whaddahoot

Good Luck, Mr. Sikorski

2009-07-16T20:19:00.000-07:00

I heard this from a couple people - if it isn't true, it oughta be.

While Neil Armstrong was walking on the moon, at some point, it is said he giggled and said "Good Luck, Mr. Sikorski."

An enigmatic statement. Shout-out to a russian cosmonaut collegue? Or some friend or old acquaintance? It was largely forgotten, this odd blip in the greatest day anybody had ever seen.

Time passed. Every once in awhile, somebody from the press would ask the astronaut what he meant by the comment. And he would kind of smile and go on to the next question.

Supposedly one day somebody pressed for details. What did it mean? Who was he talking to?
Who was this Mr. Sikorski that merited a greeting from the first man walking on the moon?

Well, once when he was a kid, he and his friends were playing some ball in his back-yard. Somebody hit one over the fence - it landed in the neighbors' back yard, rolled to a spot just underneath their bedroom window.

Young Armstrong went to retrieve the ball. And, according to the legend, he heard the neighbor-lady's voice from inside the window. She and Mr. Sikorski were arguing about something. Said she:

"Oral Sex! You want oral sex? You'll get oral sex when the kid next door WALKS ON THE MOON!"

Ouch

2009-04-26T18:30:00.001-07:00

I am on a roll here, two posts in one day.
Another limmerick:

A habitual drunkard named Greer

regarded his rump in a mirror

"Tis a bite mark I see, that was left upon me,

but where it's from isn't too clear."

Limmerick

2009-04-26T13:57:00.000-07:00

Here's another one. It has nothing to do with Madonna falling off a horse, though.

...a mustard inspector named Julie

regarded the product quite coolly.

"It's yellow, tis true, but it's not going thru,

until it is stamped by yours trully."

My Madonna-Falls-Off-A-Horse-Limmerick

2009-04-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

An untalented rider, Madonna.

She fell off the horse she was on-ah.

She lit on the grass

rubbed her sore ass,

and then bit the horse like a piranha.

Strawbzilla

2008-06-19T17:07:00.000-07:00

Will you just look at this behemouth! (Not me, the strawberry.) It had been knocking over my
garbage cans at night and making the dogs go crazy and I got tired of that shit and took action! I set up a box-trap, baited it with breathmints and waited on the roof with binoculars for two nights. Finally here it came, sniffing around and TUG/PLOP it was ours! I sent in the kids - with baseball bats to finish it off.

This just in...

2008-06-07T15:00:00.001-07:00

I have received word that the weather-wienies meeting for tonight has been cancelled due to a forecast of rain.

Ava saves the day!

2008-05-02T14:22:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the Good Lord will allow a poor man to lose his mule so he gets the happiness of finding it again.

This morning I woke up about five o'clock, rumbling thunder, thick sheets of rain. Wet, wet weather. Still dark. Couldn't go back to sleep - what was that blap-blap-blap sound?

Big fat drips. Oh, hello. Not a leaky roof. Not now. Geeyad, this is gonna cost. Shingles. Damn it all ta hell. Tired.

I hid under the covers. Life can be such a bitch sometimes. Mop. Carry wet stuff to the curb. Call the home improvement place. Shingles. Shit. Climb up on roof. Put tarp on for now. Lightning?

Then I noticed that this was not a blap-blap-blap-blap kind of sound. Water falling from a cieling would be more determined and inhumane, metronomic. No, this was more of a flup, flup, flup... and it was of a decidedly leisurely nature. There were pauses.

I poked my head out from under the covers.

Why, it was Ava (Ava is my dog Felix's dog-wife). And she was licking her monkey! Flup, flup, flup! She looked up, innocent as could be, smiled, wagged her tail, then fell to again, comforting herself in the aforementioned manner. She was certainly going to town on that . If she started doing that when there was company over, I'd tell her to stop.

So: The Roof Wasn't Leaking! Ava saved me probably the entirety of my economic stimulus package! Hooray for Ava! My new personal hero!

I got up and had a decidedly happy day. Rain and all.

Barbi Hair Implant Disasters

2007-11-26T13:22:00.000-08:00

On Turkey Day, my nephew Joey told me that there was a mixup at a toy factory in China one time. Somebody got the voice-boxes mixed up. They stuck some Talking Barbi parts in some Talking G.I. Joes, and vice versa. Imagine the horror when so many little boys opened up their G.I.Joes, gave them a squeeze and heard:

"I have a date with Ken tonight!"

And the disgust of so many little girls when their Barbis barked out:

""A" Squad! Take that hill!"

I laughed and laughed about that.

Some years ago I read about (and saw pictures of!) some Barbis that somehow made it all the way to the toy-store shelves. The Hair Sticker-inner at the factory must have been manned by some real sleepy-head. A number of Barbis had long locks of hair seemingly growing from their foreheads, cheeks and chins! Strangely enough, these weren't returned but were snatched up by collectors who prize them above all others!

