Measuring Stick
11/17/2007 04:30 p.m.
I admit, song lyrics usually aren’t much good unless someone is chewin’ them, but I like this particular lyric, and inside my noggin, someone is chewin’ it, so what the hell?

I could be jealous and grasping with greed
I could pretend that I want something I don't need
These are the things that go through my head
But then, I could be an angel disguised as a man
I could be the sun that shines in the midnight land

- Utopia

As I mentioned in one of my poems, as a teenage boy, I measured my erect pecker with a ruler. This was a natural and normal thing to do. Sadly, the result was quite average. Is average ever good enough?

Acorns are all over the parking lot at work. I find it most satisfying to smash them beneath my black tasseled industrial strength work loafer. In fact, I often alter my stride in order to crunch one to an orangey powder (I look like a real goofball, stumbling and weaving about.). I suspect this to be some sort of symbolic release of a suppressed and violent tendency deep in my compartmentalized psyche. I would probably get an even bigger kick out of crunching people, what with the snap crackle pop of brittle bones. And imagine the fun and challenge of a moving target!

Maybe all I really want is to be a midnight strapping strutting lightning bolt Nazi, whenever I don’t get the girl or the job or the raise or the “yes.”

One of the lousy things about being human is that at some point one is bound to question the value of the way one spends his endless numbered days, or one’s value relative to the vastness of the cosmos. In all likelihood, that value isn’t much. Worrying over such stuff is a rotten burden.

Like the great philosophers, though in a less sophisticated way, I too wonder about the nature of good, and just how the heck a person is supposed to spend his time that he might be good. Of course, I want to be good because good people are more advanced on the evolutionary scale, and there is bound to be a reward. Yes, my aim is low. But who the heck holds the measuring stick? At what point is good good enough? Must I work evenings at the soup kitchen in addition to my day job? What percentage of my income must I donate to charity? Is it sin to hoard while others starve? Can I give one larger hunk to one charity, or do I have to dole it out in little bits to dozens of outstretched hands so I seem really busy doing it? Is giving my dollars the same sacrifice as giving my time?

Am I a good citizen? Am I a good citizen if I don’t support the troops? At work, they collected and mailed crackers and lip balm, but I failed to donate so much as a crumb. They supported, I did not.

Is it un-American to sponsor an impoverished child living in a foreign land through one of those TV commercial charities? Are foreigners less worthy and what is it with all these made up boundaries, any way?

Is average good enough and who holds the measuring stick? (Is it me?)

What if this is the best I can do or what if I’m just too darn lazy to do better?

I believe I would prefer to be a starling on a wire, assuming your starling has no such worries. But I suppose he has the tom cat.

A starling on a wire. This is pretty much what I become when parked out back of the Starbucks where I overlook a manmade drainage ditch, trees, and a distant strip mall rising above the tree line. I sip obscenely priced coffee while shoving in a cream cheese and pumpkin muffin and listening to The Smiths’ “Louder than Bombs.” What crackpot wouldn’t love a lyric like:

Spending warm summer days indoors,
writing frightening verse,
to a buck toothed girl in Luxemburg

I know it doesn’t hold up on the printed page. Lyrics need some chewin’. Additionally, I am concerned about this so-called “cream cheese” that requires no refrigeration.

Is a magical telepathy required to get in touch with the invisible overlords?

And if I give it all away, what happens next? Crucifixion?

Is it conviction that I lack or cwardice?

These are the things that go through my head.

I am currently Cool
I am listening to Tennesee Ernie Ford

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Sicko Flicko and the Anti-Christ
08/24/2007 01:26 a.m.


Factoid #1: In red letter words, Jesus H. Christ said, “‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least among you, you did not do for me.’” Matthew 25:41-45

What a Christian thing to say. Is it any wonder they called him Christ?

Factoid #2: Here in the United States, you are either a Conservative or a Liberal, and like a tattoo, you can not wash it off. Additionally, most Christians are tattooed Conservatives.

(Note: I know Factoid #2 to be a factoid because of the foaming blather that has spewed from the mouths of every pedestrian, pundit and politician across the past twenty five years. Notice I left out Preacher? Perhaps I should not have.)

Factoid #3: An annoying sociopolitical issue that periodically raises its Medusa-like head is the half-baked Commie notion that affordable health care coverage should be available to all United States citizens, including the very least among us.

(Presently, we have fat-boy-liberal-cry-baby Michael Moore to blame for the current surge in interest.)

Factoid #4: The notion that affordable health coverage should be available to all United States citizens, including the very least among us, is considered to be a Liberal notion.

Am I mistaken, or is that notion pretty darn conceptually close to what Jesus H. Christ is quoted as having said in red letter words up yonder in Factoid#1? I think perhaps it is.

