A Non-Tradditionalist, Except for Thanksgiving

I'm not a traditionalist about most things, but I've always been a traditionalist about Thanksgiving. The bird. The mashed potatoes. The lumpy gravy. The cranberry sauce. Spiced apples that decorate the turkey plate (and I've never seen anybody actually eat one. I've accused my wife of putting them back in the jar and saving them for next Thanksgiving!). Pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie. The works. We do not have those greenbeans with the soup and canned onion rings on top. We don't go that far. This year we're really breaking with tradition. We're going to Eleuthera. an island in the Bahamas. We'll probably be chewing batter-fried conch. It's as rubbery as a big rubber eraser and about as tasty. One of my daughters decided we needed an adventure. And I think it will be an adventure. She thinks she's taking a couple of frozen turkeys on the plane, but I told her they would more than likely think they were terrorist bombs. They don't even let guys take after shave lotion nowadays, much less two butterball turkeys. But I'm old enough to know you need to be FLEXIBLE when you're looking for an adventure. I've been to Eleuthera before. They don't even have running water. They catch rainwater in a cistern on top of the houses. But it's a beautiful place with beautiful people who all know how to bake coconut pies. This isn't the first time we have broken with tradition at Thanksgiving. Two years ago, we went to Washington, D.C. to spend Thanksgiving with our unmarried daughter. Just my wife and I went so my wife told my daughter, "Don't get a whole turkey. Just get a turkey breast. Nobody likes dark meat anyway." (She's the one who doesn't like dark meat!) My daughter got our turkey from QVC. A boneless breast of turkey that had been infused with Cajun spices. She got two...and they looked like small sheetcakes without the icing or candles. "It doesn't even look like a turkey," I complained. So my daughter went to the store and bought two wings and two legs. And she hooked them to the double breasts to fashion a bird. Wings make a bird, not legs. Once the double breasts were on the platter, I put prune nipples on them. Let me tell you, it was the strangest Thanksiving centerpiece I ever saw, but those Cajuns sure know how to infuse a bird. It was delicious; so juicy. We've never had better turkey! So to heck with tradition. (I'm convinced that all the people who used to watch Tammy Faye and Jim Baker on TV and donate money to their park now watch QVC and buy Cajun turkeys, Joan River jewels and what have you.) Now that I think about it, we broke with tradition last year as well. We had a Turduchen from QVC. I guess you have to be the kind of person who watches QVC to know that things like this even exist. A Turduchen is three birds in one...they start with a boneless turkey...stuff it with a boneless duck...and then stuff that with a boneless hen. I know it sounds repulsive and it looked like an oversized footbal, rather than something you would eat. But it was very tasty. It too had been injected with Cajun spices so I believe it was the touch of those crazy CAjuns that made it so good. I think I'll pack some Cajun spices for our trip to the island...see if we can make Cajun Conch Fritters. I hope all you readers have a wonderful Thanksgiving, traditional or non-traditional.

Chinese Food Like You've Never Seen

I took a friend of mine from Alabama to a real Chinese supermarket in Washington, D.C. It's a big market and has one of everything you've never seen or eaten. My friend loved it. He likes Bitter Melon and exotic teas. I went to the meat market where they had chicken feet, duck feet, pig dicks and pig uteruses. They had a section where they had cooked versions of most of the meats. We got some bar-b-qued chicken feet (they had clipped the toenails). I can't say they were very meaty but they were cheap. They were fresh out of pig's dicks and uteruses. I asked her if she would be cooking uteruses the next day. She said, "You must come very early you want pig uterus. Pig parts very popular. Go faster than Egg McMuffins at MacDonald's." Who would have guessed it?

70 Year Olds Doing the Jitterbug

I just went to my high school reunion in Maryland. I was graduated in 1954 and I had not seen many of the people in more than 50 years. They had made name tags with your photo from the yearbook thinking this would help us remember. I thought most of the women had aged fairly well. They take better care of themselves I think. There were a few old guys who had obviously dumped their first wives (or been dumped!) and they had young "chicky babes". You could spot these guys without seeing their wives. They were the ones with big smiles ear to ear and the ones who were popping Viagra pills like they were Chiclets. One of my old girlfriends asked me to slow dance but I am deaf and both of us were walking with canes. I suggested that we should probably sit the music out since it would be like dancing with six legs. Being from the 50's, we were a patriotic group. We had a Navy Chaplain lead us in songs. The Star Spangled Banner. The song for each branch of the service: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. I didn't remember the Army song. But a friend of mine years ago had given me a secret when you are group singing and you don't know the words. You just mouth the word "watermelon" over and over again to the general beat of the song. I think I may have inadvertently sang out WATERMELON, WATERMELON a couple of times because people turned to me with questioning looks on their faces. We had a dance contest. It was really strange to see so many oldsters doing the jitterbug. A few of the ladies had on poodle skirts. Remember those? I won first place in the nostalgia competition. This wasn't a dance. I brought pictures from high school days made into a poster. I had given numerous inappropriate captions. I noticed in some of the pictures my wife had given me (she was a year behind me), she was cuddling with two different guys. I had gone off to war and they moved in on her. Both of them are now dead so it sort of serves them right. Every time I asked about an absent classmate someone would say, "Oh, he's passed on." Or "she's passed on". I think one woman actually brought her husband's ashes. It was a no smoking building and the ashes had no cigarette butts in them. Part way through the evening someone passed a note at our table that said: THE BUS TO THE HOME LEAVES IN HALF AN HOUR. Most of us laughed. But one couple said, "O.K. Thanks. We'll be ready." A fraternity brother of mine whom I had not seen in 52 years suggested that me and my wife should come to Florida to see him. I said, "I have not seen you in 52 years. I have had no Christmas cards; no birthday cards; no e-mails, not even "forwards". And you seriously believe I would jump in my car and drive 7 hours in that horrible Florida traffic to visit you? I'll see you back here in another 52 years. And it will probably be another 52 years before I go to another reunion. The reunion was like a New Year's party where everyone is grunting to have a good time. There were lots of jewels and wigs. The women had some too. It seemed as if every old man had gold bracelets and gold chains. One friend told me the bracelets have magnets that help you improve your golf swing. I told him not to get too close to one of our friends who had a steel plate put it in head because of an accident. It would have been awful if his wrists were jerked up to the guy's head like those little black and white magnet dogs we used to have as kids. Actually it would have been funny. I shouldn't have mentioned it. The table conversation was mainly about various maladies that people had...toenail fungus, open heart surgery, cancer, restless leg syndrome. We talked about living wills. One guy said he had told his wife he did not want to be kept alive on a machine or with fluids being pumped into him. So she unplugged his TV and threw away all his beer. One person came in a long stretch limo. A white one being driven by a young woman in leather pants and a leather hat. He had been a high school drop out, but he was probably the most financially succesful person there. He finished school in the marines, then went to college and got two degrees. He owned his own computer company and now he spends his days counting his money. Everybody was excited when the limo arrived and the buzz was: "Who is it? Who is it?". I said, "Ringo Star." Someone else asked, "Did he go to our school?"

