Category Archives: Lexington-70’s

Hey! Look at That!

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Once upon a time, long, long ago there a manager of a retail liquor store. He was a sporadically-educated guy, with longish hair, a gift for learning lines, and a need to pay the rent; a typical actor. But at the time (and for decades after) he was a retail manager. Gotta pay that rent.

His current assignment required two brand new assistant managers. One was a nascent Little Lebowski. He was, as Todd Snider so elegantly describes it; “an alright guy.”

The other was a go-getter. He was quick. He smoked like a chimney. He was reasonably smart. He smoked like my dad. He was willing to do the chores of retail. He was a pack-a-day contributor to the local economy. He was canny. What’s not to like?

Well…

Canny…

The definition of a good retail manager is someone who produces the best results from the available resources. The available resources in this case were young Lebowski who would do what he was instructed to do if he was reminded frequently of what he had been instructed to do. That was not an unusual managerial requirement and could be adequately met with daily chats (paternal or infernal as the case required), do-lists, and schedules. The canny guy’s capacity, however, could accomplish much more than that if his canniness could be channeled into un-terribly-harmful schemes.

What’s the business plan here?

The manager had grandiose visions of morphing his North Lexington Budweiser/Jim Beam oasis into a destination fine wine emporium. A fine wine shop would of course have fine wine sales personnel and fine wine sales personnel would never smoke on the fine wine sales floor. He instituted a no smoking requirement for employees.

The canny guy complained but complied…sorta. The retail manager would drop in at unexpected times and look askance at the hurried discarding of half-smoked violations, and would unhurriedly, but pointedly discard the hidden repositories of ashes. The cat-and-mouse scheming continued harmlessly and relatively happily (except for Canny’s potentially cancerous lungs) and the store prospered.

It thrived enough to lead to the promotion of the manager and the canny assistant took over management of the store. Now in charge and unconstrained and undistracted, his canny angels within six months rescinded the no-smoking nuisance and schemed to embezzle enough to be fired.

I am triggered to recall this by the current news.

I am feeling triggered to outrage by yo-yo tariffs, roller-coaster stock markets, DOGE extremes, Nobel Peace Prize nominations, and Schroedinger/Epstein files. But shouldn’t I be more concerned about less fixable things; crypto destroying our currency, or a Justice Department yesterday requesting voter roll info from individual states, or a president who threatens to remove citizenship from a disliked American citizen.

But then I can’t keep up with all the schemes.

Maybe I should start smoking.

Where did I put those ash repositories?

Swamp Dreaming

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It seems like a good night to pull my eyes and ears and head out of the 24/7/365 news apocalypse, and instead, sail into some YouTube videos of Blossom Dearie, Oscar Peterson, and Thelonius Monk…and perhaps visit a while with Pogo Possum.

Pogo and his friends invariably slow me down, charge me positively, and make me smile…not from a distance, but sittin’ right next to the Okefenokee denizens relaxin’ on the same log. I can smell Albert’s awful cigar and wince when he gulps Pogo’s bowl of wax fruit in its entirety before recognizing the fruit’s ersatz-ness. No problem, just a fine excuse to move into Pogo’s house (and larder) for a few days convalescence. Pogo don’t mind.

The first house I owned was on the north side of Lexington about a block from Louden House in Castlewood Park and it had a bit of that casual feel about it. I grew up in that neighborhood and felt cozy there.

Janie and I made our early discoveries together with each other there. In fact, I still believe it was my first tortoise-shell, Scandal, who convinced Janie that I might be worth taking a chance on. We would open a champagne bottle, take the foil, and roll it into a small ball, toss it, and Scandal would trot after it and return it to me. Who on this planet could resist a champagne-fetching cat?

However, not all the discoveries were pleasant in this 50+ year old (in the 1980’s) house. The morning Janie looked up in her bath and instead of the ceiling, saw a lovely azure sky was a challenge, and the unheated bedroom was a challenge of a different sort…though the latter had its upside.

But the Okefenokee-ness of the nest came from the friends who dropped in. I remember Paul Thomas coming by to help move Janie in by ordering pizza. I remember Eric and Becky Johnson watching “White Christmas” with us, and continuing to watch it to the end with Janie even though I had slunk off to bed halfway through (Hey! I was a workin’ guy!). I remember Chuck and Julieanne’s après wedding do-dah in the parlor. I remember Vic Chaney brutally critiquing my meagre collection of record albums (remember those?). I remember Gene Arkle pondering for over an hour before he made his next tragic chess move in a series of tragic chess moves. I remember Joe Gatton bouncing into our Sunday breakfast on the porch and helping us plow through the Sunday papers, about the only news we consumed those innocent days.