Hold on there.

Is Christ a Commie? Is factoid #1 inconvenient as all hell? Are those that reject the notion of affordable health care coverage for the least among us actually rejecting Factoid #1? Consequently, does this make them Anti-Christ?

What the heck is going on here? Oh mighty Limbaugh, I implore you, please provide me a short, sharp, sound-bite that I might follow with out thought or doubt. Help me to see in black and white, that which I now see in gray.

Amen.
I am listening to faucet drips

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The Lonesome Death of Wildebeest Bill
08/15/2007 11:55 p.m.
The Lonesome Death of Wildebeest Bill

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If you want a no-nonsense look at life on planet earth, try watching one of those documentaries about the animals of the Serengeti. I did just that, and I tell you this: It made the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” look like a stroll through Bethabra Park.

The segment begins with a herd of wildebeest hanging out at the old watering hole, as wildebeest must do, drooling, chewing, and because of the poor hygiene, attracting mass quantities of swarming, biting flies. Next, the herd takes on a nervous alertness, with each member blankly surveying his surroundings. Maybe it is only flatulence, or a storm brewing, but perhaps something worse.

It is worse. A lion pride slowly creeps through the tall gold grass, converging on the malodorous beasts.

One poor wildebeest, who is either injured or too darn old, is unable to scale the muddy embankment to return from the murky pool of water and rejoin his mates. Despite the effort, and the extra incentive added by impending doom, he flails helplessly.

Not to worry. His mates square their jaws, defiantly shake their horns, puff out their chests and form an impregnable half circle around the poor lame fellow trapped just below.

I think, “Wow, this is great! What noble beasts, despite flies and stink!”

The lions, however, intuitively know there is now no need for stealth, so they growl in anticipation of an easy meal and continue to close.

I think, is there to be a fight between animal gangs? I have never heard of such.”

The wildebeest paw the ground with cloven hooves. From some unknown cause, the herd startles as one, after which they look quite sheepish.

Nervously, they look side to side. Slow wheels are turning.

“Hey, a, Walt. You thinkin’what I’m thinkin’?”

“Damn straight.”

A silent minute passes.

“A, sorry Bill. You know how it is. Best of luck and all, and well, we gotta be goin’,” as the herd slowly moon walks down the shoreline and off into the trees.

Suddenly, from off camera, a lioness springs onto the back of our lowly hero, and sinks powerful claws and teeth deep into poor Bill’s ample rump. Bill bucks and writhes in pain, but in another second, the entire pride has fallen upon him, and soon poor Wildebeest Bill is torn beyond recognition.

After the lions have had their fill, the hyenas and vultures finish with what was Wildebeest Bill.

Quite sobering. This kind of thing goes on while I watch reruns of “Sanford and Son.” Imagine that.

Of course, we humans with our enormous and precise reasoning machines enjoy a refined dining experience with our corndogs (hog testes), kipper snacks, pickled eggs, and turkey jerky. (I think there is ground waddle in that turkey jerky.)

Do not feel sad, dear reader. We all eat life. It’s fun!

Wildebeest Bill lives in heaven now, along side Arnold Ziffle, Mr. Ed, Sammy Davis Jr., and Jesus.

And the lion shall lay with the lamb.




I am listening to They Might Be Giants (oh boy)

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Searching for the Young Soul Rebels
04/24/2006 01:47 a.m.

More mixed metaphors, platitudes, and clichés from the depths of my battered breast! (Pretty dramatic intro., eh?)

This isn’t a journal for the kids, and the material within isn't appropriate for delicate women. It is only for the stoutest stock of female peasantry. (Oddly, my pollsters tell me I am most popular with babushka and brogue wearing survivors of WWII occupied Poland. These gals are a bit long in the tooth.).

One thing that I would like to say, which I have never said, and which I have never heard anyone else say, is this: In a vague and abstract way, I have been afraid pretty much the whole time I have been here.

For those of you who find it difficult to simply stay on this planet, I think I can understand. Of course, lucky me, I have always held a small ember of optimism or just enough cowardice or wonder or that thin thread of sanity or hope or what ever the hell it is that keeps me plodding along on this one way trip to Goofyville. I will likely see this thing through, whatever it is, in my own half-assed fashion.

See what I mean? This journal isn’t for the faint of heart, even though the journalist is so faint of heart he could keel over round the corner of the next comma. But there is more! (There is always more.)

I work for a corporate titan! Of course, our satellite site is but a barnacle precariously fastened to the hull of a steaming streaming tanker.

High ranking, spit and polished Corporate Leaders visit us quarterly for “town-hall meetings.”

