People I Met Out There: The Jolly German

Sure it’s forty-plus years too late, but I finally purchased my first copy of the Beach Boys’ classic album Pet Sounds. This record, which was both inspired by the Beatles’ Rubber Soul and inspired the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper, has found its way to the very top of more than one Greatest Albums of All Time list.

After two quick listens I’m still not sure why, but that’s not what brings Pet Sounds to mind tonight. It’s the song Sloop John B, which is covered on the album, and more specifically the line, “This is the worst trip I’ve ever been on.” Once again we’re back in Africa, but it’s not me who’s forlornly singing the above line, but rather the Jolly German.

I liked the Jolly German. He was like a lot of Germans, with their ruddy-faced men and bouncy bosomed women. They always seem so happy, sloshing around holding giant steins of beer, belting out loud drinking songs and grinding up the nearest living thing in order to create yet another kind of sausage. You get so caught up in their festive gaiety that you don’t even mind it when they come stomping across your border. Until it’s too late.

I met the Jolly German in the bush country in Kenya on a three-day camping tour. He was traveling alone and I was traveling alone and so we were assigned to be tent-mates. The tour took us to Lake Bogorio. You’ve probably seen photos of this famous lake which from a distance seems to be outlined in a pink highlighter. On closer inspection you find that the pink line is in fact hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions, of flamingos. I still have a pink and white feather from there.

I liked the Jolly German partly because he seemed to carry with him an aura of undiminished woe and yet maintained the highest of spirits. But mostly I liked him because he laughed at my jokes. He spoke a broken but passable English and I a high-school level and therefore non-existent German. We walked together out to the rim of the lake, hoping to get closer to the flamingos for that all-important photograph. At least that’s what I was hoping for; I don’t think the Jolly German had even brought a camera.

What he had brought on his visit to Africa was his girlfriend, a girlfriend who somehow in just a few days had managed to contract malaria and so, sick and defeated, had gone crawling back to the Fatherland. The Jolly German decided to stick it out. As we approached the flamingos we talked, and he explained that he had spent every last penny, or pfennig I suppose, on this tour that we were now on. When it ended he would be unceremoniously deposited on the streets of Nairobi, broke and woman-less.

And yet he was still laughing. With somewhat of a language barrier I wasn’t able to launch into any of my comedic routines that were particularly deep or complicated. In truth, I probably don’t have any routines that are deep or complicated. But with the Jolly German I didn’t need any. As we walked towards the feather-covered waters of Lake Borgorio I periodically stopped and looked at the bottom of my sneaker and shook my head.

“I don’t know why I’m paying all this money and traveling so far just to walk in flamingo shit,” I said.

I didn’t just say it once and why should I? Every time I mentioned flamingo shit the Jolly German laughed. I varied the delivery a bit and, like playing peek-a-boo with a toddler, it made him laugh every time. Even hours later after we were tucked away in our tent for the evening one of the last things he said before nodding off was, “Ja, at least we saw all that flamingo shit.”

When the tour ended and it was time to say good-bye to my merry Teutonic pal I felt a little guilty. I wasn’t exactly traveling first class (I had, after all, just spent the night in a moldy old tent with a poverty-stricken German) but I just couldn’t leave him in Nairobi with nothing. He had, after all, laughed at my jokes. I opened my wallet and handed him two hundred Kenya shillings, for which he appeared thankful. I’d like to end here but I feel obligated to tell you that the amount was the equivalent of about eight bucks, and so while I felt good that I had given him something I still felt cheap for not giving him more.

Ah well, I thought, he must bare at least some of the responsibility for the situation he’s in. After all, it didn’t seem as if he’d planned his trip all that well, malaria or no malaria. I thought Germans were supposed to be experts at that sort of thing? Occasionally I still wonder how he made out, and if somewhere in Germany there is a rotund middle-aged Jolly German laughing himself red in the face as he tells his family of his long ago trip to African, and about the American he met who said such funny things about all that flamingo shit.

People I Met Out There: The Shutterbugs

It’s only a short ten-mile ferry ride between the islands of Tahiti and Moorea, but the crossing can be rougher than you might imagine. It is, after all, open ocean. I’ve only made the trip twice; once it was very calm and once it wasn’t.

In a way I’ll always be disappointed that I didn’t meet the Shutterbugs a few years earlier. I would have loved to see them at the peak of their goofiness. As it was they were still an oddity when our paths crossed on that choppy ferry ride but, as is the case with many of the world’s oddities, modern technology had already come along to smooth out some of their rougher, goofier, edges.

Mr. Shutterbug was just that, a camera enthusiast. Well I’ve traveled a bit and it’s hard to find people who don’t capture images to take home to someday goose their memories in the years to come. Hell, I have a wall full of pictures that I’ve taken. But I’ve never met a photographer like Mr. Shutterbug. A more generous person might call him “detail-oriented” or even “clinical.” I myself wouldn’t waste so many letters: I’d call him “anal.”

Out on the deck of the ferry Mr. Shutterbug would periodically take his camera out of its bag, remove the lens cap, wait for a relatively smooth couple of seconds and snap a picture of the jagged emerald peaks or turquoise water that still rush to my mind whenever I’m about to say something as foolish as, “Northern California is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”

Mrs. Shutterbug was never more than a pace or two behind, loaded down with an assortment of cases and bags which no doubt contained all of her husband’s camera gear. She followed so quietly and in such a subservient manner that she reminded me of some nervous 19th Century Chinese houseboy hired to serve a mighty magistrate of the British Empire, and if that image is somehow offensive I apologize. I’ll try to have my brain think more correctly in the future.

So far we have a tourist taking photos in the most beautiful place on Earth while using his wife as a pack-mule. No big deal, I know. But here’s where the Shutterbugs got interesting although, alas, not as interesting as they used to be. After every click of his camera Mrs. Shutterbug would hand her husband a hand-held tape recorder into which he would clearly state the number of the picture he just had taken, the date, the time, his location, what he had just taken a picture of, and perhaps a few comments. For example, he might say, “Photo Number 37--May 15th, 1997—Ten thirty a.m.—We’re on a ferry between the port of Papeete and the island of Moorea--These are mountain peaks on the island of Tahiti—Weather is warm and clear—ocean is rough.”

It was obvious that Mr. Shutterbug was lost in his own photographic world, so I began a conversation with his over-laden wife. I no longer remember in what clever way I approached the subject but the gist of my conversation led to the question, in essence if not literally, “What the hell is he doing?” I don’t know if I understood then, and I certainly don’t remember now, exactly why Mr. Shutterbug was verbally cataloguing every vacation picture he took. I was feeling sorry for poor Mrs. Shutterbug, until she explained how much happier she had recently become. She explained that her husband’s behavior used to be much more of a burden for her—that is until she was wise enough to buy him that tape recorder.

You see, before then Mr. Shutterbug used to dictate this important information to Mrs. Shutterbug, who was required to stand within earshot with pen in hand and scribble down all of this nonsense onto a notepad. I suspect one day she reached a limit and was forced to choose between buying him the recorder or shoving the asshole into the Grand Canyon. She probably made the right choice and so now, while she still had to lug all the equipment while the artist was at work, this new system was to her like a day at the beach. And all the better if that beach happened to be in Tahiti.

After hearing her tale I myself was feeling mixed emotions. I was certainly happy for Mrs. Shutterbug’s new-found freedom, and maybe even for Mr. Shutterbugs survival, but I was also, selfishly, a little sad that I wasn’t around when the Shutterbugs didn't have that little tape recorder and were in all their goofy glory. Now that would have been something to see.