There's Too Much News!

An old friend of mine said, "I hope that you are reading a GOOD newspaper every day now that you don't work." By this he meant THE NEW YORK TIMES or at least THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. I told him I didn't read a newspaper every day...only on Sunday when I do buy and read THE NEW YORK TIMES. I explained to him that Sunday is a slow news day...nothing traumatic and earth-shaking happens on Sundays...not since Pearl Harbor got attacked in 1941. If any bad stuff happens during the week, by Sunday they are analyzing it and it doesn't seem so bad like it would have been as hard news. There's too much damn news anyway, and it's the same old stuff day after day. Our hometown newspaper even repeats obituaries. When I spend the summer in the mountains of North Carolina, THE NEW YORK TIMES is not readily available even though they own the newspaper in Hendersonville. If you want to be certain of getting a copy on Sunday, you have to sign up at the Harris-Teeter supermarket and they will hold a copy for you. It means driving almost 50 miles roundtrip to get one but reading the Sunday paper is about the only ritual thing I do, so I go every Sunday morning. When I went the last time, I forgot to take my money or my credit cards. The manager that's normally on duty was off and a co-manager was on duty. I explained the situation and figured he could let me take my newspaper and I could pay him the next time I was in town. It seemed like a simple thing to me, but he was having no part of it. Stern faced and non-negotiable. I told him he could see by my records that I always showed up on Sunday and always paid...even bought some groceries from time to time. But he just shook his head in the negative. So I said, "O.K. then. You lend me $5.35. (They charge TAX on the newspapers which I think should be against the law!). He was quick to reply, "I'm not lending you any money." I asked him if he thought I was a bum or something just because I had dried oatmeal on my beard. He said I had oatmeal on my shirt too and that he had seen a lot better looking bums. (I'm not buying my groceries there any more.) When I went outside there was an old, old Knights of Columbus guy collecting money for retarded children. I told him about the situation of not being able to get my NEW YORK TIMES...finally he said, "I'll give you a dollar to get your newspaper." But then I told him it was $5.35. He said, "What kind of newspaper is it anyway?" He obviously doesn't read THE NEW YORK TIMES. He wasn't so interested in giving me $5.35. I suggested perhaps I could take it out of his can of money...he had wads of one dollar bills. But he said, "Oh, no. We can't do that. This is for retarded children." I said, "Hell man, they are retarded. They don't know a one dollar bill from a five dollar bill. Besides, look at this oatmeal on my beard and shirt. I'm retarded myself so you can give me the money directly." He said they had warned him about people trying to hoodwink him. I thought seriously about grabbing the whole can of money and running with it. But somebody in the parking lot would have caught me and I could just hear the co-manager telling the cops, "I knew he was up to no good...came in here trying to get a NEW YORK TIMES without paying. And I think he stole two jelly donuts on the way out." I didn't steal the donuts, but I thought about it.

Remembering the Geranium.

I am profoundly deaf. That means I'm deaf as a rock. I wasn't always. When I lost my hearing it was fairly traumatic. I owned three companies, all in the communications business. So being deaf and being in the communications business was sort of a tough concept to grasp. I struggled to learn to read lips and got pretty good at it. But I didn't venture out into public settings unless I had to. A friend of mine was giving a talk on public relations at a workshop in Boston. I wanted to go, so I signed up and went. The first speaker on the program turned out the lights to give his talk...a slide show. I could see the slides, but I couldn't figure out anything he said since the room was darkened. It was sort of a slap in the face...and it threw me into a instant funk. I left the workshop and went across the street from the hotel where there was a beautiful park. Although it was October, flowers were still in full bloom. I sat there staring at this red geranium that was at its peak. Without thinking, I started talking to the geranium. I told it, "Sure, you're blooming. But winter is almost here, and when it comes you are going to freeze to death. You'll be gone." I got no reply. But as I was watching this fully blooming geranium, I realized that it didn't care if winter was going to take it. It was going to bloom right up to the minute a frosty night would take it. I thought to myself, "Damn. That's what I want to do. I want to be blooming no matter what. I want to be in full bloom even if I am deaf and blind and ninety years old. I think of the red geranium often...and I blossom and grow.

Are You Creative?

Don't say "no"! If you say "no" you will never be creative. We all have creative potential. If you say "yes, I am creative", you WILL BE creative. It's that simple. You've got to believe you are and the creative side of your mind will go into gear. You'll be creative in everything that you do. It's not just about art or music. Creative is a way of living. And when you let the creative side of yourself lead the way, you'll discover who you really are...who you were meant to be.

I"ll Have the General Tso Cat

When I would go visit my cousins in North Carolina, we would often meet at a great little Chinese restuarant. The food was always wonderful. After years of visiting the place, I went to visit and my cousins told me the place had been closed down by the Health Department. It seems they were serving CAT instead of chicken in many of their dishes. What? Is it against the law to eat a cat? My cousins said it was against the law if you called it General Tso's Chicken. False advertising. I don't care what the Health Department said, it was damn good cat.

Up, Up and Away!

A friend of mine has an old cat...handsome guy. He got sick and had to be taken to the vet. She misunderstood what the vet said...she thought he said it would be costly...900,000 dollars. He actually said $900 to a thousand. She's a religious person who believes in "the rapture" so I suggested that it might be time to rapture the cat up to Heaven. But she was quick to tell me that cats cannot be raptured. I couldn't believe she said this...but she insisted that animals cannot be raptured. I was very disappointed and told her that if my favorite dog wasn't going to be in Heaven, wagging his tail to greet me, that I wasn't so sure I wanted to go. What kind of place can Heaven be if you don't have your pets with you. She says it's because dogs and cats can't profess their belief. But my dog was baptized...he baptized himself a couple of times a day in the summer. He did it in a pond down by the golf course. We could always tell when he had baptized himself because he was white normally, but he would come home green. Covered in pond algae. I'm fairly certain he's laying on the floor next to God. Or maybe chasing women.

Stop Bugging God!

I don't know about you, but I think people are on the phone with God way too much... asking for stuff...begging, even. I believe we should be thanking God all the time for whatever we have. Thank you, Jesus! It's o.k. to ask him for blessings...for yourself and for others. But let him decide how he's going to bless you. He's smarter than we are...he'll give us what we need, not necessarily what we want. Amen.

Not So Damn Fast!

I was on the road and stopped at a rest stop. As I walked in, I noticed a sign that said, "Automatic Toilets". It made me nervous to tell you the truth. I imagined some machine yanking down my pants and pushing me down on the toilet seat without even wiping it. So I asked the attendant what the deal was. He said that when you wash your hands, you just put your hands under the faucet and the water comes out automatically. And if you have to go into one of the stalls...when you get up to leave, an electronic eye in the wall knows you have left and it flushes the toilet automatically. I asked him, "You sure there's not somebody in the wall watching me?" He swore it was an electronic eye. With his assurance, I went ahead into the toilet to do my business. I leaned forward slightly to get some toilet paper and the damned toilet flushed violently...it was like a bidet (or what I imagine a bidet would be like!). I yelled, "Wait a damn minute. I'm not finished here." But the eye was quick on the trigger. I know there was somebody in the wall. I heard someone laughing.

