yorker cartoons - but while my older sister mooned over Troy Donahue in “A Summer Place”, I developed a crush on global beaches. For a major milestone birthday I had a couple years ago, I put my “Endless Summer” DVD on repeat during the entire party.

I am not sure when we saw "A Summer Place". Our mother would not allow us to go to "Gidget" or the "Beach Blanket" films or any movies involving co-ed teens in bathing suits because Parents Magazine did not approve of them. I have digressed, but I added this in the interest of full disclosure, which is what I think Parents and my mother were afraid was happening in those bikini movies but was not.

Back to the coincidence: The Casanova restaurant was opened by Belgian, Walter Georis, who wrote the music for “The Endless Summer” along with his brother Gaston. (The surf music tradition is now carried on by Nico and Max).

Okay, we get the serendipitous music discovery, JohnnyB, where does the book part of this musicliterary coincidence referred to in your Endless Blog Post come in?

Hold on!

Upon returning from our trip, my sister put up a post about “Infinite Summer”, which challenges people to read some book called “Infinite Jest" over the Summer. Get it? “Infinite Summer” = “Endless Summer”, right? What? I told you it was a stretch.

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

I apologize for the long break, followed by an even longer post about books. My mind was on vacation but now we're back

You will recall the Mennonites on a Plane incident from the start of our trip. The Mennonites did not leave us in San Francisco, they followed us down the coast. I saw them in Monterey and spotted them at various places we stopped throughout Big Sur. What would a peaceful religious sect want from us? And why would a group that never shaves worship a specific brand of shaving products?

I never found an answer to those questions, but I think a clue may be in this story. If the Amish are moving west to Colorado, why wouldn't the more progressive Mennonites move all the way to the coast? They are probably buying up beachfront property and opening family-style seafood restaurants with big bowls of all-you-can-eat, German-style clam chowder.

In Santa Barbara I did get to sit with my feet in the sand and eat fish tacos: a life-long dream realized. We also visited the winery where our niece works to supplement her income while she completes her PhD in psychology. She quite knowledgeable about and quite fond of wine, a relationship of which her mother and I both approve. She told us "I almost never drink hard liquor anymore, except I have a bottle of vodka in the freezer, but only because I got it from a woman whose cat died." That is an excellent opening line to some kind of novel, which should perhaps be written while drinking copious amounts of wine.

Another highlight of our journey down highway 1 in CA was the nude beach. Here we see a couple blatantly engaging in PDA in the nude, not caring who sees them.

5 Things I hate About Facebook

That would be the next 5 Facebook challenges that anyone tags me with.
My sister took one Facebook challenge and made it a blog entry, so it is sort of like a “meme”, which is another thing I hate times 5.

However this one is about books and we Bs are a book-lovin’ family so SusanB and JohnnyB can not resist. However, Susan nonconformed and took it outside Facebook. Me, I defied the instructions to do 15 books in 15 minutes and not think too hard. The Bs are rebel book lovin’ people who question authority. We get that way from reading books and learning stuff. That’s why ignorant people burn books, because they fear that knowledge will change their little world. (Read more about questioning authority and burning books in “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, available in your public library.)

So here’s my list (I resisted the urge to provide a link for each book – it takes too long. Even longer than it would take to read this entry, which is way too long)

1. Little Bear and the Beautiful Kite – Painfully shy Little Bear was the first literary character I identified with. He overcame his shyness and became a hero (I won’t spoil the plot by saying how) and I knew that one day I would do that and win the affection of some girl (though at the time I had no idea why I wanted to).

2. The Cat in the Hat –I spent a lot of time playing by myself and making up imaginary characters, so I liked the Cat. That beat out the Cowboy Andy series of books I enjoyed. I had a bromance going for Cowboy Andy, but I was able to quit him early on.

3. New Yorker Cartoon Collections – You can read here about how the New Yorker cartons taught me about history, American culture and sex. Yes, I read these not long after I was reading Cat in the Hat. I was precocious.

4. Catcher in the Rye – Read here about how J.D. Salinger taught me profanity and giving an “in your face” to adulthood and my grandmother.

5. Fanny Hill – This early porn book was found in someone’s trash when I was 13 or 14. I learned more from this book than from Catcher in the Rye. Talk about "coming of age"

6. Hiroshima – okay, nothing funny here. Another good book about the horrors of WWII is Night by Elie Wiesel. Makes you wonder why we would drop The Bomb on Japan but not Germany. Because Hiroshima is far removed from our allies but Berlin isn't or because the Japanese are more "different from us”? I'm just asking.

