Tres Bien Amie

Pardon my quite possibly butchered French, but today I must use the language to celebrate the birthday of Amie (French for friend), my childhood beloved mutt (alas, no digital images; you'll just have to imagine the craziest dog you'll ever not meet). Amie was born the runt of the litter 36 years ago today, which in dog years means she is quite long dead. In sheer pre-PC little girl innocence, one of the girls into whose family Amie was born named her Little Black, after her right front paw, which unlike her three other white ones, was black, like her coat. The mythology is that the same little girl also accidentally dropped the little puppy down the stairs once; I certainly hope that is true because it would go a long way in explaining just how Amie (my sister, who received the puppy on her 14th birthday as a gift from my aunt, much to the chagrin of her sister, my mother, named Amie Amie) became one of the most paranoid and goofy dogs of all time.

The little pooch could bark up a storm, but never out of anger or a sense of protecting the family manse; her bark was omnipresent, her bite non-existent. No, Amie barked only out of her own fear. Except when she was too scared to bark and then she would whimper and quiver as if Noah himself had just denied her passage onto the Ark. You'd have thought the end of the world was nigh whenever we had to force Amie to get in the car and go for a ride. In her later years, as she developed gray hair and a beard (I'm telling you, as lovable as she was, Amie was a basket case), and her primary care fell to another runt of the litter--yours truly--I would be awakened at night by the whimpers emanating from Amie as she suffered through some kind of nightmare, her legs whirling dervishly as she slept. I'd have to call her name out several times to wake her so I could get back to sleep. Of course, the nights she slept soundly were the nights she'd jump up onto my bed and find the most comfortable spot (after about ten minutes of fidgeting) for her to fall asleep--usually right on my knees, which in turn caused me to have to somewhat violently stir her when I needed to roll over in the middle of the night. Although it was dark, I can still see the look poor put-upon, paranoid Amie would give me when I had to wake and evict her from pitching her tent on my knees, a look that said, et tu?

She loved to fetch a tennis ball, though, and in her younger days even loved the indoor variety where we'd set up some couch cushions in the hallway for hurdles and she'd fearlessly hop them chasing down the ball. Outside of such fetching or baking her black coat in any available patch of sunlight or licking the remnants of my father's ice cream dish, Amie didn't do much else except sleep and get scared.

In addition to celebrating her birthday, I always think about Amie this time of year, like today when the snow continues to melt rapidly. One of my least cherished boyhood chores would be to take a stick and an old red children's snow shovel we had and traverse the grounds on a day like today and de-manure the lawn. One would think dog crap would be a little quicker in bio-degrading, but no. I chalked it up to Lent and looked forward to even sunnier, warmer days when I would be throwing or sandwedging old tennis balls off into the distance and watching Amie scamper after them. Only in a kennel of rabid curs would Amie ever sniff Best In Show, but she was my only boyhood dog, and I wouldn't trade her for all the pure-bred labs in the world.

Happy Birthday, Amie, you paranoid pooch.

One Picture = Priceless

Lord knows I don't ask much from the media. But I want this: a picture of these two icons, Bob Dylan and Muhammad Ali, today. Call Ken Regan, the photographer who took this shot back in 1975, and get him to get Bob and Muhammad together for another picture. Nobody's getting any younger, and these two are each pushing 70. Their faces, long past their pretty prime, are still works of art, and they need to be documented. Are there two more powerful, symbolic, mythical figures of a world--the 1960s--that still fascinates us and yet is quickly receding to memory and history than Dylan and Ali? Although I graciously offer my services to tag along and interview them, or better, simply hold the tape recorder as the two of them talk, somehow I feel that with Bob's legendary reticence and Muhammad's tragic loss of his verbal prowess, there wouldn't be much conversation, at least not much that these two would want to share with the public. But that's fine with me. I just want a classic, close-up photo of these two giants, in their older age. Something to study for years to come. Somebody get that picture now.