People I Met Out There: Marin Lady

If you travel, and even if you don’t, you’re sure to meet hundreds of people along life’s twisted pathway. Somewhere between life-long friends and complete strangers lies a category made up of people whose names you don’t remember, or never knew, and yet who remain embedded in your memory for your entire life. Here are a few who remain in mine:

MARIN LADY

I was reminded of Marin Lady today as I read an article about how Kenya is becoming a popular vacation destination for middle-aged women. Once there they pair up with a young man who is often twenty or more years younger than themselves, wine and dine him, buy him a few presents and then get laid. These women are not looking for a husband or even a relationship; they’re looking for sex. And they generally find it. In the article one woman points out that if an older man takes a young girl out to dinner, buys her a present and then has sex with her nobody cares much about it. Why can’t these women do the same? Why, indeed.

There were about six tourists in the van, which was parked outside the headquarters of the Nairobi National Park. We were waiting for our driver to return to begin the tour. I was seated in the second row of the van, along with Marin Lady and a tall young Kenyan. Marin Lady was an older woman to me then but was younger than I am now. Let’s say she was about forty-five. The Kenyan was about fifteen years her junior. As we waited I looked down and noticed that they were holding hands, her small white one almost completely enveloped by his long-fingered black one. “What’s this?” I thought to myself, but it was only rhetorically. It was painfully obvious to everyone in the van what this was.

But that’s not why I remember Marin Lady, who actually was from Marin. I remember her for being so impatient, so rude, so…American. After we had sat for a few minutes she leaned over her companion and yelled out the window, “Why have we stopped here?” A park employee walked over to her and politely informed her in broken but melodious English that they had to count the number of people in the van.

“Count the people?” she barked. “How long does that take? One-two-three-four-five-six! There--I counted them. Let’s go!”

And a short time later we did. The tour lasted only two hours; Nairobi N.P. is not one of the great African parks for viewing wildlife. It’s more something to do on your first day in Kenya, a first taste before you begin to explore the “real” parks. I don’t remember what I saw in the park that day; I don’t think there was anything more dramatic than zebras, impalas and maybe a wildebeest. There certainly weren’t any lions or elephants. What I do remember about the short tour is that rude lady. Her poor behavior had embarrassed me and I’m sure every other tourist on the van, including her Kenyan companion. The main difference, of course, is that he was getting paid to put up with it. And I wasn’t.



TOMORROW: THE SHUTTERBUGS

# 600

And hooray for me. So here we are at yet another of these artificial milestones. But to be honest there is only one reason that I seem to sound so impressed with myself each time we roll around to another one hundred completed posts. And that’s because I truly am impressed with myself.

I spent years marveling at writers who seemed to churn out endless streams of words while my own literary production dribbled out as if from a ninety year old man with a prostate condition. I couldn’t figure out how they did it. And then one day I just started writing on a daily basis and before I knew it I had written the equivalent word count of Moby-Dick. And then two Moby-Dick’s. And so, as Richard Gere said to the doctor, I didn’t know I had it in me.

But enough of this hollow self congratulations and sappy “and you can do it too” swill. I’ve already said all that in posts #100, 200, 300, 400 and 500. And besides, you probably can’t do it, too.

Ah but apparently I can, so let’s move ahead. How about if we celebrate tonight’s remarkable achievement by opening up the old mailbag and answering some of the questions that I know have kept you awake night after night. What fun, eh?

Q. What was your favorite post? –Titus A. Drum
A. It’s so hard to say. They are all like my children, and picking a favorite is blah, blah, blah. Doesn’t that kind of crap make you want to puke? Still, I think my review of the imaginary Beatles reunion concert is way up there, and since it got picked up by another website it comes with the validation that I so obviously and desperately crave. (Check it out: http://leonardstegmann.blogspot.com/2006/03/reunion-concert-review.html)

Q. What was your least favorite post? –Candice B. DePlace
A. All the others.

Q. Do you think you’ll write another 600 posts? –Dewey Hafta
A. Fuck no.

Q. Where is your third book? –Duane Pipe
A. Hell if I know. It was way back in March that I told Peach Pit that I hoped to have the book out by Christmas. At the time it seemed absurd that I wouldn’t. So did you have a nice Thanksgiving?

Q. What do you get when you cross an elephant and a rhinoceros? –Carrie R. Baggs
A. Elephino!

Q. Do you ever run out of things to say? –Tim Buck II
A.

Q. Hey, are you just making these questions up? –Kareem O’Wheet
A. No, of course not.

Q. Then how could people write in about your 600th post before you even wrote it? –Helen A. Handbasket
A. I don’t know. Go away. Leave me alone.

Q. Did you know that Drudge gets more hits in two minutes than you’ve gotten in two years? –Pete Zahut
A. No I didn’t. And thank you so very much.

A Thanksgiving Turkey Quiz

Well sure, it’s late and the night before a holiday so I could just blow this thing off for tonight and reprint last’s year’s oh-so-clever turkey poem. But that wouldn’t be right, would it? I know that so many of you (despite what my hit counter tells me) look forward to a delightful new bit of entertainment every single day. And so what better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than with a fun quiz about everybody’s favorite holiday bird: the turkey. Let’s begin!

1. About how many feathers does a mature turkey have?
a. 1,500
b. 2,500
c. 3,500
d. over 5,000

2. Approximately what percentage of American homes eat turkey on Thanksgiving?
a. 60%
b. 70%
c. 80%
d. 90%

3. What sound does a female turkey make?
a. Gobble
b. Peep
c. Click
d. You never take me anywhere!

4. How fast can wild turkeys fly?
a. 35 mph
b. 55 mph
c. 75 mph
d. 186,000 mps

5. How much did the biggest turkey known to man weigh?
a. 86 pounds
b. 116 pounds
c. 147 pounds
d. I dunno. Let’s check the scale in the White House

6. What is that disgusting red thing that hangs over a turkey’s beak?
a. A Wattle
b. A Snood
c. A Nostrum
d. A Flange

7. What color are turkey eggs?
a. White
b. Pale Green
c. Tan with Brown Specks
d. Turkeys don’t lay eggs

8. What is a baby turkey called?
a. A Tom
b. A Chick
c. A Poult
d. A Snack

9. What is that other disgusting red thing that hangs down under a turkey’s beak called?
a. A Wattle
b. A Snood
c. A Beard
d. A Flange

10. What is a better way to spend your Thanksgiving than taking a dumb-ass quiz?
a. Eating more turkey
b. Eating more cranberry sauce
c. Eating more pumpkin pie
d. All of the above


ANSWERS:

1. A mature turkey has about 3,500 feathers. (An immature turkey should not be given the keys to the family car.)
2. About 90% of American homes eat turkey on Thanksgiving. Well not the homes, actually, but the people inside.
3. A female turkey CLICKS.
4. A wild turkey is one of the fastest of birds. It can fly up to 55 MPH and run 25 mph! (And yet so many of them end up on our tables.)
5. The largest known turkey weighed 86 POUNDS. He was raised in the U.K. and was the size of a large German Shepherd.
6. I knew it is called a SNOOD. Did yood?
7. Turkey eggs are TAN WITH BROWN SPECKLES. And did you really choose “D” ?
8. A baby turkey is called a POULT. That is when he’s called at all.
9. That thing hanging down on all turkeys and most senators is called a WATTLE.
10. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Can Jesus Fly?