No, we didn’t eat the wax fruit, and the cigars weren’t awful, they were non-existent. But the company was easy. There were no conversational land-mines of which to be wary. Outrageous and wildly inaccurate things were said and then laughed away. Offense was rarely taken.

We had little…

…and thus, little to lose…

…and thus, little to defend.

We had each other…

…inside decrepit brick walls…

…a fragile and powerful bubble of heedless good will.

We had it all.

Sewing the Sea to the Sky

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It was a warm, salty, sunny day in the June of 1984, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

I lived then, and live now in Lexington, Kentucky, the largest US city with no major water element…or so I’ve been told. We have no ocean, no lake, no river. We do have the Town Branch of the Elkhorn Creek that runs through our downtown, or at least it formerly did. We (“we” being folks before my time) paved over the creek. Thus, it now runs under our downtown.

I’ve never seen it.

But I suspect many of us Lexingtonians, like divining rods, know it’s there, and I think we harbor a longing for it. A few years ago, an enterprising local artist ran an audio cable through a sidewalk that lies between a 20-story downtown bank building and its parking structure to a microphone near the underground waterway. Hidden speakers whispered the sounds of running water to the strollers on their way to make their mortgage payments. Not exactly ocean surf…more like trickles of desperation.

I love where I live, but I do long for big water…and a major league baseball team. It’s all that stands between Lexington and perfection in my book.

The first time I saw an ocean I was on a winery/vineyard business trip to California. One late afternoon, my colleagues and I drove our rental gondola of a car due west until our path ended on two tire tracks on the grass. We walked to the cliff overlooking the biggest water I’d ever seen.

A couple of days earlier, I had made my first hajj to City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco and now I was standing at the physical and logical end of Kerouac’s road. I was at the end of the western world, basking in that western light, gazing across to where nothing was visible, nothing was promised, nothing was assured, and nothing was finished. The possibilities of Diebenkorn’s and Seurat’s blank canvases were immediate and possible. What was on the other side? Stoppard advises; “I wouldn’t think about it if I were you, you’d only get depressed.” Tolkien is more hopeful, but just as final, and since I did not want to visit those Grey Havens while still in my 20’s, I reluctantly pulled myself away…changed more than a bit, to a more pedestrian search for Dr. David Bruce’s winery and some colossal chardonnays.

I have been mesmerized by big water ever since. Key West, Clearwater, Biloxi, New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, and the Outer Banks. Waves and tides, sunsets and sunrises, lakes, bays, rivers, marshes, herons, dolphins, pelicans…

Pelicans…

…ah yes-s-s-s, pelicans…

…back to 1984.

It had already been a long, full day and we still had a ways to go…but that was alright. By this time, I was pretty warm and salty myself, and still fairly sunny.

The Outer Banks are big water writ even bigger water. These fragile strips of sand are far enough out to sea that to the east you can’t see Africa though you’re told it’s there, and to the west you can’t see the mainland though you’re told…

Sunrise over the water inspiring your day.

Sunset over the water evaluating your day.

Promising to do better tomorrow…or perhaps, do nothing at all.

This day, the Queasy Rider and I had been covering ground all day.

We had left the third member of our expedition, P-Tom, back at the beach house, nursing his badly sunburned feet. P-Tom had camped out the previous afternoon on the deck of his uncle’s beach house, in the shade, with 800+ pages of light reading about Confederate naval fortifications. As sure as Martello walls must crumble before the onslaught of the modern cannonballs of 1861, it was just as inevitable that P-Tom’s page-turner was no match for the insidious onslaught of the warm ocean sun.

He fell asleep.

The shade moved, as fickle shade will.

His beach-appropriate bare feet were exposed.

He snored.

His feet simmered.

We’ll turn that inevitable page for him.

Queaser and I were sympathetic, but still ambulatory. Heartless and undeterred, we beat our un-fried feet down the road to adventure.

We checked out the site of the Chicamacomico Races. This is just fun to say out loud, and it was where the Blues and the Grays in the jolly 1860’s spent a jolly day chasing each other up and down a sandy stretch of beach that meant little to either side, to no discernible improvement to the strategic chances of either side. I forget who chased who first, but both factions got their turn to chase. It was like a re-enaction of something that had not yet been enacted. I dunno. It plumb evaded me. Maybe there was yelling and whooping and beer involved. Maybe it ended in a real nice clambake.