Turks

I actually started writing this before I learned of the earthquake in Turkey; I mean no disrespect. Furthermore, I believe my relationship with Turks is impeccable (the least of which because I don't think I've ever consciously interacted with a Turk). Anyway, in the continuing lattice of coincidence that is my life, Turks have been on my mind lately. Over the weekend I indulged in my annual surprise Godfather marathon, courtesy of AMC. There is no better TV ritual. Among other great revelations and insights gleaned this viewing, I decided what will be, if I ever become cool enough to be able to pull it off, my signature line for leave-taking, be it a phone call, a visit with friends, or simply leaving working each day. In Part II, the great character Frank "Frankie Five Angels" Pentangeli ("the old man had too much wine") after not being treated properly at Anthony Corleone's First Communion party (Ritz crackers instead of canapes; a non-Italian band that mocks him; having to "wait on line" to see Michael, who ultimately refuses to do anything for Frankie about the Rosato brothers) signals his exit from his disappointing meeting with Michael by calling out to his number one goon, Cicci, "Cicc', a porta! (Cicci, the door!)" Now that's the way to take your leave, commanding with a flourish your flunky to get the door for you, even if, in my case, the flunky would be totally imaginary.

In Part I I was struck by the character Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo (that's him, pictured above). He's the real bad guy here. He brings drugs onto the scene. He tries to kill Don Vito Corleone. He viciously kills the beloved heavy Luca Brasi. Eventually he gets his in Louis Restaurant, via Michael and the toilet-hidden gun. But he's "The Turk." Yes, he's part Turkish, and he deals in poppies, and supposedly in the novel his nose is like a Turkish scimitar. But he's "The Turk." There's a long history of using "Turk" as an insult, a derogatory term, for specifically lower class Turks and more generally for anyone who is brutish. Even our nation's beloved bird, the turkey, was named so out of derision (see a concise and informative discussion of the derogatory uses of the word Turk here, among other places on the web). It might be un-PC, but I think it's no coincidence that this ultimate bad guy, back in the 1940s, was called "The Turk."

So anyway, today my shift at work ran from 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. on account of our annual inventory. Nothing like setting the alarm for a 2:30 a.m. wake-up call. All through my tedious work-morning, I was subjected to somebody else's tastes in music, which can be one of the ultimate tortures: stuck at work on the graveyard shift and having no sayso in the musical selections. Luckily, the music wasn't all that bad today, just a few clunkers. The one song that stood out, though, (in addition, of course, to a dawn playing of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," which never fails to surprise and amuse and entertain) was the old classic, "Big Rock Candy Mountain," by Harry McClintock, most famously heard on the O, Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack. A gorgeous, witty ode to a hobo's paradise (the cops have wooden legs, there are cigarette trees and lakes of stew and whiskey [Cicc', my car!]) the song's story has been told many times, and I'm sure better than I could ever do. But the line that sturck (sic, how's that for a coincidental typo?) me this time, naturally, I guess, was, "you sleep all day where they hung the Turk who invented work." Oh my god, what a line. Now some web lyrics sites render the line, "hung the jerk who invented work," which to me is either a case of bad ears (I can only hear "Turk") or PC bowdlerizing. "Turk" just is more apt, given the supposedly early 20th century composition of the song (McClintock claimed he wrote it, the courts decided it is the creation of that greatest of all songwriters, Mr. Public Domain). Despite its derogatory nature, the line is just so much more poetic with Turk rather than jerk. I love the idea of one bad guy having invented work and getting his comeuppance, ala Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo, on, of all places, the Big Rock Candy Mountain; singing along at four in the morning while at work never felt so right.

Cicc', a porta!

Harry McClintock-Big Rock Candy Mountain

Dreams Don't Look Out Of Reach

There still might be several inches of snow on the ground here, and of course, misery abounds, but Cleveland's got one thing nobody else has: the home of Pere Ubu. And last night at the Beachland Ballroom, the iconic band delivered a hometown treat, playing their first album, 1978's The Modern Dance, in its entirety. Who'd want to live anywhere else?