They dance and smile and twirl to the tune of growth and acquisition while planning to pummel our competition to submission. Heck, two of these Leaders recently worked for the very firms they now plan to pummel. I’m certain these Leaders did the very same dance while in their employ.

I think back to Wachovia, my former employer, and how they swallowed a small banking corporation in Richmond, Virginia back in 1997. I was sent there for two weeks to aid in erasing that entity from the face of the earth. So carnivorous. So Darwinian. In 2001, Wachovia (the 17th largest bank in the U.S. at the time), was swallowed whole by First Union, leaving the poor old city of Winston-Salem busted, raped and bleeding. What the hell is going on here? (Is someone skimming the cream?)

At the next town hall meeting, I want to say, “Excuse me, Sir. Sir, can I be real here? Why are we doing this? What greater good do we serve? Please sir, you are clearly of the best and brightest, and you must search your young rebel soul. To put it quite simply, why?”

Today at work, I could tell I was getting mentally tired because my verbal censor cut out on me. After hours without uttering a peep, I told Frank, the guy sitting across from me, that I was considering having “Zeig Heil” tattooed to my forehead. Frank is such a piss-poor listener that my remark never even registered. Everyone wants to talk, but who wants to listen?

Not Frank. He merely grunted. What does all this blather mean, dear reader, and why am I such a willing blatherer?

Do you know any of those people that laugh at every lame-assed-would-be-joke that any half-assed-would-be comedian makes? If you are such a person, please consider ceasing. It is a weak-kneed behavior of those desperate to be liked.

Frank and I were briefly discussing the Duke Lacrosse Team/Stripper rape scandal that has currently captured the interest of our great nation when Frank remarked, "Gangs often take on a personality of their own that differs from the personality of the individual members resulting in sub-human behavior."

I said, "Yes, like the Central Park Jogger." (Several years ago, a woman jogger was pointlessly attacked and beaten by a gang of young boys in New York City.)

Harriet, who was listening in, breaks out laughing. Puzzled, I explained that there is nothing funny about the Central Park Jogger.

"Oh, I thought you were joking," she weakly explained.

There was no joke in sight. Harriet laughs at any and everything. She seems to assume everything is supposed to be funny.

And you there Mr. Flick, please stop the barrage of knot-headed jokes (Yes, Mr. Flick, this last line is for you.). Perhaps it is you that has created Harriet’s expectation. It won’t bring you more love. You do want to be genuine, don't you? Who the hell are you? Shed the veneer like the snake skin it is!

Musical phases pollute me like an oil tanker braking up off the Alaskan Coast. It coats my every thought, move and or groove.

Dexy’s Midnight Runners. I can’t get them off my mind. Oh, you too? Me and you. Cutting edge, dear reader (Sing "Too-Rye-Loo-Rye-Ay"). So I wander around the hallowed halls of Corporate America with “Jackie Wilson Said” playing on an endless loop with all of those "tood-a-lang-a-langs" rolling across my hollow noggin like golden bands of sunshine.

Yes indeed, I too am searching for the young soul rebels.

Raymond Douglas Davies of the Kinks, Richard Butler of the Psychedelic Furs, and, believe it or not, Dexy’s Midnight Runners will all be releasing new collections in 2006 (Dexy‘s Midnight Runners hasn‘t released an album since 1986. Kevin Rowland, the lead singer, apparently suffered through years of depression and drug addiction. He did release an ill advised come back attempt in 1999. On the cover, Kevin wore women’s clothes. Tragedy every which way I turn!) Ahh, but these blessings fall like white soft skin petals from the boughs of Bartlett Pair trees on these blustery spring days, here in the south.

…tood-a-lang-a-lang tood-a-lang-a-lang
I’m in heaven, when you’re smiling…

Why don’t you try a few of those tood-a-lang-a-langs for yourself, beloved reader? It is wonderful.

Nighty night, you crazy assed soul rebel, you.






I am currently Clueless
I am listening to They Might Be Giants

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Hi! I'm Ray Jay Hill
03/13/2006 12:27 a.m.
I have been taking magic homeopathic beans made from saw palmetto extract for several years. Yesterday, I read a report that indicated that other than a possible placebo effect, there is no evidence to support the claim that Saw Palmetto reduces the likelihood of prostate cancer in men.

I wonder if doubling the dosage would help. Maybe I could try burying a dead chicken at the foot of a birch tree on a night when the moon is full, followed with the proper incantation.

Maybe for good luck, I could have a four leaf clover tattooed on the purplish-pink helmet head of my poor little pecker. Alas, very small leaves. ¡QUE LASTIMA!