I could never understand the friendship between songwriters Willie Nelson and Toby Keith. Nelson is a strong opponent of the war in Iraq while Keith is the author of Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue, perhaps the most offensive song I’ve heard in my lifetime. Not only could I not imagine two people with such polar opposite opinions being amicable, I couldn’t even understand how they could stand to be in the same room. Or, more specifically, I couldn’t understand why Nelson would ever want to be in the same room as Keith.

I have several acquaintances who have supported Bush and his war right from the beginning, and I’m sure they continue to do so today. I can’t be positive about this, however, because I’ve let them sort of drop by the wayside over the last four years. And it’s a not a question of me being stubborn or intolerant; I simply have lost respect for some of these people and, although I’ll always like them and remember the good times, I can never look at them in quite the same way again. It’s not a choice I’m making, it’s simply how I feel.

Another friend, let’s call him Mr. X, has also supported the war from Day 1 and has even referred to Bush as “a great man,” if you can imagine. And yet he remains one of my closest friends of the last twenty years. Don’t get me wrong, I’m repelled by his opinions and have no respect for anyone who agrees with them. Hell, I’m getting to the point where I don’t even respect his right to those opinions. So maybe intolerance is a factor in all of this after all.

Perhaps part of the reason the friendship has remained afloat, and even thrived, is due to our ability to tease and insult each other’s opinions unmercifully. This is almost always done over the phone, and on more than one occasion a third party has heard part of a conversation and been shocked; this is how you guys talk to each other?

Sure it is. And when I get tired of his dopey opinions on Iraq I begin to mock his religious beliefs. We had such a telephone conversation yesterday and I’ll try to give you a taste of it to the best of my memory:

ME (switching subjects): So could Jesus walk on water?
MR. X: Of course he could, it’s in the Bible.
ME: So you believe that some carpenter who lived two thousand years ago could walk on water?
MR. X: Yes.
ME: Could Jesus turn water into wine?
MR. X: If it says it in the Bible, then yes.
ME: And he brought people back from the dead?
MR. X: Of course he did.
ME: Because it says so in the Bible?
MR. X: Yes.
ME: Did Thor throw thunderbolts?
MR. X: Don’t be silly.
ME: So Norse mythology is fake but Christian mythology is real?
MR. X: It’s not mythology if it’s in the Bible.
ME: Can Jesus fly?
MR. X (hesitating): Uh, he can…float.
ME: You mean he can ascend?
MR. X: Yes, that’s it. Thank you.
ME: Can he descend?
MR. X: Yes.
ME: Can Jesus fly horizontally?

It was at this point that we both broke up in gales of shared laughter. I felt I had exposed the absurdity of his beliefs and he felt I was a heathen who would sooner or later be roasting in Hell, and deservedly so. Yet we laughed as friends and continued to have a very good time, as we have for over two decades. And for the first time I began to understand how Willie Nelson and Toby Keith could manage to be friends.

Oh, What a Night!

I still remember the little room, the little television and the little night stand on which it was perched. It seems nearly impossible to believe now, but it was through this tiny black and white TV that I watched the greatest television line-up of all time. And without, I might add, the benefit of cable or a satellite!

When you think of the classic comedy shows of the 1970’s, assuming you do, what programs come to mind? All in the Family? M*A*S*H*? Of course. And how about The Mary Tyler Moore Show? Without a doubt.

Well for one golden moment in time these three classic programs, along with two others, all aired on the same night. Yes, right in a row. The year was 1973, the network was CBS and the night was Saturday. And though I clearly remember my little off-campus room and the miniscule green plastic TV, I didn’t trust myself to correctly list the five programs that made up my Saturday night viewing. It’s not that I couldn’t rely on my memory, but the line-up I came up with just didn’t seem possible. How could all those brilliant shows have been shown on the same night, on the same network and right in a row?

And yet a check on the Internet confirmed that it was true. At eight o’clock on Saturday night you would always find me watching the history-making All in the Family. This was followed by another of the most popular comedies of all time, M*A*S*H*. Right there, with those two shows, you have arguably the greatest one-two punch in comedy history. But don’t touch that dial!

If you were all laughed out by the time M*A*S*H* ended, well too bad for you. Because at nine o’clock The Mary Tyler Moore Show came on, with it’s unforgettable cast of characters that included Lou Grant, Rhoda, Phyllis (all future spin-offs) as well as Murray, Sue Ann and of course the legendary Ted Baxter. But wait, there’s more!

For no sooner had this classic show ended then you were busting a gut over the antics of Bob, Emily, Howard Borden and the delightful assortment of mixed nuts that made up Bob’s patients on The Bob Newhart Show. And there you have your perfect Saturday night…two hours of some of the of the funniest television ever made. And just as you needed a break to catch your breath—wham! It was time for a full hour of The Carol Burnett Show!

Here then was a night of television viewing that seems only mythical now. What is your favorite night to watch TV? Why? Because it has your favorite TV show, or perhaps two of them? Well on Saturday nights in 1973 I could sit down and watch five of my favorite TV shows…one right after the other. It was a television comedy orgy the like of which I will without a doubt never experince again. And for two reasons.

First, these days when a network has a popular program it will schedule it as a lead-in for another show it wants to promote. Today those five classic shows would probably be spread out over four or five nights in the hopes of giving a boost to other, more mediocre, programs.

And second, when The Carol Burnett Show ended at eleven o’clock this was my signal to get dressed, brush my teeth and head downtown for my regular college student drunken weekend festivities. And while today I might still turn off the TV at eleven o’clock and brush my teeth, the only thing I’ll be breathing heavily on at that hour with my sweet Colgate breath is my pillow.

Just Who the Hell is Maria Eugenia Hernandez?

The mailman must have knocked on the door while I was taking a shower. I do take them, you know. And so when I picked up my mail a short time later I found the dreaded green card telling me that an attempt had been made to deliver something, but since I hadn’t seen fit to answer the door well, tough toenails. So now if I wanted my piece of mail I’d have to drag my ass down to the P.O. and pick it up myself. Tomorrow.

Damn. I can’t wait until tomorrow. I want to know what it is now! A scan of the green card offered few clues, but it did say that the item was a certified letter and that it had been sent by someone named Maria Eugenia Hernandez. Now just who the hell is Maria Eugenia Hernandez? And what was she sending me that was so damned important that it couldn’t be delivered without my signature? And why can’t I have it now!

Coincidentally, I had only two weeks earlier sent off a certified letter of my own requesting payment from some deadbeat client. I had since gotten paid, but did this certified letter contain information on some form of retribution? Had my client decided to turn the tables on me and manufacture some bogus counter-suit? For what? What did I ever do to you? Are you going to take away my house? My car? My *gasp* turtle?

No, it’s that damn blog, I bet. I said the wrong thing about the wrong person and now I’ve got a million dollar libel suit on my hands. (Or is it “slander”? Which one is the writing one again?) Think, who did I insult? What did I say? Can a sitting president sue someone for libel if the writer only insults him about, say, five thousand times?

No, that can’t be it. I know, to the Internet! Let’s see if we can find out exactly who this Maria Eugenia Hernandez is when she’s at home. Wow. Who would have thought that it would be such a common name? I mean, I would expect to find many women named Maria Hernandez, but I had felt sure that Eugenia would really narrow the field.