7. And Then There Were None – Got me interested in mystery books. I read all the Agatha Christies because I had a crush on Miss Marple.

8. The Big Sleep – I then read all the Raymond Chandlers and learned that American pulp fiction was better than British drawing room whodunits (that is “who-dun-it”, not “whod-unit”, which is how I read it as a teen) and the dames that Marlowe meets are sexier than Miss Marple.

9. The Martian Chronicles – All of Bradbury is beautifully written. I read every one.

10. Breakfast of Champions – Also read all of Kurt Vonnegut, who combined the silliness of Suess with the fantasy of Bradbury and the adolescent anti-social attitude of Salinger.

11. Canterbury Tales – a book I enjoyed as opposed to the books from high school lit that “stayed with me” in a bad way (e.g. The Red and the Black – Worst. Book. Ever.) Canterbury Tales is bawdy and features farting.

12. Without Feathers – Woody Allen taught me about writing humor and more about philosophy than Nietzsche’s The Stranger or any other existential authors I enjoyed.

13. The Source – The only James Mitchner book I really, really enjoyed. I imagine that when James Mitchner was a boy and his mom asked how he got his clothes so dirty, he would start out, “Well, Mother, in the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth. The Earth will be a recurring character in this narrative. So, then …”

14. The Bone Collector – by Jeffrey Deever - Or I could list Rules of Prey by John Sanford which got me interested in becoming either a twisted homocidal killer or a brilliant but flawed detective. I guess I'd go with the detective - they have more normal sex than the killers.

15. The Torah and 15 books of The Bible – More sex than even Fanny Hill and murder right in the first chapter. In fact, they have elements of every other book on my list.

The book I never read that stayed with me is the Aeneid, Virgil’s epic poem which we had to read and translate in my 4th year of high school Latin. I actual did read it, just not when I was supposed to. I would work on translating each day’s portion during lunch, right before Latin class. I would go to the library where I could find my Latin classmate, Lori Fuglaar, whom I had a crush on and who was smarter than I – I have always been attracted to smart women. She was a remarkably cute girl of Nordic descent who was also very religious. I know this because every time I called to ask her out, she had something to do at church that conflicted with the proposed date.

But at lunch I was able to enlist her help in doing my homework. I know she felt uncomfortable helping me get away with not doing the assignment. So I was able to corrupt her morals … just not in the way I wanted to. If only I could have climbed a tree and saved her kite, I might have won her affection. Oops! Now I spoiled the Little Bear story.
Goddam!

You Feelin' Me, Bro'?

I am not now, nor have I ever been, cool. I was never in with the in crowd, part of the scene, or remotely in synch with “what’s happenin’ now”.

For example: When I was a teenager, bell bottoms and flares were popular fashion items. We were the Woodstock Generation. It was Cool Times in America. However, those bell bottoms were way beyond my cool status level. But I did wear flares. I assume everyone knows what these items are, but, for an in depth discussion, click here. The short definition of the style is “Trousers with legs that flare at the bottom.”

Cool people wear bell-bottom or flared jeans or cords or even “pants”. Cool people do not wear “trousers”. But I did. I had “Trousers with legs that flare at the bottom.” What’s more, I was a tall, skinny child and the flared bottoms of my trousers were just above my ankles. Not dragging the ground, becoming fashionably frayed at the hem. No, my flared trouser legs flapped at my ankles, giving the cool folk a great view of my white socks and my Hush Puppies. I was not cool.

Having been around back then, I have now aged beyond hope of being cool. My daughter, who is cool, tells me that I get cool points for having done stand up in actual theaters and comedy clubs (strictly amateur). But those few points are apparently a mere drop in the cool bucket. If I accidentally say anything that sounds like I am trying to be cool (or “hip” or “hep” or “the shizzle” or whatever the kids these days are saying) she wall warn me “Dad. No. Don’t ever say that again.”