I have been trying to figure what the attraction is to a show entitled “American Idol,” and this is what I believe:

I would never call myself a fan of the show. In fact, to do so would cause me considerable discomfort. I will admit to have watched a few episodes in the past two years. I notice that I am most drawn to the rudeness and callousness of the judges, along with observing the awkward, embarrassed, and often angry reactions of the contestants. This show is an artificial and manufactured drama intentionally set to generate bad feelings under the guise of a “talent show.” Let’s face it, talent shows are nothing new, but bad manners have never been so in vogue! You may claim you watch the show for the lovely vocalizations, but these grizzly eyes can see through lies.

I think I am through with it. I wash my hands of it with anti-bacterial soap.

Here is something else I want to say: Motley Crew, Kiss, and Bon Jovi really, really stink at what they do. They are atrocious, sub-mental, no-talent bums. They are so bad that no one should have ever bought any of their wretched stuff. Had that happened, I wouldn’t even know who the hell they are, which is how it should be! Having said that,I feel better.

But wait, there is more. There is always more.

I would rather watch that crazy-ass Tim the Grizzly Man on the Discovery Channel. Have you seen him? He was nuts in a way that I greatly admire. The poor fellow was good and tired of living with humans, so he went to Alaska for 13 straight summer seasons to live among the wild grizzly bears. He named them, talked to them, stood beside them as they fished for salmon, swam in the lake with them, and even touched them on their grizzly bear button noses.

What is it that you think finally happened to old Tim the Grizzly Man, who lived so closely with wild grizzly bears?

Exactly.

I believe that the number one collective goal of western civilization is instant gratification. Our consumer driven capitalistic structure is geared and glued to it. Corporate America’s prime directive is to provide it faster, cheaper, now. We say, “Give me what I want, give it to me now!.” I don’t know if this is human nature or learned behavior. If it is human nature, we probably aren’t much good. This is why I can understand and even admire Tim the Grizzly Man. Tim’s brand of insanity had a twisted and misguided beauty, ours does not.

“You can call me Ray or you can call me Jay but you doesn’t have to call me Johnson.” Do you remember when the entire nation was grooving to this ultra-cool proclamation? I couldn’t get enough of it. I used to deliver that catchy bit in this altered Barry White-like voice several times per day. This made me enormously popular with my piers. What the hell was that guy advertising?

I know this much. Ray Jay Johnson was a superstar, unlike that American Idol crappola. I’ll bet that in his hey-day Ray Jay had a bevy of buxom babes with which to fornicate.

Here is a thought. In fact here is a really, really obvious thought, and it is the awful truth. Had George W. not been born into a wealthy family and fathered by a dad who became president of the good old U.S. of A., I don’t believe George W. would be president now, especially when I factor in the fact that he, by his own admission, spent over half his adult life drunk as a skunk. George W. Bush: Failed businessman, drunkard, president.

While I'm no Grizzly Man, if they would construct a habitat for me, I would choose to live as an exhibit at the North Carolina Zoo. I sure do like the zoo, and just think how well I would be cared for! I would love to live in a Commie society! Imagine how kind and wonderful people have to be to make such a thing work. From each according to his abilities. To each according to his needs. I love the zoo!

You may ask me what I think of the ill feelings that continue to stew between Non-Muslims and Muslims around the world. I'm going to let They Might Be Giants speak for me:

"Person man, person man
Hit on the head with a frying pan
Lives his life in a garbage can
Person man

Is he depressed or is he a mess?
Does he feel totally worthless?
Who came up with person man?
Degraded man, person man

Triangle man, triangle man
Triangle man hates person man
They have a fight, triangle wins
Triangle man"

Again, I’m a Bugs Bunny ether ramlin’ kind-a-guy.

Nighty-night, my fellow earth bound waifs.
I am listening to Nick Cave

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High as a Kite in a Charcoal Sky
01/22/2006 03:19 a.m.
This may sound crazy, but I think the highest emotional state I can reach somehow combines the sweetness of joy and the ache of melancholy. It seems to me that it is a richer state than joy alone. Here is a half assed analogy: It is like the difference between Kool-Aid and Coffee, the coffee being the headier brew.

I think this is why something like Morrissey’s rendition of Moon River, a recent discovery of mine at the local library, is so powerful. There is pain and joy and longing all intermingled and swelling to a full bodied emotion. I’ve got that song stuck in my head. It is much like the Andy Williams version, but this one drones on for nine minutes, and in the background during the instrumental, a heartbroken woman weeps in the distance. To me, this piece is high art because it makes me feel so alive. (I know, I know, I keep referencing Moon River in this journal, but I make no apologies to those of you who find it cheesy.)

For no particular reason, I have been in an overall heightened state these past few days, and it combines joy and melancholy in one powerful charge. For example, Sunday was perfectly chilly with drizzle and wind here in North Carolina. The leaves are down, piled, and scattered everywhere in reds, browns, and yellows.

