Archive for the ‘The Stories’ Category

The Syracuse City School District referred to grades 7 through 9 as junior high school. The feeble term “middle school” was reserved for those milquetoast suburban kids whose districts had sleek, modern buildings and full-fledged orchestras featuring fierce battles over who was going to get first chair. My desegregated and gritty junior high school was a scary, Hogwarts-looking building also featuring pitched battles over who was going to get first chair – at the lunch table. Heck, some 9^th graders were actually driving cars to school, but only because they were 17 and should’ve been in 11^th grade.

 

Eastwood Junior High School was more tightly structured than elementary school. In fact, Eastwood was more closely structured to a high school, but like a smaller version of a high school – more like a “junior” high school. Hmmm…I wonder if that’s how it got its name.

 

My 8^th grade school day ran from 8:15 to 2:06 and the lunch period was shoehorned into the day from 10:50-11:18. This left us ravenous and hormonal lunchers a mere 28 minutes to nosh and dash. But since school administrators had to squeeze 2 lunches into 6 educational periods, frittering away time was not on the menu.

 

In addition to truncated lunches, we were allotted only 3 miserly minutes between classes. Take more than 180 seconds to get to your next class and your tardiness would become part of your permanent record – egad, no, not the dreaded permanent record! The in-between-classes time was marked off for us in colorfully stark indicators. First the green light came on meaning that class was over and you had 2 minutes till the red light alerted you that you now had only one minute to be seated and ready to go in your next class.

 

This was not an easy task. Especially if you had to trek from gym class in the basement all the way to health class on the 2^nd floor on the opposite side of the building – all without benefit of GPS. Throw in a visit to your locker and a pee pitstop and you might not beat the countdown of the red light flicking off. When you arrived at health class, the door could be shut and you’d be a marooned studenaut floating freely out in the empty corridors of space – a truant teenager in no man’s land without the protection of a get-out-of-jail-free Hall Pass.

 

Maybe an understanding teacher would grant you entrance knowing how hard it is to organize your books, stop at your locker, get a drink or take a wiz and then double time it to your next class. And you can forget about pinching a loaf – there was no time for such necessary evacuations. Meeting this shipshape timetable was a big ask (a pain in the ask), but we complied and it generally worked out. From the school’s point of view, providing a scant 3 minutes between classes allowed little time for mischief like drawing a moustache on the Donnie Osmond picture taped to Kathy Kraushaar’s locker (“Crow” to her intimates).

 

In addition to these exacting time parameters, there was a cardinal rule that students were prohibited from dining off campus or from leaving the building during school hours. While that rule was binding on all the civilian students, it did not apply to me since I didn’t regard myself as a civilian. I saw myself more as a foreign exchange student visiting from Rigel-7. Furthermore, however well understood or well-meaning this rule might be, it was at odds with my own creed of circumventing ill-conceived regulations. And this regulation was illing me.

 

I was always scheming to make my time my own. So, by employing at least 6 of my limbic system brain cells, I decided to take the miserly 28 minutes administrators allotted for midday num-num and make a jail break for the cozy confines of my comfortable crib located a scant 2 blocks away.

 

By attempting such risky self-care and flouting the territorial strictures of scholastic mandarins, I’d replace a noisy lunch period in the godlessly chirpy cafeteria with a serene and restorative mini-spa day back at my personal ground zero. So when the green light flashed “Go Time” at 10:47, I bolted from Miss Patrick’s 4^th period algebra class and dashed home like a border collie with the zoomies. By 10:51 I had unlocked the kitchen door using the key hidden in the Batman box up in the green cabinet and entered my personal Shangri-la.

 

Once ensconced behind the walls of Fortress Hardiman, I’d thrill to the pleasure of bilocation whereby for all intents I was in 2 places at once. That is, I was at school (at least by dint of roster assignment and supposed residency), but simultaneously I was also at home (by dint of being at home). This magical ability to be two places at once, wasn’t an act of David Hardiman. Nope. This was more an act of David Copperfield’s. My God. What kind of mad funhouse did I live in? Damn I was good company.

 

I reveled in the temporal alchemy of taking worthless school district time, and converting it into valuable personal time to spend as I saw fit – and I spent it like a drunken neurotic. I was like a teenage sorcerer converting ordinary school district moments into Dave’s personally treasured time, and I measured these enriched units of time in Hardiminutes and Nanodaves. Maybe in zooming home from Miss Patrick’s class, I had warped the time space continuum and had become a critical mass. A critical mass of what, I’ll leave to the reader to decide.  

