Guitar Hero

One of the nice things about the Shoreline is that there are things to see and do before the concert starts. If you’re a world class anal-retentive like me, and God help you if you are, you often arrive much too early for meetings and events. Take a stroll at the Shoreline and you can find a wall of pictures from previous concerts, three or four places to go to the bathroom, a dozen places to get a bite to eat and about a thousand places to buy alcohol.

One of the booths there had a video game set-up. I walked up to it and watched as two kids played Guitar Hero. I had heard of the game, but had never seen it live. It’s a remarkable piece of technology that allows the player to feel as if he is playing electric guitar simply by pressing the appropriate color button when it is shown on the screen. You don’t need any guitar playing ability when you begin, and you won’t have acquired any when you’re done.

And that’s the knock on Guitar Hero. The kids are having a grand old time and then some grumpy old fart like, uh, I don’t know, well, me, walks by and can’t resist commenting that these kids are wasting all this time and not coming any closer to learning to play the guitar.

I continued on my walk to the end of the strip, turned around and stopped again at the Guitar Hero booth. Just as I arrived some guy very close to my own age muttered, “Everybody’s playing that and nobody’s learning how to really play the guitar.” How exciting! I had randomly come across a fellow grumpy old fart!

And I knew then that he was wrong. Guitar Hero is not an alternative way to learn a musical instrument. It’s a video game, plain and simple. If it didn’t exist those two pimply goofballs wouldn’t be taking guitar lessons instead. They’d be playing World of Warcraft, or some other nonsense. Those who want to play guitar are doing just that, while those who prefer video games are playing video games.

Still, here’s what bothers me. I play guitar. In fact I have been doing so regularly for 37 years. And there is one thing that has remained absolutely consistent over all that time: I’m terrible. You can’t imagine how disheartening it is for me to see some 17-year old in a band already playing better than I ever will. No worry, I’ve learned to accept it.

But these kids playing Guitar Hero have no idea how to play guitar. Which is fine. Still, I believe that if they are not going to make the effort to learn the instrument then they are not entitled to the benefits. They have no right to stand there with the fake guitars hung over their shoulders, hips cocked and hair hanging in their eyes.

It’s the cool guitar-playing pose and it must be earned. Clapton has earned it. Townsend has earned it. Even the guitarist in Journey, whoever he might be this week, has earned it. But not these pretentious posers who wouldn’t know an A-chord from a bungee cord. So play all the Guitar Hero you want, Kids, but please, only use the uncool postures.

Journey, Foreigner and Boston Are The Same Group: The Quiz

By happy coincidence I happened to hear today about an article in Rolling Stone about how Arnel Pineda, the new lead singer for Journey, wasn’t having all that much fun with his new gig. He missed his family and he pretty much would like to leave the tour and go home. To which I reply, but of course! If you had to sing Journey songs night after night you’d want to pack it in, too.

After last night’s column I was worried about a couple of things. First, I hope I emphasized enough how good a band Heart is in concert. I expected to enjoy them somewhat, but I never expected that. And judging by the roar when they left the stage, the crowd really hadn’t either. I also worried that I was so intent on proving myself right that I didn’t give myself a true opportunity to enjoy Journey.

Horse pucky. I think the score on that account was settled when Spike admitted that she’d rather see Heart than Journey. It was during that conversation that I mentioned that I believed that Journey, Foreigner and Boston were actually all the same band performing under different names. To her credit she didn’t argue with me (they did, after all, provide the soundtrack for her wonder years) but immediately named a couple of songs that sound like they came from the same group but didn’t.

And so now I bring you a short quiz proving my point. Below I will name a song and provide a lyric from that song. Your job is to tell me if the song was performed by Journey, Foreigner or Boston. And if you don’t know the music of these groups and are unable to identify the songs by either title or lyric, well congratulations. You are truly blessed and I’m filled with jealousy.

Oh, one more thing. I always get one or two dim-bulbs who feel they have to correct me on something that to everyone else on Earth is obviously a joke. I know they’re not really the same group, so feel free to expend your outrage and energy elsewhere. Thanks.

1. More Than A Feeling (1976)
“It’s more than a feeling, when I hear that old song they used to play.”
a. Journey
b. Foreigner
c. Boston

2. Wheel in the Sky (1978)
“The wheel in the sky keeps on turning’, I don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow.”
a. Journey
b. Foreigner
c. Boston

3. Juke Box Hero (1982)
“He’s a juke box hero, got stars in his eyes.”
a. Journey
b. Foreigner
c. Boston

4. Feels Like the First Time (1976)
“Feels like the first time, feels like the very first time.”
a. Journey
b. Foreigner
c. Boston

5. Any Way You Want It (1980)
“Any way you want it, that’s the way you need it, anyway you want it.”
a. Journey
b. Foreigner
c. Boston


ANSWERS

Who gives a damn? Not me.

Journey's End

“Wanna leave?” I asked Spike. I was joking of course. Sort of. We had already seen Cheap Trick, about as tight and crisp a rock band as you could ever hope for, and now Heart just finished a set that would have blown the roof off the place if we weren’t already outside. They seemed determined to prove that it was they who should headlining this concert. But of course they weren’t. Journey was. And thus my asking, “Wanna leave?”

OK, so I didn’t strain any muscles trying to keep an open mind when Journey took the stage. And sure, if McCartney had written Open Arms I’d probably think of it as a work of genius. But he didn’t, it’s not and from the very beginning Journey knocked me off my Cheap Trick/Heart high and I never recovered.

During Journey’s portion of the concert, when I wasn’t fantasizing about Nancy Wilson or the chocolate chip cookies I had at home, I tried to identify what it was that had always turned me off about this band. True they weren’t from my era, but then again neither are the Police, R.E.M. or Guns ‘n’ Roses, and I seem to enjoy them. I’m still not sure I’ve put my finger on the problem, but while Journey performed I thought it out. Heck, I had to do something while I waited for the time when I could go home.

The word that always comes to mind when I think of Journey (and Foreigner and Boston, which I still insist are all the same band) is “blaring.” Can the word be used as a verb? If so, I’d say they blare. High energy rockers, love ballads, it doesn’t matter. There’s no delicacy, no finesse. I left the concert feeling as if I had been yelled at for an hour and a half.

It eventually dawned on me that I was listening to Army recruitment music. I don’t know if Journey has ever been used for such purposes, and I’m too lazy to look it up, but it sure would be a good fit. It’s Nazi marching music. If the huge Nuremburg rallies of the 1930’s had been held in the rock era it’s the music of Journey that would have been blasting out of the tinny speakers (and Foreigner and Boston.) Just change the lyric “someday love will find you” to “someday we will find you” and sing that in your head. Who do you think of? Right, Anne Frank.

Journey plays music for the meth and mullet crowd. The drummer, no matter what the song, pounds on the drums like a chimp trying to scare termites out of a log. The lead singer, a clearly talented faggity little poser, has actually sung with the group since…February. He was found last year on YouTube doing Journey covers, and was six years old when the original band released their first album.

