Browse Category: My Favorites

ENTERTAINING IN A GYPSY SORT OF WAY

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

“What part of the circus was your favorite, Madeline?”

“I liked the clowns the best! I especially liked when they boxed and when they cut the one clown’s hair off.”

It is not one bit surprising that a child who is so entertaining would enjoy the clowns the most. No, she is not falling in the photo further down on this page. She is actually spinning and jumping out of pure excitement to see the circus.

The clowns did do a boxing routine. They had huge boxing gloves on. One clown would take a punch while the other one clapped his gloves together, producing a very loud smacking noise. They even did a slow motion instant replay. It was quite funny.

Their haircut scene was amusing as well. One poor clown got to sit in the barber chair while the other three tended to him. They dumped about five pounds of talcum powder on him. One clown came at him with four-foot long scissors to cut his hair but went for his neck instead. At the end of the skit, they had the victim sit under a big hair dryer which malfunctioned and appeared to burn his hair off. That was what Madeline liked the most.

How appropriate it is to write about a circus for the one-hundredth entry on this journal! Truth be told, I liked the clowns the most too. Those of you who have been reading this website for any amount of time have seen a lot of clowning around going on here. You’ve seen me pee my pants in front of a second grade class, get beat up by a kid named Gary Sinko, choke to death on migraine medicine, turn into a gummi bear, and other various stunts one would only expect to witness under the big top. It’s all rather entertaining… until someone loses an eye.

The Cole Brothers circus was held behind a local mall for two days last week. No surprise there. The mall of this certain town often attracts plenty of freaks and sideshows from the local populace. But I digress.

Admission to the show was significantly more than I expected to pay. I had free tickets for Hannah and Madeline. Those tickets said that additional tickets could be purchased for $5. However, at the ticket booth, the price was $10 for additional children and $15 for adults. That pretty much emptied my wallet right there. So I didn’t have much money left for souvenirs or food. As soon as Madeline saw the food vendors selling popcorn, candy apples and cotton candy for exorbitant prices she was hungry. She begged, pouted and cried, as I continually had to say, “No.” I told her that the food was too much money and I didn’t have enough cash left. Observant as she is, she watched as a father paid for his son’s popcorn. Then she said to me, “Daddy, how much is a Lincoln?” At first I thought, “The car???” She said, “What kind of money is Lincoln on?” When I responded, “Five dollars,” she looked disappointed and I figured out why she asked such a question. Luckily, at the intermission we found snow cones for $2 and popcorn for $3. Then the wallet was empty.

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The circus was a lot of fun. It was entertaining to watch people display talents that most other people don’t think about often. How many of us think of standing on a horse and juggling bowling pins while the horse trots around in circles? Who dwells on thoughts of training poodles to jump through hoops? Who among us often thinks of hanging by her hair, twenty feet in the air, while wearing a skimpy glittering outfit and a big smile?

Speaking of the circus girls, I have to say that some of them were awfully cute and a few of them were downright beautiful. Many of them seemed to be from foreign countries. There were the Colombian girls who danced and did some gymnastic type feats. There was the little Russian girl that they shot out of the cannon. There were Eastern European girls with blonde hair and arrestingly brilliant blue eyes. As soon as my geeky programming job is outsourced, I know where I’m applying for a job! I may not be able to juggle, but I can withstand a pretty good beating as a clown. I’ve been doing that for quite some time now!

While standing in a line during intermission, I got into a conversation with a couple. The wife told me how she just loved going to the circus, but felt kind of guilty about it because she felt that she was supporting the exploitation of the people involved in the circus. I felt the same way. Her husband said that he spoke with a young girl who was selling souvenirs earlier. She was thirteen. She told him that she grew up in the circus. When he asked her where her home was, she looked at him blankly at first. Then she said, “Right here is my home. We just travel all over and live in trailers.” I don’t understand that lifestyle. The thought that came to my mind was, “Gypsies.” Later, while driving to pick up my son from work, I ended up in the middle of the gypsy caravan of trailers making their way down the highway to their next show. My mind wandered through thoughts of what their life must be like. So many towns. So many faces. So many pretty girls. And so many clowns.

There were several thunderstorms on the day of the circus. I didn’t want to go as it was. But the storms past by the time the circus was to start. I couldn’t disappoint the kids by not going just because I didn’t feel like it. Hearing them laugh during the show and seeing their faces as they witnessed people doing things that “normal” people consider “abnormal” was worth the effort of going.