I did simple goof-off things like eating lunch at the Indian buffet, so diverse in little explosions of great spice flavors in the curried vegetables and meats (bless them for doing that, and damn ye, mcdonalds). Then I went downtown to the moldy old library and picked out a book called “The Leaf and Cloud” by Mary Oliver, and though I don't hardly know her, I think I could love her. Next, I walked around town (whistling Moon River the whole time, and in a way no chance listener could enjoy. I just can’t whistle with the style of a 1950’s barber) and got this deep down bone chill while standing steamy mouthed behind the BB&T building where the wind whips between the structures and the fountains hiss and the pigeons bathe.

I went to Borders and savored a vanilla Café’ Au Let and purchased the new Ray Davies EP (his first release in years, and halleluiah, a full album is coming in 2006, God bless that knobby kneed Englishman!) and a calendar for my Mom that has lighthouses in storms with huge sprays of waves curling high on their cylindrical shapes (it tingles my spine to look at these-imagine sitting in the top of such a structure looking down and around at a storm-sea rising up at you.)

And miracle of miracles, this mood has carried forth into my rainy Monday. Despite the weather, all the doors and windows have been flung open for a time, and I welcome this. On and on I go...





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Cool Hand Harlow
11/02/2005 12:11 a.m.
If you find yourself in a discussion about movies, I have found that you really can’t impress most people with declarations like, “Cool Hand Luke was put in prison for cutting the heads off of parking meters while under the influence.” You want to end a conversation, say something like that.

You need to keep it simple. For example, it is okay to say “Cool Hand Luke was a cool movie.” Most people will agree, even when they don’t know what the hell movie you are talking about. Better still, say something like “That Adam Sandler movie breaks me up.” You are sure to be a hit.

It is ill advised to quote classic dialog like “Sayin’ it’s your job don’t make it right” or “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate” or “I’m a shakin’, boss” or “I can eat 50 hard boiled eggs in an hour,” lest your audience give you a bludgeoned fish stare.

Am I sarcastic and bitter? Absolutely. This is caused by my shrinking skull which is applying an ever increasing pressure on my big brain, a known and natural phenomenon that occurs and creates crotchetiness in the elderly.

Speaking of movies, I have a new favorite movie scene to replace the one from “Doctor Strange Love” in which Acting God Slim Pickins rides the nuclear war head like a bucking bronco, while slapping it with his Confederate Civil War hat and joyfully yelling “Yeehaw!” My new favorite scene comes from “Wings of Desire,” which I was forced to watch by Katya.

This scene involves a young girl, perhaps five years old, with coke bottle glasses and missing teeth. Someone, probably her mother, is strapping her into leg braces. She looks up at the camera (actually at the angel character in the film, as only the children can see them), and smiles the most heart-warming and heart-breaking smile. That alone is worth the price of admission.

The sweetness of that scene has left a footprint in my mushy gray brain matter. I keep seeing that little girl in my mind, her face, her expression, and each time I feel a wash of emotion for a second or two.

I really am a pussy boy.

Style-wise, I believe I best like a Punk and Rockabilly hybrid look. I like the snarl and sneer along with the do-it-yourself ethic. All in all, it suits my Bad Ass nature (Have I contradicted myself here?).

While I’m not particularly tough, I believe I could have posed and thrived quite nicely in the punk era. Even I could have successfully been a hard guy amongst such scrawny and sickly fellows as Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious.

I’m not to sure about the Rockabilly scene. I think guys like Jerry Lee Lewis would have pummeled me to pulp, and I lack the mechanical gene found in most males so I could never soup up a flame emblazoned street rod (Changing the wiper blades on my Jethro Bodine Double-naught Spy Mobile recently ended in a terrible blood letting, though I most certainly know the expletives for the Rockabilly roll.).

In these, my declining years, I have taken to dressing as some kind of down and out, screwball, geezer-boy geek, which is somehow appropriate. Black novelty t-shirts with screen prints like “Plan 9 From Outer Space,” “Eraserhead,” and Charles Bukowski, combine with droopy Levis and my black and white checkered canvas shoes (and don’t forget the black wayfarers).

Needless to say, Gentleman’s Quarterly does not call.

I will say this: The absolute worst style from my lifetime, which is rapidly approaching the .5 centuries mark, is happening right now. This is the one where the young lads wear ill-fitting trousers pulled so low down on the buttocks that their old-man boxer shorts ride many inches above. What an embarrassing style. Dad was way ahead of his time. Who knew?