We moved on to see the lighthouse at Hatteras. This is the lighthouse that had been moved back from the encroaching sea. It was an impressive feat, but not speedy, and we had a ferry to catch. We were on our way to Ocracoke Island.

Ocracoke was pleasant and small—humps of sand, clumps of sea oats, and a squat lighthouse that was moving nowhere.  We had pretty well “done” the isle in about 20 minutes, but we had time to kill before the return ferry. We treated ourselves to a dark little restaurant and some dubious-looking, but tasty chowder.

Now we were returning on the ferry along the fringe of the Pamlico Sound to Hatteras. We were leaning on the rail looking toward the mainland we were assured by the maps was out there somewhere.

A line of ten or twelve pelicans flew sinuously past on a course parallel to our craft…above the horizon…then below the horizon…above again…then below again……repeatedly……………..sewing the sea to the sky.

I admire pelicans.

They look so ungainly on land and so commandingly graceful when they fly.

Sewing the sea to the sky, a beautiful unconscious act of nature, oblivious to and unconcerned with the fact that their stitches will never hold.

I have many friends who are stage actors and directors. They are pelicans. They create people and situations that stun and move real people. They sew the sea to the sky for the run of a show. Their stitches never hold. The show closes and the moment disappears except in the minds and hearts of those they stunned and moved…and later of course in their stories shared and expanded with other pelicans over omelets at Josie’s breakfast oasis.

These thespian pelicans are oblivious and unconcerned. They have new lines to learn. They have new, un-permanent stitches to sew.

They have new sowing to do, and new lies to tell.

I admire pelicans.

Hey! I Got Tickets!

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It woulda been in the late 1970’s.

A late weekday afternoon phone call at work.

“Hey! I got tickets for John Prine tonight. Wanna go?”

In the realm of stupid questions…

I know. I know. There are no stupid questions.

But Jesus!

“While out sailin’ on the ocean, while out sailin’ on the sea, I bumped into the Saviour and he said ‘Pardon me.’ I said, ‘Jesus, you look tired.’ And he said ‘Jesus, so do you.’” – John Prine.

It had been one of those livin’-too-near-the-abyss days. I had been berated by my customers (“This was cheaper last week”), berated by my employees (“I need the next three Saturdays off–I have a date/Why don’t you schedule more cashiers/The beer cooler is too cold to stock now”), and berated by my boss (Why is your payroll so high?). It had been a sweaty bike ride to work that morning, and promised to be a steamier ride home.

“He’s playin’ at the Idaho Round-Up tonight. First set’s at eight.”

The Idaho Round-Up was a local Lexington bar. It was about as far from Idaho as any place in Kentucky could be and the only “round-up” I could recall was when I was singing in a band a few years before in a bar in a nearby college town. The bar owner received a heads-up call from the local gendarmes to clear the room before the week-end patrol descended to check ID’s. As expected, they found none, and soon the crowd returned from the sidewalk across the street and no one was arrested. I, being the whitest and worst soul-singer in history probably shoulda been arrested, but there were still two hours to go in the gig and the bar owner still had drinks to sell. Pretty lame for a round-up…

Still, Idaho Round-Up sounded cowboyish and was easy to pronounce, even for the well-lubricated, and they managed to book some nice acts. Mr. Prine had played there with some regularity.

“The night club was burnin’ from the torch singer’s song and sweat was a’floodin’ her eyes. The catwalk creaked ‘neath the bartender’s feet and smoke was too heavy to rise.” – Prine.

The offer of tickets came from Richie Giallo, a wine salesman. I liked Richie. He was gaunt, red-headed, tightly-strung and…okay…if you watched yourself. When dealing with Richie, you needed to keep your store’s needs firmly fixed in mind before he babbled his blandishments. Then, give him half what he asked for, chat a bit about family matters, industry gossip, and the Reds’ chances. Then pull a reverse Columbo as he left; “Oh, by the way, here’s a few other things I need.”

I knew the dance.

He knew I knew the dance.

I knew he knew I knew…

All God’s children got music.

Of course I jumped at the chance to see Mr. Prine again.

“…I feel a storm all wet and warm not ten miles away…approaching…” – Prine.