Helpfull Holiday Hints - 1 (The Great Bone Sled)

2007-11-21T14:38:00.001-08:00

If you are thawing turkey giblets, that is, hearts and gizzards, don't do it in a microwave.

They explode. Loud. There is an air pocket inside them, I guess. Hell of a mess to clean up too.
You practically need a paint scraper.

If you don't have access to a blender, but you have the beater (the thing you stick in a blender and it spins), a power drill works fine. People get freaked out at the sight of it though. Well, it works!

And it mixes fast. Mash the potatoes first, then add the milk and butter or you will get some serious splatter. Better still, make a cardboard or plastic shield, to protect yourself and your property.

My Aunt Lucille used to boil the turkey carcass clean, and spray-paint it silver. She then made it into a little sleigh, and set a little Santa Claus figurine in the cock-pit, and some little reindeers in front. See, then you put your Xmas cards in the back. Pretty cool, eh?

I remember playing with such a sleigh- I'd swoosh it and swoop it and sing "Santa! Santa!
He is FLYING to your town! Santa! Santa! Flying to your town!" singin' out loud in an atonal daydream.

This attracted the attention of my Dad, who said "Gawdammit Matt you're FORTY YEARS OLD, put that THING DOWN!"

I am just kidding. I was probably four.

I had to do something. My aunt and grandma had a TV set, but somehow, some way, Lawrence Welk was always on it - as if there was a channel with 24 hours' 0' Welk.

The cool thing about my aunt's TV was this: without warning, the voices of truck drivers talking on their CB radios would burst from the speaker.

I wish I could find the schematic for how that Bone Sleigh was put together. Clever. I mean, it really looked like a sled! Mrs. Claus would be fooled! "Hi Santa, how did the.. HEY, that is not my Santa Claus husband, it is a turkey carcass cleaned and spray-painted silver, with a little plastic man!" I dug it.

It (making sleighs of turkey bones) is a farm-gal thang. I suspect that the instructions for this project probably appeared in the paper or the Farm Journal. I mean, a number of people have told me that they had relatives who made Bone Sleds, or have heard of people who made them. It caught on.

As it should have. And will again.

I will be saving the bones to this year's turkey. I will be up early tomorrow ere the dawn and bake that bad boy till he is buttered and biteable.

Soon afterward, the great bone sled will fly again.

Maybe I will take pictures of it and put them on here.

You know you want to see it.

COMING SOON: XMAS DOs and DON'Ts.

The Man In The Tree

2007-11-20T11:00:00.000-08:00

Not long ago my son, who is now twelve, found a ring on the ground in a cornfield over by Raymond, Ne. He and his friends were playing there.

It really is a sight to see. It is silver, and the inner turret rotates around the middle. It is all covered with moons and stars .

It doesn't fit him yet. So: he gave it to me to wear until it does.

So far so good, eh? Well, one night his sister drank his bottle of chocolate yoo-hoo. He had stashed it in the back of the fridge. He had been waiting for it to get good and cold.

The next morning all hell broke loose. It was awfull. "Look" I said, "I'll buy you a whole six-pack of yoo-hoo. Just get in the car!"

"How would you like it..." he says, almost sobbing with rage "If someone took something of yours!"

"Just get in the car. We can't be late again."

"Let's see how you like it! Give me my ring back."

"FINE." and I toss it to him. "Now get in the car."

We had ten minutes to be at school. Very tense. Usually we have a
fairly good time- we sing goofy-ass songs, play "Spot The Sleepy-Head", have trivia contests. Not today.

Child one off first. Gets out and SLAMS the door.

Child two off second. Gets out and SLAMS the door.

This is prologue for the day. One by one, so very many nut-wings rose from their basement apartments, homed in on my brain-wave emissions and found their way to the place where I work. Where then they would make like the brazen brats with the pea-shooters popping the zoo elephant in his cage. Remember - you have to be nice to them. That's part of the job. No job, no health insurance, no house - you are not even a human-fucking-being if you don't have health insurance.

Five o'clock and I couldn't get a cigarette in my mouth fast enough.
Chewed up and shat out, that's how I felt.

Hey, the job has health insurance. At least I have health insurance.

Traffic, lots of traffic. Geeeyawd. Look at all these people in their cars staring straight ahead with eyes like a dog chained up in a yard.

I pull up beside the school to pick up child 2 and get out. I remember when they used to RUN up to me, arms open. It's allright, I think, if they are still doing that when they are adults, that would be a cause of concern. Cool is okay.

No, it sucks. How did they get so jaded so young? The divorce and of course Fox TV could be likely culprits. Or maybe it is just me. Maybe people don't, can't , shouldn't run to each other with delight, except maybe at airports.