By the way, I just recollected a style that surpasses them all, regardless of time or place. I saw it in documentaries of a tribal people , perhaps from the Amazon basin, and not only are the ladies topless, but the gentlemen wear these fantastic, long, bamboo pecker poles strapped to their groin and extending like a massive erection right up to their eyeballs! Have you seen this? All day long, they strut around their village with these enormous symbols thrust up in phallic glory!

How I would love to live in such a society. Imagine, your humble narrator navigating the hallowed halls of Corporate America with a big old pecker pole! This is the stuff of which my dreams are made! Tomorrow I begin my campaign for a change in the dress code.

Is my development arrested? I am afraid so.

Lastly, I will end with the words of my fictional hero, Cool Hand Luke:

“Sometimes nothin’ can be a pretty cool hand.”

and Todd Rundgren:

“A handful of nothin’ is all that I need,
It contains plus and minus of everything…”


I am listening to Klaatu

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Harlow a Go-Go
10/26/2005 12:08 a.m.
I bought some shoes that I am quite proud of. They are black and white checkered, lace-less canvas shoes with elastic wedges on either side of the tongue. These are styled like the sneakers that a really corny old guy would have worn along with some mint green double knit shorts back in the 70’s, accept these look very 80’s, very Cheap Trick, thanks to the checks.

Back in college, I had Indian Scout Boots. These were fringed lace-up moccasins that came to just below the knee. Peter Tork, the least likable Monkee, wears them in several episodes of their show.

Am I style challenged?

No, I am cool, cool like Johnny Bravo Brady. As a young fellow, I was hot for Marsha. Then, as I matured, I developed a certain lust for shag coiffed Carol Brady (something permed Mike never had). Now, in these my declining years, Alice the Maid is looking pretty darn good.

In the 90’s, I briefly worked as a male stripper, or, since I consider it an art form, I prefer the term exotic dancer. I worked the nursing home circuit here in the south, primarily doing birthday celebrations at the Meadow Brook Manor chain.

In, many ways, my show resembled a Rod Stewart concert. “Rubber Band Man,” “I’m Just a Love Machine,” “Kung Fu Fighting,” and Ted Nugent’s “Wango Tango” were my big numbers. I could work the little white puff bent wire ladies into quite a lather, what with my Elvis like lip sneer. Instead of throwing their panties, however, these nasty girls tossed their depends.

How I hated when they stuck.



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Harlow Flick: A Sex Machine in III Acts
03/03/2005 12:46 a.m.
Warning: This is going to get pretty darn steamy, and since I am now well into my declining years; it may give you, beloved reader, the willies. For this, I make no apologies. I am 48 years old, and I hope I feel the same at 68. As crazy as it all sounds, it’s part of what we do here.

Harlow Flick: A Sex Machine in III Acts

Act I

Father Flick, who lives in heaven now, used to tell the tale of my first sexual encounter. It actually occurred so early in my life, that it now lives shrouded in fog. How I wish I had stored a clearer vision of the lovely and tender six-year-old temptress, Debbie.

It happened near the turn of a decade, sometime in 1961, in the steel mill worker, industrial revolution, town of Levittown, Pennsylvania. These were Beaver Cleaver, black and white, cold war, pre-Sergeant Pepper days. There I was, five years old, about the size of a ventriloquist’s dummy, my hair buzzed and slickered in a crew cut, dressed in corny Bermuda shorts, unable to distinguish my own ass from a hole in the ground.

One summer evening, at the side of our shot gun shack rancher, my best friend Tommy, an Alfred E. Newman faced, taxi door eared chap, and I poked and prodded the naked neighbor girl, Debbie, like curious little mad scientists with our busy little fingers. Tommy focused on the upper half while I focused on the lower regions.

Suddenly, Father Flick appeared around the corner of our house.

“Oh no, what have we got here? Debbie, put on your clothes and head on home. You head on home too, Tommy. Come on Harlow, time for dinner,” he calmly said.

He asked what we were up to, and a few other questions. One of my replies became a part of family lore. I would be quoted before guests and relatives many times at many gatherings in the coming years. As I got older, I began to find it embarrassing, but I now find I rather like it, and stand by what I said.

What is that quote?

This is what I said:

“Tommy likes the top, and I likes the bottoms!”


Act II

In the 6th grade, I enjoyed what was probably the most potent social position that I would ever occupy. Of course, that really isn’t saying much. I even had a freckle faced, bun haired girlfriend named Kathy. The aluminum foil ring she wore from a chain round her neck symbolized our relationship. I purchased this lavish sparkler for $1 at the local apothecary, along with a 45-rpm recording of “Last Train to Clarksville” by those beloved rascals, The Monkees.

It was my testosterone-fueled desire to consummate our relationship with a kiss, but alas, Kathy wasn‘t ready for a physical relationship, so I broke it off. I demanded the return of my ring.