That is what entertainment is all about – making people happy, taking their minds off of the pressures of life and the harsh realities of the “real” world. The circus is a living fantasy. Enter the big top and escape from whatever steals the smile from your face. Long live the clowns! Long live the circus girls! Long live tightrope walkers and trapeze artists! Long live those who make others happy! May they travel our highways and perform near our malls often. God knows we don’t smile enough.

alphabyteslogo3 An AlphaBytes Project – The Letter E

CORRESPONDING PICTURE GALLERY:

MEMORY MOTEL

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

THERE’S NOTHING like getting an album that you used to listen to when you were a kid and haven’t heard in years. Of course, most kids don’t refer to them as “albums” these days. They are just “CDs.” It’s a rediscovery of sorts when in 2004 you buy an album that was originally released in 1976. Unless, you weren’t even born yet in 1976 or were still a snotty-faced four-year-old who didn’t care about music yet.

The album of my most recent rediscovery is “Black and Blue” by the Rolling Stones, which is playing right now. It may not be one of their most popular albums. It does have the song “Fool to Cry” on it, which was a big hit at the time.

So much music defines different time periods of my life. I was 13 when I first got this Stones album. When I think back, there are several other albums that I remember listening to a lot around that time: “2112” by Rush, “Changes One” by David Bowie, “Rock and Roll Over” by Kiss, “Alice Cooper Goes to Hell” by Alice Cooper (obviously). I would often sit in my bedroom with a black light on and listen to these albums. I had a red, white and blue bedspread. I can still picture the glow of the white sections of the bedspread as “Hey Negrita” plays now in 2004, transporting me back.

I was in eighth grade then, with my Speed Racer looking glasses, double knit pants, and slightly visible peach fuzz moustache. It wasn’t until the next school year that I began wearing jeans and the ever-cool silk shirts and growing my hair long. Thirteen was the last year of “cute,” soon to be followed by the arrival of “cool.” It was an awkward time in which impressing the girls was of growing importance. Yet, riding my pull start Kawasaki mini bike for hours after school was still more fun, and safer than girls turned out to be, I might add!

Ahhh! Right now the Stones are taking me back to an old house along the Muskonetcong River. It was so old that you could look between the floor boards upstairs and see down to the first floor. The basement had a dirt floor… and rats. We didn’t go down there! There was a winding staircase from the kitchen to a small room upstairs.

There was plenty of land along with this house. The property we rented ran along the river for a good stretch. There were fields to ride mini bikes, pick wild raspberries, play frisbee, and run naked if you really wanted (not that I would know anything about THAT!). There was a great hill for sleigh riding in the winter. There was an old mysterious barn. There was a spring house close to the river in which I sometimes put trout that I caught out of the river. Then I could fish in the spring house and catch them over and over.

I remember doing a few mischievous things at that age. Stupid things really. I cut the inner pages out of a book in order to hide packs of bubble gum so my mom wouldn’t know I had them. I was a big candy freak as a kid. The only problem with hiding them in a book was that I used a book that once belonged to my mom as a kid. She discovered the cut out pages in the garbage can. Ooops. I also flushed a banana peel down the toilet because I was too lazy to take it downstairs to throw it away. The only problem was the toilet clogged a while later and my stepfather discovered the banana peel when he was plunging it. Ooops again. I also remember how my sister wiped out on my mini bike in the gravel on the driveway. Ooops. And ouch. But I was more concerned with the possibility that my mini bike got all scratched up than I was with the probability that half of the stones on the driveway got jammed under my sister’s left knee cap. What can I say? I’m a brother.

Speaking of my stepfather, there were a few funny incidents in which he was involved back then. Once, in the middle of the night, some guy was pounding on our door. Then he backed into my stepfather’s truck with his car and took off. So, my stepfather chased him. Later, at the police station, a cop came in and read him his rights. When he asked what was going on, the cop said they had found marijuana growing on our property. Ooops! It turned out that the caretaker of a neighbor’s property was the one who had planted it on our land. In another incident, we all got in the car and drove up the road to the Dairy Queen for ice cream one evening. While there, somebody backed into our car in the parking lot. My stepfather had to get out of the car. And the poor guy was wearing my mom’s fuzzy pink slippers! Oooooops! Okay. He wasn’t in the habit of wearing her clothes. He wasn’t a cross dresser or anything. He only had to drive a few miles up the road to the Dairy Queen. What were the chances that he would have had to get out of the car in front of a parking lot full of people? All those staring people! Work boots! Never leave home without ’em!