As I walk onto the playground I notice: quiet. And sad faces. Why so sad? Another look and I see: all their kick-soccer balls are stuck up in the tree. Incredible. Only kids could do this. They actually got one stuck, and proceeded to throw the other balls at it to dislodge it and one by one got them all stuck. They almost look like some absurdly huge rubbery berries up in that tree.

So: I think about it a second. And I look at the college students who are probably getting paid minimum wage to ride herd on these kids: climbing trees isn't in the job description. Besides they look sleepy - I'll just bet they have been out all night drinkin and fuckin! I look at them lolling on a picnic table and think -I don't even know what color the sky is in their world.

And that morning I read in the paper that my boyhood hero, Keith Richards had been taken to a hospital after falling from a cocoanut tree. They were going to drill a hole in his head to relieve pressure from the concussion.

Maybe, I think, these children won't remember me as another sorry, dissapointed adult with chain-dog eyes, if I do the impossible here. No - Let them remember me as the Man in the Tree. I will be The Man In The Tree.

I grab the trunk, start shimmying up like a big fat-assed old bear. It works- I still got it, I used to live in trees as a child, the enterprise is at once familiar and foreign as I scrunch-slide-scrunch-slide and then swing onto the lowest branch, which is about 15 feet in the air.

And the worst is over. Now it is all gravy. Gravy! Later tonight my road-rashy arms and legs will bring me back to reality and neosporin, but I don't know that yet.

Suddenly I remember from when I was a kid, purposely dropping my plastic Johnny West action figure from high branches like this. "NO JOHNNY, NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"then winding up the twine I had tied to his ankle. Poor Johnny had a rough life. He died every summer day.

On the playground, All Eyes Are On Me, and one pair of them belong to a nice-looking single mom! Coolness!

This is no time to screw up. The image of falling - the thud, the sound of a bone breaking like a stick wrapped in a wet towell, the groan - the picture in the paper - the gibes of my co-workers - all are awfull possibilities. But it isn't going to happen- not today. I walk down the branch, bracing myself with one hand, slugging a ball loose with the other, moving my way down the branch. As each one falls, the kids roar "ONE! TWOOOOO! THREEEEE! FOURRRR!..." and then: "GO ROXY'S DAD. GO ROXY'S DAD."

This is great. I feel like, I don't know, Julius Caesar. Or Tarzan. This is triumph. I take my time, and finally the count of FOURTEEN is chorused.

My work finshed, I swung down and down, dropped the last eight feet or so, flat on my feet, safe and sound. And my daughter jumped on me and I carried her over to the picnic table and signed her out on the clipboard, awash in cheers.

We pick up the boy at his school and drive home and on the way she excitedly relates my tale of tree-climbing. Everybody has forgotten about the Yoo-hoo incident. For now anyway.

We go through a relatively quiet evening. Homework done? Lemme see it. Where's your name and the date? Hold it, we go through these spelling words first. I assure you I could care less if ;That 70s Show' is on. Don't make me unplug the set. I mean it. You wanna re-program the VCR again? Think about it, smart guy.

Never, ever, when I was a bohemian dandy and arch-underachiever did I foresee that such words would ever come out of my mouth. "Think about it, smart guy."

Later. I am lying in bed in the basement. Some nights I don't get to sleep for awhile, just lie there and listen. I can hear the sounds of bats eating bugs. I can hear snippets of music from a passing car radio down on 17th. I can hear cats having excrutiating sex in Irvingdale park. A dither of moths pummeling the porch lightbulb.

Speaking of Caesar, I read that whenever one of the Roman generals or dignitaries rode in a parade of triumph through Rome, there would be some manservant assigned to ride with him in the chariot. It was this servant's duty to whisper this in his ear, again and again: You are mortal.

Hey, I think, I have those too. They're called scabs and of course by this time I have a couple of really gorgeous ones on the insides of my knees. A vivid batch of bruises have stopped by, too - purple, bluish and even one that is a hideous shade of yellow.

Hold it, somebody's outta bed. I hear elfin footsteps moving overhead. My son appears at the top of the stairs. He creeps down. My eyes are adjusted to the dark. He doesn't know I am awake. I act like I am asleep.

He approaches, tip-toeing, is at my bedside. He sets something on my chest, creeps away.

It is the ring, the silver ring with moons and stars. I put it back on. Now I can go to sleep.

Cherry Blossum Blizzard

2007-05-02T17:08:00.000-07:00

Hello folks, sorry I haven't written much lately. I have a slew of bloggery waiting-in-the-wings, but I need to get access to a computer at a house to put the accompanying images on.

Yes, images. Yes, eye-furniture.

It is like having crates of bananas on the docks and not shipping because each nanner does not have little blue sticker! Frustrational.

