I'd Love To Stay and Hear the Context, But I'd Rather Keep Walking

A shirtless guy pacing his livingroom, on the phone, heard through the front window: "so... I do raspberry syrup down my left forearm. And I'm doin' slidin'. Y'know? Y'know how it is?" (Uh... yeah, sure.)

Shock-yellow mullet/mohawk combo. Fu Manchu facial hair. Tattoos on every inch of body. Sleeveless t-shirt and engineer's boots. With his spotted pit bull on a very long leash. Sitting at an outdoor coffee venue chatting up (how do these guys do it?) an attractive woman in business attire: "I go inside sometimes, but they make me feel awkward in there."

Parent, yelling across park at wayward youngster: "Brandon! Don't pet the water!"

Big guy in shorts and spats gets out of creaky 80s sedan to greet tall skinny guy in shorts and spats across the street: "Yo dawg whassup! Fugginbeautyday, isn't it?" (I'm going to try that one on my pastor this Sunday.)

Two elderly women walking ahead of me suddenly stop in their tracks, and part to either side of the walkway to let me through. Winded, but with a smile: "Sorry, we just passed our oh-shit distance."
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HORRIFYING TALES OF... PASTRY!

In 2002 I worked at a large supermarket bakery department in Washington state. Part of my daily routine was to refill the donut case whenever it got sparse, and keep the donuts nicely arranged in pleasing aesthetic display. As time went on, I realized a few regular customers were, in effect, keeping tabs on my donut schedule. They knew about when I'd be pushing the big rolling tower-cart of fresh donuts out to the floor, to restock the self-serve case. One of them was a blind man, whose cane I could hear clicking toward me. I soon learned it meant that I should pull out two large cinnamon twists, in reserve. He'd ask if they were the best ones in the case, and I assured him they were, as I slid them into a bag for him. "I trust you, dude. The guy that used to do this would give me the cruddy ones he couldn't sell."

My favorite customer was Della, the "tall Texan lady." I loved her Lone Star drawl, as thick as boot leather. Her hair was snowy, worn long, down past her shoulders, with a streak of jet-black down the right side. Maple bars were her passion. One day she snuck up behind me. "Two big ones." I knew her voice, and by that time I knew what she meant. I found the two biggest maple bars without raising from my position, and swiveled around to present them to her. She smiled.

My other favorite old donut enthusiast was Anna. She'd put her soft little hand on my arm, and point deep into the donut case. She'd whisper, like it was top-secret. "Get me that great big chocolate thing there." I sometimes felt like I was climbing into the donut case to locate the exact treasure she desired. Once, I got for her the largest cinnamon roll the baker had made that morning, directly out of the tower-cart, rather than the case, which was technically against the rules. "My doctor says I'm not to have such things," she said, then beamed with self-assuredness, "but I'm 85 years old, and my doctor can kiss my boney butt." Rest in peace, Anna, if you are not still with us.

My least favorite was unfortunately a regular customer as well. I forced myself to forget her name, but I can picture her in my head as if she were painted by Norman Rockwell after a few stiff drinks. I recall her only as the "snicker woman." She had that classic little half-snort that she used to punctuate her statements if she disapproved of anything you said to her or did for her. A typical encounter would be her suddenly appearing at the counter with a loaf of national brand bread from the bread aisle. "What's the difference between this and the bread yer sellin' here?"

Not really having any insider bakery expertise to wield, I resorted to stating the obvious. "Well, that bread is baked at some factory and shipped here overnight. Our bakery bread is made here, and most likely fresh this morning."

"Why!!"

Why? Why exactly does a large supermarket bake its own bread (as markets have for decades), then also offer the prepackaged national bread (as they also have for decades)? I told her it was so that we could offer her all available bread options.

She decided I was getting smart with her, which I was. "Well I think yer all fulla shit," she said, with her patented snicker. She tossed the national bread in her cart and defiantly rolled on. She came in nearly every day.

But my all-time favorite bakery moment was the night Husso became indignant.

Husso was a large, blond master-race baker from Russia, who worked the night shift – he would bake specialty items like raisin-cinnamon loaf, poundcake, white and chocolate layers for the Wedding Cake Designer, and other items in quantity, that required a level of focus and discipline that just wasn't doable during a bustling shopping day. Husso considered himself a culinary artiste, and wasn't afraid to tell you so. "They just bake... but I AM HUSSO." It was pretty impressive for a guy who worked at a bleepin' supermarket!