What's That In Your Ear, Lady?

I keep seeing these people with gadgets in their ears...they aren't hearing aids. I think they are telephones. But the people sure look silly walking around with these phones in their ears. And so far, none of the people who I've seen wearing them look like they are ever going to receive a call from anybody. I told one woman, "It looks like you lost one of your earrings." She said, "No. This is not an earring. This is a telephone. I can get a call anywhere without having to use my cell phone." They are stupid...and whoever invented them should have a couple implanted in their asses. That's my opinion, and I'm sticking with it.

Give Me That Old Time Convenience

We didn't have convenience stores when I was a boy. But we had REAL convenience because a lot of the merchants came to us. My favorite merchant by far was a guy named Tony. He came once a week in the summer time and you could hear him coming long before you saw him. He rang a bell that was attached to his ice cream truck. It was more like a little room with glass windows than a truck and it was pulled by a horse who seemed to know exactly when to stop and when to go. I imagine he stopped when he saw at least five kids with their eager tongues hanging out. Tony came to our neighborhood once a week and I'm sure he covered other neighborhoods the days he wasn't at Osceola Mill. He drove his ice cream truck standing up. Even as a kid I could tell how delighted he was to be selling ice cream. He didn't hurry you if you couldn't make a decision among the flavors he offered. Sometimes he would suggest one scoop of each...he would mix the cone up if that's what you wanted. We always got cones of ice cream. My Mother and aunts would get cups of ice cream with little wooden spoons. They didn't think licking ice cream cones was lady-like. We didn't care because we were boys and we could lick faster than the ice cream could melt, even on the hottest day. On other days --- but not as often --- kids would run down the street yelling, "The Jew is coming. The Jew is coming." They didn't mean anything deragotory. Everybody called him The Jew, and not behind his back. The Jew owned a dress shop on Main Street. But many of the mill ladies rarely made it into town. They didn't have cars. If they went to town, they had to take a bus. The Jew drove a black van. The sight of it got the ladies off their front porches, especially the ones who cared about looking good and the ones who went to church regularly and needed something to wear. Going to church was the main time women got dressed up. I never knew any other woman other than my Aunt Hattie who actually "went out". She was a clothes horse and The Jew loved her for it. He would let her buy clothes even when she didn't have money. And even I --- a kid --- could see right through his sales pitches to her. He would say, as he held up a nice dress, "This is what they are wearing in Charlotte this season." He might as well have said Paris or New York. I don't know who "they" were but apparently my Aunt Hattie did because she would get the garment from his hands and hold it up to her body and look in the mirror he had hanging on the back door of the van. If it was good enough for Charlotte, it was good enough for Aunt Hattie. She had closets full of clothes; a room full actually. She was a "Looker" and she knew it. Groceries got delivered to the door. Not all the time. If you bought just a few things, you would carry them home in a poke. But if you were getting a week's worth of groceries, you could ask the store to deliver them. In this case, they packed the groceries in wooden boxes and then they would deliver out to your house and even bring them in an put them on the kitchen table. The service was free of charge but the delivery man would always stand around and wait for a tip. If you had money, you could pay for the groceries. But if you were short of cash (which most people were), you could charge the food until next pay day. That's where the song, "I owe my soul to the company store" came from. Except the store wasn't owned by the same company that owned the mill. But you still owed your soul. We rarely got meat unless you can call fatback meat. Once in a while we got stew beef which my father said was "tough as a horse, and might be one." We never asked him if he had eaten a horse before. We just assumed he did when he went off in his early life to live on the railroad as a hobo and to work in a circus. He might even have eaten an elephant. My father would sometimes say he had steak in his eye but bologna in his wallet. We actually didn't have bologna that often, just on pay days when they delivered a lot of groceries. I haven't even touched here on the convenience of having a Sears and Roebuck catalog. It's not that we bought that much. It was more of a "dream book". But when you did your order came right to your mailbox. My friends and I loved it most when the ice man cometh. Not too many people had refrigerators back then. There were a few electric Kelvinators around. But mainly we had ice boxes which served the same purpose but without electriicty. There was a big metal box and the ice man delivered a big block of ice which would then cool the whole ice box as long as the ice lasted. We had a carboard sign with numbers that would hang out to tell the ice man how many pounds to leave. But he generally knew without looking at the sign. Our ice box was up against the kitchen wall. There was a door in the wall that the ice man could open from the outside and put the ice in the box without actually coming inside. But the main reason we liked the ice man is because he would give us chunks of broken ice. We would suck on it. And if it was really a hot day, we would sometimes rub the ice all over our chests. And somebody would always remind us that Eskimos lived in ice houses. And then somebody else would say, "Yeah, but not in Gastonia, North Carolina in August."

Don't Spin Off the Earth

Not that I don't have enough to think about, but I just read an article that the gravity pull is getting weaker. I remember when I was a kid and found out that the earth was round and revolving, I was so sure we were going to spin right off...go flying through space. In fact, I started walking by grabbing on with my toes...and I still do. I wear out my shoes from the inside but so far it's kept me from flying away. Now we might really fly off! I'm sure some of Bush's people will hire their friends at Halliburton to make all the Americans (well, maybe not illegal immigrants) special shoes with magnets that hold us onto the earth's surface. . I just hope they're as comfortable as my Crocs.

The 95-Year-Old Killer

I read about a guy who had just celebrated his 75th wedding anniversary. He was 95. He came down one morning for breakfast; his wife was eating her oatmeal. He shot her in the head and killed her. He called 911. The police came and he told them that he had killed her. They asked him why and he replied, "I just couldn't take it any longer." I'm sure an all-male jury will understand and let him off.

Skiing in the United Arab Republic

They have built an INDOOR ski resort in Dubai, United Arab Republic. It looks like a space station on the moon...huge. It's 120 degrees outside but they have fresh white snow inside...men skiing with towels on their heads. But they can afford to be frivolous when we are paying $3 a gallon for gasoline.

Shopping for Organic Eggs at the Chicken Ranch

My wife pays my Visa bill each month and she carefully looks at where I've been spending money. She wanted to know what I was doing at The Chicken Ranch. I told her I was buying eggs. She said, "You spent $200." I told her they were organic, free-range eggs and the ladies at The Chicken Ranch have to look all over the desert to find the eggs. Half of them are hardboiled from the heat by the time they find them. It's not easy work.

Cows Can't Tell You Whether It's Going to Rain or They Would Be TV Weather Women.

It's an old wive's tale that if you see cows sitting down in a field that it's going to rain shortly. They sit down because their feet are killing them. If it's going to rain, they put on their raincoats or open an umbrella.