I'm not sure if front man David Thomas's heart was completely in it (he said the band was only doing this for the Beachland's tenth anniversary and "for a lotta money," and as for all the banging and scraping of weird things he did on the original recording, "I don't do that stuff anymore"), but a three-quarter Crocus heart is still pretty amazing. Thomas, sporting a buttoned-up dark raincoat the entire night, which made you leery he might flash the audience at any time, looked great, as he's more slimmed down than I've ever seen him. Crocus Big-boned, not Behemoth, maybe. Instead of looking like a neurotic/possibly psychotic Jackie Gleason prowling the stage, Thomas, now almost svelte, and grayer and balder, seemed to amble the stage with a world-weary perplexity, a strange amalgam of Lenin, Brimley, Nofziger, Ives, Huston, Davignon, and Hackman. And while some sound issues certainly disturbed him, muddying up his vocals at times, he seemed to be in a good and fittingly nostalgic mood, offering interesting "tidbits": the lyrics to "Laughing" were ripped off from the movie Badlands; "Chinese Radiation" was inspired by the "fact" that Cleveland in the late 60s contained more Maoists than anywhere outside of China; Sting once told him, in a squeaky voice: "I really dig your band"; "and he really sounds like that," Thomas added.

Despite the fact that the only other old-time member of the band playing last night was guitarist Tom Herman, it was almost like being transported back to 1978. After opening with the always seismic "Final Solution," the band played the entire Modern Dance album, then came out for encores of "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," "Heart of Darkness," My Dark Ages," and "Heaven," a song Thomas said could have made Ubu UB40 if they'd only repeated it eighteen times. Delivered with a little less mania and power than back in 1978, maybe, the songs still make you scratch your head and wonder why nobody seems to be making music this challenging, informed, smart, and yes, even artful, that still rocks so deliriously, anymore.

A great night to be in Cleveland. Thanks, David. And Josh and Emily too.

Pere Ubu-Heaven

What Sort Of Man Reads The Cover Of Cosmo?

When I was a golf caddie I used to forecaddie on the 15th hole, take out one of the golfers' wedges, and hit range balls that had errantly made their way to the 15th back to the range. When I was a school teacher, I got to power trip by commanding kids to spit out their gum. When I was a magazine editor, I got to pig out for free at PR soirees. As a retail bookseller, I get to peruse the covers of hundreds of magazines each week before putting them out on the racks. Every job has its small perks.

Fridays are great because that's when all the gossip rags come out, so I can quickly catch up on all the pertinent celeb news with glances at various covers. I learn that Katie is desperately trying to get out of her prison-marriage to Tom, or, the next week, or sometimes even the same week, different mag, I learn that Katie and Tom have never been more in love. I feel I've lived through every step of the way with Kendra and her pregnancy and first few months as a mother. I've ping-ponged back and forth with Jennifer and her romantic disappointments. Just from cover photos and headlines, I've learned I hate Kate Gosselin. I love checking out the woodworking magazines every month because their cover models, white males, 40+, balding, zero fashion sense, myopic, in need of diets, are so incongruous compared to all the other cover models of all the other magazines (even the ice fishing magazines--yes, and yes plural--seem to put a little thought into putting semi-hunky ice fishermen [could they be re-touched models?] on their covers). Hip Hop Weekly, which I swear for a few months, despite its name, was a bi-weekly, informs me of the latest trials--literal--of all my favorite rappers I've never heard of. Heeb, the Jewish humor magazine, makes me laugh but also feel very protective due to the angry Jewish (I assume) guy who comes in every once in a while and scolds us for carrying such an offensive magazine (my former boss was the Picasso of dealing with such irate customers; she walked the guy around the magazine section and politely pointed out that we carry magazines that offend all sorts of people; we're an equal opportunity offender). I marvel at the chutzpah (and continued existence) of New Beauty magazine, a periodical devoted solely to the subject of cosmetic enhancement.