He’s quite the performer, and years from now as the heir-apparent to Wayne Newton he’ll be doing eight shows a week in Vegas long after his fossilized band-mates have been shipped off to the old musician’s home. He’s also the 19th (sic) person to be a member of Journey during their thirty-five year history, which might actually be more than Menudo. (Did you know that Randy Jackson was once in Journey? Yeah, that Randy Jackson.)

Spike, of course, was the reason we were there and claims to have enjoyed Journey immensely. I looked over at one point and could tell she had already traveled back to the hazy memories of her senior ball when she had danced to Open Arms with “the most handsome boy in the school.” I should have whacked her in the back of the head and welcomed her back to the 21st century.

As we were walking out of the concert I asked Spike a question:

“Honestly, if you had to see one of these groups for an entire concert next weekend, would you pick Cheap Trick, Heart or Journey?”

“Heart,” she answered.

Case closed.


TOMORROW: JOURNEY-FOREIGNER-BOSTON: THE QUIZ

Long Day's Journey

I’ve never received an e-mail warning about excessive traffic before, and I wasn’t thrilled to get this one. Spike and I have tickets to a concert and apparently it’s sold out. “Join a carpool!” suggests the annoying missive.

I don’t want to join carpool. I don’t want to join a wagon train or a camel caravan either. The truth is I don’t want to go at all. I’ve never been a big fan of going to the concerts of musicians that I do like. So why the hell do I now find myself with plans to go see Journey?

“I always go to your things,” argues Spike, accurately.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I counter back, using Beatle lyrics as my defense.

She’s right, of course. She does go to see the people I select. But that’s because I always select great people. It was just a short time ago that we went to see the Smothers Brothers. They’re legends, for chrissake. They’re also forty years past their heyday, meaning small crowds and little traffic. And before that we went to a concert at this same venue where Journey is appearing, except we didn’t see Journey. We saw Paul McCartney, Neil Young and Tony Bennett! Yeah, together. So you see what I’m saying.

I originally got excited when I saw the subject of the e-mail. Concert Advisory: Journey. Could it be that the show was cancelled? Would I be doubly blessed by not having to sit for three hours with thousands of people with no musical taste and also get my money back? And like so many other things that are too good to be true, it wasn’t.

“I never heard of Journey,” wrote Sweet Lorraine. I found this hard to believe and so I e-mailed her a couple of YouTubes. “Oh my God,” she wrote back. “It hurts my ears and makes my skin crawl.” My symptoms exactly.

I often tease Spike about the music of her era. I repeat my theory that Journey, Boston and Foreigner were actually the same band, performing under different names. And I never miss an opportunity to point out that she came along too late to live the music of my era, that is, the greatest music ever created at any time on any planet. And that’s a certifiable fact.

So OK, I’m going to see Foreigner—I mean Journey. Maybe it won’t be so bad. After all, I am familiar with several of their songs, although they do automatically trigger my gag reflex. There just doesn’t seem to be any way out at this point. Unless…what if I declare that I’m suspending my music listening campaign to fly off to D.C. to help solve the financial crisis? Do you think Spike will buy that? Do you think anybody will?

Dinosaurus

At first I thought I had already written about this book, Dinosaurus, which I read when I was in fifth grade. And I was going to write about it again anyway, figuring that it would be okay since I don’t seem to recall the column and you never read it. Then I did a search of my blob (that’s what my dad calls it) and didn’t find anything at all. So there you go.

We didn’t use the word back in 1963, but now I’d say that Dinosaurus could easily be described as “trippy.” It was much more of a mind-bender, head-fuck or whatever else you’d call it, than were most of the books we read when we were ten. It must have been, for me to remember it so vividly after all these years.

Dinosaurus was the story of a group of scientists who travel back in time on an expedition to the age when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. (And if you believe that was only about four thousand years ago why don’t you quit reading right here? In fact maybe you should head north, because it sounds like you’re qualified to become governor of Alaska.)

Time travel, dinosaurs--pretty standard sci-fi stuff so far, eh? But then one of the adventurers on the expedition gets killed by a dinosaur. His brother, who is also there, is devastated. I’ll never forget that the doomed brother’s name was Owen. “Owen!” cried the surviving brother in his grief.

Then it began to happen. As the story progressed the brother who lived was having an increasingly difficult time remembering his brother. The reason? Since the brother had been killed millions of years ago he could not have existed in modern times. Whoa! How cool is that? Really cool, especially when you’re ten years old and only just beginning to take your mind out on these early joy rides.

The brother struggles more and more trying to remember Owen. After a while he can’t recall his name, and eventually he doesn’t remember Owen at all. What a terrific literary device: By the end of the book the reader knows that Owen once existed but the character, his own brother, does not!

As you know I’ve been pretty successful in tracking down these dusty old relics from my past, and I’d thank God for the Internet if only he existed. But I’ve had no luck finding a book called Dinosaurus. In fact I’ve been so unsuccessful in my quest that I’ve even begun to doubt my memory (Owen!) and sometimes I think that the title was actually Danger: Dinosaurs! But no, I’m pretty sure that’s a different book.

But you know me. If this book ever existed, I’ll find it.

The Silver Lining

And to think that only a few short months ago it was little more than a dream. Time was running out and I couldn’t begin to imagine how one more disaster could still occur on Bush’s watch. But now, you see, it has occurred, and that is why, Kiddies, you should never, ever give up hope.

I know, I was being greedy. I mean, the largest terrorist attack on American soil, the impotent response to the deadliest hurricane in 77 years, and the biggest military blunder in U.S. history had already happened during Bush’s tenure as president. The vote was in; the die was cast. And yet I wanted more.

I needed his legacy to be buried even deeper. None of that six-feet-under stuff for this monster’s memory; take one of those oil drills of his and go down two miles, drop in the legacy and then cover it with cement, so that it could never crawl out of its hole and again infect this country and planet. I want to absolutely guarantee that not a single revisionist nimrod 100 years from now would dare think that the Bush Presidency was anything but the True American Disaster, with capital letters, that it was.

And now this happens. It is said that the current financial melt-down is the largest monetary crisis in the U.S. since the Depression. Yahoo! He’s done it. And he still, still, has four months left in office! I tremble in fear and excitement at the possibilities.

Exactly how culpable is Bush in the current banking cataclysm? I don’t know and neither do you. And I don’t care. Maybe he’s as innocent as the new born babe that even he at one time had to have been. It doesn’t matter. His crimes against humanity are legion and known all over the world. And if he gets smacked with the blame for something he had little or nothing to do with, so be it. Hey, when they couldn’t get Al Capone for racketeering they nailed him for tax evasion. Whatever works, that’s what I say.

Neighbor

Mr. C. died today, about three thousand miles from where I am writing this. Many years ago, when I was growing up, Mr. C. was the man who lived next door. I’ve written before about the lawn that as a teenager I used to cut every agonizing week for a lousy dollar. That was Mr. C.’s lawn.