So I don’t try to use current slang (or “lingo”, or “street”, or “text-speak” or whatever the kids these days are saying). I speak, white, mid-western English, which is no better or worse than anything else, it’s just the language of my people: The Uncool. That’s not to say that a manner of speaking is limited to a given region, age or ethnic group, but we characterize certain ways of talking with such groups. Certain expressions are associated with white culture, some with brown and some as black culture. Cool people can cross over cultures, but uncool people who try that are what we commonly refer to as “dorks” (or “nerds”, or “fools”, or “dweebs” or whatever the kids these days are saying).

I told you all that to tell you this:
You know how certain expressions are automatic? You pick up the phone in the U.S and you say “Hello.” You don’t try to be Chinese and say “Ni hao,” unless you are from that culture. Likewise, at the end of a discussion about some conflict, some people would say “Are we okay now?” and some would say “We good?”, depending on culture. Again, you don’t think about what words to say, it’s automatic based on who you are and the way you learned to speak.

Last weekend an African-American man was explaining to me the service he was providing on the trees at our house. When he was done, he said “alright”, signaling, “Alright, I’m ready to get started,” and I said, “a’ight”.

What? (or “Say what?” or “WTF?” Or “Huh?” Or whatever the kids these days are saying). I could have said “alrighty, then” or “okey-dokey” and not thought I sounded any more uncool. ”A’ight” just came out of my mouth, leaving me wondering who had said it, while the black guy was saying “alright”. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but it made me feel like I was Gene Wilder in "Silver Streak" ("Get down! Feelin' fine!"). For sure! (or “tru’ dat”, or “right on”, “I heard that” or whatever these kids today are saying).

"A'ight"? Seriously?

As my daughter would say, “Dad. No. Don't ever say that again.” To which I would instinctively reply, “A’ight. We cool.”

(Don’t forget to go to Humor Bloggers dot com, read all the “Funniest Post Ever!” contest entries and then vote for “What Chinese New Year means to Me” because it is the best one. A’ight?)

Foul Ball Fever ... Catch It!

From Chris Mauger comes a great essay on the life-long aspiration all (real American) men have to catch a foul ball at a baseball game.
(I discovered Chris’ blog after he left a very nice comment on my previous post. He is an elementary school principal so he can understand the maturity level of my humor and the aptitude level of my writing. He is very funny and you should read his blog).

Reading about his foul ball dreams, immediately sent me back to Dodger Stadium – I’m sitting in the stands with my mom and I have my mitt on, ready to catch any ball that comes near me. Nevermind that I am in General Admission, high above the field (just above the blinking red light that warns away airplanes). A home run travels only 400 feet or so; how is a foul ball going to reach me in General Admission, where we have to listen to Vin Scully on my transistor radio to know what we are “seeing” below? None of that matters; the fantasy of catching a ball from the game and taking it home to treasure is the lure that attracted every male to that ballpark.

Oh, we sometimes sat in the bleachers, which were also cheap seats at Dodger Stadium, so I might have caught a home run. But these were the early 60s Dodgers. Runs were manufactured by Maury Wills stealing 1st then 2nd, followed by a sacrifice bunt to move him to third and a sacrifice fly to get him home. Home runs were things other teams got because they – I’m looking at you, Yankees – were in league with the Devil. (That would specifically be the American League). So I sat in foul territory to increase my chances.

Men love action, thrills and violence and yet baseball was still our national pastime when I was a kid. Basketball offers fast-paced action – hockey even more so. Football offers physical contact, maiming and death – hockey even more so. Of course hockey is hard to follow and surely you couldn’t do that on what passed as television in the 60s. Baseball you can turn on at any point and get caught right up to the moment:

"Willie Davis at bat now. Gaylord Perry gets the ball and looks in to the catcher. Davis got the base hit in the first inning and scored on Gilliam’s double, providing the only run in the game. Perry shakes off a couple signs. Koufax has struck out 4 in the first three innings. Perry winds and throws. Of course, Gilliam made one heck of a catch on a hard line drive by Aaron in the second. The ball is approaching the plate now. The Dodgers have three hits, one run no errors. Davis looks like he might swing at this one. The Braves have 4 hits, no runs and one error which … Davis grounds back to the mound .. .put Davis in scoring position for that run … Davis is out at first.”

So baseball is easy to keep up with, which is why your girlfriend goes with you: you can explain all the rules between actual player motions on the field. But it is the foul ball that brings in the guys. You never hear this at an NFL game: “Fans are welcome to keep any errant passes thrown into the stands…” Hockey does let your next-of-kin keep any errant pucks you catch with your face, but you aren’t going to come back for more.

