Random Novemberness

This holiday season it's becoming a little disturbing around certain areas of the Monterey Peninsula; retailers so desperate to lure the wealthy and famous into their stores that their inner greedy morons are coming out to play. One client insists on describing their "wonderful, festive decorum" in their ads. Yes, a few people have attempted to explain to them that the word they seek is simply "decor," but their superior determination has prevailed. The best one yet is a local golf course advertising 7-day fairway passes at discount prices... and reminding potential customers in the final line of copy: "You can use the savings to buy your kids some gifts this holiday!" (Unlike last year when your kids had to make due with a card because you had to pay full price to get on the green.)
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Some mornings, getting up is the chief accomplishment of the day.

It isn't health care reform, it's health care payment reform.
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Edith visited Martha one morning, to discover her making breakfast for her husband, who was not at work, but still in bed sawing a log at eleven o'clock. "He's getting breakfast in bed, the poor dear," Martha said with a smile as she garnished the tray with a single rose in a narrow wine glass.

"Is he sick," asked Edith?

"No," answered Martha, "let me tell you what happened. He was out all night barhopping with his buddies, and came staggering home at 3 a.m. – first thing through the front door, he puked on the floor and made a vomit trail all the way down the hall to the bathroom. Then he tried and failed to get his pants off before he let loose with an explosion of diarrhea. I found him passed out on the toilet, his clothes drenched in vomit and poop... and a huge puddle of stinky pee forming beneath him on the bathroom floor. It took me two hours to mop everything up as best I could... he was too heavy to lift off of the toilet. I just managed to revive him enough to get him cleaned up and in bed an hour ago."

Edith's jaw dropped. "... And you're making him breakfast in bed?? Are you nuts, woman?? If my husband did that, he'd spend the night in the backyard with the dog – if he's lucky! Why, why, why are you doing this??"

Martha sighed happily. "Because... when I went to undress him, he pushed me away and said, 'dream on, lady, I'm married!'"
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Remember what an "expert" is: an "ex" is a has-been, a "(s)pert" is a drip in a hurry.

What am I thankful for? I cannot count all my friends, with all my fingers and toes. And that's just the beginning.

Money doesn't make you smart. It does, however, apparently win arguments.

If it weren't for dreams, no one would ever remember being asleep. Waking up and feeling rested or drowsy are merely clues that you've been asleep. Actual sleep is a non-experience... unless a dream is involved.

ANOTHER ONE FOR THE DAMN POETRY CORNER

I sat on the porcelain throne
Pondering adrift and afar
I rose to see what I'd done
A nail, a cork, a cigar

Randomness Or Treat!

A scientist tests a frog to see how far it can jump when frightened. He honks a siren which startles the frog into jumping four feet. He chops off one of the frog's limbs and honks the siren again – the frog only jumps three feet. He chops off another limb and honks the siren – the frog jumps two feet. He chops off a third limb, and the frog jumps a foot away from the honking siren. He chops off the frog's remaining limb and hits the siren. The frog stays put. The scientist writes in his journal: "With all limbs removed, frog becomes deaf."

If beer weren't involved, "Octoberfest" would go completely ignored in America. I have a feeling Cinco De Mayo would fade somewhat, and Independence Day would go the way of the dodo, too.

True story. The other day, a guy sitting next to me at a lunch counter was chatting up his buddies. I missed what preceded the statement, but suddenly he says, "yeah, I always order a Big Mac, hold the secret sauce." Then he chuckles to himself and says, "yeah you never can tell about the secret sauce." Then he takes a swig of coffee and adds, "yeah I stay clear of that secret sauce." A pause. Intentionally not looking, I could still hear his mental gears grinding away as he pondered how to work yet a fourth "secret sauce" comment into the mix. Loud enough for everyone to hear, I order bacon & eggs... "and... you have any secret sauce left?" Everyone else at the counter gets up. They each leave a dollar tip. You decide what it means.

Why don't banana bread and banana sandwiches taste the same? Aren't they both bananas and bread?

One of the things I'd like to do with a time machine is travel backward about 150 years or so, and take along a few common items from the present that would really mess with people's heads in that era... like Piña Colada ice cream... a pair of sunglasses... a Nerf football... a Pampered Chef catalog...

Finding someone reliable isn't the only chore these days, it's finding someone who actually knows how to do whatever it is that you hope they're reliable about.