Logic tells me that I first met Mr. C. when our families each moved into the brand new housing development. I was seven years old at the time, and he had told my mom that my brothers and I could call him by his first name. “Certainly not,” said my mother. “They’ll call you Mr. C.” Many years later we all laughed about this story, my family and his, because we had calculated that at the time Mr. C. was only 25 years old, not much older than a kid himself.

But thinking about Mr. C today it’s not his age or his lawn or even his ever-present can of peanuts that I remember most fondly. It was an incident that also happened when I was about seven years old. The families were all in Mr. C.’s basement and he was drawing some sketches, although for the life of me I can’t remember why. (I never knew much about Mr. C’s occupation, except that he was in advertising and he had some artistic skill.)

On that long ago day Mr. C. had drawn a rough sketch of a character from the Sunday comics. He had done it in pencil, on a thin sheet of what used to be, and may well still be, called onion skin. I don’t remember exactly which character he drew, but I was pretty impressed. I asked him if I could have the drawing.

Instead of giving it to me he told me to pick out a favorite character from the comics and then pulled out a sheet of crisp white paper and some pastels. I don’t know how long it took him, but when Mr. C. was done I was the proud owner of a bright and colorful, and faithfully accurate, drawing of Barney Rubble sitting at a picnic, protecting himself from the rain with a pizza on his head.

Mr. C. could have easily just handed me the onion skin sketch and gone off to get himself a beer, and of course some peanuts, but he didn’t. I kept that drawing of Barney Rubble for many years, but today it is long gone. I’ve thought of this kind act many times over the last half century, and I’ve often wished I still had that picture. Still, given the choice, I’d much prefer to have the memory.

And Waiting...

Earlier this year I did a piece on the classic play Waiting For Godot. (No, I don’t remember the exact date. We do have a search feature on this site, you know. Make an effort.) In the article that you’re too damn lazy to go back and read I write about how my English class had read this play back in high school, and on the last day of class the teacher kept his promise to reveal exactly who this Godot was supposed to be. The teacher told us Godot represented “salvation.” We, the class, didn’t buy it.

And so when I saw that our community theater was putting on Waiting For Godot I knew I finally had to see it. Plays, after all, are not written to be read, but to be performed. Besides, Spike had never even heard of this strange play, so I figured her reaction would be entertaining, to say the least. Besides, she’s dragging me to a Journey concert next weekend, so here was my opportunity to extract some pre-emptive revenge.

Although it was a Saturday night, and the theater rather small, about half the seats were empty. I had been excited that I somehow managed to snag tickets to Row D, but I soon found out I was sitting in the next-last filled row. When the lights came on for the intermission I turned to Spike and just smiled.

“Well, you always like odd things,” she said. Which may be true, but I never in my life said that I liked Waiting For Godot. I found it intriguing to be sure, and I think I’ve even begun to extract some meaning from the fifty-plus year old play. (Meaning that, according to playwright Samuel Beckett, may or may not be there.)

As always I marveled at the talent (and raw nerve) of people who are able to perform live, but I still can’t tell you why Waiting for Godot was voted the most significant English-language play of the 20th century. Personally, I thought The Odd Couple was pretty good.

American Airlines: Yes, Please

That’s the trouble today. Everybody wants something for free. From the welfare cheat whose biggest effort is waddling to the mailbox once a month to the major corporation whining and scratching at the door of the government looking for a bailout, everybody’s got their hand out.

I wasn’t raised that way. I don’t know exactly how or when it happened, but I do know I was brought up not to accept things for free. The indoctrination was so extreme that I can’t even count the number of times as a kid I was offered candy or cake or soda by a grown-up and I replied with a robotic “No, thank you.” Did I want the candy or cake or soda? What do you think? It still didn’t matter. “No, thank you,” was the prescribed answer.

A week or so back I wrote about how I had discovered an error in a mass e-mail sent out by the folks at American Airlines. It was about a contest to win a lifetime membership in their Admiral Club, and in the small print I found the phrase, “Open to residents of the 50 contiguous United States and Puerto Rico.” Almost immediately I replied and pointed out that there are actually only 48 contiguous states. And then I waited for a reply, and the appropriate and expected reward, which I promised to share with you. The reply, that is. I’d be keeping the reward for myself.

American Airlines did reply, through an e-mail that graciously thanked me for catching the error. In truth they were more apologetic than grateful, repeatedly hoping that their mistake didn’t cause me too much discomfort. The letter was polite and humble, but no mention was made of any forthcoming symbol of their gratitude that might be headed my way. And so I figured that was the end of that.

Two days ago I again received the Admiral Club mass e-mail from American, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel at least a bit of pride when I noticed that the first line of the disclaimer now read, “residents of the 50 United States and Puerto Rico.” The inaccurate word “contiguous” was gone, and it was all thanks to me!

And then I began to simmer. Yes, it was all thanks to me that American Airlines no longer ran the risk of looking like geographic imbeciles who may very well believe that you can drive a car from California to Hawaii. And so for the first time ever (or maybe not) I went against my childhood training and sent this e-mail:

Hello Ms. Derring,

I see you made the correction to the Admiral Club e-mail. Glad I could help. What do I win for saving American Airlines from further embarrassment?

Thanks,

Leonard Stegmann

It went against everything I was taught, and as I hit the SEND button a delicious shiver of excitement ran up my spine. I also felt myself becoming filled with a righteous indignation. I had saved them a lot of embarrassment, by golly, and I wanted more than a contrite e-mail. I wanted my reward!

It only took about 24 hours for me to receive this reply:

Dear Mr. Stegmann,

Thank you for your reply to American Airlines AA.com Web Services. The time and effort you put forth to help our AA.com Web Service representative is greatly appreciated.

We appreciate your visit to American Airlines' Website, AA.com and we look forward to the privilege of serving your travel needs.

Sincerely,
Ms. B. Derring
AA.com Web Services
American Airlines, Inc.

Well, it doesn’t get any clearer than that, does it? Obviously the only way American Airlines was going to show their appreciation for my time and effort would be in an e-mail expressing their appreciation for my time and effort. I wouldn’t be receiving any free tickets or passes to the Admiral Club or AAvantage miles or bags of peanuts. Why, I wouldn’t even be given the opportunity to say, “No, thank you.”

Diversify or Die!

A wee bit of the hyperbole, I know. After all, while it’s certainly an excellent idea to diversify your stock portfolio you’re not going to die if you don’t. Then again, you could look at it from another angle and realize that you are going to die whether you diversify your portfolio or not.

Tonight, as we find ourselves smack-dab in the middle of a historic financial nightmare, I bring you a cautionary tale; a tale made even more horrific because it is true. It involves my friend Jillian (of course it’s not) who works for a leading financial corporation. At least it was up until about 48 hours ago. Now, who knows?

Jillian is a successful businesswoman, smart and savvy. She’s also thrifty, and so began to contribute to her company’s 401K as soon as she became eligible many years ago. Several years back her company’s stock took a steep drop and it was then that I found out that her 401K was funded completely with her company’s stock.