As I end this brief article, the Stones are singing “Memory Motel.” How appropriate. A good note to end on, while just giving you a glimpse of that particular time of my life.

DR. IAN NUTCAKES ON THE PSYCHIATRY OF TIES, CUBICLES AND OTHER ARTISTIC REPRESSIONS

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

MY LOYAL READERS…

It is my privilege to introduce to you my long time friend, associate and accomplice, Dr. Ian Nutcakes.

Dr. Nutcakes is a distinguised member of the American Psychiatric Society and a high level staff member of the Neggooozian Institute for Mental Research. In addition, Dr. Ian is founder of Concerned Physicians For Censored, Repressed And Otherwise Frustrated Artists, commonly known as CPFCRAOFA, an acronym which no one can pronounce but looks serious. The notorious doctor’s personal interests include bungee jumping, darts, cow tipping and music. Among his musical favorites are Anne Murray, The Bay City Rollers, Yanni, and of course, Frank Zappa.

So…

My friend, Dr. Nutcakes, has allowed me to publish a few short video snippets of recent scientific observations which he has conducted. Since his study is not yet completed and his treatise on the subject has not yet been published (look for it in the July issue of Popular Psychiatrics), what I am able to present to you is a brief introduction by Dr. Nutcakes regarding the premise of his recent experiement. There are three clips of video observation of the main participant in the study (Certain deficiencies in key psychiatric areas were required in order for participants to qualify for this study. The man you will see in the videos is the only one out of 3.7 million who responded to Dr. Nutcakes’ introductory survey who qualified.). The scientific videos are followed by a few concluding remarks by the imminent doctor.

To view the videos, click on the links below in the order they are presented. (PLEASE follow the doctor’s order so as not to confuse yourself. YOU are not a doctor!) (3/26/15 – These instructions don’t really apply in this age of the new and improved internet where we have Youtube and Facebook and other brain-dissolving contraptions of which Dr. Ian disapproves but in which he heartily indulges. But read this paragraph for old time’s sake… and because there’s a little chuckle at the end. Then just click the videos. You know how to do it, you Youtubefiend, you.) You can either open the video files or save them to your computer and then open them. I have found some problems with Winamp, but the Windows Media Player seems to play the videos very well. You can also right click on the links and choose “Save Target As” to save the videos to your computer. MAKE SURE YOUR VOLUME IS ON! These videos have sound! (Nothing but top of the line technology here!) If you cannot figure out how to play the movies, you may use my contact page to ask for help. Just make sure you fill in the “Contact Name” field with “Dummy” or “Moron” so that I know it’s either you or your brother.

Disclaimer: These videos are rated PG-13 due to cursing, cranial nudity (aka – BALDNESS) and acute insanity. Neither Dr. Nutcakes nor I are to blame.

Disclaimer 2: A few of these videos are a little dark. Again, neither the doctor nor I had anything to do with it. It is the fault of the amateur filmographer we hired due to budget constraints.

Disclaimer 3: Some people have had problems viewing these. Other people could see them just fine. Neither the doctor nor I have the technological savvy to understand why.

THE VIDEOS:

Doctor Ian’s Introduction:

Subject Observation #1:

Subject Observation #2:

Subject Observation #3:

Dr. Ian’s Concluding Remarks:

Now to wrap things up and to send you away laughing… Here are BLOOPER VIDEOS! Yes, even distinguished doctors sometimes make mistakes. You’re on the set and behind the scenes with Dr. Nutcakes.

Blooper #1:

Blooper #2:

Blooper #3:

On behalf of Dr. Ian Nutcakes, I thank you for enduring the show. Good night.

THE FACT IS

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

THE FACT IS, my father has cancer.

It was not the shock that came first. It was the dullness, like the feeling you get after a bully punches you in the stomach. First, you cannot breathe. Then you get dizzy. Then the actual pain, the shock, from his fist connecting with your abdomen is realized.

I tell people about it. The clinical details leave my mouth. My ears hear my own voice, but they do not believe I am talking about my own father. It cannot be. Surely, it is another man’s pancreas being talked about. Certainly, it has already spread to another man’s liver. Someone please tell me that the details are about another person’s father because I cannot believe my own words.

The fact is, it is true. My father has cancer. It is already at stage four. It is already spread to his liver. It is inoperable. Chemotherapy cannot beat its aggressiveness. Neither can my denial make it go away.

My father came to see our new house in the beginning of February. He was in a great mood, probably happy that I had my own place again. We talked for a while as he flipped through one of my MAD Magazine on the coffee table. My drum set impressed him. However, my seldom used Fender 12-string acoustic guitar caught his attention. “When are you going to teach me to play?” He said he had been desirous of learning to play the guitar.