Temporary Sanity

Did you hear about the guy who killed his wife. He's pleading "Temporary Sanity".

Tell Me You're Kidding.

I saw an on-line advertisement for RENTING designer handbags. They've gotten so expensive, I guess a lot of people can't afford to buy them. So now you can rent them...return one and get another one. I've heard of some stupid things, but this is super stupid. Most of the handbags are ugly...so I guess that's how people know they are authentic. .

Billy Graham's Getting Nervous

In the summer I live in the mountains of N.C., not far from where Billy Graham lives. My wife loves Billy and when he is on TV, she always wants me to watch with her. Not too long ago, he was being interviewed on a talk program. The host said, "You are getting up in years. It won't be long until you are in Heaven, sitting and talking with God." I was shocked that Billy Graham answered, "I'm not sure that I have earned the right to sit with God." My wife and I both gasped. I turned to her and said, "If Billy doesn't think he has the right to go to Heaven, we are in deep shit, honey." She said, "Speak for yourself. I'll be there. I've earned my right. I clean brass at church once a month." And I said, "Yes, and that's what you will be doing in Heaven...except I am sure they have a lot more brass than St. Luke's does." She said that Billy was getting nervous because he used to play golf with Richard Nixon and pal around with him. I don't really think that's enough to keep him out of Heaven. But I'm hoping he's not thinking he'll be able to play golf with Nixon up there because I'm sure Nixon's in Hell playing with the Devil.

"Are you Oral Roberts?" She Asked.

I used to go visit my mother-in-law in the nursing home...I'd go and give her a whirl in her wheelchair around the place...or take her for a drive in the country. We would sing songs as we drove along since nobody could hear us. Once when I had her out and took her back to park her in the main room, I put her near the big TV set. There was an old woman there with her hand raised in the air repeatedly saying, "Help me. Help me." Poor thing. I took her hand and said, "Do you want me to help you?" She said, "Yes. Are you Oral Roberts." I thought for a moment and then said, "Yes. How did you recognize me?" She said she had seen me on TV. She was in a wheelchair and her foot was crooked. I had read a book about "faith healing"...the laying on of the hands. So I was looking for a chance to try my new skills. I asked her what seemed to be the matter. She pointed toward her legs and said, "My foot." I got down on my knees between her legs and I lightly touched her foot. She SCREAMED. I was so sure the nurse would come and find me down on my knees with my head between the old lady's legs. But fortunately, the nurse was snoozing as usual. I said to the woman, "Did I hurt you?" She said no. I asked her if she really believed because that's one of the essentials of faith healing...you've got to believe that you can cure them; they have to believe that you can. It takes two to faith heal as well as to tango. She said she believed. So I said, "Well, let me try again. I'll put my hands on your legs and I'm sure you will be able to walk again." She said, "I don't want to walk again. My foot has gone to sleep and I just want you to wake it up." I jumped up and yelled, "My God, woman! You think Oral Roberts goes around waking up old feet??" I'm a Faith Healer. I can make you walk again! "Please," she begged, "Just wake my foot up." I yelled, "Yee of little faith. Wake your own damn foot up. I'm out of here."

The Christian Right; The Christian WRONG.

I think they should rename the Christian Right...call it The Christian WRONG. They are getting so crazed lately. It's one thing if they want to tote the Bible every place they go, but now they have taken to shaking it at you if you do or say anything they don't like. It's scary! These are the people who elected President Bush. They should be shaking their Bibles at him.

Keeping an Open Mind

I always thought it was good to keep an open mind...it showed you were open to other people's opinions. But the trouble is, as you get older and you have an open mind, stuff starts spilling out. I've always been the kind who put my foot in my mouth all too often. But now that I'm really old, I'm shocked at the things that come out of my mind when it's open. And if I am shocked, think how shocked listeners are likely to be.

Chewing the Fat

Where in the world did an expression like "chewing the fat" come from? When I was a kid in the South, my Mother would cook "Fat Back" every morning. She cooked it and saved the grease in a can so she could flavor her green beans and other vegetables with the taste of the fat. We would have the fried Fat Back pieces on biscuits for breakfast. The fried fat is very, very tasty. From time to time in Southern cafes you'll find it on the buffet or the main menu as an "entre". It was easy to chew the fat. What wasn't easy was to chew the sliver of pig hide that the fat back was attached too. In fact, we used to see how long we could chew it...sometimes I could chew it all the way to school which was a two mile walk before it disintegrated...or before I spit it out. In Frederick, Maryland, a friend and I used to love to go to a cafe called, CHAT AND CHEW. My friend loved it more than I did, and he definetly loved the name. In the little town of Bluffton, S.C., they have a place called the SQUAT AND GOBBLE. I keep trying to get my Maryland friend to come down so I can take him to lunch there. I know he would like to chew the fat at the Squat and Gobble.

The Fish Are Biting

I live on a mountain lake in the summer. And the fish are biting. Not biting the worm, but biting ME. Everytime I try to go in the lake to swim, if I slow down at all the fish start trying to bite moles off my legs and back. These moles don't look like worms, but they apparently look very appetizing to catfish, mountain trout and big-mouthed bass. It's not that their bites hurt all that much, it's just that it scares me. It could be the Loch Ness Monster, you know.

Dragging Main

It always amazes me what THE NEW YORK TIMES puts into its Style Section. Mostly crap from Hollywood. But recently they had an article on "Dragging Main" in Asheville, N.C. For those who don't know what Dragging Main involves, it's an old Southern custom (which I am personally surprised is still alive) in small towns all over the South. On Saturday nights, boys gas up their cars and go to town...the girls go to town, but they walk down Main Street. Strool actually. The boys slowly drive by checking out the parade of young women....making appropriate and inappropriate remarks to them trying to lure them into their cars. It's sort of a pre-marital mating game. I'm surprised that guys can still drag Main with the price of gas hovering around $3 a gallon. I'm sure there are some Southern towns where Main Street is on a hill so they can coast down without having to turn on the motor. I used to go with my cousin Howard to drag main when I was a teenager. Howard drove because (a) I was too young to drive and (b) I didn't have a car. My job was to sit in the seat by the driver, roll down the window, hang out the window and say cute things to the passing parade of young women. Some of them wouldn't even look our way. (I didn't take this personally because I figured it was the CAR they were rejecting, not me.) But most of them would look my way, smile and giggle. Our objective of course was to lure them over to the car for some serious conversation. The girls always walked in twos...and the boys drove in twos. Howard would feed me "lines" that I was to say. His lines were corny, but they usually worked because he was an old hand at dragging Main. He wasn't looking to net two young women...he was going for a special type who wasn't just going along for the ride, so to speak. When we captured a couple, we would usually take them to a hamburger joint on the outside of town...and then to the Drive-In Movie. He always carried two folding chairs in the car and he would make me and the ugliest girl sit outside to watch the movie. I'm not sure what he and the other one did, but they never knew anything about the movie we had seen. I don't think anybody drags Main Street in the town where I used to live. All the stores are closed now...Main Street is dead. But I may go over next Saturday night and just double check.