Holy cow, there’s a Maria Eugenia Hernandez listed on IMDB! She’s an actress who has appeared in a total of one film, an Argentinean number made in 2006 called Demasiada (pocas) cosas, which means…how the hell should I know? Hey, if she was in only one film it might be because she is very young. So let’s see, what could a hot young actress from Argentina be sending me? May she got a hold of one of my books (as can you, at http://www.LeonardStegmann.com/) and she was so impressed she wanted to write to me. Yeah, that’s it. And she’s coming to California for just a day but she would love it I would visit her in her swanky room at the Ritz Carlton so we can…whoa, Boy, slow down. Frankly it’s probably more likely that I’m being sued by Bush.

Another website provided me with a little data, but not really much to go on. There’s a Maria Eugenia Hernandez (I grow weary of typing that name so I’m using cut and paste now.) in Argentina who was born on July 24, 1975. Maybe it’s her? She’d be perfect for me, seeing how she was born six weeks after I graduated college. Then again, this could very well be the same Maria Eugenia Hernandez (thank you, cut and paste) who is on IMDB. Oh, and her father’s name is Javier and her mother’s name is Ana, which is good to know.

Hang on, hang on. Wikipedia tells me that there was a Maria Eugenia Hernandez who competed in the 2003 Miss Venezuela contest! Now we’re getting somewhere. She entered as Miss Peninsula de Araya, wherever/whatever the hell that is, and despite there being eleven awards in addition to the Miss Venezuela crown (Best Face, Best Skin, Best Hair…) our Maria Eugenia Hernandez did no better than to place in the top twenty. Still, I couldn’t help but fantasize about why this loser would be writing to me. Still she is, after all, a Venezuelan firecracker who finished twentieth in a beauty pageant.

Hokey smoke, Bullwinkle, there is yet another Maria Eugenia Hernandez who lives in Madrid. I found her on LinkedIn, and she’s in finance. Uh-oh. The clouds are beginning to form. Did some over-achieving senorita go through all the trouble of sending a letter across the Atlantic just to get me to buy some Balearic Islands time-share? Now that would be a letdown—but better than getting sued, eh what?

It seemed to take the clerk forever to find my letter, but when he did my heart began to beat faster. This wasn’t some piece of junk mail that I would toss in the trash three seconds after I opened it. No, this was a bona-fide letter from far away. It was a white envelope with blue stripes and Por Avion printed on it, and it boasted an impressive and colorful collection of stamps and stickers, including one that demanded: Decile No Al Dengue! Well, certainly not--I would never. And it was from Uruguay.

I felt the thrill that I hadn’t felt since fifth grade when, for a few short months I had a pen-pal in London. (I wonder what that girl is doing now? Maybe entering the Miss Venezuela Beauty Pageant? Nah…) I began to open the envelope and became even more excited. Although it was taped between two pieces of cardboard, I could already tell that it was a picture. But a picture of what?

Who the hell was Maria Eugenia Hernandez and why was she sending me a picture? Oh God, was she some Uruguayan tourist who had visited here and taken a picture of me at the nudie beach? And now she was going to threaten to post the shot on the Internet unless I sent her a check? Go ahead, Maria Eugenia Hernandez, do your worst! But not a cent nor peso will you receive from me!

Or perhaps this was some glossy notification from the Uruguay Lottery Commission telling me I had won the grand prize. But had I bought a ticket? I don’t remember ever doing that. Think, dammit, think. Or maybe, just maybe it’s a racy boudoir shot of that hot Greek girl I met on Santorini six years ago and was never able to track down. But Maria Eugenia Hernandez isn’t really a Greek name, is it? IS IT?

And so I snapped the tape and opened the two pieces of cardboard. Oh yeah--a 1924 postcard of Calle Stegmann in Argentina. I forgot I had ordered that. I slipped it into my pocket and drove home.

The Fifth Floor Girls: Rhonda

Rhonda had red hair and she wore it long, straight and parted in the middle--hippie-style, of course. She wasn’t much over five feet tall, was neither slim nor fat and sometimes wore a pair of tan “painter’s” pants. She had the pale white skin of most redheads and a cute round face that beamed like the sun breaking through when she smiled. And, like all of the Fifth Floor Girls, she had a delightful sense of humor.

It was morning and I was sitting in the dining hall with several of the Fifth Floor Girls, a not-uncommon occurrence, as you have probably deduced by now. We were enjoying our breakfast and talking when a hung-over Rhonda strolled in, sat down and joined in. We were a pretty tight group and it was obvious that Rhonda had been out all night, although she swore that she couldn’t remember where she had spent the night, or anything else for that matter.

After much teasing and cajoling we all became convinced that Rhonda truly had no recollection about where she had been the previous night. As the conversation veered from her to other topics Rhonda leaned back, crossed her arms and listened to the chatter. Suddenly her eyes opened wide in shock and a smile appeared on her surprised face.

“Rhonda, what’s wrong?” one of the girls asked.
“Last night when I went out…”
“Yeah…?”
“I was wearing a bra!”

Well, we never did learn how Rhonda had spent her night, and I suspect she didn’t either. A few minutes later Rhonda suddenly got up from the table and headed over to one of the nearby dorms. See, she must have had at least some recollection of the previous night’s activities because when she walked into the lobby she saw her bra on display; unceremoniously thumb-tacked to one of the dorm’s very public bulletin boards. I’m sure her face was as red as her hair when she snatched the wayward undergarment, hurriedly stuffed it into her purse and hustled out the door and back to her room.

So the story does have somewhat of a happy ending. After all, Rhonda may not have ever figured out what she did that night but she did get her bra back. And that’s good because brassieres can be rather a rather expensive item for a poor young student, especially if she wears the under-wire kind. And just how do I know what sort of bra Rhonda wore? Ah, my friends, it’s getting late and that’s a story for another day.

The Fifth Floor Girls: Christine

I know it’s almost impossible to believe, but Christine didn’t much care for me. Sure we had our moments of palling around and making jokes, but there are three or four incidents that are forever attached to my memory that occasionally surface to remind me that Christine...didn’t much care for me.

Christine was perhaps the prettiest of the Fifth Floor Girls. She reminded me of Cybill Shepard, who was also young at that time. I had pictures of her covering my dorm room door (Cybill that is, not Christine.) including one black and white nude from The Last Picture Show. I recently had an opportunity to see a photo of Cybill taken during her modeling days, and perhaps I exaggerated Christine’s looks a bit. She was cute, to be sure, but Cybill Shepard? Well, they did both part their hair on the side during an era when all the other girls had long, parted-in-the-middle hippie hair.

I’m only going to relate one of the incidents that took place between me and Christine. I can think of at least four, but I’m afraid if I reveal them you’d see that she was right, and then you wouldn’t much care for me either. As it is this one story alone just might do the trick. Be kind.

I was sitting in the dining hall, talking casually with three or four of the Fifth Floor Girls. I don’t remember the topic, but as I was listening I had unconsciously picked up a packet of sugar and was using the edge of it to clean my fingernails. A short time later after, I assume, all ten nails were clean I, again unconsciously, put the packet back into the bowl on the table.

A few months ago at the public pool where I swim a man spit on the deck. Suddenly one of the women swimmers was all over him, telling him in no uncertain terms how disgusting it was that he had spit where the rest of us had to walk, and barefoot at that. The man was obviously caught off-guard by the verbal attack and offered a weak defense: I forgot where I was. Yeah right, I thought. I had no sympathy for the man; that is until I remembered my long ago incident with Christine.

