Two Thumps, One Chump

I heard two thumps, very close together. Sitting on the deck, I turned toward the sliding glass door. On the deck near the glass was this small bird ---

-- and his identical twin. The only difference between the two was that the one in the photo was not moving. His twin was in the same pose, but twitching.

I should put the poor bugger out of his misery, I thought. It would be the merciful and kind thing to do. End his suffering. Let's see, a gun. No, that's overkill (yeah, pun intended). Knife? Ice pick? While trying to decide on the right execution method, ...

... an opposing argument formed in my head: Leave him alone. Maybe he's only stunned, and he will recover and fly away.

The opposing argument won. Let nature be nature.

When I turned to look after a few minutes, Frick had abandoned Frack and fled.

Frack has been moved to the flower bed. It will be dark soon, and, nature being nature, Frack will be gone in the morning.

A Seinfeld Episode

I picked up a “loaner” car, a 2015 Acura TLX, from the Acura dealer today. Why, you ask?

Because my 2010 Acura TSX is being repaired. Why, you ask, did it need repairs?

Because it was parked outside in a hailstorm. Why, you ask, did I park it outside in a hailstorm?

Because I was employed as a local election official for the April election, and that meant parking outdoors at an elementary school. Inside, we heard the thunderstorm, then hail on the building roof. No way to protect the cars outside.

Why, you ask, did I seek work as an election official?

Because I make about $150 for a 15-hour workday. That’s big money for a senior citizen living on Social Security. Also, I get some satisfaction from fixing elections.

And where, you ask, is this story going?

Well, two places:

1.    My deductible on comprehensive insurance is $500, so it cost me a net $350 for my 15-hour workday. That’s big money for a senior citizen living on Social Security.

2.    The loaner car, being 5 years newer than my then-state-of-the-art 2010, has some technological advances. I had to study the instrument panel for 3 hours to figure out how to turn the radio on. There is no key, no keyhole. No gearshift lever. The navigation system switches screen displays capriciously every few seconds. Etc. Before long, dealers will have training simulators, and a person will need 75 hours in the simulator to qualify as a driver for a new model.

Seinfeld was a TV show about nothing. This blog entry has been about nothing. Therefore, this is a Seinfeld episode.

Some Things Stay The Same

There is a guy who sits in a chair on the 40th floor of the Metropolitan Building, camera in hand, shooting each person as he/she hits the 854th stair -- 2 from the finish line. He then posts the photos on his website and invites dopes like me to pay him 25 bucks to get the image. I accepted his invitation in 2011 and again this year.

Here are the 2 images side by side.

Some things have changed, but the shirt remains constant. I hope the shirt lasts as long as I do.

Flipping the Switch

Popular wisdom has it that once you are an alcoholic, you are an alcoholic forever. Even if you haven't had a drink in 50 years.

I think that once you are a racist, you are a racist forever. You can't flip the switch.

Ferguson, Missouri is about a mile from where I grew up. The racism that is on display today in the media is the racism that surrounded me in my formative years. Only it was worse then.

So, yeah, I'm a racist. I don't say racist things or do racist things anymore, but the crap that got ground into me in the 1950s is still in there. I lacquer over it the best I can, as most educated people of my generation do. That makes us "recovering racists," I guess.

If I could flip the switch, I would.

It's Time

At some point in time, a singer - any singer - reaches a tipover point where the audience enjoyment at seeing/hearing that famous person is more than counterbalanced by the cringe-generating sour notes. 

To say it a simpler way: Paul McCartney should quit singing in public.

If his recent performance on the SNL40 program would have been on the old Gong Show, the gong would have been quickly and mercilessly beaten to death!

Paul -- Sit back and bask in the rarified fame-air reserved for ex-Beatles. It's time. I would much rather admire what you were than feel sorry for what you are.

Judy Will Love It

This is a HOME RUN.

I have next Valentine's Day covered, and I saved 50%. Does it get any better than that?

(Not So) Sweet Memories

Went for 20-minute steam bath at the gym today. Trying to get some of the gunk out of my sinuses and nasal passages.

It's been 48 years since that first, very memorable, steam bath.....

There was a sign on a hut in Vung Tao* advertising STEAM BATH AND MASSAGE, and I was just adventurous enough to try it out.

*Vung Tao is a town near the mouth of the Mekong River. Occasionally, for a few hours on a Sunday afternoon, some of us sailors were allowed to go to town and wander around, maybe get a few beers at some crappy little bar.

I went in alone. The women inside told me to take all my clothes off and put them in a box, which I did, reluctantly, because they could have stolen my money. They told me to climb into a steel chamber that was maybe big enough for three people to sit inside, and I did, reluctantly, because I could see very well that it locked from the outside. Alone, I climbed into the cold steel chamber and the hatch closed and locked. Steam started coming in through a little stub of a pipe that penetrated the chamber from the outside, and this felt good because it was cold in there initially. It got warm, then very warm, then hot, then very hot, and the steam just kept coming out of that pipe stub.