As a former stockbroker I at least know the basics, and so I warned her that she was in a risky position. She agreed, but she made no changes, which was fine since a year later the stock had mostly recovered. She had dodged a bullet, and so now I yelled at her even louder. “You have to diversify!” I insisted. Again she agreed that I was right.

I was watching a movie from 1933 the other day. In it a man pulled a strip of paper from an old-timey stock ticker machine and said, “General Motors, 29 5/8.” Today GM is about ten bucks a share and, after decades of the short-sighted production of nothing but gas-guzzlers, is on very thin ice indeed. Gone are the days when a company, any company, can be viewed as a rock-solid cornerstone of American enterprise.

Jillian is very intelligent but she is not a stockbroker or financial expert, nor could she ever have imagined that her company, another “rock-solid cornerstone,” could be brought in just a few short months to the brink of bankruptcy. Her 401K, comprised of two decades worth of savings and once worth over a million dollars, has lost over 75% of its value in the last year. And it’s all because she ignored a simple little philosophy that she has probably been reciting since she was in grade school: Don’t keep all your eggs in one basket!

Entertaining You Weakly

“That’s you!” joked the English-as-a-second-language clerk as he pointed to the cover of the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly that I had plopped down onto the counter. In fact it was actor Hugh Laurie, star of House, who graced the cover. And although he was more nattily dressed than I have been since my wedding day I could see some resemblance. Laurie has somewhat curly hair and is wearing a scruffy beard, as have I for the last few weeks. Laurie’s beard contains a lot less gray than mine, but he probably dyes it. Besides, he’s six years younger, so give me a break.

“No, that’s not me,” I said excitedly, “but I’ll show you what is!” Then I flipped the magazine to page 4 and pointed to the letter that was printed there, and to the name on the bottom. And then I whipped out my driver’s license as proof. The clerk didn’t care. He closed the magazine and again pointed to the picture of Dr. House. “He looks like you!” he repeated. It’s all about pictures, my friends; nobody cares about words. In fact I’ve heard a picture is worth about a thousand of them, or at least that was the going rate before yesterday’s financial meltdown.

These are mean times in which we live. Senseless wars are raging, financial markets are plummeting and an environment is being destroyed. It has been said (but apparently not by Edmund Burke, although he usually gets the credit) that evil triumphs when good men do nothing. And so when I saw the article I knew that I could not let it simply pass. I could not be one of those men who “do nothing.”

After all, how could any person, much less a professional writer for Entertainment Weekly, suggest in print for all the world to see that perhaps Entourage, my favorite TV show, should add some new members? Had the man taken leave of his senses? The “man” by the way, is writer Tim Stack. Here is part of what he wrote about Entourage:

Everything in the season 5 premiere feels stale. This Entourage could benefit from some new members.

And so now, dear reader, you begin to understand where my sputtering rage came from. And so pen in hand (actually on a keyboard, of course) I dashed off my reply to the madmen at EW who printed this blasphemy. At this point I was going to tell you go out and buy the latest issue so you could read my letter, but then I got a better idea. I mean, why should you spend four of your hard-earned bucks on a magazine just to read my quote when I can just tell it to you right here?

And then, of course, you can use those four dollars, and a few more, to purchase one or three of my books. (Still available at http://www.leonardstegmann.com/. Better hurry!) They are, after all, filled with hundreds of my mildly amusing and often annoying observations, and not just the one or two you’d get in EW. And besides, the books are hardcover, unlike the magazine, and are sure to last you and your family for many generations, or until your next garage sale.

And so now, as a special reward to you, here is the letter that is printed in the current issue of Entertainment Weekly:

In his review of Entourage’s season premiere, Tim Stack advocated adding new members to the foursome. The show already tried that, and it was a disaster. I bet Stack wanted a fifth person added to Seinfeld’s Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer. And before that he was probably pushing for Yoko Ono to join the Beatles!

Leonard Stegmann
Half Moon Bay, Calif.

Ha! Yoko Ono in the Beatles! I crack me up. So there it is. Still, if you want to see the letter in person you can find the current issue of Entertainment Weekly in 7-11 and all over the place. It really is a fun magazine; in fact it’s the only one to which I still subscribe. I just can’t figure out why they chose to put House on the cover instead of me.

Traditional Routines

There is a fine line, and perhaps no line at all, between tradition and routine. There are some things that Spike and I do at the same time every year, most of which I think land on the side of tradition. We always go to Nana’s for Thanksgiving, we always watch the Academy Awards and we always drive to the same farm to cut down our own Christmas tree, despite it costing twice as much.

Not everything done with regularity, however, can be classified as a tradition. For example, if you go shopping for groceries each Thursday you’ll agree it is more of a routine, unless you claim that your family has a "tradition" of not starving to death. But what of the events that fall somewhere between tradition and routine?

This year the Kings Mountain Art Fair was demoted to that status. It’s really a unique fair, right up in the hills on Skyline Drive, with the San Francisco Bay on your left and the Pacific Ocean on your right. (Depending, of course, on which way you happen to be facing.) It’s very pleasant to walk through the majestic forest on foot-friendly wood chips and look at the art and handicrafts. At least it is for a few years. Then you begin to realize that you are looking at basically the same art and the same handicrafts every time you go. But when the sign on the highway says the fair has arrived it’s inevitable that either Spike or I will say, “Oh, that fair is this weekend.”

Spike said it first this year, but my response was something new. I described in less than a minute what we could expect from going to the fair once again:

We’ll argue about who is going to drive but we’ll end up taking my car because we can put the top down and then we’ll drive up the hill on Skyline and I’ll point out the restaurant where Neil Young met his wife Pegi and then I’ll point out the other restaurant where Neil Young recorded his “Harvest Moon” video and then I’ll see all the cars parked by the side of the road and I’ll say we’ll never find a parking space close enough to the fair but we will and I’ll park the car and then we’ll get out and walk about ten feet before we see one of those signs that say cars that are parked over the white line will get a ticket and I’ll say screw it but then I’ll chicken out and walk back to the car and see that my tire is a little over the white line and I’ll say that’s close enough but then I’ll chicken out again and get in the car and move it closer to the trees where I’ll hear a branch scraping the side of my car then I’ll get out and we’ll say should we take the shuttle? but we’ll decide to walk and we’ll get there and look at the paintings and handicrafts and we might see one that would look good on that bare part of our living room wall but then we’ll check the price and I’ll say no, that one is not quite right and then we’ll see those giant chocolate chip cookies but fat guilt will prevent me from buying one and then we’ll say do you want to eat lunch here? even though we do every year, and we’ll get in line and we’ll both get the cheeseburgers and head over to the toppings cart and I’ll say do you want a some tomato? because I know you hate them and then we’ll stand there holding our plates looking at the picnic tables and complain that there’s nowhere to sit but we always find a place and then we’ll eat our hamburgers and I’ll comment on how this is the only place I ever eat beef even though that’s not true and then we’ll get up and throw our garbage away and then we’ll look at some more booths and admire some things that would look good in our house but we won’t buy a damn thing and then I’ll say have we seen everything? and you’ll say I think so and so we’ll head out to the road and walk back to my car and when we finally get there I’ll say let me pull out first before you get in and I do and then you do and then I’ll start the car and say, now what do you want to do? and it will only be about 12:20.