I Don't Trust a Doctor With Zits

Call me old fashioned...but I don't like young doctors. Especially when they still have zits. I don't think they know enough to be treating me. A young doctor bought my old doctor's practice. (Why do they call it "practice"? It's as if they are learning at your expense!) On my first visit, I asked the nurse if the guy was certified. She said she thought he was. But I asked to see his diploma. It was fresh...and he was fresh. He said, "You are way too fat. You've got to lose some of this weight." I told him it was "baby fat" but he said my records showed that I was 65 years old. But some people don't lose their baby fat when they are young. My old doctor never bitched about my weight or my blood pressure. I guess he was old enough and smart enough to know it wouldn't do any good. The New Kid on the Block uses a computer to help him diagnose illness. I went in with a hand rash...he made me put my hands up beside a computer screen and he kept calling up photographs until he found one that sort of matched. "I think this is it," he said gleefully. I told him I could get his computer program and could do the same thing on my computer at home. And "I think I could get rid of those zits of yours."

Buy One, Get One Free

It's become popular for grocery stores to run weekly specials whereby if you buy one jar of peanut butter, you get a second one free. I love these promotions although I have to admit it makes me buy stuff that I really don't need. But I can't resist. My pantry looks like it belongs to the Doublemint Twins...two of everything. Or like Noah stowing away rations for the big flood. Two peanut butters. Two pork and beans. Two cans of green beans. Two Duke's mayonaises.

William Thompson, Visionary Artist

William Thompson lives in a castle in Spartanburg. He likes living in a castle. This is the second one he has lived in. But what really makes him unique are the fantastic paintings he creates. He was a business man who had never painted in his life. But he came down with a terrible nerve-related disease...he could barely walk and his hands were so crippled that he could hardly hold a spoon. He was in Hawaii recuperating from the disease when God spoke to him and told him to paint. It was such a clear message, he went right out and bought canvases, paints and brushes. And he began painting as God had instructed him to do. He said the first paintings were so ugly he thought he had misunderstood what God had said. So he prayed for God to speak to him again...and God said, "Yes, Thomas. I want you to paint." So he went back to painting. One of the first paintings he did when he got back home was a 300 foot painting (yes...you got that right...a painting as long as a football field!) depicting the entire Book of Revelations. It was so big it had to be worked like a scroll. When the American Visionary Art Museum was doing a year-long exhibit called "The End Is Near", they selected his painting to be displayed. It was draped from the ceiling. They had Army ambulance stretchers on the floor...you would get down on the stretcher and use a pair of binoculars to view the painting. This one painting put him on the art map...at least in the world of Outsider Art. Although it's difficult to find places that can display a 300 foot painting, his work has been shown throughout Europe and also here in the United States. Right now he has been commissioned to do 7 paintings for the American Visionary Art Museum on "creation"...the first seven days from Genesis. These will be put on permanent display at AVAM beginning in October. Just recently, two art books on Thompson's work have been published...available I'm sure through Amazon.com.

Living in Kudzu Country

If you don't live in the South, you may not know about Kudzu. It's a wildly rambling vine that covers everything in its path. Stand in one spot too long and you would be covered with it. Actually it's a beautiful vine, but wild, wild wild. Here, where I live in the mountains of North Carolina, it completely encases huge trees...covers entire valleys. It dies down in winter and comes blazing back the very next year. People brought it here from Japan back in the 30's to help stop erosion, especially where they were cutting away hills to build new roads. It stops erosion alright! No one has come up with anything useful to do with Kudzu. Some people make jelly from the beautiful little Kudzu flowers. I've heard that people make baskets with the brittle vines. And I know a woman who uses the leaves to make paper. She dyes the paper...cuts it into various shapes and creates quilt-like wall hangings. But there's still a lot of Kudzu left if you've got any ideas. And I think it is moving north like the fire ants and the armadillos.

Freaky, Freaky

I've always loved freaks. When I was a kid my mother would always say, "Don't stare. Don't stare." But I couldn't help it. I wasn't crazy about midgets because they came to the N.C. State Fair every year. They had a sideshow tent and they dressed in evening gowns and tuxedos. I had to give up five rides in order to buy a ticket, but I always went to the midget show. At halftime they would come out into the audience and sell stuff...you could buy autographed photographs signed with a midget hand. One year they sold midget Bibles which didn't even have one chapter. And then the next year they sold straight pins with the Lord's Prayer engraved on the head of them. So they said. I bought one. I was one of those "a sucker is born every minute" kids. I was so eager to get home and tell my Dad about my treasure. He held the pin under the light and turned it slowly. He squinted. Finally he said, "There's nothing on the head of this pin, son. You've been screwed by a band of midgets." I was sure he was wrong. I took the pin back and turned it slowly and read, "Our Father who art in Heaven....". "You're just making that up, son," my Dad said. "If I were you I would go back over to the fair and kick some tiny butt." I said, "Would you go with me?" He said, "They're midgets. You're as big as they are. You can take them." They were little alright, but one of them smoked a cigar so I figured they were probably fairly strong. I just put the pin away and swore I would never go to a midget show again. But I never lost my fascination for midgets or other freaks. My daughter just bought me a book titled FREAK BABYLON...it's filled with real pictures of real freaks. Many of them are in the movie, FREAK. The movie that was made in the 30's and was considered so scandalous that MGM pulled it. The book talks about the movie, but also about freaks and the people who loved them. I knew that Diane Arbus, the photogapher, became enamored with them toward the end of her life. She would go to 42nd Street and take pictures of them. In the book it said that Catherine the Great loved giants...she had them brought to Russia so she could have sex with them. But being unsatisfied with giants, she took to having sex with horses. The book claims she died having sex with a horse. A friend told me it was the horse that died.

Judging Miss America

I always wanted to be a judge for the Miss America pageant. Because of my work with the USO, I did get invited to be a judge at one of the preliminary pageants in Maryland. There were two guy judges...and six women judges. They instructed us very carefully that Miss America is not a beauty contest (what???)...it's a scholarship program with the victor being the best all-around young woman. I whispered to the other guy who was a judge and said, "I don't know about you, but I've voting for the one with the biggest hooters." He said, "Me, too!" I told him that's probably why they had so many women judges. They all voted for the opera singer and she won. Of course breathing in and out deeply so you can sing opera develops fairly sizeable hooters, too, so in a way the two guys won as well.