Being a passionate romantic in a fit of irrational emotion, I crushed the ring beneath a chair leg, folded it inside a Dots Candy box, and flushed it down the toilet.

There were other fish in the sea and I knew where to net one. Susan Schaefer was a girl with a reputation, and it was well known in our little social world that she had a “thing” for me.

I can remember it as though it happened this morning: the sweaty palms, the dry mouth, and the terrible awkwardness.

I sat on the sofa with Susan as the Beatles “Day Tripper” played in the background on the radio. Earlier in the day, I had warmed up by practicing on my wrist, so I knew what I was doing. If I do say so myself, though it was a bit dry, I gave her a relatively long, definite, polished, full-lipped kiss.

With my confidence on the rise, I was moving in for kiss number two, when suddenly the silence was broken by a sarcasm-laced voice, “Well, aren’t we comfy.”

Holly Shit! It was her mother! I didn’t know anyone else was home!

Even though it was two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, in near panic, I fumbled out a few words, “It’s dinner time, I gotta go!” I was out of there, stumbling down the steps, pedaling my Sting Ray like a madman down the street, looking back over my shoulder for the mother who just might give chase! I was of such weak character in those days, I never returned.

As the years went past, both Susan and I all but disappeared into social irrelevance. On the other hand, Kathy became a cheerleader who dated the starting quarterback on the high school football team. Based on rumors, she apparently loosened up quite a bit. This quarterback fellow often boasted to us in gym class that Kathy was performing fellatio for him on a regular basis.

If this was true, in retrospect, I think maybe I should have hung in there a bit longer with Kathy.

Intermission

Sodomy
Fellatio
Cunnilingus
Pederasty

Father, why do these words sound so nasty?

Masturbation
Can be fun
Join the holy orgy
Kama Sutra
Everyone!

- From the Rock Opera, “Hair”


Act III

With a Swisher Sweet Little Cigar dangling from my lips, I unzipped my Levis, and urinated behind a bush. The powerful black bull lay beside the barb wired fence, surrounded by flies and cow flops. I looked closely, ascertaining that his testicles really do look like apples in a loose skin sack, as I claim in a recent poem I penned. My conclusion? Close enough.

I spent New Year’s Day fly-fishing for hatchery trout on the Mitchell River, trying to conjure some hope for the upcoming year. “To be or not to be,” is sometimes the question.

“Pretty impressive, hey Ferdinand?

Ferdinand displayed only indifference, never pausing in his side-to-side chewing.

I thought about Harry, a desperate and painfully horny lad who actually had sexual intercourse with a cow, which I describe in an earlier journal entry.

A couple of cows stared at me.

“I have been admiring your form, Miss Bessie, and I feel a stirring in my loins.”

I didn’t really. The cows and I were sharing a joke. I don’t believe either of us had any real desire to fornicate outside of our species, and I don’t compare favorably to old Ferdinand. But the bizarre behavior of my fellow humans does fascinate me. Don’t ask me why. My brain just keeps going back to it, like a tongue that keeps probing a mouth sore.

They stared and stared. What could they have been thinking? Perhaps they mistook me for the hay man. In modesty, I turned away, pointing my little pecker toward the river.

On New Year’s Day of 2004, I exposed myself to cattle. What a nice memory to carry in my remaining years.

And I still must say this; I likes the bottoms, those curious folds and puckers. Yes, yes. How strange and curious, these human desires…

As for this evening, I believe Billy (Idol) said it best. Take me home, Billy:

Oh dancing with myself
Oh dancing with myself
Well there's nothing to lose
And there's nothing to prove
I'll be dancing with myself …


I am listening to Tiny Tim

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Horny Boy
02/25/2005 12:35 a.m.
Since women think of us all as horny boys, I don’t know if women are able to make subtle distinctions. But the men know. There are degrees. What follows is a cautionary tale. Additionally, it is true.


When I worked as Business Manager for the Gazette Leader during the eighties, I co-worked with a bun-haired clerical woman named Dora. At the time, she was a matronly 60 year old and I was in my late twenties, so she had what might be considered a motherly fondness for me. I liked her as well, though it was in that somewhat polite and spaced way that often occurs when friendships cross generations.

Whenever Dora left work for the day, she always flipped her hand and said “Cheerio, all,” and when I made an off color joke, as is my habit, she shook her head and chuckled, “David, honest to goodness, you are a pip!” To which I would accuse her of calling me a “pimp.”

Every couple of months, she would suggest that we go to lunch at a nearby diner as a “treat.” Dora’s husband had died a few years back, and she now lived on a wage that hovered barely above the minimum (I did the payroll). Her husband had left her next to nothing, so Dora was forced to live quietly and humbly in a room at her uncle’s home.