EPILOGUE: We did go to the Kings Mountain Art Fair, I did park on the proper side of the white line but we didn’t eat cheeseburgers there, or anything else for that matter. No, I didn’t buy a giant chocolate chip cookie. It turned out to be a very pleasant time and, despite having been there many times before, I really enjoyed myself. In fact I can’t wait to return next year. It’s a nice way to spend a few hours, and besides, it’s a tradition.

The Devil's Rays

I lost track somewhere. I could have sworn that the Tampa Bay Rays were up by three games before today. They lost today and the Red Sox won, so that should mean they have a two game lead. But they don’t—it’s only one. Yeah, I’m rooting for the Rays to go all the way, partly because it would give my mom a thrill and partly because it would be an amazing sports story. Besides, it’s mid-September. Who should I be rooting for at this point, the A’s? Don’t make me laugh.

At the end of last season, when the then-Devil Rays finished their season once again in last place, some changes were made to the team. They got spiffy new uniforms and a new team name, sorta. Of course everybody laughed. Obviously they were simply rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. But it’s just a few weeks until the end of the regular season, the Rays, as they are now known, are in first place and nobody’s laughing now.

I’m not sure what the reason for the name change was. Or rather, I’m not sure what the official reason was. The strongest explanation I heard from the organization is that “Everybody called them the Rays anyway.” Of course I believed they were squeezed by the religious whack-jobs who are now running the country, and they folded faster than a meth freak on laundry day.

The Rays, as the Devil Rays, never had a winning season, nor did they ever finish higher than next-to-last place. With their newly-abbreviated and sanctified name they have a fair shot of finishing in first place and an excellent chance of going to the play-offs. They have already guaranteed themselves a winning season. Knowledgeable baseball fans know that this is a result of a carefully planned and intelligently executed building of their organization.

And although I cannot name a single one, partly because I don’t live in the Deep South and also because I’m too lazy to do the research, I know without a shadow of a doubt there are thousands, and perhaps millions, of people who believe that if the Tampa Bay Rays win it all this year (and even if they don’t) their success is nothing more than a blessing from God for removing the Prince of Darkness’s name from their uniforms and stationery.

Now I am going to do some research. I want to check two things. I’ll be right back--talk quietly among yourselves.

Did you know that the New Jersey Devils hockey team has made the play-offs for the last eleven years in a row, and in eighteen out of the last twenty? And they won the Stanley cup in 1995, 2000 and 2003? And they have both a pointy tail and horns in their logo? And my old high school football team, the Plainedge Red Devils, not only have not changed their team name since I went there eighty-five years ago, but this season they finished with a glorious 10-3 record!

What does this all mean? I’m not sure. I don’t think we have enough research yet, so here’s what I propose: Let’s start some new sports franchises and pull no punches on the names. I’m thinking teams like the Sacramento Satan Worshippers or the Jasper Jumpin’ Jesuses. We’ll follow their records and if none of them have won a championship after a decade or so then, by golly, we’ll know the truth: God really did want the Devil Rays to change their name!

Maybe we can even get a major corporation like American Airlines to sponsor one of the teams. How does the Pontius Pilots sound to you?

It Brings on Many Changes: The Suicide Quiz

I had it all worked out. It was supposed to arrive in the mail today—my glorious triumph—and then I’d tell you all about it tonight. The timing would be flawless, except it never came. Ah well, perhaps it will arrive tomorrow. Anyway, I’m not going to kill myself over it.

And so there’s tonight’s alternate topic: Suicide. A few days ago I stumbled upon a list of famous people who took their own lives. There were some names that weren’t familiar to me, and there were some very famous ones who I didn’t expect to find on the list.

Some of the people on the list were old and some were young. The reasons for taking their own lives were almost as varied as the people themselves. But I’m not here tonight to judge or to analyze. It’s the weekend, so let’s have some fun, dammit! Let’s all take the Suicide Quiz!

And please, if you don’t do well…don’t take it too seriously.

1. Who attempts suicide more?
a. Men
b. Women
c. It’s about even

2. Which country is not in the top ten for most suicides per capita?
a. Japan
b. Russia
c. Kenya
d. South Korea

3. In the U.S. which group commits suicide most?
a. Asian Americans
b. Caucasian Americans
c. African Americans
d. It’s about even

4. Which place is chosen most often for suicides?
a. Eiffel Tower
b. Empire State Building
c. Golden Gate Bridge
d. Niagara Falls

5. Which American author did not commit suicide by gunshot?
a. Ernest Hemingway
b. Spalding Gray
c. Hunter Thompson
d. Richard Brautigan

6. Which singer did not commit suicide?
a. Wendy O. Williams (Plasmatics)
b. Rob Pilatus (Mili Vanilli)
c. Danny Rapp (Danny and the Juniors)
d. Tommy James (Tommy James and the Shondells)

7. Which famous person did not commit suicide?
a. Sigmund Freud
b. Abbie Hoffman
c. Jack London
d. Stanley Kubrick

8. How many of Bing Crosby’s four sons committed suicide?
a. 1
b. 2
c. 3
d. 4

9. Which actor did not commit suicide?
a. Alan Ladd
b. Charles Boyer
c. Montgomery Clift
d. Gig Young

10. Which profession has the highest suicide rate?
a. Professional bowlers
b. Dentists
c. Police Officers
d. Clergy


ANSWERS:

Hey, that was a barrel of laughs, wasn’t it? Let’s see how you did. And again, don’t take yourself too seriously!

1. WOMEN attempt suicide much more often than men. Men, on the other hand, have a much higher success rate. Which proves once again that if you want something done right…
2. KENYA is not among the top ten leaders in suicide. Lithuania is #1, followed by Belarus and Russia. The United States is way down the list at 46, but these might be pre-Bush numbers.
3. ASIAN AMERICANS have the highest suicide rate, followed by Caucasians and then African Americans.
4. Let’s hear it for the home team! The GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE has by far played host to the most suicides, with a staggering total of over 1500. Some lame place called Beachy Head in England finishes a distant second with a measly 500 known suicides. We’re Number One! We’re Number One!
5. Playwright SPALDING GRAY ended his Earthly stay with a jump off the Staten Island Ferry.
6. Not only did the great TOMMY JAMES not commit suicide, I’m happy to report that he’s still very much with us. (I’m less happy to report that it turns out he’s only a few years older than me.)
7. Legendary film director STANLEY KUBRICK died of a heart attack in 1999. Sigmund Freud took his own life with an overdose of morphine after suffering through over thirty operations for mouth cancer.
8. TWO of Bing Crosby’s sons, Lindsay and Dennis, committed suicide.
9. Although there was no evidence of suicide when MONTGOMERY CLIFT was found dead in his bed at age 45, a friend noted his self-destructive lifestyle and said Clift’s death was, “the longest suicide in history.”
10. DENTISTS have by far the highest suicide rate. This reminds me of the time when I was ten and a dentist did a root canal on me without using any anesthesia. So, good.