Ever had one of those days when you think "somewhere there's a wall, calling my forehead."

ONE FOR THE POETRY CORNER:

If your speech leans heavily
toward upward inflection,
it's likely your brain
wouldn't pass inspection.

Septemberandom Memorandum

I'm willing to bet that the professional sector's largest group of functioning cocaine addicts is in the insurance industry.

'Tis better to be seen vertically than viewed horizontally.

The only evidence of life is growth. The only evidence of growth is change.

A tiger may not be able to change its stripes, but if a leopard could rearrange its spots, who'd know? Besides the leopard?

Intelligence is knowing what to do. Smart is knowing when and when not to do it.

Nobody ever slices a donut lengthwise, like they do bagels. Why is that?

There is plenty to write about, it's just not passing through my consciousness at the moment.

A GREAT DUO-MOVIE TITLE:
"What Heaven May Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia"

Would the work of an abstract artist from Indiana be called "Hoosier Dada?"

The Garrulous Spiral

This is a subject I simply cannot play passive about, although in public I generally keep my thoughts to myself. Here I am not as restricted.

More and more lately I've found myself picking my jaw up off the floor, from the increasingly harrowing stupidity my ears have been witness to – and I do not refer to political statements. I mean sheer parachute-free spelunkings into the bottomless cavern of mental absenteeism.

Let me just quote the stand-outs (with my afterthoughts in parenthesis). You be the judge. Keep in mind, all these quotes were made by adults.

It helps to hear the true idiocy at work, if you read them with an upward inflection, y'know??

Heard across a row of pumps at a gas station, on a particularly bright morning.

"Geez, where IS all that sunlight coming from!"

(Uh, that big shiny ball dealy-bob... a couple miles overhead... maybe. Just a guess.)

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Heard, unfortunately, at work:

"Yeah, I have this thing in my car that tells me how warm it is."

(That would be the THERMOMETER. I asked the guy who sells cars at the car sale place.)

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Heard in a coffee house, between two twenty-something twits, talking over their respective laptop screens:

"Then like, like, you know, the whole, like, issue of, like, the English learning thing."

"Oh God, yeah, like, all, like totally."

(May I point out something: The above conversation, though consisting of English words, is not English. I'm sure there are angels pondering what these two believed they were discussing.)

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I'm sorry. In the world I grew up in, adults did not talk like this. In my formative years, there was not usually a shortage of adults who were worth looking up to, in terms of emulating their character, and working to match their level of reasoning and mental maturity.

Should I be scared?

Augustus Randomus

I'm willing to call Coke and Pepsi a tie.

When Denny's redesigns the menu, they think they're fooling you into believing the food's better.

Every so often on the news, you'll catch a glimpse of the anchor-person adjusting something – his tie, his earpiece, etc. Just once I'd like to see Katie Couric straighten the torpedoes... then strike her serious anchor-woman pose. Just once.

Most of Hollywood's great stars of yesteryear could not pass a screen test today.

Don't answer a personals ad that contains, in any way, both the words "fuzz" and "butter." Just don't.

During an interview, Oprah should get up and casually put on a strap-on dildo. Not use it, necessarily, but just wear it. The look on the guest's face. That would be great.

Public farting has only been out of favor for the last 150 years or so. Not that long ago, in the grand scheme of things.

I admire people who have their shit together, I only hope they've washed their hands.

An Afternoon at Forest Lawn with a Few of My Heroes

It took 90 minutes of tramping up and down rows, and finally backtracking over a hill, to the information kiosk, to find Ernie Kovacs.

Someone had placed at his grave a tiny purple bouquet, which I immediately, carelessly, knocked over, then with great apologies re-stuck about where it had been planted. Ernie is in the Court of Remembrance, in the oval lawn in front of the mausoleum. A little red churchhouse and the open countryside are beautifully visible from the gravesite. Ernie's signature hewn right into the stone serves instead of a block lettered stamp-job, and the inscription below reads "Nothing In Moderation, We All Loved Him." We still do.

To Ernie's right are two of his daughters, Mia and Kippie.* I was glad to finally find him. I took a second sojourn inspired by Kovacs; to the intersection where he was killed, the crossing of Santa Monica Boulevard and Beverly Glenn. The power pole array at the corner is still there and it was easy to visualize taking a left turn too sharply on a rainsoaked road and spinning right into them, just like legend has it that Ernie did. Ironically, with today's better built cars it would have been a survivable impact.