Sleep Your Fat Away

It seems as if I have always been searching for ways to lose weight. Especially ways that allowed me to do it easily while I continued to eat, eat, eat. When I was about 15-years-old, I saw an ad that said, SLEEP YOUR FAT AWAY: Lose Weight While You Sleep. Now that's what I call a miracle way to lose weight. I sent away for this "suit" that your wore at night. When it came, it looked a lot like a shower curtain. It was a bright pink plastic thing, sort of like pajamas. You zipped yourself into it before you went to bed. The whole idea of this invention was the fact that the body is mainly water...so you would sweat your fat away. It sure made you sweat. I woke up the first morning and thought I had wet the bed. The suit was stuck to me from all the sweat. I thought, "Damn, this is working. I will be thin in no time." I worried that I would have a thin body but a fat head, fat hands and fat feet. But I didn't worry enough that I stopped putting the plastic suit on every night. After a few days I noticed that my body was as bright pink as the shower-curtain pajamas. I had a heat rash all over my body where the pj's went. I had to shower after gym class and I caused quit a stir. They re-named me "Pinkie". I probably would have kept using the sleep-your-fat-away pj's even with the rash. But fortunately, they ripped. And I still feel ripped for paying $14.95. Maybe I can find them at a good price on eBay.

The Famous Meatloaf Cook Off

My family is very competitive. We don't play touch football like the Kennedys when we get together. We have cooking competitions. Last New Years when we gathered with our family and some friends, we told everybody to bring their favorite meatloaf recipes. I don't know anyone who doesn't like meatloaf and I'm so happy that it has made a big comeback in even fancy restuarants. Everybody thinks their recipe (or their Mother's recipe) is the best. So we had everyone cook a meatloaf for which we offered prizes and trophies. My oldest daughter was in charge of organizing the cookoff. She eliminated me from the competition! I made MEAT MUFFINS, little meatloafs that were cooked in muffin tins. They were so cute and so tasty, and they cooked much faster than the normal loaf. But she said, "It's a meatLOAF competition, not a meatMUFFIN competition. You're out." Well it pissed me off because the meat muffins were eaten up like...muffins. My daughter knew my meatloaf would win...she eliminated me so she could win. She did. I have to admit that her meatloaf was pretty good...a Mexican Meatloaf. One of my other daughters made Greek Meatloaf (stuffed with feta cheese and spinach); another one made Italian Meatloaf. And a lot of the other people just used their Mothers' recipes and none of these even made it to the top three. Some of our health-nut friends made Tofu Meatloaf. They did not win. Nobody even wanted to taste it except them. You couldn't eat Tofu Meatloaf even with a bottle of catsup on it. In fact, their meatloaf got booed. My latest meatloaf venture is MEATLOAF WELLINGTON...it's a meatloaf wrapped in crescent roll dough...it not only looks beautiful, it tastes great. Once I made a meatloaf in a bundt pan. Once it's baked, you turn it out on a platter then fill the middle with peas and put mashed potatoes around the outside edges. I'm sure my daughter would eliminate this one, too.

An Untraditional Thanksgiving

I like traditional stuff for Thanksgiving...cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and a turkey that looks like a turkey. Last year my wife and I spent Thanksgiving with one of my daughters...since it was just the three of us, my wife instructed her to get a "turkey breast", not a whole turkey. My daughter found boneless turkey breasts that had been injected with Cajun spices...on the internet, yet. She wasn't sure how many people one breast would feed, so she got two. They were flat and rectangular; looked more like loaves of bread. They didn't look like anything we had ever had for Thanksgiving before. I complained just looking at them. I wanted something that looked like a turkey. So my daughter bought two wings and two legs which she tried unsuccessfully to hook to the double breasted flat breasts she already had. It was one weird sight! I decided to put two prunes on each breast piece, sort of like nipples. That improved the looks of it tremendously, although my wife and my daughter both insisted that turkeys don't have nipples. "You don't know," I said. "Maybe they do! This one certainly does." I"m glad to report that the turkey tasted much, much better than it looked. Now that tradition has been broken, my daughter is planning to have a Tur-Duc-Hen this year. What? You've never heard of a Tur-Duc-Hen? It's three birds in one...a turkey stuffed with a duck that has been stuffed with a hen. Poor things. We treat our barnyard birds with such disrespect. But it has Cajun spices so it will probably be delicious, too.

Watch Out! He's Coming Your Way

My friend Robert Frito Seven, a well-known folk artist, musician, minister and man-about-town, is about to embark on a cross-country tour in a great ART CAR he has created from an old ambulance. He's leaving from Asheville, N.C. shortly...heading to Nebraska where he hopes to participate in the world's longest art car parade...it crosses the whole state and stops in various towns. His ambulance --- Emerge N See --- is devoted to creativity...and Robert hopes to open the minds and hearts of children as well as adults to the joys of being creative. We all have the potential...we just need to hit the right switch and get connected. He will be going on to the famous Burning Man Festival north of Reno where he will dance, sing, make music on suitcases that he has turned into musical instruments, cook bar-b-que...and probably run around naked at night when the temperature drops from 110. If you see a strange ambulance pass you by, wave. Better yet, toot your horn and give him a few bucks for gas and his mission. Do NOT wave your Bible at him. He is not a Heathen. He has come to save you...for yourself.

One Leg at a Time

Some famous person --- maybe Mark Twain or Harry Truman --- said that they got over being intimidated being around famous men because they always remembered that every guy puts his pants on the same way...one leg at a time. I remember this line every day when I try to get my pants on and both legs go into the same hole! I did not always have this trouble...I'm old and my sight is failing...plus I have LONG toenails like all old guys do. The long toenails are partially to blame when I'm trying to get my legs into my underwear. Invariably when my feet do get through, they are sharing the same hole. I am thinking seriously of cutting the crotches out of all my underwear...then I won't have to aim my left foot into the left hole, etc. Or do them one leg at a time like the rest of the guys.

Show Me Your Tongue

I am a renowned tongue portrait photographer; the world's most famous and perhaps the ONLY tongue portrait photographer. I realized years ago that no one else was taking pictures of tongues so it was a wide open field. At first I would approach people on the street and say, "Give me some tongue." After being hit a few times, I changed my approach. I opened a Tongue Portraiture Shoppe and advertised in the Yellow Pages under "Tongue Pictures". In the studio, I had many empty picture frames. When customers would come in, they would select a picture frame that pleased them. I would have them hold it up and put their face in it before sticking out their tongues. This way when the picture was developed and printed, it already had a frame on it. Basically I followed the Wal-Mart practice of giving them a "package deal" whereby they got one 8x10, two 5x7's, and a hundred wallet size pictures...all for $l9.95. Business was slow at first because many people did not understand the signifance of an extended tongue. It is a sign of hospitality in New Guinea. When someone approaches you, you stick out your tongue in welcome...they stick there's out back at you. This is much more sanitary than shaking hands and much, much better than doing what dogs do. (What are they doing when they sniff each other's ass?) I might also add that the tongue is a much better sign of hospitality than a pineapple. To appeciate the tongue, one must understand that tongues do NOT age...they are forever young. Go to a nursing home and check this out. Most of the people there can't keep their tongues in their mouths so it is easy to check. They look old, but their tongues are young looking. Tongues are like snowflakes...no two are alike. For this reason, I wrote to the FBI and suggested that they make Tongue Prints for finding criminals and for ID purposes instead of doing fingerprints. With fingerprints, you have to do TEN images, whereas most people only have one tongue so one tongue print will do the trick. Of course it means that those who are tongue printed will go around with black tongues for a long, long time. But this is better "profiling" than doing racial profiling. I also wrote to the State Department suggesting that they use tongue portraits instead of regular mug shots. Nobody looks like their passport pictures anyway. But with tongue pictures, it would be quick and easy to check them out...people just stick out their tongues as they pass quickly through the gates. And because tongues don't change, you would never have to renew your passport. I have not heard from the FBI or the State Department. But oddly enough, I have seen Men in Black near my house. I'm going to try and get a photo of their tongues. I am seriously considering franchising my idea: TONGUES R US. We could expand into doing school photos...think of having pictures of your childrens' tongues at all ages and grades. And, of course, we could offer Christmas card photos with the whole family --- and the dog --- with tongues extended in holiday fashion. Want a picture of MY tongue? I bet you do, you pervert.