So please, be patient. I know, I know, you've been pounding on the virtual door, booing and baying for more blog!

Actually, I get the meter count from this blog in my email once a month. And, since January, to all one of you who have visited here I say: Thank You.

Today I will tell all one of you about Julius, my pet tornado. He is not the Hurty Kind! Not dangerous at all. In fact, by meteorological standards, Julius is just a pup! Not even a pup! A pip!

My job is a busy place, and I get a lot of customers in, all of them asking me questions, wanting to know where things are. Standing with their clip boards, with pleading eyes. Sometimes it is like a McDonalds on a football Saturday.

So, like twice a day I go out on the loading dock for a minute, look at the sky, watch people go by and so forth.

The loading dock is set on the west side of the building, in a kind of canyon of buildings. Whenever the barometer says so, Big Air comes to town! That is where Julius comes in. He is not always there. Sometimes the air is static, fat and slow.

But every once in awhile I go out and there is Julius, usually playing with a plastic bag or
a flock of leaves, spinning them around, setting them down, stirring them up again. A capricious beast, this Julius.

I suppose on one of the security cameras , me saying "Hey, Julius. What's up." He thinks that over, then spins some more like a perky pooch wagging it's tail. "Say 'woosh' for papa. Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy?" I sure like that lil 'nader.

But the other day Julius was going bat-shit crazy! And, get this, he had collected like a bushel basket of petals from cherry blossums, which were fluttering off the trees like snow that day. It was like a hectic little storm of petals, snaking across the parking lot, setting them down.

It was at that point I decided to go stand in the funnel-cloud of white petals. They swirled around me and made my hair go straight up!

And then - BUSTED! Two Japanese girls, students, came walking by carrying their books. They smiled and giggled. I said something like "Wasn't that refreshing." and went back inside.

SCROLL DOWN FOR CELEBRITY DEATH CAR PHOTOS

2007-01-14T17:50:00.000-08:00

Hey,

For some reason this machine printed today's swell blog on my visit to the Museum of Tragedy in American History WAY DOWN ON 14 DEC, 2006! So go down a little ways and you can see it.

The Second Last Look.

2007-01-08T09:31:00.000-08:00

Long ago when I was a kid I had some pet rabbits. I raised them as part of a 4H
project. I had so hoped to be a cattle baron someday. Such was not to be. We lived in town, and my pleas fell on deaf ears. No, you may not have cows. So: I had to make do with plastic cattle, horses, and a mule, which I lined up and would play with long after I should have moved on to something else. Please don't tell anyone.

I got the rabbits - and from a smoke-colored doe and an amber-gold buck I raised a number of litters, which ended up being taken as pets by other kids,
and some I sold to various heartless dutchmen who fattened and ate them.

The buck, whose name was Buck, was quite a rabbit. He ended up weighing in at 14 lbs - an impressive heft. As I mentioned, he was an honey-colored, blocky beast and tame, too. Often times I would bring him into the house, and it was nothing to get him to make his dung onto a pie-plate, so long as it was set in a corner . He was way-up-big, as they say, had big, padded feet, a set a nuts like a Chester White Boar. Most of his days were spent taking naps and twitching his nose. At night he was active, would thump his foot LOUDLY whenever startled and seemingly vanish into thin air, only to reappear in another room or from under the davenport. I remember he was curious about TV. He would slowly hop up, stare and sniff the screen, illumned in the blue-white light, you could see the veins in his ears, like an X-ray. Maybe he thought those things on TV were real, just behind a window.

Mr. Buck lived to a very advanced age, surviving into my high-school years, long after I had abandoned 4-H and my plastic herd. The only problem I ever had with him was once he had a boil on his lower jaw, which we lanced and swabbed with iodine. He didn't care much for the procedure and what with his kicking, clawing, kangaroid feet neither did I. Clawed the hell out of one of my arms. He had to eat soft food only for a couple weeks after that episode, but he made a full recovery.

When he got old and died, I wrapped him in a t-shirt and buried him in the back yard, with the last cup of his grain, he died right on time, made a crucifix out of sticks and set it up over him.

The next day I kinda missed him, dug him up for a second last-look, petted him a few times, buried him again. I really hated to see him go!

Years passed. I was in college, living in a dormitory. My roommate had a Playboy magazine, which I had a look at.

Then as now, I read text really, really fast, and words that are interesting will catch my eye. While perusing that issue I noticed there was an interview with Marlon Brando, the famous entertainer. The word 'rabbit' sort of hopped out- and I read an anecdote that said he, too, had once lived in Nebraska, and had a pet rabbit as a child, buried it, and then dug it up for another final look. Wow, I thought, that's different.

And Hugh Heffner, the publisher of Playboy, I have been told he is from Nebraska. And there is a rabbit logo on every one of those magazines he sells. My Dad once saw him on TV and growled "Look at that pipe-suckin pimp."