I always remember the week that the uncle asked her to leave. Dora walked around work like a blank faced zombie. Fortunately, a cousin finally agreed to take her in. (Just for the record, I was conscious of the feeling that I might need to offer her a room, but I was holding out to the very last.)

Dora had a son named Eric, who I met through her.

Eric worked as an apprentice for a heating and cooling company in Sea Isle City. Each day, he commuted thirty miles northward up the coast in his 1962 Ford Falcon. With its faded black paint, polka dot rust spots, and misfiring engine, this car was a head turner. Due to the Falcon’s unreliability, Eric was always in danger of losing his job because of high absenteeism.

Alas, it now needed a new fuel pump, and the nearest distributor was just inland from Atlantic City, some forty-five minutes away. I agreed to drive him there the very next Saturday in that chilly March of 85.

Eric, a stout and horse faced fellow, was not particularly striking, but we were able to comfortably pass time discussing Philadelphia sports teams and rock bands, though our tastes in the latter were decidedly different. After picking up the car part, we still had an afternoon before us.

“Say, I know this great topless club in Philly. Primo babes!” he suggested.

During my college years, I had attended topless clubs; perhaps a half dozen times. In those days, I ran with a group of guys, so I often traveled in the wake of the majority. I had no real qualms about anything, so long as it did not violate my moral code. I will say this: Whenever I was in one of those clubs, I always felt sorry for everyone there.

Philly was too far, so I declined, but I am an agreeable fellow. When Eric suggested a nearby though lesser club that he knew of, I shrugged and said, “Sure.”

The club turned out to be more of a dark and dank neighborhood bar, but there were two alternating topless dancers, though they were droopy with marshmallow bellies, a bit past their less than “primo” prime. Excluding Eric and I, there were three other sad-eyed patrons.

While one dancer flounced on the tiny platform that elevated her above eye-level, the other dancer called out in a slurred, smoky, playfully kidding voice, “Your cunt is stretched wider than the Grand Canyon!”

Eric truly loved it there, as evidenced by his drinking eyes, and a grin broad as a billboard.

After an hour, I had seen enough. It took several insistent “Let’s goes,” to pry Eric from his perch.

Several months would pass before I linked with Eric again. It was now summer, and an aging and locally famous comedian was to appear at The Wharf, a club at the northern tip of Wildwood. Many employees from the Gazette Leader would be there, as would I. Though I no longer recall how it came to be, I gave Eric a ride to this event.

During the evening I learned that Eric had lost the apprenticeship. The old Falcon just couldn’t cut it, so he was now unemployed.

We sat through the hack comedian with the generic brand of humor, which fully explained his limit to “local” fame. After the show, we sat at the bar with two ladies from the newspaper.

Ellen, who was sleek, sleazy, and known to be loose, was editor of the entertainment guide we published during summer months. Shelly was an emotionally needy ad salesperson, and Ellen’s roommate. While I didn’t dislike them, I can’t say I ever enjoyed their company.

They invited Eric and I back to their place to watch television. I politely declined.

“Man, this is an opportunity. You sure you don’t wanna’ go?” he incredulously asked.

Eric went home with the two ladies. I simply went home.

Though I never heard of the outcome, that is, whether or not Eric enjoyed the sexual relations he so clearly desired, the fact that I never heard makes it clear enough. The invitation to “watch television” was that, and nothing more.

A year had passed, and it was the summer of 86. I felt trapped in Cape May County and the limited tourist town opportunity it provided. By autumn, I would be gone. By way of his mother, Dora, I learned that Eric now had a lady friend, Lisa. The events of her life had been somewhat unfortunate. She worked as a waitress to support her three small boys, each conceived with a different man. I guess one might say she was a very fertile girl.

In early September, with the tourist season waning, I was parked on the road’s shoulder, gazing across the dirty Delaware Bay, as was my habit. A primer gray Chevrolet Wagon pulled alongside and tooted the horn.

Behind the wheel, Eric beamed with the contentment of a king (I don't believe he knew , yet.). Lisa was at his side, drained, sickly, white and sad faced. In the back seats were three small jelly faced boys staring blankly at me. We rolled the windows down in our respective vehicles, exchanged a few tid-bits (I leaned he remained unemployed) but soon the traffic backed behind Eric, so he drove away with a wave.

In October, Dora again wore the blank face of a zombie. Recognizing the look from her earlier crisis, I asked if anything was wrong.

“Lisa is pregnant.” She shook her head in the slowest and saddest way of a mother. “They don’t plan to marry.”



Horny Boy, Horny Boy, what have you done?

As for the rest of us, are there lessons to be learned from the lives of Dora and Eric?

Yes. Yes there are.






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