The promise of a caught foul ball indoctrinates kids into baseball worship. Sitting there with your glove on makes you part of the game. So I sat there as a kid, waiting. And waiting. Years later, in Cincinnati, I sat in Riverfront stadium (too embarrassed to wear my glove) waiting. One day I took a friend to the game. About the 5th inning I got myself some ice cream: a sundae served in a miniature, plastic replica of a batting helmet. I looked down to scoop up a mouthful. When I looked up, a foul ball was coming directly toward me. Things began to happen in slow motion – okay, everything was already in slow motion, this was baseball – I saw my friend’s arms reach out and I saw his hands catch the baseball. God had sent ME that baseball … but he was really punking me by making me get that ice cream first. The point is I’ll never forget the roller coaster ride of emotions from seeing the ball finally come and then losing it. I’ll never get the chocolate sauce out of my shorts either.

I don’t know if kids today build the same dreams. There are so few day games, and the night games are so late, it’s hard to bring kids. Without as many young boys learning to reach beyond hope for that ever-elusive foul ball, the popularity of baseball has declined. They try to attract us with hot dogs or t-shirts fired out of a canon, but, come on! That doesn’t make you one of the players like catching a real ball. And the “kiss cam?” Ew, gross! (if you’re a young boy there with your mom or dad, I mean).

Thinking about that, I just had a recovered memory. About 3 years ago, I did get a ball in the stands. There was a foul that bounced around the seats and came to rest in front of the guy next to me. Being that he was a five-year-old, my arms were longer than his and I reached down and snatched the ball right from under his little, 5-year-old feet. Oh my God, that is horrible! No wonder I blanked that out. But, come to think of it, had he got the ball, his dream would have been fulfilled and he could have put aside baseball for one of the other sports. My quick action established one more lifelong fan of America’s pastime.

Home Cooking

One of my partners walked by my office the other day carrying a pie plate. He looked at me and said, “I made some blueberry pie, would you like a piece?” I replied, “That is like me walking past your office with a bag of cash and asking, ‘Would you like a wad of hundred dollar bills?’”

My sister tagged me to write about this:

"Dancing Deer’s Sweet Home Initiative raises money for scholarships to help educate homeless women and end family homelessness. As a part of this initiative, (their) CEO, Trish Karter, will be riding her bike 1,500 miles from Atlanta to Boston, visiting family shelters in each city to raise awareness about this issue. She’ll also be recording stories from the women she meets along the way, asking them about their experiences. One question she’ll ask them are what foods remind them of home." (See more: click here.)

The food that first and foremost makes me think of home is pie. My mother was not a domestic goddess or even a Paula Dean homespun deity. She worked, sometimes 2nd or 3rd shift, and did not have the luxury of slaving away at home all day in service of my sister and me. When she had the opportunity, she baked pies. She also made some great meals: the steaming richness of creamy, homemade chicken and dumplings being dished out of her pressure cooker is my ultimate comfort food association.

Mom’s life was a pressure cooker of work and maintaining a house as best she could while making sure her two kids survived. She had to make do with what she had and “slumgullion” (a word I only ever heard spoken, so the spelling is pure guesswork), meaning a hodgepodge of whatever is in the fridge and cupboards, was often the main meal.

Accordingly, foods that remind me of home include instant mashed potatoes topped with Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, peas and tuna fish. Tuna is a versatile dish if you are willing to eat it, for example, atop Franco American spaghetti (pre-Spaghetti-O’s), as we often did (and loved it). Our tuna of choice, by the way, was Chicken of the Sea, which Jessica Simpson restored to prominence 30 years after my Mom ceased providing the bulk of their market share. Mom also introduced us to peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches, Ritz Crackers dipped in blue cheese dressing and other delights; I’m thinking Sue and I ought to put together a cookbook.

I am also reminded of home by coffee shop meals like those we had at Stacks. Mom left us money and we walked to the coffee shop to buy our grilled cheese or hamburger dinners. We were the original latch key kids and I also fondly remember the meals we made for ourselves - Swanson TV dinners in the oven or Kraft Dinner on the stove with real fire, because microwaves (“radar ranges”) existed only in Disney’s House of the Future”. I also loved to make myself Jell-o instant chocolate pudding … at least until “the mixer incident”.