At about 2:00 a.m., he'd clean the kitchen for the all-important Donut Man who'd arrive at 4:00 a.m. Sometimes the donut guy wouldn't show, and Husso would, without complaint, work a double shift and produce the following day's supply of donutage.

It was around 9:30 p.m., and I was in charge of closing down the front counter for the night. Husso had just arrived and was busy prepping for his shift. In the middle of the bakery stood the Mighty Donut Tower, still about a third full from a slow donut day. Day-old donuts are usually arranged in those large pink boxes with plastic windows in the lid. Always remember... pre-boxed donuts = leftovers.

Out of the corner of my eye, I witnessed Husso sneak around the donut tower, raise the cover and snitch one.

He just as quickly disappeared back into the kitchen. I wondered why he felt he needed to sneak around. He was in charge. Hell, if the donut man had gone on another bender, it's possible that Husso had even made this particular batch. They were his anyway. Bakers are allowed. It's code-named "quality control."

A few minutes later, Husso did it again. He sneaked open the cover, grabbed something, and zipped back out of sight. I paused what I was doing, in amazement, and looked to see where he'd gone. Damn, Husso, if you're hungry, don't be shy about it. Grab an armload. And toss one my way while you're at it!

About ten minutes later I had mentally skipped over it, and was trying to concentrate on getting my work done, so to leave on time – my shift ended at 10:30. Just then, Husso snitched another donut. And he looked me right in the eye as he did. He motioned me over... "Rhoberr... come." 'Rhoberr' was how he said 'Robert.' And he'd said "come" with a hint of alternate-lifestyle butch-seductress. I froze.

"Rhoberrr... come here, I show you sometink."

What have I got to lose, I wondered? I made up my mind to remain calm, remain CLOTHED, and not walk directly under the ceiling mounted security cam.

I followed Husso into the kitchen, and discovered he was not eating any of the donuts he'd swiped. He was WEIGHING them.

A medium-size apple fritter sat perched on a large shiny metal scale. "Look dis..." Husso sighed, pointing to the digital read-out. "Eight ounce." Husso never spoke in plurals... ever.

"Yeah, eight ounces. So?"

"Look how small. Eight ounce of dough, to make THAT! They waaaaaaasste." He said this like Lex Luthor. The world was about to kneel in fear at Husso's white-sneakered feet. They wwwaaaaaaaaassste... I haaaaate theeeemmmmmmm."

He swatted the apple fritter away and replaced it with another one, much bigger – about twice as big as the previous fritter. "Look... this one I MAKE."

Five ounce... er, ounces.

"Look at this one," Husso breathed, like a master chef presenting the main course at a White House fundraiser. "Only five ounce of dough, look how big, how fluffy... it good, yeah."

"Yeah," I said, unsure if he was going to make me eat something out of retribution – like the "evil" fritter that he'd just back-handed into the trashcan.

"Their fritter NO-GOOD. Husso's fritter GOOD."

For a minute I flashed on Boris Karloff in "Bride of Frankenstein."

He continued, "they waste so much here. I make twice as many donut, half the money. But no, they get bastard to make donut."

"That's a shame, Husso," said I. "Yeah, they'd sure be smart to put you on the donut shift."

"Hell no, I want to live in daylight. And I want to sing."

The conversation was taking a turn for the surreal, but I hung tough. "Oh, you sing too?"

"Yes, Husso sing, and bake expertly. Donut. French bread – a thousand loaf a day. In Russia, I bake donut in afternoon, and at night sing in club. You know, like a nightclub."

"Wow."

"Husso make donut... sing country, rock and what you call light-rock. Mellow rock."

"Ballads."

"No... donut. And I sing."

It went on like that for five more minutes, then he brought the discussion full circle. "But this place, they get bastard to make donut. I will not stoop to bastard. I am Husso."

That said it all. Husso and I were pals after that. He had allowed me into the Golden Fritter Circle of his confidence, and I felt honored as I made my way down the dark sidewalk, munching on a free cinnamon twist gifted me for the trip home.