But until we start carrying a Bob Dylan daily magazine, or Bacon Illustrated (you laugh, there's now a magainze--Culture [get it?]--dedicated solely to cheese [somebody sound the cheese alarm!]), my favorite magazine arrival each month has to be Cosmopolitan. To look inside the magazine would be overkill: the cover each month provides all the entertainment one man needs. The folks there must be walking conceptual thesauri, because from what I can tell, every month they run the same articles, but the cover headlines are always slightly different. Basically, it's lose the fat and have incredible sex (not that there's anything wrong with those activities, but come on, month after month? can't we just learn about Natalie Portman's wood-working or ice-fishing skills once in a while?). I swear every month there's some sort of "17 Things That Will Drive Him Wild In Bed" article. Now I've long been on record as offering my precious time--gratis--to be the so-called "lab rat" for these articles (surely, Cosmo must apply the scientific method to such articles: "No, not that. Nope, nothing. Yes. Oh yes. Write that one down, quick. That's definitely one more incredible thing you can do with your ear lobe that will drive him bonkers in bed"), but I'm still waiting for a reply.

This month's cover (above) is nothing new, outside of boasting just about the most normal picture of Lady Gaga I've seen. But what caught my eye, and my mind, as this is the first Cosmo cover I've thought about for more than thirty seconds, is that "50 Things To Do Butt Naked." Where to begin? Would any reader of Cosmo, supposedly someone in the market for 37 Naughty Things To Do With A Dictionary That Will Make Him Your Minion For Life, actually need a list of things to do naked? Does anybody? Shower, sleep, have sex, pick up a couple extra bucks posing for drawing classes and--if you're one of those people to be found at nudist camps--play a lot of volleyball? What else? Not what else is there (granted, human imgaination is pretty boundless), but what else of interest? Oh, thanks Cosmo, I never thought about crocheting, doing my taxes, or frying bacon (look out for those greasy splashes!) in the buff. Draw the curtains, honey. Or, better yet, open those curtains wide! I certainly hope the fiftieth thing to do is sit around and make up silly lists. I expect, in the interest of fair play and safety, next month Cosmo will run an article about the five things you should never, ever, do naked. I would think wood-working with table saws.

Then there's that "butt naked." Seems to me it should be "buck naked." Butt naked sounds either redundant or, if you think about it, possibly mis-leading. Butt naked could refer to anyone merely in the act of shooting a moon, no? Buck naked sounds truer--stark. Turns out, after a little investigating, the is it butt or buck naked debate has been going on for a long time. Nobody, as usual, knows for sure where when how the phrase(s) originated or which came first, though each one has its supporters, so to speak. I prefer buck. But I can see why Cosmo would leap at the chance to put the word butt on its cover. Something tells me if those ice-fishing magazines ever ran a similar article, they'd go with buck.

Enough. Back to work on my magnum opus: fifty things to do with spit out gum that will drive her wild in the ice-fishing shack.

Exclusive: Flo the Progressive Girl Is the Offspring of Madge and Mr. Whipple!

 

As per some law, I must disclose the fact that this blog received as a gift a pre-publication reviewer's copy of a book set to be published on May 1 (strict laydown date): Poke Me In The Belly One More Time And I'll Tell The Whole World Your Darkest Secrets: My Life Among The Wild And Kinky TV Commercial Spokespersons by The Pillsbury Doughboy (published by Ronco Press, 428 pages). Now normally I wouldn't even think about helping a has-been celebrity hawk his ghost-written, titillating-but-ultimately-not-too-revealing "memoir," but seeing as this is the first gift this blog has received and what started as a quick perusal on the can led to a two-day marathon cover-to-cover reading, I feel I must bestow upon this book the first-ever five-pieces-of-chewed-out-gum review. This book is a must for anybody who has ever even glanced at a television commercial one time, anybody with any empathy, and anybody who appreciates a tautly-written, first-person narrative.