It's a Grand Time to Be a Hobo

I wonder if they still have Hobos. I know they have homeless people, but Hobos chose to ride the trains and lead the life of nomads. Now when I see trains go by, all the cars look like sealed boxes; not as easy to slip inside one. My Daddy was a Hobo for a while. Back in the early days of the Great Depression. He said there were too many mouths to feed at home so being the second oldest mouth in the family of six boys, he decided to leave home and ramble. I love that word "ramble". I realize that my Father tended to romanticize his life on the rails by the time I came along, but he said he wouldn't trade those years for anything. He claimed Hobos didn't beg or steal. They weren't like gypsies who came to town. They were willing to work for food. I have an idea that he was talking about himself and not all Hobos. Once my Dad joined a circus. Now that was romantic. I imagined him taming wild animals, riding horses bareback, flying on a trapeze high in the air, dancing with the bearded lady. But he didn't do any of that stuff. He packed and unpacked the tent and helped put it up. He was not in the Talent Department but, as he explained, it was important work that he did. No tent. No show. He was a roustabout. Then he worked quite a while as a hired hand on a big farm in Iowa. He lived in a bunkhouse just like cowboys did. He had never seen a farm so big and land so flat. It was here that he encountered his first tornado. The farm owner had an underground shelter where the family and the fieldhands went when they got warnings about a tornado. But being fearless and a little bit stupid at the time, he wanted to stay above ground and see what a tornado was like. But the farmer made him come below. It's a good thing he did or he would have been blown all the way back to South Carolina. When I was in the grocery store recently, I noticed how conveniently so many foods are packed. This would be a great time to be a Hobo. They have little flip top cans of peaches, ready to eat. Little cans of spinach and green beans. (I think they are made for Senior Citizens who are living alone, not Hobos. But Hobos could still carry them and eat them.) They have SPAM SNACK PAKS. It doesn't taste anything like traditional SPAM (not that SPAM doesn't taste great...we used to live off the stuff and I still like it, but my wife says "Your upbringing is showing".) It looks like pate. A very pale pate. But it's not like Potted Meat. We used to eat Potted Meat, too, until I read on the can that it's made from unidentifiable animals (read "roadkills" and "armadillos") and chickens that have been mechanically picked. The poor things! I hated the thought of a bunch of robots mechanically cleaning my chicken, so I am boycotting Potted Meat. By the way, we used to "dress it up" by adding chopped celery, onions and mayonaise. The stores now have peanut butter and jelly "rounds", little sandwiches that are stamped out of the center ofa peanut butter and jelly sandwich; no crust. My grandson introduced me to this treat. And if you are on the South Beach Diet (and who isn't?), you can get packages that have two tiny tortillas, ham, cheese and mayo so you can rip open the box and make a couple of roll-ups. My wife keeps a "Hurricane Survival Box" because we live on an island in South Carolina. So far we have had to evacuate three times but have not been hit (Praise the Lord!). But she keeps a food supply that would make a Hobo drool. When I get hungry and can't find anything decent to eat, I sneak into the Hurricane Survival Box and steal a few Hobo treats. She gets upsets and warns me, "We're going to have to go to a Shelter." On TV, people in the shelters always look like they're having a grand old time...playing cards, watching TV. My wife says if we go to the Shelter, we will have to eat Potted Meat. Twice I have had Hobo Picnics for my children and their friends. Once we went to the dump and spread out newspapers and ate our lunch with buzzards flying overhead. I brought canned foods with flip tops, but I didn't bring any forks or spoons. When they complained, I told them that Hobos don't travel with forks and spoons. They eat with their tongues. Then they wanted a napkin, so I ripped off part of our table-cloth newspaper and handed it to them. Another time I packed each lunch in a bandana and tied them on long sticks so we could hike over to the railroad tracks and wave to people on the train going to New York. I could read their lips, "Oh, look! A Hobo and his family." (It was a slow moving train.) This time I had sardines in cans. I love sardines. But I was the only one that did except for a kid that was with us from California who thought it was Sushi. Just when everyone was turning their noses up at the sardines, my wife arrived at the tracks with a big bag of McDonald's hamburgers. She saved the day.

Circumcision: Who Ever Came Up With the Idea?

Who in their right mind would ever intentionally cut off the tip of their dick? Really! You think it was one of the Commandments that Moses brought down on those tablets? (You know there were more than 10 Commandments...there were hundreds, but Moses could only drag down ten of them so those are the ones that got famous.) I think it was Jews who came up with the idea. They seem to love pain, whether it's inflicting it on someone else or on themselves. I can hear them now, "Oh, I've got a great idea for a party...we'll have a feast and right in the middle of it, we'll bring out our new baby boy and clip the foreskin off. And whoever eats it accidentally will have the next party." I am circumcised and I am not happy about it. It would have only cost $5 if it had been done when I was born but my parents were too poor and for eight years I was a happy go-lucky kid. Then one Saturday, my father took me on a bus trip to North Charleston. I loved going places with him and wanted to know what we would be doing in North Charleston. When he didn't want to tell me where we were going he would say, "We're going to see a man about a dog." Of course that would excite any 8-year-old who would immediately think he was going to get to pick out a puppy. When we got off the bus, we went into a doctor's office. But before we went in my father confided in me: "We have come here to have you circumcized." I didn't know what circumcized meant...it sounded like it might be a circus. But then he explained: "The doctor is going to cut a piece of your peter off." I screamed, "WHY? WHY? Is it too long?" It didn't seem all that long to me. I didn't like the idea at all but he promised me he would buy me an ice cream cone. I should have bought my own ice cream. When it was our turn, we went into the doctor's office where I took all my clothes off and got on a long table. The doctor put some kind of clamp on the end of my penis. At that point, someone else tried to give me ether. I say "tried" because I began to panic...and began to fight to get the ether mask off. Before they knew it, I had jumped off the table and I ran naked out into the waiting room yelling, "They're trying to cut my peter off. Help me! Help me!" Some guy caught me, but he didn't help. He held me while my Dad and the nurse led me back in. This time four people were enlisted to hold me down while they administered the ether. The doctor wasn't happy at all. And I think he cut off a lot more than he had to, the bastard. Well, what's done is done. But I hated my father for many, many years because of this. If they develop Stem Cell Research further, I'm getting my foreskin back. And then we will have a real party!