Mid-August Hurlings

DAMN POETRY CORNER RUNS AMOK

Thank you for a day of laughter I won't soon forget.
Thank you for an evening stroll against a gold sunset.
Thank you for your kneecap, peeking out a parted robe.
Thank you for the candlelight and its warm romantic strobe.
Thank you for an enchanting night.
Too soon was dawn's reprieve.
Thank you for having a home to go to,
I thought you'd never leave.
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If a Ferrari in the McDonald's drive-thru isn't a sign of the Apocalypse... what is?
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I was at the place where I regularly get my hair cut, this morning. An attractive Korean lady barber took me right away, no waiting. She sat me in her chair, and flung the giant bib around my neck. Just as she began clipping, my usual barber, a Korean man, strode in. "Sorry," I said, "you can get me twice next time," I joked! "Hoho, Mistah Rob," he answered, "no – last time was enough!"
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Funny how a strange weekend can make one long for the normalcy of a Monday morning, at the job you hate.
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Oh, by the way, I've given profundity the night off, in case you hadn't noticed.
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I recently saw actor John Lithgow in an incredible performance he gave about a man struggling with Alzheimer's, that unfortunately was undermined utterly by the very movie that contained it: "Rise of the Planet of the Apes." I only saw half the film, because of something that happened to me that has never before. I'm beginning to think I am viscerally allergic to the mimicked reality of today's CGI movie effects. Movies rely so heavily upon them now. They are essentially ultra-hightech cartoons, yet they are rapidly coming to replace flesh and blood. "Apes" put Lithgow, an artist of remarkable scope, in a backseat – to rest its hopes on the "emoting" of a computer-graphic; the film's actual star. The ape "Caesar" was portrayed in the original film this one is based on, by Roddy McDowell, another actor I'd watch read the phonebook, rather than "marvel" at the unreal escapades of this CGI counterpart. Anyway, I had to get up and trot to the mensroom at the 1-hour mark... to hurl. Really, I had to blow chunks. After I cleaned it up – the cinema staff were all on toke break – I decided not to return to the film. Watching all the right-brain grating just-a-bit-too-odd animation of animals not actually photographed... and so many real actors pretending to interact with them... made me physically ill. Like a rollercoaster designed by a sadist. I'll let some geek in a coffeeshop tell me how it ended, thanks.

August Randomness: In which I firmly cement my literary credibility

It's especially difficult to find Houdini action figures – all those mysteriously empty bubble packs on the racks...

Last night at a Chinese restaurant I saw "Kung Fu Chicken" on the menu. I asked the waiter what it was. He said "oh, that's our dinner special... it's guaranteed to go down fighting."

At the table across from mine:
WOMAN: "Where were you?"
MAN: "The mensroom... it's just one thing after another in there."

I spent a half-hour following the YouTube meme of the song "Sukiyaki." A catchy melody, but it seems to bring out the latent weirdness in people. One encounters everything from bug-eyed Yankee drummers in Bangkok nightclubs to Urban Boyband harmonizers, even to Indonesian Everly Brothers imitators – singing in German. Not to mention Japanese Beef Hotbowl recipe videos that use the song as a background track. And the translations of the lyrics leave a lot to be desired – no two are even remotely alike. The song is apparently about both unrequited love and eternal union, long distance oaths of loyalty, and even perhaps the musical transcript of "Brunch With Der Führer." This song is a multi-faceted lullaby into insanity. It has to be the melody that attracts me, and even that played often enough may be suitable mewzak for prison camps. Who needs therapy?

Speaking of which, here's a dream I just had recently with plenty of Freudian undertones – perking up already, aren't ya?

I walk into the mensroom at work to find employees of both genders lined up for turns at the urinal. Yes, it got weird fast, but you were warned. Anyway, I take my place in line... and I see that in the corner of the mensroom is a lounge area, with a casual no-host bar, and large plush beanbag chairs for people to chat and relax while they wait. A female co-worker (portrayed here by an individual who no longer works at my place of employment) offers to let me pull up a beanbag next to hers, which I do. She informs me with a smile, that she "owes me a bowl of chili." Yeah, I know, I'm starting to squirm myself just writing this. Anyhow... I and this lady commence a discussion of favorite chili recipes while we sit sunken into our plush beanbags in the mensroom waiting for a shot at a urinal. It's then we notice there is a huge venomous snake in the mensroom with us. I turn to warn my grandmother, dozing in a beanbag behind mine, that "the snake is back." Your mind is racing trying to interpret this steeping mess, isn't it? Everyone makes for the exit, but being the gentleman my mother raised, I bravely hold the door and shuttle everyone out ahead of me... only to find myself trapped alone in the mensroom with the snake. I begin to climb out of its path... up onto a toilet tank... then higher, to balance myself straddling a toilet stall partition. I notice I am wearing thin black dress socks and rather expensive looking leather shoes... laced, not pull-on. I then decide my ruse is no good, and jump down. The snake knows I'm there and is stalking me now. I let it chase me through the door, where, once its head pokes out, I slam the door closed, decapitating the monster. The SWAT team arrives. I wave them off... got it handled, guys. Do I get a kiss thank-you from any of the ladies who were in the mensroom... whose fine little butts I saved from a painful, venom-soaked demise? No, because they're all married. AWAKE.