I figure in the next life, about every ten-thousand years or so, Messers Brando, Heffner and myself will wander to the same spot. And I will bring up this anecdote, and the connections inherent in it that bind the three of us together in such a special way.

There will be embarrassed silence, I suppose. And then we will go our separate ways, and do whatever there is to do in eternity. And then we will wander to a like spot again. We will have forgotten whatever the hell it is/was we have/had in common, until I figure it out and bring it up again. Repeat. Ad infinitum.

The Spectral Bell

2006-12-22T09:34:00.000-08:00

I read an interesting article from the Lincoln Star, printed 10 March 1950, page 2, column 4.
That day a horrible windstorm and blizzard hit Lincoln. There were a slew of photographs showing the results of the wind's pranks - one of a screen door nicely becalmed high in a tree bough.

'Lincoln Family Stranded in Blizzard Finds Farm Refuge' was the headline. Lincoln Garage operator Ed Klein, 123 N 23rd, and his children Carol (14), Lee Ann (8) and Max (12) were enroute to Hastings when the blizzard hit. Their car slid into a deep ditch, and Mr. Klein was on crutches from a previous injury. Prospects looked grim as the temperature dipped well below zero as the sun set.

The children heard a mysterious bell ringing, and two went to investigate the sound. This led them to the sight of the lights of a distant farmhouse. The children therein found shelter at the home of Mr. & Mrs. Elvin Johnson. The Johnsons found it curious that the children had heard a bell as there was none on their farm.

Other "Storm Orphans" were stranded there and aided in
carrying Mr. Klein to the house. Among them were two truckers and three men from Eugene Oregon. These three men proved to be the uncle and two cousins of the Comedian Bob Hope. They were travelling by auto to Florida to visit their famous cousin and were unable to continue in the storm. The "refugees" enjoyed the Johnson's hospitality until the storm broke and the roads were cleared.

Box of Bugs

2006-12-19T10:53:00.000-08:00

Back in the mid-80s I worked for a restaurant downtown, a nice place, doing food-prep and washing dishes. I worked till about ten at night, went out and drank beer with my friends afterwards, slept till noon. I lived in a big, red, ugly house over on 17th and A. We entertained frequently, my roommates and I, and didn't move around a whole lot in the heat of the day if it could be helped.

One afternoon I went in to work. My boss said "Here, we got some boxes of romaine lettuce in, why don't you get it ready."

This I set to do, filled a big sink with lukewarm water, dumped in the heads of romaine, stirred them about with a stainless steel paddle, to get any gobs of mud or sand off them. Once they had soaked awhile I'd take them out and chop them and spin them dry, load it all into plastic tubs with paper-towells lining the bottom and stack them back in the walk-in cooler. No problem.

Oops, yes , there was a problem. Or actually hundreds of little problems. The water was full of lady-bugs, all over the top of the water. I suppose the cool air in the truck had put them into hibernation. The warm water had awakened them. It was like the sinking of a cruise ship!

I didn't want them to drown. I stuck my arms in the water, swished them very slowly to-and-fro. They clung to my arms , the stragglers I scooped up with the paddle, and poked them off of it into a cup, got a handfull or so. I poked my head around the corner (Didn't want my boss to see me covered with bugs) into the grill area and said "Back in a minute."

I trotted down the stairs and into the bright heat of the alley, our "smoke-lounge", carrying my little charges along.

So far so good. Once there, some of them began to hop or fly off. Most of them were still trying to figure out their predicament, or liked it fine where they were. I figured if they dried off quicker they would take off and my work would be done here and I could go back upstairs. It was kind of strange feeling all those tiny feet on my skin, but after all they were lady-birds, not mosquitoes or cockroaches or centipedes.

I held my arms up, waved them gently in the breeze. I reminded me of one of those plastic bell-divers you see in people's tropical fish-tanks. Wave this arm, wave that arm, blow some bubbles. Wave this arm, wave that arm, blow some bubbles. Repeat.

It was Friday afternoon, getting on 5:20. Lincoln's best and brightest were off work and lookin to get dinner! Here came two. I think of them as being named Chad Ubber and Jill-Bethe Tightcoat. These were young, sprassi, salad-eatin machines! The kind of folks you'd see over at The Foxy Lady, dancing to Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA and waving little flags they handed out at the bar whenever that song was played. And around the corner and into the alley this twosome came. We were face to face. We stared at each other across an impassible distance.

Did I mention I was wearing white pants, a white t-shirt, a hairnet and rubber boots? Well I was. And my arms were still crawling with lady-bugs.

Whatever personal ritual Chad and Jill-Bethe had stumbled upon, they made clear they didn't want to be a part of it. They fled, Chad guiding and pulling, Pepsi tick-tick-ticking in her pumps. "Just keep walking!" he said, sounding like Indiana Jones.