It was an evening of many unknowns.

It turned out that Richie actually had several tickets. He was sitting at a table near the stage with a couple unknown to me and a date I’d never met, all drinking undetermined quantities of something unidentifiable from which emanated slowly spinning bits of spark and tabletop-searing ash…yes…probably unhealthy.

I was sitting a couple of rows back at a table with another couple I didn’t know and a date I’d met the day before. It was a different time then.

Then Mr. Prine hit the stage and I was basking in a glow of being home with a one-man family for Thanksgiving.

“Grandpa was a carpenter, built houses, cars, and banks, chained-smoked Camel cigarettes and hammered nails in planks. He was level on the level.” – Prine.

I first “met” John Prine on the floor of a barren, hippie-and-flea-infested house near the University of Kentucky campus. There was little furniture, but there was a turntable and four long-playing vinyl discs (that’s what “lp” means for you whippersnappers out there). Three of the records were by Prine, the fourth was disc one (of four) of Wagner’s “Gotterdammerung” (one of the current residents was beginning to take German). I was not taking German. I spun the Prine discs, first heard “Muhlenberg County” and was instantly hooked on Prine’s vocabulary.

“Onomatopoeia. I don’t wanna see ya speakin’ in a foreign tongue.” – Prine.

Then I saw him on stage for the first time in Centre College’s concert hall in Danville. It was a big, dark space. I was sitting in the upper level of the audience. Prine walked out with his guitar and a cigarette. It was just him, and a mike, and a wooden stool with a glass of water. He bobbed and weaved and shuffled his leg in a puzzling way. He drawled and sang and giggled for over two hours about a life I never lived…and made it mine.

“…and the sky is black and still now on the hill where the angels sing. Ain’t it funny how an old broken bottle looks just like a diamond ring?” – Prine.

No dammit, it wasn’t funny. And no, I’ve never been on that particular hill. But Mr. Prine put me there…forever…and I thank him for it.

After that concert in Danville, I followed him through his records and local appearances. I saw him in concert venues and night clubs about a dozen times.

Tonight he was jes’ fine as usual, but I was distracted.

My friend and host was in apparent distress. His head was drooping and his eyes were closed. His tablemates were laughing and pushing his floppiness around as if he were a Muppet until he was left sitting back in his seat, eyes still closed, and his head fully extended back with his Adam’s Apple pointing to the sky. It didn’t auger well for my friend’s well-being and I was, as usual, over-thinking the situation as to what, if anything, to do about it. Not so the other male component of our table. He swiftly and calmly moved and knelt behind my friend’s chair, straightened his head to a normal concert-watching position by cradling it in his arms. I followed him and assumed a similar posture on the other side of my friend’s chair. The other jolly’s at the table were at first dismayed by our intrusion, but still barely coherent enough to figure the odds of resisting. They ultimately sat subdued and the six of us finished the performance in our new positions.

“That’s the way that the world goes ‘round. Yer up one day and then yer down. It’s a happy enchilada and you think yer gonna drown…” – Prine…interpreted by a well-lubricated fan.

When the show was finished, I learned that my tablemate was an EMT. Under his instruction, we fastened my friend to his chair and conveyed him to the car. We drove him home, jimmied a large window on his porch, secured him to one of his own kitchen chairs and achieved putting him safely to bed. The EMT stayed with him through the night.

My friend was OK.

I never saw the EMT, his date, my date, or any of the other participants again…and that’s OK too, I guess. It was a different time then.

“I been brought down to zero, brought up and put back there. I sat on the park bench, kissed the girl with the black hair and my head hollered out to my heart; ‘Better look out below!’” –Prine.

I woulda liked to have helped more.

I woulda liked to have helped better.

But I lacked the knowledge and the skill.

“Before I took on anything too big, I’d wanna be sure I had a purty good cut man in my corner.” – John Steinbeck.

“I have always relied on the kindness of strangers” – Tennessee Williams.

Me too.

My Guerilla Theatre Career

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“I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now.” – Bob Dylan.

“Come ON Roger! Dammit!

MOVE!

We’ve got to GO!”

These delicately emphasized instructions landed like thunder on 1970 Southern-Baptist-raised freshman ears that were still trying to accommodate Rhett Butler’s curtain line.

The assault continued; “Get in the car! Sit on Dixie’s lap! She’ll explain. Have you got your sign?”