Sure, what I did in that dining hall was nothing short of disgusting. And if I hadn’t realized what I was doing, Christine was quick to remind me. “That’s disgusting!” she announced to the entire table. “He just cleaned his fingernails with that sugar packet and then put it back in the bowl for somebody to use!” And if I had any doubt about the revulsion that was coming out of her mouth I had only to look into her angry eyes for confirmation.

As I mentioned, I endured three or four incidents of this type with Christine, although to be fair none of my other “crimes” were quite so repellant. I don’t recall for certain, but it was most likely this event that extinguished any crush I had on Christine once and for all. The truth is that my vile display could have just as easily been witnessed by any of the other Fifth Floor Girls, and possibly was. But they were my friends and never would have embarrassed me in public.

The Fifth Floor Girls: Allison

We didn’t yet have words like “ditzy” and “space cadet” back then, but if we had we might very well have used them to describe Allison. And if we had we would have been wrong. Allison came across as scattered, confused and not particularly bright but, like the young Goldie Hawn, she knew exactly what she was doing. Allison was no fool.

Not that Allison’s personality was a put-on. In addition to her innocence and kindness there was a naive sort of goofiness there. Something about her was slightly askew, she knew it and she was an expert at using it to make us laugh. Whether she was using one of her catch phrases like, “Ooooh, please?” and “Say okay, okay?” or simply relating a story about a recent experience Allison could brighten up a room in five minutes.

Allison once told a group of us about something that happened to her. She had been hitchhiking (it was, after all, a different time) and a middle-aged man had picked her up. They began to talk and I’ll let Allison take it from here:

“So he asked me if I like ‘cops’ and I said yes, but he didn’t say ‘cops’ and you can imagine what he really said and then I looked over and he had taken it out of his pants and so I told him to stop the car right now and I jumped out and ran away.”

A story on the printed page about some pervert exposing himself is not particular funny. It’s sad and scary. And yet if you had heard Allison tell it you would have been rolling on the floor. She had a knack for telling this obscene story in manner that seemed as innocent as if she was describing her cute new puppy. And that made it all the more funny, and she knew it.

Another time I was hanging out with several of the Fifth Floor Girls in their suite when Allison came into the room. She had just apologized to her radiator and wanted to share it with the group.

She had been studying in her room when she heard a noise. She had assumed that the noise had come from the radiator and so she gave it a quick smack. A few seconds later she heard the noise again, realized it had actually come from the lamp and so she turned to the radiator and said, “Sorry.” And then she came bouncing in, wide-eyed with surprise, to tell us all about it. And we all laughed, just as she knew we would.

My crush on Allison was extremely short-lived. I would estimate that it lasted no more than thirty minutes. It was St. Patrick’s Day and we had been drinking, but only to excess. We were both well beyond drunk but that hadn’t stopped us from making plans to return to the downtown area in order to continue the celebration. Allison would stop off at her house and then come to mine, a block away, where we would meet and together walk back to the noisy and crowded bars.

Somewhere in my inebriated brain I decided that this would be a great time to seduce Allison. We were both slammed and she was coming to my house, which was conveniently devoid of my ten roommates, who were themselves downtown enjoying the holiday. I looked out my front door and saw Allison coming up the walk.

“Come on in,” I yelled to her as she approached the house.
“That’s OK, I’ll wait for you out here,” she answered.

And that’s the image of Allison that I’ll always carry with me: standing on my walkway in knit scarf and hat, waiting in safety for me to come out of the house. Like I told you in the beginning, Allison was no fool.



TOMORROW: CHRISTINE

The Fifth Floor Girls: Peggy

With a bit of effort and concentration I can still conjure up in my mind what I believe to be a fairly accurate image of Peggy. I have no photographs of her, and some of the memories have faded forever. Here’s what I do know:

Peggy, like nearly all of the Fifth Floor Girls, was older than me. She was tiny in stature and I’d be surprised to learn that she had weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds. She had nicely chiseled features, big E.T. eyes and wore her wavy hair short. She was very attractive. Today, who knows? I certainly don’t and I don’t want to.

I don’t remember how long my infatuation with Peggy lasted, but I’m sure it was brief. As I mentioned yesterday, I covered a lot of ground during that year, so any crush had to be limited. It seems that I went through a period where I visited Peggy in her room on almost a daily basis, but how long that period was I can’t say. Probably a week or so. Unfortunately, for me anyway, on those visits we sat in straight-back chairs and not on the bed, and we talked. We might have kissed once, but if we did I don’t remember it. And that alone, of course, is a fairly good indication that we didn’t.

Peggy, I recall, would get the hiccups at just about the same time every day. I’ve never heard of such a thing, before or since, which I suppose is why I’m still carrying this tidbit around after three long decades. Peggy also had some kind of trauma when she was born, but whether this was related to her chronic case of hiccups I either never knew or have long since forgotten.

Many of the girls at college had boyfriends back in their hometowns. One weekend Peggy’s boyfriend came up for a visit and I slipped into full drama queen mode. I pouted in my room and even wrote a song about what she might be telling her boyfriend about me. It’s called “Probably Nothing.” It may well be the greatest understatement in the history of music.

I’ve written four songs in my life; three of them are horrible and one is mediocre. Years later I lived in a campsite and some girls there often requested that I play one of my songs around the campfire. They seemed to like it; it was romantic. Unfortunately, at least for Peggy, it wasn’t “Probably Nothing.” Yes, Peggy’s song was one of the horrible ones. Peggy, by the way, wanted to learn to play guitar (and I was certainly willing to teach her) but she refused to cut her fingernails in order to do so. I never understood that. I should have bought her a harmonica.

Today I often tell a story about Peggy because it so perfectly illustrates the fate of all writers. I had written a satire of Hansel and Gretel which was published in the school literary journal. In it H and G discover a house in the woods, a house not made of candy and gingerbread but of every conceivable kind of drug imaginable. Hansel, who was a real stoner, said nothing in the piece except, “Oh wow.” Hey, I was nineteen years old and it was the seventies—give me a break.

One day Peggy told me how all the girls on her floor had gathered around their R.A. as she had read them this hilarious story about Hansel and Gretel taking drugs. Yeah, well, I wrote it I said with a mixture of pride and annoyance. After all, here was the girl of my dreams (for this week, anyway) and she didn’t even know about a story I had gotten published. It was one of two valuable lessons I learned from Peggy: if you’re going to be a writer and stay behind the scenes then you’re not going to get the recognition that actors or on-air personalities receive. Deal with it.

On more than one occasion Peggy mentioned that I should ask out her roommate Rhonda who was, I gathered, interested in me. But I wasn’t interested in Rhonda, I was interested in Peggy. Eventually, though, Peggy made the suggestion once too often and that was the other lesson she taught me: It was then that I finally learned how to take a hint.



TOMORROW: ALLISON

The Fifth Floor Girls: An Introduction

They lived two floors below us, the Fifth Floor Girls. “Us” was myself and my sophomore year roommate, who will remain nameless since he not only reads this space occasionally, but actually married one of those Fifth Floor Girls besides. (The best one of the lot, if the truth be told.)

Each floor of our dorm consisted of four suites, each suite being made up of four rooms, usually with two students per room. Basic math tells you that there were approximately thirty-two girls living on the fifth floor. My roommate and I became friends with a small group of them, say six or seven, and these are the girls I’ll be remembering over these next few nights.