Who knew that silly doughboy was so introspective, so literate, and so, shall we say, experienced? And now that he's finally willing to spill all the beans in this poke-and-tell, well, we all are the beneficiaries. Speaking of beans, did you know The Jolly Green Giant was about as jolly as they make them, especially when the Keebler elves invited him over to "knead the cookie dough"? It's all here, in graphic prose that would make William S. Burroughs simultaneously blush and turn green with envy. How about Charlie the Tuna being so smacked out on the bottom of the ocean floor he couldn't remember if he was a hope-to-be Starkist or Chicken of the Sea tuna? Mr. Clean? Dirtier than a hermaphroditic bi-sexual sailor on shore leave in Bangkok with three-months' pay who's just discovered the meaning of the word amoral. Cap'n Crunch? A polyglot choirboy, life-long celibate, and devoted Scientology convert. The revelations here are endless, jaw-dropping, and fully foot-noted. Doughboy has single-handedly lifted the schlocky celebrity tell-all genre onto his little sloped shoulders and hurled it crashing through the rarefied tinted windows of that cafe called art. Safe to say, if James Joyce had been born into a world that had television and he had made commercials for sneakers or reading glasses, the best he could have ever hoped for would be to have written a book this good.

I must, however, go into detail here about what for me was the emotional center of the book, because it's so personal, for me. Full disclosure: Before succumbing to the melancholy, tomboyish charms of Buddy Lawrence on "Family," my first TV-crush wasn't on Jan Brady or Laurie Partridge, like the rest of my co-horts, but Madge.

Yes Madge, the sassy Palmolive manicurist ("you're soaking in it") captured my young lad heart with an iron--though quite smooth--hand. So knowing, so in command, so worldly; Madge was everything a young boy could ever conjure about the ways and means of love. And so, reading the long chapter about Madge's trials, tribulations, and ultimate triumph broke then re-glued my heart. It goes like this (minus Doughboy's impeccable prose). For many years in the 1950s-70s Madge lived a quite idyllic life with her husband, Mr. Whipple (yes, the store-keeper of "Ladies! Please don't squeeze the Charmin"), in a small town.

They lived in a cozy colonial just a short walk from the main thoroughfare where Mr. Whipple's grocery store sat catty-corner from Madge's manicurist shop. The only fly in the ointment of their domestic Eden was the occasional snooty attitude of a TV commercial director and the fact that despite their fervid attempts (Madge, obviously, ruled the amorous activities, adventurous activities, to hear the Doughboy tell it, though Madge was vehement about one thing--she always nixed any and all of Whipple's mad gooses), they were childless.

Then, in the late 70s, the snake entered their garden, in the form of that nosy, Cardigan-wearing, fake-accented, widowed hussy, Mrs. Olson (of Folgers coffee fame).

Apparently, Mrs. Olson had worn out her welcome in several other small towns, plying her coffee-in-the-guise-of-unwanted-marriage-counseling-schtick, and ended up moving in right next door to the Whipple-Madge house, obviously unaware that two TV commercial stars in one small town, let alone one street, are more than enough. Well, one little spat between Whipple and Madge over cleaning out the gutters sure enough brought Mrs. Olson over with her coffee pot of doom and the requisite film crew. Within months the marriage was irrevocably damaged. Quick trips next door to hang curtains for the widow soon escalated into a full-blown extra-marital affair, as Mr. Whipple at last discovered his I'm-the-man, I'm-in-charge-here masculine sexuality. Visitors to Mrs. Olson's house found the place teeming with hastily-discarded, wrangled cardigans. Horribly-accented cries of "Oh yes, squeeze the Charmin, Whipple, squeeze the Charmin!" and "My, Whipple, you're mountain grown too!" were heard up and down the block. Madge could stew in it for only so long. One day she just packed her Palmolive and upped and moved.