Into the mausoleum, one must get past Bette Davis, standing sentinel like a pit bull. "It's going to be a bumpy night."

Inside, one might never find Lucille Ball if you expect something huge and ornate with "BALL" emblazoned upon it. She's in an urn, in a shoebox sized tomb labled "Morton" which is owned by her last husband, comic Gary Morton. Behind a bouquet of (again, purple) blossoms bigger than the grave they marked... there's Lucy.

Across this tiny sunlit chamber, Charles Laughton and George Raft keep Freddie Prinze company.

Driving on toward that little red church mentioned above, one comes to a huge court – the military section – resided over by a giant statue of George Washington, along with other brooding gods of warriors past.

Behind George, against the wall – is Stan Laurel. Sharing the plot with his wife Ida. His plaque says it all. "Master of Comedy." That's the league above any mere "King of – ". Even Chaplin revered him. Stan Laurel forgot more about the art of laugh-getting than most comedians ever know.

Like Lucy, Stan was cremated, so the marker is really just symbolic. Ida's body rests at the marker's foot.

Another good Brit rests near Washington, in front, to his right. Marty Feldman. "Damn your eyes!" "Too late."

But wait, look closer at Washington. He's pointing to something. What could it be? What could our country's father not want me to miss?

I followed his silent command, out to the front lawn of the military court. I kept checking to make sure I was lined up with his stern direction...

There, beyond the small stone wall of the court is... Buster Keaton.

This was the most emotional find in the park. I was taken unexpectedly by my own feelings.

I think (General) Washington pointing RIGHT AT Buster Keaton was what took me over the top.

Below this tiny stone with only a name and a date is a true giant. I stood there several minutes pondering. Someone had placed pennies over the loops of the sixes, as if they were eyes. A "General" golf ball rested on the stone with the word "the" scribbled on it. I actually started misting up at this small, unremarkable headstone – the inconspicuous resting place of the most remarkable man in the entire cemetery. Keep pointing, Mr. President. I got it.

On one afternoon in Hollywood, around 2001, I bought a bottle of all-purpose cleaner and a metal brush. I returned to Buster's grave and polished it up. The bronze caught the sun like it had when brand new. The Sons Of The Desert, the international Laurel & Hardy fan club, had left a pot of daisies for him, for Veteran's Day. I wondered why daisies? I went to get my camera to take a second shot of the tombstone now bright and polished, but my battery was low, and I had to get on the road. Perhaps I'll be back before too long, and take care of unfinished business.

*Since I wrote this article some years ago, Ernie's wife, actress-singer-ingenue Edie Adams has passed on, and joined the family at Forest Lawn.

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This article is also located at my blog "Laughter Wax." (Click the article title.)

My Uncle and the Statue

Before our narrative begins, it may be helpful to some of you born during or after the 70s, if I summarize who "Festus" was – or more accurately, the actor who portrayed him; Ken Curtis. Curtis was a popular entertainer in the 40s. He began his career as a singer in the Big Band era (as Frank Sinatra's replacement with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra), then went into acting. For a time he was one of John Wayne's cadre of regular supporting players. He was Captain Dickenson in Wayne's version of "The Alamo," and was quite memorable in the Wayne classic "The Searchers," as the guitar strumming savant who vies for the affection of Sara Miles away from Jeffrey Hunter. His greatest ticket to fame was his being cast in the long-running western TV series "Gunsmoke" as Marshall Dillon's wily sidekick and deputy, Festus. He was sort of an old west version of Barney Fife.

"Gunsmoke" had the longest run of any television series up to that time, and Curtis retired when the show finally left the air. He returned to his musical moorings in show business, and formed a trio of folksingers that made limited tours, based in his adopted hometown of Clovis, California.

Which brings us to the crux of our story. The town of Clovis is a bedroom community of Fresno. The California State University of Fresno campus overlaps the two bergs like a giant hinge. Clovis was extremely proud of its bonified TV star resident – THE Ken Curtis. In the early 80s, just after Curtis's death, the Clovis Chamber commissioned a memorial statue of him – it stood right in front of City Hall, like an Old West sentinel. Right from the get-go, there were two main problems with the statue.

First – the artist who created it had leaned toward shlock; the likeness was more cartoonish than reverent, and the statue was painted (holy freekin' crap) to look lifelike, including a peach/beige fleshtone that featured blushing cheeks suspiciously reminiscent of gin blossoms.