My situation, which was now starkly clear to me: I’m alone, locked in what was essentially a prison cell and somebody I’ve never seen before has control of the lock and the steam valve. This is a country that is known specifically for its segment of the population that is fitting in with the local culture during the day, and conducting effective guerilla warfare against the American aggressors at night.

I knew I was a dead man. I’d be cooked and suffocated (yeah, it was getting tough to breathe), then my body would be disposed of, and there wasn’t anything I or anybody else could do at that moment to prevent it. I would have shit my pants if I had any.

The noise stopped. Before my brain could register this fact, it registered the optic nerve impulses telling me that the white plume of steam disappeared. My eyes had been riveted to the pipe stub and the white death rushing out of it.

On the Welcome Sight scale, this was a real 10.

Today, in the pretty tiled room, the door was not locked from the outside. No rusty pipe stub. But the heat and the hiss brought the memories right on back.

One of the Good Guys

We all bump into a lot of people as we go through our lives. Some of them leave a mark. In my own “Big Influence” category, very few belong. Gary Morse was one.

Gary was fearless when facing a challenge, and he would always prevail. Electronics, plumbing, carpentry, woodworking, automobile repair, computers, pottery, stained glass – it didn’t matter what it was. If it (a) needed doing, or (b) interested Gary, he could do it. He would just figure it out and get it done.

Both of us were U.S. Navy Electronics Technicians on the USS Hector for a couple of years back in the 1960s. When my disastrous marriage broke apart and I needed a place to stay, Gary and his then-wife Joyce gave me a bedroom and hot food. He was always generous with his time, his money, his attention, his knowledge.

In many ways, Gary gave me more than I could ever repay. And taught me many times as much as he ever learned from me.

Mesothelioma. It’s generally caused by asbestos exposure. Gary told me that he’s not the first Hector alumnus to be stricken by it. Apparently, in some of the repair shops, asbestos insulation got stripped off valves and such, and the dust got carried throughout the ship by the ventilation system. There is ongoing class-action litigation, I understand, on behalf of the victims.

Gary didn’t follow doctor’s orders (“Get your affairs in order; you have six months”) when he was diagnosed over a year ago. He sought out an experimental treatment at UCLA, and, along with now-wife Suzie, endured an ungodly series of treatments. There were positive signs along the way, but backward steps seemed to outnumber the forward.

I talked to Gary a couple weeks ago. He was feeling better and looking forward to finally using his new, super-sophisticated, numerically-controlled wood lathe. To say he was upbeat would be an understatement.

Gary died yesterday. The world lost one of the good guys, and it makes me really sad.

Me, Joyce Morse, Gary Morse in Long Beach, California, 1966

Strange Tree

In spite of a couple of months of winter weather, this tree, adjacent to our deck, appears to be growing reddish sprouts at the ends of small limbs. Plus, there are these bud-like things on the limbs. It's February, fergodsake.

You gotta love the fortitude.

I didn't know what kind of tree this is, but the tree guide on Wikipedia says it's a Grandiosa Spitinwinterseye. That's Latin, I guess.

If They Don't Know, They Should

Lyrics from Everybody Knows, the Leonard Cohen song released over 25 years ago:

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied...

Seems appropriate to trot this song out as we begin the 2016 election campaign in these United States.

Darlin' Cora

It was 1959, and Harry Belafonte was a singing star. His Jamaica Farewell and Banana Boat Song (most well-known line: “Day-O”) had made him famous. Belafonte, the “king of calypso,” was one of the first black entertainers to headline a show at Carnegie Hall.

He opened the show with a song named “Darlin’ Cora,” which became the first song on his Belafonte at Carnegie Hall live album.

Wake up, wake up, Darlin’ Cora,

Wanna see you one more time,

The sheriff and his hound dogs a-comin’,

I gotta move on down the line.

I don’t know why, Darlin’ Cora,

Don’t know what the reason can be,

But I never yet found a single time

When me and the boss man agree.

I ain’t a man to be played with,

I ain’t nobody’s toy,

Been workin’ for my pay for a long long time,

How come he still calls me boy?

Well I’d rather drink muddy water

And sleep in a hollowed-out log

Than to hang around in this old town

And be treated like a dirty dog.

Well I whomped that man, Darlin’ Cora,

And he fell down where he stood.

Don’t know if I was wrong, Darlin’ Cora,

But Lord it sure felt good.

If it wasn’t so dark, Darlin’ Cora,

You’d see tears trickling down my face.

It breaks my heart, Darlin’ Cora,

But I got to leave this place.

Wake up, wake up, Darlin’ Cora...

The lyrics are powerful, and Belafonte’s voice even more so. For 99¢, you can download the song from iTunes and listen for yourself. He had a really fine voice.

And huge balls. This was years before the civil rights movement got any traction. Belafonte is a black dude and it was the 1950s in America.