Would it have made a difference, their impression of me and so forth, if I had followed? Braying out "NO STOP WAIT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THEY CAME HERE IN A BOX AND THEY MUST FLY!!" or something like that?

Well, Chad, Jill-Bethe with an 'e', if you're out there somewhere and by some chance you are reading this, now you will understand.

The Museum of Tragedy in American History

2006-12-16T13:53:00.000-08:00

Once some years ago we took a family vacation to Florida, my (then) wife and my son.

In Miami we got in my mother-in-law's car and drove to St. Augustine to visit my brother-in-law. He was working there in a restaurant washing dishes. He had the day off. In the afternoon he and I were given liberty to wander about. St. Augustine is full of tourists, or was that day. There were a number of bus and foot-tours people went on, sight-seeing. I suggested to Willie that we should get himself a Spanish helmet, some leotards , and a sword with a scabbard and he could show tourists around. People would love it, and probably pay handsomely to have their picture taken with a would-be Ponce De Leon. Naw, he was okay washing dishes.

While my wife and mother-in-law went shopping, my brother-in-law and I went into a nice dark air-conditioned tavern . There were four other customers in there, big guys gone to lard, probably homecoming kings back when Kennedy was president. One of them had snow-white hair and a beet-red face - he bore an uncanny resemblance to former house of representatives leader Tip O'Neal. These men watched ESPN and drank. After awhile an alarm went off on sombody's watch. "Well..." Mr. Tip-alike proclaimed. They got up, chairs squawking, ambled out into the bright heat of the day.

Did I forget to mention they were dressed in colonial outfits? Big George Washington style three-corner hats, military uniforms rowed with bright buttons, epaulets, knee socks. I doubt that anybody got as big as these fellows before fried cheese was invented though.

As they went out the door a bus pulled up. A bunch of tourists got out.

The colonial boys stuffed a wad into a cannon that was set up, fired it. There was a big puff of smoke. The report was loud. It set off a couple of car-alarms. Noone seemed too suprised. It was too hot to be suprised about much of anything.

The tourists took pictures. And then back into the bar went the artillery squad, to prepare for and confer upon their next assault.

The tour guide , who had a name-tag that said "Jodi" and looked like a "Jodi", said something about how the flags of three nations had flown over St. Augustine, and so forth. I asked about the cannon firing - and Jodi said that the soldiers fired it every hour from nine to six.

I thought I had a strange job. My brother-in-law and I followed the soldiers back into the tavern.

The bar had a stand-up rack of tourist-attraction brochures. One of the brochures displayed was for The Museum Of Tragedy In American History. I was on that brochure like ugly on an ape. Shaking like I was reading a love-letter. I stated quite clearly that I wanted to go there immediately.

My brother-in-law had heard of it. It was just about five blocks away.
"It's kind of a dump." he said. "I think the other tourist places are trying to run 'em outta business."

Minutes later I stood before it. It was all I could hope for. It was a two story house, really. And in the big front window stood an ex- Montgomery-Ward mannequinn holding what appeared to be a mock-up of an italian carbine. His face seemed to say "Say there - wouldn't you like to buy this smart 'n dandy suit?" Yet he was posed awaiting a motorcade that could never come by, wearing workman's clothing, standing before a bunch of boxes. On each box, someone had written with a fat black marker : "Send To: Texas Book Depository - Dallas".There was no way to connect that goofy-ass grin to a murderous, perching reprobate. Oh well.

Inside I went. There was a little bell on the door. Someone came down some stairs. Clump, clump, clump. It was a lady who appeared to have spent her life in a museum of tragedy.

Admission was ten bucks or so, for me and my brother-in-law. I was happy to pay. All around me were one thousand and one wonders! A rock touched by Helen Keller! Lee Harvey Oswald's can-opener! A real Egyptian mummy, priced to sell for $4,500! Just look at the pictures
My enthusiasm clearly wasn't catching. "The exhibits pretty much speak for themselves." the woman said, coughing, turning around, heading back up the steps.

So: I was left unattended in the Museum of Tragedy in American History.

I was amazed at the way the curators' museum life and personal life came together in such a super way - in the back, for example, right next to a 14 by 10 foot steel cage of ancient, rivetted steel - inside of which lay a human skeleton - there was a row of dinner-plate sized plastic daisies spinning lazilly in the breeze. And a garden hose meandered through it all- grass must be watered - even among Celebrity Death Cars. There was a picnic table, too, so you could eat your lunch, I suppose even have a birthday party in the midst of all that tragedy.

There was a life-size fiberglass cow by the picnic table, such as one might see on top of a supermarket. I am not sure why this cow was there. What could be less tragic than a cow? Isn't she the Grand-Dame of a thousand petting zoos? They give us cheese!