One day, home alone, I put the milk and pudding mix in the bowl and applied the hand mixer, only to discover that the it was not plugged in. Carefully resting the mixer on the bowl, with the beaters in the unmixed pudding, I stuck the plug in the socket. The chocolate pudding stains never came out of the t-shirt I was wearing that day and I don’t recall if Mom ever got them completely off the ceiling, walls, floor or appliances in the entire kitchen.

I can’t watch Bill Cosby’s Jell-o commercials and, when I think back on the trauma induced by that hand mixer hurricane of pudding, I am in need of comfort food. I close my eyes and go to my happy place, surrounded by Mom’s cherry pie, pumpkin pie and mince meat pie. And sometimes I crave the Swanson’s chicken pot pies she whipped up for us or that I cooked for myself. Even though we were sometimes home alone, Mom made sure we had a home and plenty of food. It’s not as easy as pie, but let’s try to make that a reality for everyone.

(PS I'm supposed to tag some people to also get out this message, but I won't - so Cali, Andy, Scarletviralgo, Skye, Unfinishedrambler and other Humorbloggers - you are all on your own.)

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

Passover ended at sundown today and we had pizza for dinner, as Rabbi Bar Toli instructed, "You shall eat it (the Passover reprieve) with tomato sauce and cheese."

We used to bake up a homemade pizza, which was delicious but disappointed Allie - she always wanted Papa John's. Naturally we forced her to have the homemade because we hated her and were always looking for ways to cause her misery.

Allie was unhappy with pretty much everything about Passover. She loved (still does) pasta and bread. "Why does Passover have to be about bread?" she whined, "Why can't it be about pork chops?" We still haven't told her that Passover doesn't really exist: that we conspired with millions of people all over the world to create a "religion" we called "Judaism" just so we could invent "Passover" and make Allie go a week without spaghetti and garlic bread. We hate her that much.

Karen and I like bread also, and 8 days without it gives us serious cravings. I have friends who say they like matzah. I like it too, but when it is the only choice, you realize that it is dry, tasteless crackers. So we are ready for celebratory pizza when the big day comes.

Since Allie is away at college, we don't have to make the nasty homemade stuff and we decided to go out - but not for Papa John's, since their crust is more tasteless than matzah. We went to La Rosa's to get their pan crust pizza. Pan crust because after 8 days of crackers you don't want the thin crust.

Our pizza arrived and we took big, delectable bites of real bread. But something was not quite right. The pan crust was flat and doughy. Our waitress explained that sometimes they get a batch that just doesn't "fluff up". The bread did not rise. We were experiencing the 9th day of the bread of affliction.

I know. It's karmic payback for all the suffering we put our daughter through.

So let it be written, so let it be done - and hurry up, for God's sake

So, when we left off, we were preparing for Passover. The original Passover preparation involved smearing lamb’s blood on the doorpost and making special preparations for eating dinner prior to travelling, as God commanded “Now you shall eat it in this manner: with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste.”

The lamb’s blood was a marker for the Angel of Death so that he would pass over the Hebrew’s houses and slay the first born in only the Egyptian’s houses. When I was 10, I had a paper route and I was able to find my customers’ houses without benefit of blood markers, but the God of Biblical times was a bit over the top. (Any God who uses cutting off a bit of penis as a contractual covenant obviously favors the dramatic gesture).

The blood smearing is one of those elements of the Passover origins that we forego these days. What with lambs being scarce in the ‘burbs and the concerns about food borne illnesses, it’s just as well. We also don’t make much of a deal about the shoe-wearing or loin-girding, which is basically just preparing for dinner as if company was coming: putting on a belt, shoes and something nicer than that t-shirt with the pit stains (“and tuck it in, for God’s sake"). As for eating with your staff in hand, that would seem to contravene eating in haste, as having two hands free would seem more efficient. But who am I to question?

One of the reasons I doubt the complete authenticity of the Passover story is that I don’t think that any Jews could prepare for a hasty departure, at least not the Jews I know. When we visit my in-laws in Florida, any trip is preceded by a fifteen-minute discussion of who is actually ready and who has been waiting for whom and whether somebody has the coupons for the free meal and whether you need a sweater in the restaurant.