It’s remarkable to me now that I recall having a crush on almost every Fifth Floor Girl at one point or another. These crushes certainly couldn’t have lasted long, when you consider that the school year covered less than ten months. And yet somehow I, dopey romantic fool that I was, managed to fall for, do nothing about or get rejected by, recover from the emotional pain and then fall for a new girl five times in less than a year. This was no problem for me: after all I was young, full of hope and apparently quite the drama queen to boot.

In truth, my relationship with the Fifth Floor Girls really had little to do with romance. It was a friendship and, remember, they were mostly older women. (At the end of that year I was twenty and they were twenty-one.) But these were the people I wanted to be with, to hang with, to use the modern vernacular. For me there was never any sexual interaction with the Fifth Floor Girls, barring one bout of drunken late night groping on a stained and threadbare couch. Oh, and one spontaneous but unconsummated naked frolic that occurred several years after graduation.

In college I had more than one girlfriend who later told me that she had wanted to meet me but every time she saw me in one of the downtown bars (a not infrequent occurrence) I was surrounded by all these women. Which is true, but they were always the same women and they were my friends. And I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else or with anyone else.

With the one previously mentioned exception, I don’t know where these women are today. It’s not inconceivable that some (or all!) of them are members of AARP. One or more may be a grandmother or suffer from arthritis. Or both. Most probably have gotten married, perhaps even two or three times, and have children older than they themselves were when they lived below me on the fifth floor all those years ago. And all that is fine. Anyone will tell you I’m pretty much a realist and, despite my musical taste, I do my best to live in the present.

But the Fifth Floor Girls belong to me, or at least to my memory, and I’m going to preserve them exactly the way they were for as long as I can: as happy, funny, sexy and sweet a group of young women as I’ve ever met. Ironic, isn’t it, that I once had a schoolboy crush on each of these girls that lasted only weeks, or even days, but now find that as a group I have been in love with them for over thirty years.



TOMORROW: PEGGY

Dial B For Bits and Pieces

So now Beijing, like London and Singapore, is going to have one of those ugly giant ferris wheels defacing their city. I’m only going by the one in London, the Big Eye, but these monstrosities seem so out of place to me. Here you have all these historic and sober-looking buildings sitting stoically on the Thames as they’ve done for hundreds of years and suddenly you see…a carnival ride. It seems as inpropriate as the pinwheels you sometimes see placed on the graves of loved ones by well-meaning relatives. I can never look at one of these colorful toys spinning merrily in the somber cemetery wind without thinking, “Wheeeeeee!”

**********

Orange Greed comes to Half Moon Bay: Every year at the Pumpkin Festival they display the prize winning gourd and I take a picture of it. Usually I have to stand on my toes to get the shot, as I’m shooting over the heads of three or four rows of folks waiting in line to pay to have their picture taken with the preposterous pumpkin. I always save myself the twelve bones and just take the shot no matter who happens to be posing with the pumpkin. Last year I got a pretty good picture. True, friends asked who the three black kids sitting on the pumpkin were, and I said never mind that, look at the size of that thing! Well this year they had the champion pumpkin tucked away in a tarp-covered booth so that you could barely get a glimpse of it. And certainly nobody was going to get a decent picture of the thing without coughing up the dough. So I decided the hell with it; after all twelve dollars still will get you a matinee, a box of pretzel nuggets and a Coke. Meanwhile I’ll just keep looking at last year’s picture.

**********

I was in a parking garage the other day waiting to pump my dollar into the meter. It was taking a long time because the woman in front of me, a sweet old Tweety Bird lady, was having trouble getting the new-fangled device to work. Finally I asked her if she had punched in her space number first, and although she said yes the digital readout told me that she actually hadn’t. And so I entered the number for her and the machine suddenly became compliant and accepted her dollar. “Leave it to a man!” she said with admiration. I smiled at her and told her it had been years since I had heard a woman utter anything like that, unless it had been sarcastically. I mean in 2007 it’s not proper to even think that a man could be better at figuring out a mechanical vending device than a woman. The Tweety Lady thanked me again and said I had saved her life. I told her that was a bit of an exaggeration but I was glad I could help. But I did think about what she had said a lot that day. Leave it to a man: imagine that!

**********

Goofiest thing I heard on the street today: A woman was walking down the street with a man and I heard her say, “It’s not about right or wrong. It’s about doing the right thing.” Leave it to a woman, eh?

**********

I caught a bit of a reality show the other day. Some of the people in it were going to a meeting of the National Stuttering Association. They gathered in a hotel’s conference room, which was identified by a big white lobby card which read “Meeting—NSA.” I watched for a while and admired how some of the stutterers bravely struggled to overcome their affliction. OK, no I didn’t, but I have to say that before I tell you what I was really thinking. I’m sure the National Stuttering Association is a fine organization, but couldn’t they show the world that they have a sense of humor by abbreviating themselves as the NSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSA?

**********
Yesterday I received a letter from the California Department of Health, which I assume is never good news. My first instinct is always to fear that my less-than-virtuous past has finally caught up with me and some long forgotten woman has tracked me down to give me the bad news. Before opening such envelopes I often check the postage to see if it’s labeled “presort.” While I’m not exactly sure what this means I’ve noticed it usually indicates that this is a piece of junk mail that was probably mailed out to millions. Well I can’t swear that my heart literally skipped a beat when I saw what was stamped in the upper right hand corner, but then again I can’t swear that it didn’t. For there in black, and official-looking, letters it said, “STD-Postage.” Oh my God, I knew it! OK, so it only took me a minute or so to realize that STD stood for “standard” but still I think the folks at the Postal Service might want to rethink some of the abbreviations they use.

Keeping Ellsworth Warm

This is not going to be another tirade about how I’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a little water turtle that I purchased on a whim five years ago for seven bucks. Well, maybe it will be a little bit, but I promise not to dwell on it.

In addition to the basking lights, special food, three aquariums, UVB lamps, filters, timers, nutritional supplements and nets to scoop out his ever-present poop I have also been required to keep Ellsworth’s water at a comfortable temperate. You see, the water must be kept between 74 and 78 degrees to ensure that Ellsworth remains a healthy and happy reptile.

This is generally not a problem during the summer, even here at the water’s edge, but in the cold and rainy winter it can be somewhat of a challenge. Up until now this challenge has been easily and inexpensively met, as I simply tucked a heating pad (“borrowed” from a previous landlord—I owe you one, Aunt Janice!) under his tank, plugged it in and regulated the temperature through the controls.

Last week the heating pad (And never use one near water, kids!) stopped working and I decided to upgrade. I went to the pet store to purchase one of these heaters that adhere to the bottom of the tank. At the store I read the directions, which clearly stated that this heater was for the outside of terrariums and not for water-filled aquariums. I asked the young punk working there about it and he said it simply meant you weren’t supposed to submerge the unit. Well, it was clear to me that’s not what it said, but at least now I had someone to point a finger at if the thing didn’t work or burned down my house or something.

And so I drained the tank (36 gallons--no easy task) and attached the adhesive pad to the bottom. I refilled the tank will cool water and then watched the thermometer. (Did I mention thermometers in my list of purchases?) I watched for a few hours. I watched for a few days. Nope, there was no mistaking it—the water remained stubbornly at a too-cold 68 degrees.