I suspect it *might* have had something to do with THE CHICAGO FIRE. Which was started, I am told, by a cow kicking over a lantern. This is the only link with tragedy - and I mean wholesale, catastrophic TRAGIC tragedy, not just getting chased by an angry cow - that I can fathom.

Maybe they just liked it, found it on a curb somewhere, and brought it home. I would.

My brother in law showed at least a little interest in the celebrity death cars, but overall I would guess he would have rather been anyplace else. Little did he know that a visit to a wax museum was in store for him later in the afternnoon.

Look! I found a helicopter egg back by the Celebrity Death Cars!

What could be more American than a collection of Celebrity Death Cars? They had the hearses that carried JFK AND Oswald after their respective shootings - but those were kept indoors. How they got them in the house, I haven't a clue. The hearses, while antique, were in like-new condition, and buffed to a high-gloss I-can-see-my-face-in-it-finish! But these were not Celebrity-Death-Cars in the strictest sense of the term. Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page on that.

Now: Bonnie and Clyde's Death Car. There is a celebrity death-car for you. Uh-oh. Wait a second. Read the fine print and you find out that this was the/a car used in a movie about those two. Some Hollywood dingle-berries had riddled this car with holes - not a posse of kill-happy Texas Rangers.

There was a helpfull lil kiosk built into the booth/hut the car was displayed in - it offered gruesome black and white nude coroner's photographs of the ill-fated twosome. Who, by the way, didn't look much like Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, dead or alive.

The Jayne Mansfield Death Car, while not riddled with bullets, had endured worse. It looked like it had suffered in the hands of a gargantuan two-year-old having a temper tantrum.
It would have brought a tear to the eye of even the most seasoned of body-and-fender men.

I took pictures of the Celebrity Death Cars, and every photo was botched- by an impish trick of the light. Remember the aforementioned fiber-glass cow? Well, it's image was reflected off of the plexiglass booths which sheltered the cars. In every picture I took.

When I got the pictures back from the photo-developer, had a look at them,I felt as if the universe was at once tormenting, and then comforting itself, and I was the medium through which these sentiments flowed:

"Just look - Death Car!"
"No - cow."
"Death Car!"
"NO! Cow."
"Death Car!
"Cow."
"Death Car!"
"Cow."

Big Letter 'T'

2006-12-16T11:08:00.000-08:00

I have a friend, Todd, who works as a bartender downtown. He is really funny. When he told me this, it was about the year 2000. I remember thinking it was, when I heard it, possibly the
best way for the millenium to end. Ey, Armageddon postponed and there's all the free popcorn you can eat in the vicinity of 14th & O!!

There was a customer who came into Todd's bar every afternoon, not to drink but to eat popcorn, which was provided free-of-charge. They keep it in a big barrell and set a stack of bowls out and you just help yourself. Surely this guy, whose name was Marty, must have eaten a bushel of it a week. I don't think he had a job, just ate popcorn and chatted with friendly merchants most of the day.

Todd told Marty that his name was "Todd Wellendowd". And Marty believed it. And so whenever Marty saw Todd, he called out sunnily. "Hi Todd Wellendowd. "

One cannot speak of Marty without superlatives.
He wore the thickest glasses I have ever seen.
He had the highest voice I have ever heard in an adult male.
He had an enormous and round ass. None more round.
And possibly the whitest legs that could ever be.
Wearing his trademark short-shorts and not just any bike helmet, but again, the very biggest bike helmet available, he munched and munched contentedly, would rest awhile and then announce:

"Welp. I'm gonna go now, Todd Wellendowd."
"Okay Marty."
"I'm gonna go over to O'Rourke's and eat some popcorn now."
"Okay, we'll see ya later."
"Okay! 'Bye Todd Wellendowd!"

...climb onto his bike and pedal the 100 feet or so where another feast awaited.

But please understand, that when he rode his bike he brazenly broke all laws of physics. Perched so high on the seat, hovering so slow as to practically be motionless, and yet not tipping over. So round, startling and creamy, someone who didn't know him might mistake him for a moonman! I saw him ride by several times and it was like, I don't know, seeing an anteater walking around in the broad daylight? Having it rain live minnows on your lawn? Disturbing, I guess is the word I want, or better yet unsettling. I need a nap just thinking about it. How did
he do it? It is a mystery!

There were a number of 'Martyisms' - an example would be when asked what kind of pizza he had eaten for lunch, Marty replied, without a hint of irony "The Round Kind."

One time Marty was again on a barstool, watching TV, eating popcorn. Todd was working behind the bar, getting ready for the evening shift. A sleepy afternoon in Lincoln, Nebraska.