DAMN POETRY CORNER UNLEASHED

I just brought home a truckload of farts.
A big truckload of farts I wish weren't mine.
A truckload of farts and you'll not find better.
A whiff of corn.
A hint of cheddar.
Don't turn up your nose at my truckload of farts.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand scene.

Sucking 20 Years Later

Oh Ross, we apologize. That day you said would come, when we'd remember your words and hang our heads, has arrived.

The year was 1992; the presidential election cycle of exactly two decades ago. America had something pretty rare happening – a 3-way race for the White House, in which the alternate party candidate was actually making the dialogue a "trialogue," and had odds-makers wondering if he might just be the dark horse who could deny both Red and Blue teams of the win.

On the right was George Herbert Walker Bush, Dubya's dad, attempting to win a second term four years out of the shadow of Ronald Reagan. On the left was a "golden boy" candidate named William Jefferson Clinton who seemed to be channeling the muse of Kennedy, appealing to a burgeoning Gen-X voter core.

In that enigmatic middle-ground stood a demure, trophy-eared monolith with a 1950s haircut, named Ross Perot – a fantastically successful business magnate and pragmatic traditionalist, who unlike the other two, claimed he came to the contest with reluctance, but for a passionate devotion. He didn't need the Presidency – it would actually represent a pay cut to him. His was a call to duty alone. He was "drafting" himself. His country needed him.

While the Red and Blue factions bombarded the nation with buzzwords and sound-bites as usual, Perot went about campaigning in a bizarrely quaint fashion. Instead of mudslinging ads and slick marketing, Perot bought half-hour chunks on network television, and methodically presented his plan for rescuing the nation from the clutches of the Politicrats... with cue-card sized graphs and pie charts that looked hot from the toner roll of his Lexmark desktop printer. He presented the vague impression of an obsessed newscaster who'd spent the afternoon collaborating with an Office Depot copier clerk.

He often punctuated his points with homespun metaphors, like "gettin' the old jalopy back on the road," and "convincing the ducks to walk in a row again." He was as magnetic as a favorite grandpa, as entertaining as a marathon Saturday Night Live skit, and most striking of all, he was utterly sincere.

And what no doubt scared his Red and Blue opponents in private, was that in his wrinkled little southern-drawled way, he made sense. He was not a shill for a mere party philosophy – he really wanted to "fix" the country. And once done, he'd return to the private sector where the pay and the perks were better.

His basic demeanor in each debate – in which Bush and Clinton were forced to tolerate his unprecedented grassroots gravitas – was a symbolic Post-it Note reading "Tired of the bullshit yet?"

He chose as his running mate a gritty "right stuff" era Navy pilot, Vice Admiral James Stockdale – a gruff old crewcut centurion who had no desire to graduate a Toastmaster's course. In a vice-presidential debate, pitted against the Red Team's Dan Quayle and Team Blue's Al Gore, Stockdale answered their eloquent over-souling with dry, stoic grunts-on-point. His most famous retort, when asked his view of Gore's economic theories, simply burped, "They won't work." Period. Silence. Not even a lifted eyebrow to signal the moderator that he was done. Beating the five-minute buzzer by 4:59.

Satirists loved him.

It ranked as the most surreal election year America had witnessed in memory. Perot's biggest obstacle, which ultimately he could not hurdle, was his image as a maverick industrialist, a CEO, rather than a diversified statesman and diplomat. What he succeeded in doing on election night, despite having been higher in the polls leading up to it than either Bush or Clinton individually, was to divide the conservatives in sufficient numbers to give the Oval Office to Bill Clinton, who carried the night with only about 40% of the vote, and who would go on to hold a full two-term Presidency.

What makes Perot suddenly relevant twenty years later, amid the election cycle leading to 2012, are his prophetic little Kinko's pie charts.