Finally I admitted defeat and, once again draining the tank (36 gallons—no easy task) I removed the pad. It felt warm to the touch, so I knew it was working. Apparently it just wasn’t working enough. I don’t have enough space, enough time or the inclination to explore the various psychological reasons why I didn’t save the packaging or receipt when I purchased this $35 heater. Let’s just say that something deep inside of me had already decided that, since I knew this was not the proper heating unit for an aquarium, I wasn’t entitled to a refund. I really should find a good shrink and start working this stuff out one of these days.

And so I decided to “dance with the girl what brung me” and go back to the method tried and true. I asked the Target employee if she knew where the heating pads were and she said she didn’t. No, she didn’t offer to find out where they might be or to ask a fellow employee, and yet instead of giving her a lecture on customer service I wandered up and down the aisles until I found them on my own. I must be getting soft.

I was happily surprised to find out how inexpensive a heating pad is, especially if you go for the bottom of the line. And so I brought the heating pad home, once again drained the tank, (36 gallons—no easy task) tucked the heating pad under it, refilled the tank and watched the temperature. Again the water stayed at 68 degrees. I gave it a little more time and checked again. No improvement.

And then I suddenly noticed that the heating pad was off. Well silly me! In order to heat up the water it was important to turn the heating pad on. I switched it on and came back to check again a few hours later. And again the heating pad was off! What the f---? Was this thing defective?

No, it wasn’t. In fact quite the opposite: it was too advanced! The heating pad, even this little cheap-ass one, came with an automatic shut off. And the worst part was there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. There was no automatic shut-off shut-off. Well, what kind of Nazi restriction was this? Shouldn’t I have a choice as to whether I wanted to use this “bonus feature” or not? Apparently not.

So unless I wanted to wake up every two hours to turn it back on, this heating pad, like the previous heater, was worthless. But unlike the heater this time I had saved the packaging and receipt. And yet I won’t be getting a refund. I mean, who wants to drive all the way to San Mateo and deal with the employees and paperwork just to get fifteen bucks? Not me. Besides, I’ll probably throw out my back in a week or two and be glad I have a new heating pad.

I visited three other stores and failed to find a pad that did not have an automatic shut-off. And then, finally, success! I found a brand that had the feature in their top two pads, but not in their bottom of the line model. And another fifteen dollars later I had purchased my second heating pad, and third heater, of the week.

I returned home, one again drained the tank (36 gall—whatever) and stuck the new pad underneath. And there it remains, keeping the water no warmer than a chilly 71 degrees. I suspect that part of the problem is that I folded the pad in half and if I open it up it will cover more area and work better. Nah, I don’t really believe that. It suddenly occurs to me that the pad is not doing the job because I bought the smallest one, the bottom of the line, and heating the water three degrees is all it’s capable of doing. And no, I can’t trade it in for one of the higher models—they all have the automatic shut-off, remember?

So now if you’ll excuse me, I have some calculations to make. I have to figure out which would be cheaper: continuing to buy yet more powerful and expensive heaters or simply moving with my turtle to someplace closer to the year-round tropical warmth of the equator.

A Second Opinion

I only began to accept the concept of getting a second opinion later in life, and grudgingly at that. Before that if a “professional” came to the house and gave an estimate for some repair I just accepted it. If that’s what it costs, that’s what it costs.

You all remember my entry about having my new bathroom sink installed. (Of course you don’t remember, but humor me here, OK?) The plumber who came was from a well known company and I had previously used them for such minor tasks as clearing a stopped drain or a clogged pipe. Now they were telling me that the sink that I had purchased, the one hundred and twenty nine dollar sink, would cost over two thousand dollars to install.

And I’m glad they did come up with that absurd number. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about saying, “Go ahead and install it.” After all, if that’s what it costs…But I didn’t say that. I told them I was going to get another estimate, which I did. The second plumber was an independent contractor who told me he could install the sink for two hundred dollars. And he did. How often in life do you learn a valuable lesson and save eighteen hundred bucks besides?

When the neighbor put up her redwood fence I got the phone number of the guy who did it. He did a nice job and I needed a gate in my driveway. It seems that people walking along the street could see right into my backyard and right to where our hot tub is. Sometimes I like to go for a soak in the middle of the day and really, nobody wants or needs to be a witness to that.

The fence guy said that he could create a gate to match my neighbor’s fence for twelve hundred dollars. That seemed a little high to me, but what do I know about the price of redwood? I told him I’d give him a call and then, remembering the epic of the bathroom sink, called somebody else out of the phone book. Five hundred bucks, he said. Can you build it to match the neighbor’s fence? No problem. And it wasn’t

The heater in our hallway has stopped working. This was fine on Sunday when the weather was so nice we debated going to the nudie beach, even though it’s November. But here we are two days later and the fog-laden air is chilling the house like Cheney’s presence. I called a heating guy to come out and take a look at it, and he arrived in just a few hours.

Right from the beginning I had this kid pegged. He was in his twenties and was obviously only just beginning to train in the gentle art of bullshit. He had no idea he was dealing with someone who now held a doctorate in the field. He looked at the heater and kept telling me he would give me some “options” on fixing the heater. Then he disappeared into his truck for half an hour, obviously to “phone home” for some creative help in putting together his estimates.

He came back in the house and I knew it was coming. This punk began to talk to me like he was a doctor about to tell me I had six months to live. “Give it to me straight, Doc,” I was tempted to say, but didn’t. Finally, thankfully, he started winding down and, after one more verbal commercial for his company, showed me my “options.”

Apparently I could again have heat in my hallway in three ways: By doing it right for twelve hundred dollars, by choosing a middling repair for nine hundred or by pussying out with “the band-air” (that’s what he actually wrote on the estimate: the band-aid) for seven hundred. The numbers were outrageous, it’s true, but they weren’t a penny higher than what I was expecting. One good thing about living a certain number of years is that you can see bullshit coming from a mile away.

“OK, thanks,” I said. “I’ll let you know.” You should have seen the little weasel’s face hit the floor. Meanwhile, I had suddenly remembered that this guy was from the same company that had offered to install the bathroom sink for two grand. How could I have forgotten that?

So I figured as long as the kid was stunned anyway I’d tell him that little tale. Afterwards, after he’d recovered somewhat, he attempted to return to his bogus tap-dance, telling me that since his was such a high-quality company I should expect to pay a little more.

“This was ten times as much,” I answered. And I’m happy to report that the young man had the decency to drop his façade, just for a moment, and laugh out loud.

Poor Old Andrew

I just watched the show about an hour ago, but I already forget the girl’s name. Let’s call her Mindy. The program was Intervention, an A&E reality show that documents the stories of people who are addicted to various substances or activities, as well as their subsequent (and hopefully successful) treatments.

Mindy is an attractive girl in her late twenties. She’s hooked on crack cocaine, and spends about $700 a week on her habit. Since she was thirteen she had been friends with a much older man named Andrew, who was about 65 when they met.

Despite the protests, and even threats, from Mindy’s family the friendship has continued over the years. And it was just that, a friendship. At least it appeared to be on the surface; at least in the early years.

Andrew apparently always had money and didn’t mind tossing some of it Mindy’s way. He bought her a car, and when the time came he paid for her college tuition. And then when Mindy turned 21 the relationship “turned physical.” Andrew may well have had ulterior motives since he met Mindy, but he also seems to be the careful type, waiting until she reached the age of consent…and then some.