All of a sudden here comes this guy dragging a huge crucifix made of four-by-fours. He is looking a little ragged around the edges. He is hollaring that the world is going to end soon, and that you'd best repent-if you know what is good for you. And so forth.
Todd looks up from his sink, Marty from his popcorn.

And Marty says in the pastiest, most innocent voice imaginable: "Todd Wellendowd, what's that man doing with that big letter 'T'?"

Resurrection

2006-12-13T17:25:00.000-08:00

On 12/9/06 I wrote:

One evening back in October I was in Walgreen's, to pick up a prescription. There was a long line. Why so many people out at nine at night? Frickin inescapable Rod Stewart tune playing. Would this take forever?

In front of me was a Mexican guy, dressed in sweat pants, husker T shirt. With him was one whom I assumed was his country cousin, new to the U.S. He was wearing a white cowboy hat and dress shirt with t he collar all buttoned-up. He looked more Indian than mestizo.

With these men were two boys, probably about 10 years old. One of the boys was very big, very stout, an amiable, quiet, chubby kid, probably make a good offensive lineman some day. His hair was black bristles.

His companion, probably his brother or cousin, was all acute angles, kind of nervous, reminded of a young Peter Lorre with a "flop" haircut like kids on skateboards often have, the flop covering one eye, the other eye blazing with intensity... he did most of the talking for the two, and sounded sort of like Ren of the Ren and Stimpy cartoon program. I had a feeling about that kid - that he will someday be in all our faces. I don't know how - appearing in commercials for his own car dealership? State Senator? Future Cecille B. DeMille? Something.

These boys were obviously bored waiting in line with their elders. Their pleas were plaintive - the responses curt:

"Puh-leeeeeeese?"
"No."

"Puh-leeeeese?"
"No."

"Puh-leeeeese?"
"No."

A wilfull game of pong.

Finally, country cousin says: "Bueno. Pero quedan cerca." (Which I think means he was telling him to stay close.) Okay. They wanted to look around the store. Permission granted. Off they went.

So: I go back to waiting, and listening to an astonishingly shitty Christopher Cross tune..."If you get drunk between the moon and New York City..." was a second verse really necessary. How many years of my life are spent waiting in lines... seven? Nine? Stop-lights. Awfull. You might think that I had been through enough but that would be wrong. They followed up Christopher Cross with that cheese-wad tune "Torn Between Two Lovers" by Mary Whats-her-bucket. Perhaps you have heard it . Gawd it is bad. Perhaps I was a pirate in a past life, and was thus now being punished. Is it medically possible to DIE of EMBARRASSMENT waiting in line in a Walgreens?

Then: a buzzing sound. I looked behind the line. They have a vibro-chair by the prescription counter there, that the customers can "test drive"at their leisure... In it sat one of the boys, the stout one. Over his head was a rubber Frankenstein-monster mask. As this was October, the aisles were teeming with tacky delights. Fake blood. Plastic fangs. Rubber bats.

"MAS PODER" said the skinny kid in stentorian tones. "MAAAAASSSSS PODER!" (More Power?)

Obeying himself , he turned the crank up. The hum rose an octave. Those cadaverous eyes stared sightless, dead and dead. "MAS PODER!! MAAAASSSSS PODER!!!! And the chair hit a higher hum.

The kid in the Frankenstein mask jiggled as only a chubby kid in a vibro-chair could. His bosomage rippled and quaked, like pockets of custard. He let out a deep sort of growl - which with the jigglng sounded like this: r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-and then those dead and deadly hands began to twitch!

In the grip of some unnatural reverie, the other one intoned: "MIRA! LO VIVaaay!!! LO VIVV-vaaaaay!!! (Behold! It is alive! It is alive!)

These two had seen the original with Boris Karloff, no doubt, probably on the late show, and it had stayed remembered. By this time I was in the helpless depths of a giggle-fit... I suppose the people in front of me in line thought I was weeping for want of pills or something.

And then Country Cousin busted them both, sounding like he was quietly telling them to take the mask back to the shelf and get off the vibro-chair or he would do some serious ass-paddlin. They obeyed, and they all left me to the tender mercies of Light-Rock 102.

I believe I shall remember this incident always, like the sight or song of a rare bird . So: if in my dotage I am parked in a dark corner in a wheelchair and I suddenly beller out: "MASSS PODER!!!" you and I will know what that was about, yes?

-M

Rumblings

2006-12-13T10:48:00.000-08:00

-------- she says ---------------
I've created your blog:
http://whaddahoot.blogspot.com
If I don't see something posted in 24 hrs, I'm going to start posting
for you by going through your emails and copying and pasting.

------------ he says ---------------
Aiiiieeeeeee!

You could post this exchange! It would be like the prehistoric disturbances
before they start finding stone tablets and things.

Wow! Which of course, upside down is...

Is a mystery...

Will I need password?
-------------------------------------