The sheer number of questions generated thus far was daunting, but offered a promising seating arrangement for the adventure (though he would have preferred to be providing the lap).

Rodge doubted the diplomatic wisdom of quizzing the leader of this expedition (an upper-classman of the Theatre Department named Baker). He decided instead to pursue Dixie’s expertise — seeking to understand the intentions of this adventure and perhaps, eventually, pursuing the attentions of Dixie herself.

In the car for the next three blocks…

Dixie draped a shirt card with strings attached around my neck. It read; “Broad Form Deed.”

She explained; “That’s who you’re playing; Broad Form Deed. We’re protesting against the Peabody Coal Company recruiting today on campus. Baker’s playing the Appalachian farm owner – you’ll see his sign –. When he asks you; ‘What do I get if I sign?’ you smile real big, maybe wiggle some jazz hands behind ears and say; ‘One hundred dollars!’”

“Wait. I’m playing an inanimate object?”

“Yes.”

“What’s a broad form deed, anyway?”

“A slimy legal thing.”

“What’s my motivation?”

“To not get arrested. If you see anyone in a uniform, lose the sign and disappear into the crowd…if there is one. Oh, and if Baker likes you and remembers, he may be the student director of next fall’s show. Could help in auditions. Oh, here we are.”

“Here” was in front of Kennedy’s Book Store at the corner of Limestone and Avenue of Champions. We tumbled out and stumbled about in front of 10-12 mildly befuddled students. I shouted; “One hundred dollars!” We reloaded the car and proceeded to a restaurant named Alfalfa’s, three other campus sites, and a witness-less finale at the courthouse in downtown Lexington (several miles from campus and half a state from the Peabody Coal Company).

From there we dissolved into the night.

I had long lost my sign.

I hoofed it back to my campus apartment.

I now had a performance experience that never appeared on my resumé.

I never saw Dixie again.

My arrest record remained pristine.

A couple years later, John Prine’s Muhlenburg County. Resonated immediately with me by his mention of the Peabody Coal Company.

All-in-all……I suppose I was made better by the afternoon. But…………Dixie was pretty cute.

Sometimes It’s Jes’ Real Good

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I finally gave up my Twitter account when it generally became less useful than alarming. Two sites I used to find consistently entertaining were those of Miss Punnypenny and Rex Chapman. Miss Punnypenny gave me my Scots word of the day and besides, I have a thing for redheads (ask Janie). Rex Chapman is Rex Chapman of the UK Wildcats…and he really likes and understands dogs.

Mr. Chapman once posted a street cam video of a fellow faking an accident of a car striking him. It reminded me…

One day in my former work life with Liquor Barn I received a notice from our insurance company that an action had been initiated by a customer who claimed that he had been assaulted by one of our cashiers with a shopping cart, knocked to the floor, and presumably damaged for life.

I looked at the date of the alleged occurrence. To no surprise, it was exactly 51 weeks before the filing of the complaint. There is a one-year window for such complaints. Many are filed just prior to the deadline. Funny how that is…

I pulled and reviewed the video for the alleged date, noting that this was gonna be hours of my life I was never gonna get back. I found the incident. The video clearly showed the customer being refused for attempting to purchase alcohol for the clearly under-aged companion, clearly standing off to the side of the transaction. When the cashier turned their back to remove the controversial merchandise from snatch-and-grab range, the customer clearly reached out and snatched a nearby shopping cart instead, and proceeded to kneel and then roll on the floor in distress. His young friend leapt to his assistance and they skipped out the door arguing with each other.

I smirked (a verb of which I am not proud) and filed the tape away with others on my that’s-the-last-I’ll-hear-of-this shelf.

I was wrong.

Within the hour, I received a phone call. It was from the complainant.

Caller; “This is John Diver.” (Names have been changed to protect the despicable).

Me; “Yes, Mr. Diver. What can I do for you?”

“Do you know who I am?”

“I do.”

“I’m suing you for damages.”

“I know.”

“What’re you gonna do about it?”

“…Nuthin’…”

“Don’t you wanna stay outta court?”

“I do.”

“Well, that’s where we’re goin’.”

“Okay.”

Here, there was a long, thoughtful pause. Then, he continued.

“You got video in that store?”

“Mr. Diver, I don’t have to answer your questions. Whether I have video or not will be established in the court in which you seem so anxious to be. When we are in that court, I’ll have to answer your questions and I think I can promise you a level of public embarrassment and perhaps, legal liability that Ripley wouldn’t believe. Until then…”

I never heard from Mr. Diver again.