Second – the statue was not sculpted from a material suitable for a permanent memorial, like say, granite or marble. It was fiberglass and plaster. Repeat; a statue meant as a long-term landmark – in fiberglass. And plaster. In addition to that little choice judgment, the statue was erected at ground level, rather than upon an elevated pedestal as most statues are, to keep them at least symbolically at bay from potential vandals and pranksters. Big mistake... OH, Big Mistake!!

Now then, the original statue (yes it had to be replaced... but don't jump ahead) was posed with both its hands at Festus's lapels, as if he is happy as hell to welcome you to Clovis City Hall. The gnarly "just consumed an astonishing quantity of beer" grin on the statue's face certainly added a unique enhancement to that intended sentiment.

In short, this was a kitschy mannequin of a grizzled, drunken cowboy with a subliminal hard-on; just the welcomer that I'm sure the local civic leaders reveled in bestowing upon tourists and locals alike. In even more succinct terms, this statue was a piece of fucking shit that embarrassed the whole town.

With that scenario firmly in place, the story now backtracks briefly again, in order to introduce our protagonist; my uncle, the late Johnny L. Rankin.

Uncle Johnny, to be absolutely fair to him, was a fine, upstanding man when he wanted to be. His sense of humor was cosmic in proportions and he was a legendary prankster and walking jokebook. He was one of the earliest influences on my own humor. He also, however, had a certain mean streak that was fueled by a love for drink.

His life had some incredible career highs to counterbalance an ongoing alcoholic low. He served in World War II, and in his younger years both before and after the war, he was a working Country & Western entertainer. He was a Los Angeles area session musician on some of the recordings of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, among other popular acts of the day. He played with the band of Dave Dudley, who recorded the great trucker classic, "Six Days On The Road." (According to legend, Johnny once got pissed and threw Dave off the stage mid-song – guitar and all – into the audience. Both were shitfaced, of course. Dave wasn't hurt, but Johnny had to buy his destroyed guitar.) He performed solo in nightclubs under the stagename Johnny Lee. (No relation to the later C&W star Johnny Lee.) He also hosted, and performed on, the last live C&W radio show in southern California, broadcasting from a station in Long Beach. After his music career faded, he went into semi-tractor maintenance and was rated as one of the top semi-truck trouble-shooters in the country by Popular Mechanics magazine in the 1960s. So, as I relate this sordid tale of my uncle's mischief, I also want this document to serve as a tribute to him – for the sake of Uncle Johnny's memory, not to mention other family members who may stumble upon this – to keep his bright side reflected as well as his dark. The short description of Uncle John might be: Imagine a countrified, beer-bellied Jack Nicholson. Now back to our story...

At the time of the Festus statue's unveiling, Uncle Johnny was also living and working in the Fresno-Clovis area, as a mechanic. He was also a devoted "Gunsmoke" viewer and so made it a point to be present for the statue's debut. His first look at the Festus memorial apparently stoked a flame of indignation. Driven perhaps by rabid fan vengeance, a good portion of alcohol-lubricated prankster angst and even a touch of civicism (read: "Not in my town, gawdammit,") Uncle Johnny lagged behind after the ceremony and staked out City Hall!

He sat in his truck, chain-smoking cigarettes and probably making intermittent trips to surrounding Quikky-Marts for empowering beverage, until the early morning hours. Sometime before dawn, he got out and removed a "clubbing" instrument from his truck's flatbed toolchest. A ballbat? A crowbar? A sledge? The exact identity of the object is lost to antiquity. He then proceeded to walk over to the Festus statue and slam the fucker off at the knees!!

The statue's unveiling ceremony had been covered on the local evening TV news. The very next day's morning news opened with "Tragedy at Clovis City Hall!" with a shot of two fiberglass blue-jeaned legs standing minus a torso. The statue had stood intact less than 12 hours. The final fate of the thighs-up portion of Festus remains unknown to this day. Uncle John took that secret to the grave with him.

Festus, however, returned in the form of a second statue (see photo at top) almost as ghoulish as the first, only in a new, somewhat more dignified pose. And oh yes, now he is protected (?) by a short metal railing (the one reworking that Uncle Johnny's attack had brought about). The statue has since been moved across the street, to stand guard near the entrance to a bank, but it is still at ground level, though... proving that the Clovis City Commissars still managed to hold onto part of their original vision.