Perot's most remembered quote, was his commentary on the then-hottest political bone in the dogfight – the North American Free Trade Agreement. Both Reds and Blues touted it as the medicine America needed to make the economy boom, and argued only on its nuance, and how to go about assimilating its supposed benefits into the system. Perot instead, spoke of a "giant sucking sound." He said that sucking sound would be the nation's job market circling the toilet.

He said we would rue the day we allowed NAFTA. It would ultimately amount to a financial bitch-slap on Americans, on a galactic scale... in oh, about... TWENTY YEARS.

Dingdingdingdingdingdingding. Good answer.

Now we know. That twenty-years has passed, like a glittery parade marching south. And unlike either Bush, Clinton, Quayle, Gore and every politico and pundit of the early 1990s, Ross Perot appears to have known exactly what he was talking about.

He'd won straw polls galore, but the media lived in denial of him. He wasn't a member of either established cadre. A "kook."

This year we again have a platoon of standard agendafied, party-line towing, well-groomed shills competing for a shot at the nation's highest office, currently occupied by an individual who was carried there on a crest of national dissatisfaction with the status quo... who has proven stale, whose policies appear to have been theory-based only. Whose message of hope has been drowned out by that terrible sucking sound that Ross Perot nailed, long long ago.

The nation is falling into the trance of tribalism. To those who've woken from the Matrix, the 2012 Presidential Election will NOT be a battle between Red and Blue ideologies.

Like Perot, the lone voice in the wilderness crying out for a revolution away from Party Agendas, in the name of loyalty to country, is again confined to the Media's Deadzone. Ron Paul, ongoing straw poll champion, is ignored, because he isn't in the country club of media approval. Satirists can't figure him out. Pundits wish he'd go away.

Instead, Mitt Romney basks in the pole position, shrouded by a mysterious "front-runner" fog, based on some imagined magnetism equally as solid. And in the wings, another Texas governor, Rick Perry, in mere hours as I write this, is about to announce his candidacy. Something he denied he'd do... but was being groomed for, undoubtably. A late-entry, he somehow has every campaign strategy and accessory in place – his mighty slogan-emblazoned jet sits waiting in the hangar. He steps forward with the other combatants somehow already knowing they are defeated.

Apollo Creed. Ron "Rocky" Paul will symbolically stand alone, his wiry muscles thin but willing – while the crowd of glass-jawed posturers will pretend for a time to draw swords, but use the move to silently finesse their way toward the exits.

2012 will be a scripted confrontation, between "chosen ones." Perry and Obama share something in common that is as surreal as the 1992 election. Both inherited budgets – Obama as President, Perry as Texas Governor – from George Bush. That means that neither can pull that trump card against the other when the mudslinging starts. Interesting, huh?

The winner of 2012 will not be the just, but the better purveyor of The Message. The Matrix. The Tribal Dance.

Twenty years hence, will we again look back with a saddened, worse-bruised brow? As we realize much too late, that once more a rough-edged man who did not mold with our comfort zone had offered to reluctantly put his nobility on hold to rescue the country with tough love? Like Perot had?

If only we'd listened?

For Father's Day

Groucho Marx once sang a song on television called "Father's Day," by the old tinpan alley man, Harry Ruby. I remember it on the Dick Cavett Show*, but I also recall he sang it on the Tonight Show once too. The Cavett Show rendition was the better of the two, for it had a comic poetry to it, that only Groucho could create – despite the song really being about something a tad ribald. Not Father's Day, but the comedic underline of "I love you dad, even if I might be a bastard."

Now, the song has a secondary punchline concerning my shildhood. No, I'm not a bastard myself... I know that much. But as a Father's Day joke, I found a recording of Groucho singing this song, on an LP – we didn't have the Internet then – and I marked down the lyrics. I drew a cartoon of my Dad, and printed the lyrics on the back of the drawing, folded it, and gave it to him as a Father's Day card. It was one of the few times in my life that I actually made the old man crack a smile – at least a smile in front of me. He really liked it.

It was 1979, and as it turned out, it was the last Father's Day we had him. He passed away less than a year later.

Let me take a paragraph to backtrack... it will help the story. My dad had been a rough-necked athiest all his life. A critical illness caused him to accept conversion, on what would have been his deathbed. His doctors had given him two years to live at most... he was at the finish line. He got up, and lived four more years just to spite them. My dad dove into the church with the same hard-edged tenacity that he'd practiced as a non-believer, but he still did things his own stubborn way, which sometimes made my Mother's eyes roll, and the minister's brow tremble, even though they knew his intentions were in the name of his own calloused-handed attempt at saintliness.