  • Call their bluff.
  • Shine lights on their lies.
  • Shame their families.
  • Don’t imitate their mistakes.
  • If, in the past you have imitated their mistakes, resign any elective office you may hold and let someone less polluted fix things.

Otherwise, as Miss Punnypennie might say, “Wheesht.”

The Good Doctor

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Dr. Seuss did not teach me to read.

My mom did that…and Dick and Jane…and comic books.

On Tuesdays, before I started elementary school through about the second grade, the bookmobile would come to our neighborhood. It would park for the afternoon about five blocks from our house. Mom was a voracious reader. She and I would trudge to the bookmobile every week, toting our books we had checked out from the week before. It had to be done every week or our books would be overdue and there would be a fine to pay. Worse, the bookmobile lady would scowl. (Before you ask; no, her name was not Marion.)

We would trudge home and Mom would read my books to me or ask me to look at the pictures and tell her the story. I don’t remember any of the books being by Dr. Seuss.

What I remember clearly is the dagger I carried home in my chest from my first day of school. I had been assured that I would learn to read when I went to school. That was a big falsehood. We’ve heard a lot about “the big lie” lately. I experienced it in 1957. I had been to school for the day. I had not yet learned to read.

Shoot!

(I had also not yet added “damn!” to my vocabulary.)

Dick and Jane began to rectify that deficiency…the reading part, not the cussing.

Mom had lit a fire, Dick and Jane added the fuel, but comic books were the accelerant for my personal reading eternal flame.

The bookmobile wasn’t enough for Mom’s addiction. We would make regular foraging trips to Mr. Dennis’s bookstore on North Lime; once known as Mulberry Street – how ‘bout that. Mom would carefully choose her treasures while I would plunge into the comic book table. Archie and Veronica and Batman and Superman and Aquaman and Casper, the Friendly Ghost gave me stories to imagine and tell and later read.

I didn’t really discover Dr. Seuss until I was in high school.

I took a part-time job in the Children’s Department of the Lexington Public Library all through high school. I shelved books, checked them in and out, read just about all of them, and guided kids, parents, and kiddie-lit students from Transylvania University.

A decade or so later, I would play Dracula on that University’s stage…poorly, but I played it.

I loved Dr. Seuss. I dove into McElligot’s Pool. I loafed in awe down Mulberry Street. I improved on the zoo and the circus. I heard Who’s with Horton. I scrambled to thwart oobleck and deal with half a thousand hats along with Bartholomew Cubbins. I fretted about how to corral the Cat in the Hat’s Thing 1 and Thing 2 before the parents returned. I loved the rhymes, the nonsense words, and the drawings. But mostly, I was captured by the wide-eyed wonder of the stories’ participants.

I wasn’t alone.

Dr. Seuss books were a hot item in the library when I worked there. They were constantly checked out. They were read to pieces. Their tattered covers were repaired or replaced every year. Many a child would drag themselves through other books imposed on them by teachers and parents just to be rewarded with a romp with the Grinch and Cindy Lou Who.

That Mister Grinch may been a “foul one”, but I’m sure he taught a goodly number of children to read.

They didn’t seem to be offended or hurt by the drawings, but the readers then were overwhelmingly white and didn’t think much about those that might not be.

I certainly wasn’t offended or hurt…and……ditto.

Actually…I’m still not hurt or offended. I’m also not hurt or offended by Hugh Lofting’s drawings in his Dr. Doolittle books. I’m not hurt or offended by Harper Lee’s depiction of the white racist father in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. I’m not offended or hurt by Charlie Chan, or Archie Bunker, or Stan Laurel, or the Three Stooges.

I do however, have people in my life I care about who are stung by these things. I care about these people and would not have them hurt. I don’t mind at all if they choose to not watch or read these artists and works. And if their non-watching and non-reading reduces the financial viability of the works and causes them to be not be published or reproduced, that’s the way it goes. That’s business.

The government didn’t do it. The Left didn’t do it. The Right didn’t do it. The Church didn’t do it. The Proud Boys didn’t do it. The deep state didn’t do it.

The market did it.

I collect books. I cherish the feel of bindings and pages. I always want every book to be always published.

The market dictates otherwise.

Sigh…

OK.

Can we now know better and be better?