Mindy would get undressed for, and later with, Andrew once a month, for which she would receive $400. The money would go towards the purchase of crack. Time passed and when we see Mindy as she is today she is laughing, but not happily, because she now takes off her clothes with Andrew once a week, for which she receives $100. “I used to do it once a month for $400,” she says.

I’m not going to judge Andrew. I’m sure everybody watching the show already has done that. After all he’s obviously using this woman for sex, or as close a simulation to it as an almost-80-year-old man can muster. And she’s using him for drug money. And they’re both adults.

At the end of Intervention the addict is offered treatment for their problem and often, but not always, accepts it. The family and friends gather in a room, along with a counselor, to convince the person to change their life. Many of Mindy’s family and friends were at the intervention, but Andrew was not.

But Andrew was not too shy or too embarrassed by his actions to decline to appear on camera. He repeatedly spoke of the love that Mindy and he have for each other, and I believe they do. Mindy, in a separate interview, described what it was like to be naked with an 80-year-old man. “It’s not good,” she said. She went on to describe how she was repulsed by Andrew’s aged body and basically had to “grin and bear it” when the time came to earn her cash.

When told of this on camera Andrew was clearly surprised and obviously hurt by this revelation. “I’ve never heard this before,” he said innocently. And I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. Andrew is like a lot of men, most men, perhaps nearly all men. The term “male ego” has been overused, but there’s most likely a reason for that. Andrew, you see, is delusional.

He truly wanted to believe, and therefore did, that Mindy was as physically attracted to him as he was to her. To the world looking in he is just some dirty old man with more money than sense, but to himself he’s still the suave seducer he was (or thought he was) half a century ago. In his mind he wasn’t really “paying for it,” he was just being generous to his lover, completely and hopelessly unaware that if the money stopped so would she. And when reality came along and slapped him across his wrinkled face it was an absolute shock. He truly was just an old man paying some young girl to drop her knickers.

There was a movie called Hardbodies that came out some time ago. Look it up and you’re sure to find the most scathing of reviews, and for the most part they are deserved. But I remember seeing it when it was in the theater and underneath all the superficial teen goofiness there was the germ of an intriguing story:

Three “older” men, about half Andrew’s age, decided to rent a house by the beach and try their luck with the local teenage girls. During a house party one of the men was chatting up a bikini-clad young thing and, thinking he was doing well, suggested that they adjourn to his bedroom. “I don’t fuck fossils for free,” she said.

I suppose that at some point every man experiences an Andrew moment of his very own.

Slow Down...and Smile

Here’s the deal: I’ve written before about how I’m a fan of those Crest Whitestrips. They cost just over thirty bucks when they first came out and for your hard-earned dough you got fifty-six strips--twenty-eight uppers and twenty-eight lowers. The idea was to use four a day, two on your upper teeth and two on your lower teeth. If you did the math correctly, which I doubt, you’ll find that you would have purchased a fourteen day supply.

I purchased the Whitestrips and was shocked when the results matched the claims on TV, not a common occurrence as you well know. Within the allotted two weeks years of caffeine, THC residue and God knows what else were gone, gone, gone. Why, even after I applied globs of ultra-white shaving cream to my face my teeth still appeared to be a happy shade of white. And so I bought the product several more times.

But as we all know American advertising is like a profit-driven game of Name that Tune. “I can do it in three notes!” And so very soon getting your teeth sparkling white in two weeks just wasn’t good enough. Other products came out promising to do it quicker. Not better mind you, just faster. And finally the folks at Crest succumbed to the pressure.

They followed suit with a new product that promised to whiten your pearlies in just seven days. Well, it actually wasn’t a new product; it was the same Whitestrips for the same price, except this new kit only included half as many. Oh they tried to punch up the “new and improved” version by putting it in a hard plastic box and tossing in additional bits of crap, like a minute tube of some bogus tooth-whitening paste and a tiny mirror with which to admire your whitened teeth. Or should I say, your half-whitened teeth.

Because if you had used the original fourteen day plan you’d know that with the seven day plan you were only half done. And if you wanted the same results as you had previously gotten you’d need the full 56 strips. And there was only one way to get them: buy two kits!

So I write tonight as a public service. If you’ve been thinking about trying the Whitestrips to whiten your teeth but are just so tired of products that fall short, have no fear. By all means buy yourself some. They do work. Are they as effective as the tooth-whitening treatment your dentist has been hawking? I have no way of knowing, but I doubt it. It comes down to spending thirty dollars versus six hundred. If six hundred dollars means nothing to you, then by all means go get the treatment. And buy some of my books too, goddammit.

When you go to the store you will see several versions of the Crest Whitestrips. There is the new product in its hard plastic blue case. I don’t know what else is in it these days but I do know it contains twenty-eight strips, or a week’s worth, and costs a little over thirty dollars. But if you look around you will also find the original version, with the full complement of fifty-six strips. The Crest folks have, ironically, taken a page from those teeth-rotters over at Coca Cola and called this product Crest Whitestrips Classic.

Here’s the thing. The Classic comes in a cardboard box. (And who hasn't?) You don’t get any tiny mirror or toothpaste or whatever, but you do get two weeks of the strips. And the cost for this kit is…twenty-two dollars! At the risk of beating this thing into the ground like a Bush approval rating let me recap: You can get the kit with seven days worth of strips for thirty-two dollars or the kit with fourteen days worth of strips for twenty-two. And all this is so they can put “Whiter Teeth in Seven Days” on the box. The hard plastic blue box. This, friends, is advertising gone right down the rabbit hole.

Now of course if there is some difference between the potency and effectiveness of the strips in each of the kits then this entire post is as worthless as, well, my previous 582 posts. But I don’t buy it for a minute. They’re the same damn strips.

Read This, You Nimrod

About a night or three ago I used the word “nimrod” in one of these missives. I used it as an insult, although at this time I don’t remember who I was insulting. Probably you. But before I posted the article I did my research; I didn’t want to use the word incorrectly. After all, what exactly is a nimrod? Besides you, I mean.

How did nimrod become slang for a foolish person? Well, Kiddies, it all began with a fellow named Nimrod, who makes a few obscure appearances in the Bible. He was a Mesopotamian king who had quite an impressive pedigree. He was the grandson of Ham, which makes him the great grandson of everybody's favorite buoyant alcoholic, Noah. Dropping a name like that would surely have gotten you into the best schools, eh?

But Nimrod was no nimrod, unless you use the literal definition of the word, which is “hunter.” Little is known about Nimrod, but he is mentioned in the Bible as a legendary hunter. So how did this poor sap’s name end up becoming synonymous with a silly person?

There is no definite answer here, but there are a couple of theories. One is that the use of nimrod as a derogatory term began with the king of all cartoon characters (the hare apparent?) Bugs Bunny. In one of his classic cartoons Bugs patronizingly referred to the eternally befuddled Elmer Fudd as “poor little Nimrod,” an obvious reference to his hunting abilities, or rather lack of.

Another possible answer can be found in John Steinbeck’s memoir, Travels With Charley: In Search of America. Steinbeck used the term when sarcastically describing the subject of an inquest, a hunter who had accidentally shot his partner: "The coroner questioning this nimrod..."

Obviously the word nimrod is no longer commonly used to denigrate an unskillful hunter, as it was fifty years ago. Today it has taken on the more general meaning of a bumbling fool or buffoon. And this, folks, is why after Cheney’s unfortunate hunting accident you never heard the term Vice-President Nimrod and yet you’re likely to hear the term President Nimrod, or its equivalent, nearly every day of the week.