You know that the Jews in Egypt went through something like this:

“Wait, I have to go to the bathroom. Did all of you kids go? I want to make good time crossing the desert – we’re not stopping to let you pee.”
“You’re not driving the cart after four cups of wine.”
“Sadie, where is my belt and my shoes?”
“Do I wear them? Find them yourself. I’m trying to make bread for the trip. This is not going to have time to rise, you know, Mr. ‘we must leave ‘ere midnight’. What kind of person goes out in the desert at this hour?”
“Where is Sharon? She is always late.”
“I can’t find my good staff.”
“Did you smear the lamb’s blood?”
“I thought you did it.”
"Uh, oh. Where is Seymore, our first born?"

And so on.

In the end we had a good Seder, once we found the silver and the “good” glasses and enough nice serving platters. We spent a pleasant evening, reading and discussing the haggadah, drinking our four cups of wine and eating a wonderful dinner. We wish you all a Happy Passover and/or Happy Easter.

It's Like Rain On Your Wedding Day

March 28 was the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Three Mile Island Meltdown. Walter Cronkite labeled it the “worst nuclear power plant accident of the atomic age.” (And somehow Walter Cronkite’s fatherly delivery makes that sound comforting. “America has achieved another record and we are all safe and Mom is making cake to celebrate.")

In December this year, it will be the 30th anniversary of the stampede at the Who concert in Cincinnati. (You may recall that being a plot driver in a “WKRP in Cincinnati” sitcom episode. Yes, sitcom.) Yes, I live in Cincinnati, but, other than that, why am I bringing this up?

On May 27, sandwiched between Three Mile Island Meltdown and The Who Tragedy anniversaries, Karen and I will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary.
Natural and man-made disasters happen every year and most couples can probably share anniversaries with memorable horrific events. So, TMI and The Who? - no big deal. However, we have another tragedy preserved forever in our memories.

A friend of the family was into photography and took photos at our wedding. He knew that a cool way to provide a sort of time capsule to the event was to photograph the front page of the local paper on the wedding day. We got married in Cincinnati and the front page of the local paper that day had a half-page photo very much like the one here of a plane turned sideways about to become, “In terms of total fatalities … the deadliest single airliner accident on US soil.” (The crash occurred on the 25th, but in those days, boys and girls, there were no 24-hour cable stations and it took the Pony Express two days to get the photos from Chicago to Cincinnati.)

His photos in our album start off with that newspaper story on the front page, as if providing a theme for our marriage: “The worst disaster of its kind in America. Ever.”

The front page also shows that it was cloudy that day and I seem to remember that it rained a bit. Rain is supposed to be bad luck on your wedding day - except when it isn’t. (see #1 here). I don't know if whatever rain we had was a worse sign than a plane crash, but probably neither really means anything.

The plane crash was a discrete event, hardly remembered now. There were other disasters of the era that spanned years – the Carter Presidency and Disco, most notably - but they are also long gone.

Yet, despite the tragic portent of the Cincinnati Enquirer, 3o years later, like the cancer-causing toxicity of Three Mile Island, our marriage lingers on.

Isn’t it ironic?

You Can't Go Home Again

Andy over at “PurpAnd” was pondering the number of residences he has lived in and wondering which was his favorite home. He commented that one “particular residence is also the one I spent most of my life in (about 10 years total).”
I was struck by a couple of things. On is that, for my friend Andy (whom I’ve never met), 10 years is nearly half his life – which just reinforces the sad realization that I am twice his age and nearing the point where I can not remember where I live at present, let alone all my previous ones. But really, Andy, based on the math clues you dropped in your essay, 10 years is closer to 1/3 of your life. You are closing in on 30 – deal with it!
The other thing that was interesting was that Andy has lived in a lot of places, which is similar to my experience growing up. A lot of people at Andy’s age don’t have so many homes to look back on and rank. My daughter had only one home until she went to college. So, if you are smart, you now know that I have lived in my current home a long time. But in the 30 some years before this house, I lived in (if my rapidly deteriorating memory serves) 14 different places, if college counts as only one. That is about 1 every 2.5 years, pretty close to Andy’s rate.
When we were growing up, my parents divorced and Mom moved us around to various parts of the Los Angeles area. Later, after I had failed to pursue her dream for me and I chose accounting over comedy, she revealed the reason for our nomadic existence. “The best comedians experience hardship growing up. It forms their comic persona. You were supposed to take your unstable life of a broken home and never settled living conditions and build a solid comedy life.”
I could only shake my head. “Mom, every kid in L.A. is an aspiring actor/comedian and every one of them has divorced parents and instability. The ones who make it have gone beyond that. You say you did it all for me, but if you wanted me to have a comedy base, you would have lost your job and made me wonder where my next meal was coming from. If you really loved me, you would have been a crack whore or would have given me an abusive step-father. Then I would have something to create a monologue around. But you did none of that.”
The original question here was which home was my favorite. Looking back on them all:
the duplex where my sister and I used to walk to the coffee shop for dinner or the apartment where we ate crackers and Gouda cheese sitting on the floor before the place was furnished or the house where I become cook and laundryman when Mom broke her ankle -
I’d say my favorite was the imaginary place I created in my head.