BONUS: Where does the above title "It Brings on Many Changes" come from?

You Know You're Married When...#2

It’s standard operating procedure in lap swimming. The pool gets crowded—you share a lane. And so I wasn’t particularly surprised when I squinted up at the end of a lap to see a woman seated at the edge of the pool, looking pleadingly at me. She, of course, wanted to share my lane.

She was no spring chicken. In fact, she was pretty old. So old that I’d guess she was damn near my own age. And although her bathing suit was a far cry from the skimpy two-piece style sported by so many of the other, younger lady swimmers I still found her attractive. In fact as I get older I find many women in their forties and fifties to be quite alluring. I suspect it’s nature’s way of stopping us from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge on our fiftieth birthday.

I confess it was a conscious decision. I already had her laughing with a barrage of my patented witty banter, including the now-classic, “I’ll take the top half,” when asked which half of the lane I preferred. Now I, while not actually lying, do occasionally practice my own brand of verbal sleight of hand. I was telling this woman the gut-splitting tale about the time I went snorkeling to observe the manatees in Florida. Spike was with me on that trip, but of course didn’t join in on the dive. It was just me and two pre-teen boys in the water, which was choppier, murkier and more frightening than you’d imagine some place called the Crystal River to be.

The mother of the two boys turned to Spike and commented that she felt more secure because I was in the water with her kids. Spike, knowing my lack of swimming ability and to her credit, managed not to laugh in the woman’s face. That’s the story. But somehow when I related the anecdote to my new lane-mate Spike suddenly became, “my friend.” It was my friend who was on the trip with me but didn’t go in the water.

And then it happened. Seconds later I got to the part where the mother expresses her relief and I hear myself say, “And somehow my wife, uh friend, uh, managed to, uh, not laugh in her face.” I felt like a World War Two Zero going down in flames. My ruse couldn’t have become more transparent—the person who had begun the story as a friend had somehow transmogrified into a wife. The only thing that would have made the situation more embarrassing is if I had tried a weak-ass and desperate Hail Mary fix by saying, “Well, my wife is my friend, heh-heh.” And thank Christ I didn’t.

And so I realized that I am now so married that I am incapable of omitting the phrase “my wife” for two sentences in a row. But I’m a scrappy little philanderer. Hey, Alex Rodriguez makes an error once in a while but he’s still in the game, and so am I. And I’ll stay in that game until the day I hear myself use that dreadful phrase, “the wife.” Then I’ll know it’s time to hang up my, uh, spikes.

A Big Thank You (And Nothing Else) From Amercian Airlines

I may well have saved them a fortune, you know. After all, there must be thousands of people who would think twice before flying with an airline that believes all fifty of the united states are attached. What, you don’t know what I’m talking about? Well how about if you scroll down to the August 28th entry and get yourself caught up? I know, it’s exhausting, but make the effort anyway. I’ll wait right here until you return. Hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm-hmmmm, doo-dah, doo-dah…

Ah, you’re back. So you see I had received an e-mail from American Airlines about some contest they were having, and in the disclaimer they said that it was open to all legal residents living in the “contiguous 50 states and the District of Columbia.” And I, of course, had answered with a short and not particularly unsarcastic response suggesting that their copywriter buy a dictionary and look up the definition of “contiguous.” The very last line of my helpful note was a question: What do I win?

Today I received a response from American Airlines. This is it:


Dear Mr. Stegmann,

We appreciate your correspondence with American Airlines and sincerely apologize for our choice of words and any confusion resulting from the recent email you received from us.

You are correct, the verbiage should have read "50 United States and District of Columbia" and we have requested this corrected for future mailings.

Again, we do apologize for the error. We do value all of our customers and hope you will continue to choose American Airlines for your travel needs.

Sincerely,
Ms. B. Derring
AA.com Web Services
American Airlines, Inc.


And just look at that—my title isn’t even accurate. This is not so much a thank you as it is an apology. Do they truly think I was offended by their error? Don’t they know I’m just an annoying little nit-picker, and a particularly anal one at that? And what’s with that name at the end? Is that real? Ms. B. Derring sure sounds made up to me. They might as well have signed the thing Miss B. Havin.

Ah, but that’s not what’s got me all worked up. The truth is I caught an error that they would have otherwise sent out to thousands, even millions of people. I saved American Airlines from looking like complete idiots and all I get is a thank you/apology? Hell, they didn’t even have to spring for a stamp to send it to me.

So where’s my reward? I want, I deserve, some free tickets or AAdvantage Miles or an upgrade or even a few lousy bags of those damn pretzels they give out. Isn’t saving an already struggling company from further embarrassment worth more than a terse note telling me that I am “correct,” which I already knew, and that I am “valued,” of which I see precious little evidence? Ah, that’s OK. At this point I’m used to having my helpful little suggestions go unappreciated.

And so now it’s off to the dictionary. I’m not sure that Ms. B. Derring used the word “verbiage” correctly, and I’m sure she’d want to be the first to know.

Twins

I knew something wasn’t quite right, but only in a vague, I’m not really paying attention kind of way. I was at the pool for my weekly splash when I nodded hello to one of the regulars. At least I thought he was one of the regulars, but something was different. And if he was the regular, then who was that other guy with him?

Now if I had brought this nebulous situation to the forefront of my mind and really concentrated I would have quickly realized that they were twins. But I had laps to swim and bikini babes to ogle, so the fact that someone I barely knew might have a twin brother hardly created a blip on my Give-A-Damnometer.

It all came together when the regular guy approached another fellow swimmer and said, “This is my brother, James.” It was as if a light switch went on. Oh, they’re twins. How not-even-mildly interesting. And that should have been the end of it. Like I said, I had other more appealing places to direct my attention. And then I heard it. “Yeah. I’m eight and a half minutes older,” said the regular swimmer. (I could tell the difference now—the guy I knew had a mustache, while his brother did not. Or was it the other way around?”)

It’s an interesting thing, this older twin phenomenon. I’ve never met a set of twins who didn’t let you know within the first five minutes which of them was spat out first and how much sooner he arrived. Of course it’s almost always the “older” of the two who makes sure everybody within earshot knows that it is he, or she, who is the firstborn, i.e. The Chosen One.

I don’t know what the shortest possible time span is between the birth of the first and second twin, but it doesn’t seem to matter. A baby could be born so close to his twin that his big toes are stuck in the first one’s ears, but he will always be painfully aware that he is the “little brother.” That’s because the elder one will be there to remind him…constantly and throughout his entire life.

Now I can see how this sibling teasing can occur when twins are five or six years old, but these guys at the pool were around forty! (Well one was forty; the other seemed a few minutes younger. Ha!) And still the older one brought up within the first five minutes of introducing his brother the he, and not his brother, was the older twin. And the younger brother, like all younger twins everywhere, kind of hung his head sheepishly and, as if confessing to a felony, confirmed that yes, it was true.