The Thrill of Opening Night

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Once upon a time long, long ago, theatre was invented. About 15 minutes later, I was cast in a production of George Bernard Shaw’s Androcles and the Lion.

Peering back through the nainsook scrim of geezer memory, it seemed like a real good time.

The planet, at the time, was lousy with hippies…when hippies were still hippies and not yet freed from the specter of the Selective Service. Student loans and Aids had not yet been invented. Ways were free, which was good ‘coz we didn’t have much money. But, as Bob Dylan explained; “When ya got nuthin’, ya got nuthin’ to lose…How does it feel?” Well…actually…it felt pretty good.

There was no snow ever. I didn’t own a coat. For a buck-ninety-nine you could get a 21-shrimp plate (plus fries and a drink) for a vegan (as defined in those days before we learned to spell keto and sushi) lunch at the Kampus Korner. Two more bucks would get you a burger and a beer at the Paddock Club for dinner. I didn’t need the beer so I was left with some change for the pinball machine. Besides, I had rehearsal for Androcles and the Lion to navigate each evening and needed a clear head.

Androcles and the Lion featured an actor in a floppy lion suit growling and crawling about the stage. Imagine… a university training students for a then non-existent career as a sports team mascot. Still, our last governor would have preferred that to teaching them about French literature.

And you just know that’s gotta be cool.

Not-So-Proud Boy

I remember I played a beggar/criminal type in rags and scabs. I remember I yelled a lot. I remember I was definitive. I was excellent. I was the reason to buy a ticket.

I remember being shocked that the play’s review overlooked my six lines. I assume it was a rigged review.

I recall there was a character named Ferrovius; another poor person destined to be devoured in the arena. Ferrovius would come to the theatre each night, put on his make-up, and dress for the show. He would then report to the costume shop, where the costumer would tease and spray his hippie-ish hair into a foot high maelstrom of chaos. Ferrovius would then leave the costume shop, march directly to the full-length mirror in the green room, whip out a comb, and fiddle with his “do” until he had a Troy Donahue thing happnin’ that Troy woulda envied.

Proud Boy

In those ancient days, this is what we called a Proud Boy.

I learned something profound from watching this routine.

I knew that as a species, we lie.

I learned from this observation that within the spectrum of deceit we practice, we lie most fiercely to ourselves. We preach against vanity and we teach against vanity as a cautionary tale in the theatre.

But then we put a full-length mirror in the green room.

(sigh…)

But in a world of modern Proud Boys, and coronaviruses, and children in cages, and the designated hitter, this vanity and self-foolery seems more charming than destructive.

One night I watched our Androcles rehearsal of the first scene. It was a lively and erudite scene between Androcles and his harridan wife. It ended with the wife slapping Androcles. Ah, that Shavian wit.

I knew the actor playing Androcles, and I had done a couple of shows with the actress playing his wife. After his scene, Androcles and I were chatting and I decided to be helpful.

“You know, I’ve worked with your wife. She’s a remarkable actress.”

“Yes. I’m glad she’s playing the part.”

“You may not know…uh…she…uh…gets very…uh…pumped up…on opening night. You…might want to be prepared.”

“Oh, I get excited too! It’ll be great.”

I watched the opening scene from the wings on opening night. The big first moment came. The wife’s eyes grew eggs-over-easy. Her hair began to rise like Sigourney Weaver’s in Ghostbusters. Her face ruddy-fied to borderline ruby. She inhaled and several audience members fainted from the dip in available oxygen.

Pounded Boy

She swung.

It was titanic.

Her heels were firmly planted. Her hips opened in front of her shoulders. The arm came through after the hips with flashing bat speed, and the launch angle was a pure 30 degrees.

Androcles dropped straight to his knees on contact and spun 180 degrees, which was good: it left him aimed in precisely the correct direction to slither off the stage.

There were several seismic centers in the region that measured the event and one even issued a tsunami alert before realizing the Town Branch of the Elkhorn Creek was completely underground in Lexington.

No one was seriously hurt and the play went on and I was great…all six lines spot on.

I don’t really remember a bit of what I did.

Probably, after that first scene, Androcles didn’t remember either.

At least he didn’t include it in his autobiography.

Meal-Planning in the Time of the Cholera

Junesboy, Lexington-70's

… or a kind of compulsory tailgating.

I’m gonna steal this term from my friend Tyler Madison. He used to live quite near to Commonwealth Stadium (as do Janie and I). During home football games, we get barricaded by game traffic and can’t easily leave the house. This mostly pleasant imprisonment initiates a scouring of the pantry for sustenance. Sometimes the results are, shall we say…creative?