During that visit, my dad told me that he was having pains in his stomach for a few weeks. It had gotten to the point that he was fairly uncomfortable. He was scheduled for an ultrasound a few days after that.

A week went by before the results came back. Yes, there was some type of mass on his pancreas. A biopsy was to be done next.

After the biopsy, another week went by. Then, the evening before my birthday, I received the call from my stepmother that my father had cancer. It was confirmed that he had what we all feared, what we all prayed he would not have, what we all could not believe.

My father is only 65 years old. Other than continuous, mild back trouble after falling from an electrical pole in his days as a lineman, he has been generally healthy. A few years ago, his physician detected a minor sugar problem. Still, he has maintained an active life since retiring at the age of 55.

How then is it possible to go to the doctor because of pains in your stomach, only to be told that you will die in two months if you do not start some type of treatment immediately? How do you move from a casual visit with your son to your first appointment for chemotherapy at a hospital in just a few weeks? How do you slip from the false comfort of presumptuous immortality to the stark realization of your inherit mortality in the amount of time that it takes your doctor to pronounce your diagnosis?

A few days after his diagnosis, my kids and I went to see my father. We bought an acoustic guitar for him, complete with a digital tuner and a nice leather case. Though he was surprised and happy to receive our gift, he still gave me the “son, you shouldn’t have spent all that money” lecture. I told him not to worry about it because it only cost a few million dollars and, “Heck, Dad, I make that in two hours of work!” The money was inconsequential. We only wanted him to know how much he meant to us. We regretted not doing more thoughtful things for him years ago.

The by-product of a terminal disease’s discovery is regret. As soon as you begin to realize that a person is not going to live forever and ever, the “should’ves,” “would’ves,” and “could’ves” start piling up in your mind.

“I should’ve picked up the phone and called him just to say hello.”

“I would’ve gone fishing with him every weekend if I knew he would one day be gone.”

“I could’ve told him I loved him more often.”

We assume that the people in our lives will always be there. Death is too frightful to keep in our minds. It is dark, scary, unknowable, and final. It seems easier to cope with life by having a mindset that assumes that the people we love will always be in our lives. We think of them as constants. They are reference points that delineate the boundaries of our lives. Another online writer expressed the same thought when her father passed away not too long ago:

“We all knew it was going to happen. It was both expected and unexpected, expected because of the bad health and unexpected because goddammit, there are certain constants in your life, and your parents are supposed to be one of them.”

Though it may be easier to cope with life for a time by conning ourselves into believing that the people around us are immortal, in the end, the fact of death has to be faced. As it turns out, our self-deception in the matter is the seedbed of many regrets. As long as we continue to think that there is always tomorrow to make the effort to communicate our love to someone else, we continue to sow seeds of regret. The more we procrastinate, the more our regrets will grow and spawn. It is inevitable. The fact is that death comes, sooner or later.

The fact is that we need to love and care about those around us in concrete and substantial ways now. Tomorrow is promised to no one. It may not be the easiest thing to do. It may require forgiving someone. It may require asking for forgiveness. It will require our best effort. To neglect to do so will seem easier for the moment. But the day will come when that neglect will require a more sorrowful effort in the end.

I saw my father this past Sunday. He had had his second chemotherapy treatment two days before that. One of the constants in my life began to tremble as he opened the door and then tottered a little due to his weakened condition.

“You see what I was talking about, son?”

Yes, Dad. I see.

First It’s a Candy, Then It’s Frustration

(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

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Remember these? Razzles?

This has always been one of the most frustrating candies or gums or whatever it really is. As a candy it doesn’t taste that great. When you first chew it, it feels like it’s just falling apart into little chunks in your mouth. Then it suddenly morphs into gum. However, the flavor only lasts about three seconds and its size shrinks away to almost nothing. Plus, it must have some super synthetic craving enducers designed to drive your taste buds nuts. You can’t stop popping these things into your mouth just to replenish the flavor, which only leaves you desperate for another in no time. It’s a vicious downward spiral. Before you know it you’re strung out on the whole bag and crawling your way back to the 7-Eleven with a big tasteless wad in your mouth, pathetically trying to say, “More Razzles please!” But the dark eyed cashier, whose English vocabulary consists of only six words, hears you say, “My ass leaks cheese,” and stupidly points you to the Slurpee machine.

See what I mean by frustrating?

Posted at 12:10 PM (EST)