If I had a set of twins the first thing I would do is hide their birth certificates. (Well, maybe the second thing. The first thing would be to demand a paternity test. Some of these women might be after half the profits from my skyrocketing book sales.) And when the twins asked I’d tell the little bastards that they both came out at exactly the same time. It was a statistical miracle, I’d say, not to mention a special added treat for their mother.

Laughs of the Week

Did you laugh this week? I hope you did. I certainly had my share of laughs, from a few quiet snickers to a bona fide case of the giggles that almost had me rolling off the couch. Admittedly I had planned a piece on suicide for tonight’s column, but you’ll agree that might have been something of a downer. So maybe I’ll do that on Monday, when you’re all already depressed anyway. But it’s the weekend and that calls for something on the lighter side, yes? So please allow me to present four things that made me laugh this week, in ascending order:


The Pete Best Award for Unluckiness

I was reading an article on Sarah Palin’s speech. No, it wasn’t her hockey mom lipstick joke that made me laugh. Are you kidding me with that nonsense? Actually it was a paragraph buried wa-a-a-a-a-y down near the bottom that mentioned that the eighteen-year old kid who knocked up Palin’s daughter Bristol was with the family at the convention. The article described him as “Bristol’s boyfriend and apparent fiancé.” Can you imagine the conversation when the kid read that?

“I’m a fiancé?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah, you are,” responded Ms. Palin.

This poor kid. Fifty zillion horny seventeen year old girls to boink out there and he has to impregnate the one whose Mom is about to become a candidate for vice-president and is a rabid anti-abortionist besides. Oh yeah, Kid, you’re a fiancé all right.


But Cheapness Lasts Forever

My pal Surfer Boy called this week and said he was going to the 49er game. I told him that I have still never been to an NFL game, and then reminded him of the time nearly thirty years ago when he offered to take me to a Charger game with tickets his father had given him, but only if his sister’s flight didn’t get in on time. Well, his sister’s flight did make it in, and so I didn’t get to go. And I’ve teased him about it ever since.

But three decades later I finally got to hear…the rest of the story. It seems that he didn’t go to the game either, because he couldn’t pick up his sister on time. And so he went to the stadium and scalped the tickets, and for more than face value he kept pointing out. Now we used to, and still do, tease Surfer Boy about his parsimonious ways. And I don’t think we’re far from wrong—these stereotypes must, after all, come from somewhere.

Surfer Boy took his newfound and unexpected wealth to a bar, and celebrated while he waited for his sister. He didn’t say so, but I suspect he was buying himself alcoholic treats he had only dreamed of. Normally he wouldn’t have splurged for more than a beer, I assure you. Unfortunately the next day he made the mistake of telling his equally-Scottish father about the great price he had gotten for the tickets. I wasn’t there but I have no doubt that Surfer Boy’s jaw hit the floor when his father demanded the money.

“I don’t think my dad would have done that,” I told Surfer Boy.
“Nobody’s would have,” he answered.


Barack Obama: He Completes Us

Even being the brilliant wordsmith that I am, these next two stories are not going to translate well to the printed page. The positive side is that you’ll be able to see them both for yourself with only a computer and a little effort, and so I’m not going to give you too much detail. On The Daily Show this week there was a five-minute spoof of the Barack Obama biographical clip that the Dems showed at their convention. Its starts off with a line like, “The Barack Obama story begins 100 billion years ago.” The entire piece is hilarious, with at least two honest-to-god gut-busters. Don’t miss it. It got yanked off YouTube on the first day—the Daily Show folks are a tad pernickety about their copyrights—but you can find it at TheDailyShow.com. Let me know how you like it.


The Spaghetti Cat

This is the one. I swear to you I could have lost my house, contracted a vile social disease and found out Bush was getting a third term but still would have thought it was a pretty good week, because I saw the Spaghetti Cat.

The Spaghetti Cat story comes in two parts. It begins on something called The Morning Show, where the hosts were interviewing a couple of fat ladies about alcoholism. Right in the middle of the discussion, for no apparent reason, a still photo of a cat in a chair in front of a plate of spaghetti comes up on the screen. The audience laughs, but no explanation is given. This event by itself, you’ll agree, is fairly amusing. But wait—there’s more.

A few months ago I chose The Soup as my #10 favorite TV show. I may now have to bump it up a bit. Joel, the host, had a week earlier reported on the Spaghetti Cat incident. This week he was in the middle of reading an unrelated story when a chair was eased into frame. In the chair was a near-perfect puppet replica of the Spaghetti Cat, complete with a plate of spaghetti in front of him. I was laughing louder than I had in a long time, but what almost knocked me off the couch is when the Spaghetti Cat turned his head to look at Joel.

The Spaghetti Cat made three appearances on that show, and all during the week I clicked over to The Soup when I knew it was time for him to be on again. Then I watched the Spaghetti Cat several more times on the Internet. And you can too. Go to YouTube and first watch the original Spaghetti Cat clip from The Morning Show. Then hunt down the Spaghetti Cat appearance from The Soup. And if you don’t laugh out loud when the cat turns his head and looks at Joel, well my friend, you might as well just pack it in.

Bag O' Books (Part II)

All-righty, let’s reach back into the brown bag and see what else I bought myself. What brown bag you ask? Well if you had read last night’s column you would know, wouldn’t you? And I’m not about to rehash the whole story just because you thought you had better things to do than read my previous post. Which, of course, you didn’t. How about making a little effort for a change and scrolling down a bit to get yourself all caught up? I appreciate it.

Next up is Resistance, Rebellion and Death by Albert Camus. Ooh, are you impressed, Ladies? Well I guess you shouldn’t be. I didn’t write it, I just bought it. And in fact I’ve only read one thing by Camus in my whole life, which of course is The Stranger. The inside flap says that shortly before his death Camus himself selected the “pieces that make up this volume because they represented the sum total of his life.” Wow. You could say that this book was to Camus what A Year on Planet Mercury is to me. (Available at http://www.leonardstegmann.com/. Buy two or three as gifts.)

Spring Street Summer looked like a novel when I picked it up, but it turned out to be a memoir of the author’s wild Santa Cruz summer in 1976--which included sun, nudity, wine and casual sex—and his quest fifteen years later to discover the truth about that lost “Garden of Eden.” Too bad—no photos.

On the other hand, the next book out of the bag is clearly a novel. It’s called Survivor, by Tabitha King. I’m not exactly sure what attracted me to this book, besides the one dollar price tag, I mean. It just has the look and heft of the type of book we used to call “a good read.” I’m sure the blurb on the back that calls it, “A real reader’s novel. A big book in the way that books used to be” influenced my purchase. It makes me think that maybe I should have put something on the back of my book besides a blue alien peeking from behind some rocks.