Here in the South, people have bottle trees in their yards. You find a dead tree, trim the limbs but leave a little stub. Then you dig a hole and put the tree in it. Next you hang colorful bottles on it. The concept is this: the upside down bottles catch all the evil spirits that might come in your yard and you are thus protected from bad stuff. I have a bottle tree made from iron...created by my friend Kevin Lawless, an Iron Man on Hilton Head Island. It's at my house in the mountains and it sure makes people slow down to take a second look. I was going to put all gold bottles on it. If found some Spanish Sherry that comes in gold bottles. I got a little tired of drinking Sherry after 5 bottles, so I opted to use blue water bottles and other colorful ones. When my friends from Maryland, Kristin and David, saw the tree, they wanted one immediately. Sure, they would. I'm certain they have lots of evil spirits floating around because they are...well, heathens, in the best sense of the word. I performed their wedding ceremony two years ago in a quasi-voodoo style because I am a quasi voodoo priest. They convinced my friend Kevin to not only make them a tree, but haul it all the way from South Carolina to Maryland...and install it for them. They wanted a BIGGER TREE...yuppies that they are...they not only stole my tree idea, they had to have a bigger one and a better one. Kevin outdid himself on this one...it holds 76 bottles (I told you they were heathens and have a lot of evil floating around their yard!). They started drinking and emptying bottles when they placed their order...so they were ready with empties when he arrived. I told Kevin he could call this his REDWOOD version. I think everyone should have a bottle tree...you can't be too safe with all the evil in the world today.

Is It O.K. to Be Gay Again?

I just read that Gays now want to be called Queers. That's a relief because I've been ticked for years that they appropriated a perfectly good word for telling people how happy and light-hearted you were. I'm gay again! But not so fast, a voice in my head says. They probably call themselves "queer" but they don't want other people calling them that. Black people freely call themselves "niggers" but if a white person calls them that...well, you wouldn't be gay for long. So maybe I will hold off calling myself gay. But I am a happy person.

No Wonder I Don't Have a Job

According to the WSJ, you have to be damned careful when you go for a job interview nowadays. Even before you get out of the car. If you park in a handicapped space and you don't have a sticker and a limp, you're out already. Even the receptionist is making notes for your dossier. Don't try to come on to her and don't scratch your nuts. Or pick your nose. If you go to the bathroom, they can hear whether you turn on the sink water so they know if you're the type who washes his hands after he goes pee-pee or poo-poo. I always wash my manos (that's hands in Spanish) but I do it before I pee. I mean, my privates are probably the cleanest part of my body so I want to wash my hands before I touch it. Makes a lot of sense to me. Why wash your hands afterwards? Unless of course you are under-endowed in the genitles department and wee-wee on your hands. At least dry them off before you go in for your job interview. A clammy palm is not a good sign whether it's sweat or your urine. And don't forget to zip up your fly. (When I was President of an ad agency, I interviewed a guy who came in with his fly unzipped...one of our female Vice Presidents had interviewed him and he had made a "good impression". Sure. Sure. He would have. But he didn't make a good impression on me. She slipped me a note saying that I should tell him his fly was open. Not in a million years. I remember in the 9th grade telling one of my good friends this and he wanted to know why I was inspecting his crotch. Once burned is enough. I slipped the note back to her and said, "You tell him. He's your candidate." After the interview, she was still high on the guy but I kept saying, "He walks around with his pants unzipped." Then she would say, "It's a Brooks Brothers' suit." She was very status oriented. I finally gave in and we hired him. Big mistake. The guy was stupid. We had given him one of our biggest accounts...fortunately the people liked me so the ad manager was kind enough to tell me, "The guy walks into my office and the hair stands up on the back of my neck. I can't stand him. Give me a different person. Soon. Very soon." So I did. I called my guy in to tell him...decided I would do a performance review and then tell him. Basically I told him that the client hated his guts and never wanted to see him again, even at an office party....that I was taking the account away from him immediately. As he walked out the door, he turned and said, "Does this mean I'm not getting a raise?" I said, "No, no. Not at all. It means that you are FIRED, you dummy.") So if you are due to go for a job interview either zip up or go in naked. And don't pick your nose...and if you feel that you must, don't flick it or stick it on the bottom of your chair. Stuff it back up where it came from.

The Sky Is Falling; The Sky Is Falling

I don't want to be Chicken-Little here but I just read that the gravity pull of the earth is diminishing. That means as the earth rolls around and around, we might start flying off I have always been concerned about this ever since I was a kid and discovered (a) that the earth was not flat and (b) that gravity held us on this Merry-Go-Round. In fact, my Mom could never figure out why I wore my shoes out from the inside instead of wearing out the bottoms. It was because I clung to the earth as I walked, digging my toes into the shoes hoping to hold on. So far, so good. Except for the shoes. Actually I think it would be fairly neat if there were a gravity on-and-off switch. Especially if you could use it selectively. We could turn it off for the Middle East and slig all those crazy people out into space. Of course our troops would be protected from this by special magnetic boots made by Halliburton that they would be wearing until everybody else over there had been "raptured" to wherever Muslim Heaven is located...probably outside the Gates of Hell. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

Leave My Eggs Alone!

I was really pissed today to learn that CBS plans to put their logo and ads for Fall programs on eggs before they come to the store. First of all, I think they should pay the chickens. Those eggs are unborn chicks and the Moms should get paid if CBS is going to stamp the eggs with ads. Honestly...eggs are so beautiful...the perfect food WITHOUT ANY LOGOS. I'm telling you now, if I get a dozen eggs and they have CBS logos on them, I am going to the front of the store and pelt all the eggs at the manager. I would go to CBS headquarters and pelt the executives but with gas prices what they are, I can't afford to go that far. I hate those little stickers they put on fruits and vegetables. Chiquita started it all...branding bananas. Now the stickers are on tomatoes, peaches. lemons, nearly everything you buy. And they are a bitch to peel off...especially for the tomatoes. It rips the skin off of them. For the most part I am fortunate in that I have a Tomato Man who brings freshly grown heritage tomatoes to a market three times a week...all kinds...and colors. Some are almost black. Others are yellow, but when you slice them, they have a beautiful design of red inside. Others are knarled and ugly...freak tomatoes, and they are the best. You know the proper way to slide a tomato?? You sit it flat with the stem part on the cutting board...then you slide downwards. It conserves more of the juice and, thus, the flavor. Back on the Ad Front, the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers are planning to offer advertisements on the cover/front page. There's really nothing new about this...back in the l800's newspapers had ads on the front page. And frankly, I'd rather read advertisements than the current news on wars, serial killers and Hollywood stars. Well, I'm glad I got that off my chest. I'll try not to be so negative the next time. Right now I'm going to the fridge and check my eggs.