Well, here's the punchline. Bringing us back to Groucho, and the song "Father's Day." My dad liked that joke card so much... during that morning's Sunday service, he got up, asked the minister if he could take the podium, and perching his drug-store generic reading specs on his bumpy old nose like a professor, read those lyrics to the entire congregation.

As my dad, beaming with delight, stepped down, folding my Father's Day card to put it in his pocket, I saw that the lyrics' double meaning wasn't lost on the minister, who stared a hole in me from across the house. I tried to make my expression "I didn't know he'd get up and PREACH IT."

I love you, Dad.

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*Click the blog title to watch the Cavett Show clip.

Pondering randomly upon a Saturday in June

At the bank, at the teller's window next to the one where I stood (are they still called "tellers"?) was a category of person I've noticed a number of times, the Disenfranchised Philosopher. A person who looks exactly like the life he or she leads: disheveledly marching to a distant drum just a beat out of sync with all the other distant drums... a walking solo act... who never speaks but to expound... and whose only topic is inevitably an update on his or her Personal Epic. In epically worded terms. Explained downward.

"Hello... I'm presently searching, along with thirty million others. I'm wading through unfortunate circumstances in the quest for solvency..."

I think he actually just needed to transfer fifty bucks from savings to checking. But why couch his need so mundanely? I agree! Don't let a week-unwashed plaid shirt and grungy cross-trainers lead anyone to believe they see a mere pedestrian before them! Excelsior... snurfff...

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Technology has served one other purpose – to create a whole new higher level of idiot.

A lot is said about the benefits of a sunny day, both emotionally and physically, but a rainy day that is brisk and silvery – as opposed to grey – offers its own brand of beauty and mellow inner reward.

Sitting at home, I think I should get outside and walk, and enjoy the exercise and pleasant freedom. When I do, however, I think I'd rather be at home in my easychair enjoying the downtime and pleasant freedom.

I'm constantly amazed that there are still people who go online, and behave as though the rest of the Internet doesn't exist. "Hey has anyone seen that video of the talking dog that everyone's talking about online? How can I see it??"

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A DREAM FROM 2002

I was a major league baseball pitcher – and I was good. During a game, this loudmouth came up to bat, who thought he'd get me to crack under enough verbal abuse. But he hardly got to put that theory to test, because I had him figured out and beaned him on the first pitch, hard, in the knee. Split his kneecap. He crumpled to the ground in screaming agony – for all intent and purpose innocent, for I had not given him opportunity to provoke what I'd dealt him in preemptive fashion. I walked over, grabbed his bat from the ground and tossed it into the outfield. Then I flipped his team off. The dugouts emptied.

Sound barrier, 1969!: The Apocalypse Begins!

Overheard today:

A rather fetching little siren in tank-top, shorts and way-too-big headphones, chatting up a wifi-laptop dude at the coffeeshop this morning: "See, like my vocabulary is like, awesome, but, you know..."

Methman tweaking at alternate coffeeshop, later same morning, out loud to himself: "If you wanna bring up electroshock... I'm down with that."

ULTIMATE NON-SEQUITUR OF THE YEAR AWARD:
An even stranger, more eccentric old loner than myself, traveling with his world-in-one-backpack, his beanie pulled low over his forehead... completing a journey to the other side of the crosswalk: "Sound barrier, 1969!"

These are certain signs of The Apocalypse, no?

CHURCH LETS OUT

The coffeeshop I frequent was more interesting than usual this Saturday. Lots of young people, formally dressed, marched through casually and kept the baristas from getting bored. The young men all had on ties and expensive shoes. The ladies wore... is this where church-formal has gone? I gotta start attending again. I think I rediscovered how much I love legs. Though I'm sure there were mace-misters attached to each set of swaying hips. At least this dirty old man can fain harmlessness, seated at a far-off table, hugging a coffee mug. There was a run on choco-lattés and espressos – that's what I seemed to hear repeated with every register-ring. I guess the minister had ended the sermon early, so everyone could get home in time for the Big "R," and they were starting their last day on Earth by getting their gourmet caffeine freak on. If the way those parishionettes were dressed was any clue, I'd say there's some serious after-church commandment-breakin' taking place about now. Damn.