Well what have we here? Yet another book by Larry McMurtry, hardcover and just like new. It’s Dead Man’s Walk, a prequel to his classic Lonesome Dove. Now I have no doubt that I’ve read this one. In fact a few months back I sent my paperback copy to Mr. Zero, and he loved it too. You know what, Mr. Zero? Keep it. I’ve now got this gem.

The Dieter is described on the dust jacket as a “delicious novel.” It’s a story about the ups and downs of weight loss. I almost didn’t buy it, but the blurb on the back calls it, “delightful, intelligent and witty.” And that’s from Susan Isaacs, which is good enough for me. Still I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to reading this one. No pun intended, but it just seems a little lightweight for me. (Said the man who put a blue alien on the cover of his book.)

And finally, it’s McMurtry again! Buffalo Girls is his story of Calamity Jane, and once again I have no doubt that from the time I read the very first sentence the Old West will live again. Hey, did you make that Larry McMurtry bookshelf yet?

So that’s it. Eight hardcover books, most of which are nearly new, and two soft covers, piled into one beat up brown paper bag and brought home for nine bucks. I can’t wait to go back to that sale next Labor Day. Meanwhile, you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve got some reading to do.

Bag O' Books (Part I)

For the most part Labor Day is a crappy holiday. There is no mail delivery and everybody is off from work and therefore in my way at the movies, malls and on the roadways. Ah, but Labor Day is also when the church down the road holds their annual parking lot book sale. And of course it must be good if it gets me to go within 500 feet of a church!

The pricing is simple: Hardcover books are a dollar and paperbacks fifty cents. How are you going to beat a deal like that? Hell, it costs at least four times that much on Amazon just for postage. And these are not just raggedy old volumes by authors you never heard of. Many popular authors of today and from the past are represented here, and a good percentage of the books themselves are in near-new condition.

And so I grabbed one of the brown bags that the good church folks thoughtfully provide and I ambled from table to table for an hour or so, until that bag was full. Some of the books I bought knowing that I’d already read them, but you see I didn’t have a hardbound copy for my shelf. Yeah I know, but for a buck why not? I then paid for my books, brought the bag home and put it right here on the floor in my office, where it has sat undisturbed until this moment.

Why? Because I want to share the experience with you. I have a vague idea of what I bought, of course, but I couldn’t list them off the top of my head. And so I’ll pull each one out of the bag and let you know what it is. Won’t that be fun? It will be like Christmas! (Well, Christmas for me, but more like, I don’t know, Armistice Day for you.)

So here we go. Right on top of the bag is one of the two paperbacks that I bought. It is Lonely Planet’s travel guide Brazil. Lonely Planet has become my favorite series of travel guides and they usually go for about twenty bucks a pop. And I am, after all, planning to go to the Amazon in the next year or so, though unfortunately not to Brazil. But so what? Maybe I will someday, and besides, the book has a ton of valuable information, not to mention pictures of topless ladies, and it only cost fifty cents.

The second book out of the bag is Gore Vidal’s United States, and at 1,294 pages it must have been, pound for pound, the best bargain at the sale. I’ve read Virgin Islands, the much slimmer follow-up to this book, but never purchased this one until now. In the past when I have spied it in bookstores I have always been too…what’s the word? Oh yes, cheap. Even when I was paying for it the kid collecting the money scoffed that I was getting such a huge book for only fifty cents. Hey, it’s a paperback and rules are rules, kid. You have to watch these damn Jesus people every minute.

As far as I can tell Larry McMurtry is just about the only worthwhile thing to ever come out of Texas, and the next book is one of his. It’s The Evening Star, the sequel to Terms of Endearment. I’ve already read it, but hey, it looks new with crisp pages and a nice shiny dust jacket. This will be a splendid addition to the Larry McMurtry shelf that I seem to have created on my bookcase. You should create one, too.

Next up is McMurtry again. This one is Anything For Billy, one of his lesser known novels. I’ve never read it but I will, and soon. And sure it pisses me off that I had to buy the book without its dust jacket. Yeah I know, it’s only a buck but still…


TOMORROW: MORE BOOKS FROM THE BAG, WHAT DID YOU THINK?

One Wish

It’s the tail end of a delightful three-day weekend, so what say we just ease our way back into this, okay? Tonight I’ll forego the usual vitriol and snide comments and keep it short and sweet. In fact, how about if I tell you a cute story? Would you like that? Sure you would.

This happened just a few days ago when I was doing my grocery shopping. My cart was almost full, or at least as full as I can afford it to be, and so I headed for the check-out. Oh that reminds me, I had wanted to get some kind of salad topping when I spotted a little bag of this Asian salad sprinkle that looked mildly appetizing. That is, until I noticed the price. This tiny bag that I suspect was made up mostly of stale bread cost $3.99! I mean, Jesus Christ, four bucks just to add a little variety to some overpriced limp lettuce? I used to be able to make a whole meal for that! Whoops, sorry, almost forgot. Short and sweet.

So I got into check-out line and just about had all my groceries piled on the conveyor belt when I noticed the MILF and her young son behind me. (By the way, I want to be the first on record to refer to Sarah Palin as the very first VILF.) The mother behind me was pushing one of those shopping carts that has a plastic car attached to the front for the kid to ride in, because pushing a shopping cart filled with a sixty pound kid and two-hundred pounds of groceries isn’t enough of a challenge.

What’s with these kids today? Can’t they just behave in the store for an hour while their mom shops? Do they have to be the focus of attention every second of the day? Does everything have to be geared towards them? Do they have to attach a nearly to-scale automobile to the front of the cart for their amusement, despite the fact that it’s impossible to navigate, blocks the already too-narrow aisles and is in general a pain the ass for anybody who’s not sitting in it? Uh-oh, short and sweet, short and sweet…

I only caught the end of the conversation and so don’t know what instigated it, but I heard the mom ask the little boy, “If you could only have one wish, what would it be?” Now kids can be pretty greedy. They’re a lot like all other humans in that way. I tilted my head in his direction, wanting to hear his answer. Would he wish for all the toys in the world? Or maybe all the money in the world? Perhaps he’d use this opportunity to lobby for that puppy he’s always wanted. Or two, even.

But no, this kid was sharp. I admired him at that moment and I admire him still. He might have been only four or five years old, but he was already learning how to play the game. “If I had only one wish,” he began, “I’d wish that I had candy in my pocket.” Brilliant! Why waste a wish on the impossible when by lowering your expectations you could make a small but deliciously satisfying dream come true? A dream, by the way, that currently stood only a few feet away, just out of the kid’s reach.

I began by promising you a cute story, something short and sweet. And for the most part I have kept to that promise. But alas, the one thing that I cannot give you, as much as I’d like to, is a happy ending to this tale. You see, the mom simply said “no” when the kid began stretching his arm out, reaching for a candy bar. And I felt bad for him. Sure, it’s a rectangle of tooth-rotting sugary poison, but to my way of thinking the kid had earned that treat. He had played his cards perfectly. He didn’t wish for a new bike or a trip to Disneyland or a swimming pool. He played it cool. He cleverly wished to only have “some candy in my pocket,” and it should have paid off for him.