These internal foraging skills have served us in good stead during this year of “sheltering at home” (euphemism for “occasionally being too lazy to go out”).

Hunting and gathering in the wilds of the kitchen cabinets…

Tonight we were, shall we say…fortunate?

Janie had recently made a Trader Joe’s run. With demonic glee, she announced the night’s menu;

  • Asparagus Risotto.
  • Misto alla Griglia (Marinated Grilled Eggplant & Zucchini)
  • Garlic Naan (Indian Bread)

Wow.

Just wow.

Be still my bleating tummy.

I have a couple of thoughts about this roster of edibles. Tonight’s meal is comprised 100% of delicacies I had never heard of much less eaten until;

  1. I was deep into my twenties. Growing up, my dad considered a meal pretty much complete as long as it contained pork chops, brown beans, and fried potatoes. You could add more if you wished, but those dishes were basic sustenance.
  2. It would not have surprised me to find that this meal was accompanied by a disclaimer; “No animals were hurt or destroyed by this meal”.

Now, all that being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the feast.

I am a lucky guy.

Turning Toward the Morning

Lexington-70's, Lexington-Today,

One of my favorite voices belongs to a singer/songwriter/sailor/boat builder from Maine. His name is Gordon Bok. I’ve never sailed nor built a boat and I’ve never been to Maine. Thus, I don’t always understand what he’s singing about. He sings about north winds and waves and storms and nautical conversations with meteorological entities. He describes negotiations between fishermen and the elements. He keens of the fearful waiting of a fishing community awaiting either a reassurance of their loved ones’ return after a storm, or a mortal tally of the lost.

No, I don’t always understand his jargon or his tales, and I suspect that often what I do understand is incomplete and inaccurate.

But he sings so beautifully.

One of his songs, Turning Toward the Morning, resonates with me as this difficult year swirls around its sordid drain. In it, Mr. Bok describes;

“When October’s growin’ thin and November’s comin’ home, you’ll be thinking of the seasons and the sad things that you’ve seen. And you’ll hear that old wind walkin’, hear him singin’ high and thin. You could swear he’s out there singin’ of your sorrow.”

I heard that old wind.

I heard it a few years ago in a small vacation rental on the moors of Nantucket Island. It never ceased. It whispered and rumbled and insisted. It sighed and soughed and implied. It whistled and crooned and threatened. It was intimate and indifferent and in control. Janie and I fled back to Kentucky.

I hear that old wind now.

I hear it on the news. I sift the news of its reality show trappings as best I can. I know they’re driven to create desire in me for reverse mortgages, free transportation to my yearly checkups, clean gutters, drugs with manufactured names I can’t pronounce, miracle pillows, and miracle spring water. I don’t mind this hucksterism. Hell, I grew up thinking I could order eyeglasses from my comic books that would enable me to see through people’s clothes.

No, I need the news services for the facts I can glean, not for that old wind “singin’ of my sorrow.”

I hear that old wind in the concerns of my friends.

My friends are smart (most of the time), optimistic (most of the time), and want to do the next right thing (pretty much all of time). But, for the most part, they are not spring chickens. They fret to near bitterness that they will not get to see the results of the great repair job that began on January 20, 2021. That old wind murmurs that it will take time to inoculate everyone to thwart the pandemic, it will take time to re-staff and refocus our efforts to build the better country we were building before the vandals were allowed entrance, it will take time…

So what.

We still must begin.

We have begun before, and I for one enjoyed that beginning. I’ll enjoy this one as well.

Mr. Bok scratches his head over our fretting;

“It’s a pity we don’t know what the little flowers know. They can’t face the cold November. They can’t take the wind and snow. They put their glories all behind them, bow their heads and let it go. But you know they’ll be there shinin’ in the morning.”

Put your glories all behind you. Bow your head and let it go. There are new glories to create.

Ronald Reagan’s campaign told us “It’s morning in America.” (LOUD BUZZER) Wrong! Thank you for playing.

The morning is now.

It always is……now.

It will be glorious and exciting. Just what us geezer-refugees from the Age of Aquarius need…a mission bigger and longer-lasting than ourselves.

Mr. Bok;

“If I had a thing to give you, I would tell you one more time that the world is always turning toward the morning.”

It is the dawning.

Be there…

…shinin’.