Little did she know, though, that after all these years, Mr. Whipple had finally delivered the goods. Just as she was settling into a studio apartment of her own two states away, Madge discovered she was with child. Luckily, upon birth, the child, a girl, instantly evidenced her mother's perky, survivalist genes, and not those of her wimpy, betraying father. Madge cackled her knowing laugh as she held her baby for the first time, and in honor of her own take-what-life-gives-you-and-make-the-best-of-it attitude, she named her baby Flo. Sixteen years and a few weeks later, newly-licensed driver Flo, grooving to some Romantics on the car radio, took her eye off the road for a second and ended up fender-bendering one dual-personality Sam Breakstone/Dunkin' Donuts "time to make the donuts" baker guy, who was not too thrilled. The insurance man who came to process the claim, though, made quite an impression on Flo, and the rest is history.

Bugs

As I wrote in yesterday's post, I had a delightful evening the other night at my nephew's birthday party. Around the dinner table, we engaged in a pastime that I'm sure is becoming pretty universal at family and friend gatherings: relating funny videos we've seen on youtube. I've been wondering lately why there don't seem to be as many jokes going around, and I'm thinking maybe the Internet, especially youtube, has something to do with it. Why go through the effort of making up jokes and passing them around, when a good chuckle can be had searching sites like youtube? I especially like the clipped language that goes along with it all. "How you I find that video?" "I don't know, just type in 'hamster in model hair.'" Anyway, my nephews, great teens as they are, tipped me off to this one:



Now that's pretty funny on a few different levels. But it got me thinking about bugs, and my history with them. One of my earliest memories is kneeling down on my bed to say my goodnight prayers and kneeling smack dab on a wasp. A wasp sting on a kneecap is not a pleasant experience for a four-year-old. I don't know what it says about my lifelong relationship with prayer, but I know for sure that ever since then, I've hated any kind of creepy crawly thing. Swallowing bugs is awful (see below for Marlon Brando handling the situation with a little more aplomb than the TV reporter; I've been having trouble getting these videos to appear here, so to see it go here), but in some ways getting a mosquito in your eye is worse, I believe. The swallowing is way grosser, but it's kind of over rather quickly. Getting a bug out of your eye seems to take forever. And long gone are the days when you'd count your mosquito bites with pride.

Luckily I haven't had much bad luck with spiders in my life, but I do remember one, I think it was a spider, who freaked the hell out of me. I was living down South at the time, and obviously not accustomed to the ways of the creepies down there. I saw a spider on the floor and immediately and with not too much worry moved to step on him. Well, just as I raised my foot, the thing leaped up (much too quickly and forcefully to have been on a web) to at least the height of my face. A minute later, after peeling myself off the far wall and assuring the neighbors that my shriek did not mean I was possessed by the devil (this was below Mason/Dixon, remember), I could still see the leaping spider sitting on the floor, no doubt laughing his little ass off, I'm sure, if I had dared to get close enough to look at his face. I grabbed my trusty hardback Webster's (a good hardback Thesaurus might have been more appropriate, but alas, Fellhower [you'll meet him in the poem below] burned my Thesaurus one in night in college when I wasn't there; I still have never gotten the full story). With dictionary in hand, I crept slowly across the room to the vicinity of the helicopteringable spider. When I got close enough, and now worrying if the thing could jump vertically, diagonally too, I launched the hefty tome not at the spider but above him (mama didn't raise no dummy). Sure enough, as the spider caught wind of something coming at him, he jumped straight up again. Unfortunately for him, the gravity-obeying book met him halfway and gave him a rather swift elevator ride back down to his hardwood doom.

Enough. I'm getting itchier than hell here. After the jump, though, if you're really brave, you can read a very old, nasty poem I wrote about cockroaches and college.

Bono: "Am I bugging you? I didn't mean to bug you."