This is How I Got Lured Into Accounting

(Dilbert home page)

Pie is the perfect food. Pie can be sweet or savory; pie can be made with meat, fruit, vegetables, and dairy foods (cream cheese pie is often misunderstood as "cheesecake").

Pie is American, as in "baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet" (though pie will never go bankrupt and leave hundreds of thousands without jobs).

Some people like birthday cakes but my daughter and I always have birthday pie. Pie is perfect for any occasion - well, there is one unfortunate exception.

All hail the power of pie. I pledge my life and fortune to thee. (Which is how I lost my fortune).

Be There or Be Square

I have square roots, so I am celebrating today, 3/3/09, which is a square root day. Any square can figure that out and a real square can tell me how many square root days there are each century.

These are my square roots:
My grandfather was a PhD in mathematics; it doesn’t get much squarer than that.
My father is a CPA; need I say more?

My mother wanted me to have a respectable L.A. type career as a comedian or street performer, but I could not break away from my square roots and I am, like my dad, a certified public accountant. I grew up and went to college in hip, cool Los Angeles. But I longed to seek out my people, so I majored in economics, got married, became a CPA and moved to the San Fernando Valley. When that wasn’t square enough, we came here to the Midwest.

Square, dork, geek, "L7" - whatever you call it, that's me.

So I am celebrating my square roots on square root day. I’m am cutting carrots, onions, fennel and potatoes into square shapes and making soup. That will be served with root beer in square mugs. For dessert we will serve pie baked in square pans so we can make jokes about “pie are square”. Ironically, pi*r2 is the formula for the area of a circle, which pie usually are. (SNICKER< SNICKER< SNORT!). Sorry, if you are square, you think that’s funny.

You Don't Know Dick...and Dee Dee?

My sister and I are members of a google group that is theoretically about politics. The topics occasionally stray from Bush bashing and Barack beatification as when one of the members posted a "Dead or Alive quiz:

Donovan
Lulu
Lyndsey Buckingham
Marianne Faithful
Tom Jones
Dick and Dee Dee (either one)
Everly Brothers
Sam and Dave (either one)
Connie Francis
Martha Reeves (Martha and the Vandellas)

I was not surprised that a younger member of the group did not know who all these pop singers were. I was shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that my sister did not remember Sam and Dave or Dick and Dee Dee.

My sister is older than I am and got into pop music earlier. She introduced me to the classics of the early sixties:
-The folk singers with deed, socially important lyrics such as "Walk right in, sit right down, Daddy let your mind roll on."
-The teen idols such as Bobby Rydell and Fabian, manufactured pop singers whose only real talent was making teenage girls squeal - the David Archuletas of their time.
-Dick and Dee Dee who were, like Paul and Paula, presented as a couple for reasons I don't really understand. Were they romantically involved? Dick 'n' Dee Dee? The answer is no.

How bad were Dick and Dee Dee? I tried to google them for more information but every web site on the results page warned: "this site may harm your computer." Don't even think about listening to any of their songs.

Yes, this is why Don McLean calls the death of Buddy Holly "The Day the Music Died". Pre-Beatles, all we had was Elvis and these doofuses (doofi?). And their songs are still stuck in my head, so I wonder how Susan could forget them.


Of course one among them was not just a marketer's fan-mag product: The Great Shelly Fabares ("fab" is part of her name), a truly beautiful artist who I am sure returned my love and desire, but sadly could not marry a 6-year-old. I wish I could link to a video of her singing "Johnny Angel" (which she dedicated to me) but it has been removed from the internet due to her sorrow over losing me to Karen. Still she and I will never forget each other.