 

So what does a wizardly time-junkie do in 27 cherished Hardiminutes to intensify his temporal larceny? Well I might start by removing my chicken loaf sandwich from the refrigerator. The sandwich I strategically assembled the previous night in preparation for this off the reservation event. I’d allow the sandwich to breathe – that is, to come to room temperature in the manner of decanting a fine wine. But instead of softening bitter tannins or developing a pleasing bouquet, I’d be enhancing the processed tang of compressed chicken loaf and intensifying the flavorless savor of Hellman’s Mayonnaise. Turns out I was doing sous vide before that cooking technique had even crossed the pond.

 

By adroitly structuring my time I’d synergize the moment and telescope the event. More prosaically, I might then proceed to the familiar family oval (the toilet) and decant something of a personal nature right through the oval and into the waiting waters of the family throne – there’s your original streaming service right there. This would be followed by various ablutions: a hot washcloth luxuriantly applied to the face followed by a warm wipe of the neck and hands. And because I was aware the hot water heater was directly below the sink, I knew there’d be a very short wait for the hot water to stream from the faucet. Understanding my domicile’s intimate infrastructure made me feel I had the advantage over my enemies – even though I really didn’t have any enemies and even though no advantage was gained. Maybe this whole thing was just happening in my head. Well, that was good enough for me. By now my Wonder Bread “chicken” sandwich had been properly decanted. It had lost all its chill and was ready for onboarding.

 

So I tossed my amalgamated chicken parts sandwich onto a plate with some pretzels, poured a tall glass of milk into my favorite ARCO gas station mug (the one with the handle and the New York Giants logo etching) and, lap towel in hand, brought it all into the living room where I turn on the TV and watch the last 5 minutes of Tattletales (which by 10:56 was mostly credits and commercials). At 11 I was happy to start a Let’s Make a Deal. By now I’m deep into the experience, very far away and completely immersed in my own private Idaho. My junior high school might as well be in Boise right now.

 

I finish lunch and watch as Monty Hall asks a lady dressed as a pickle if she’d like to take the curtain superintended by slim Carol Merril or the small box presented by chunky Jay Stewart. The pickle lady opts for the box and is rewarded with a $300 gift certificate to Spiegel Catalogue. Monty reminds us of the company’s location, “Spiegel, Chicago 6-oh-6-oh-9.” She chose wisely because behind the curtain was a gag gift of a rickety Beverly Hillbillies-looking jalopy.

 

It’s now 11:07 and I’m very deep into the experience and far removed from algebra class. I wonder if I can even make it back to the civilians students awaiting me at some place called Eastwood Junior High School. Where was that again? This mini-spa day in my hometown oasis had projected me out of this world. I’d become a studenaut – tethered to this world only by the knowledge that I had to be back at school by 11:21 or I’d besmirch my permanent record.

 

Taking a quick catnap crosses my mind, but I decide against anything remotely feline for fear of waking up in a no-kill shelter. No, there was only one honorable thing to do: return to Spaceship Earth and get my ass back to school. So I activated my heat shields and began reentry. I didn’t want to be late for Miss Patrick’s class and have this youthful blunder give prospective employers pause for hiring me in the years to come – “Mr. Hardiman we’d really like to hire you, but it appears you returned 3 minutes late to an algebra class in 1974. How do you account for this?” I couldn’t risk that. Besides, stern Miss Patrick would be expecting me since her class bookended the lunch period.

 

At 11:10 I lay me down on the bed and pretend to meditate (which is the same as actually meditating). By 11:11 I had put in almost a complete 1 minute of intermittent meditation and I was either enlightened or unchanged – I couldn’t tell the difference. So I cleaned up the lunch dishes and hoped the phone wouldn’t ring with Principal Dolan or more likely, his nosey secretary Mrs. DeSantis wondering why I’m not at school. I grab a Chips Ahoy! cookie as I enter earth’s atmosphere and stealthily make my way back to school, unseen by administrative patrols. At 11:20 Miss Patrick’s door is thankfully still open and I settle in to my seat at 11:21 ready to go and fully restored from my larcenous escapade. Before cracking open my algebra book I think to myself, “Damn, I am good company and I’m glad to have made my acquaintance.”  

 

So yeah, maybe this stitch in time wasn’t exactly Ferris Bueller’s day off, but it was a gratifying, time bending and swashbuckling caper. And as Miss Patrick began discussing binomial expressions, I wondered if any of the civilian students could sense that my buckle had been recently swashed. As things stood, there’d be no post-prandial regret from this erstwhile extra-terrestrial, non-civilian pupil. As the teachers’ would say to each other about my behavior, “I think we better keep an eye on that pupil.” 

 

 

The Punny Bonus

 

Because I dined at home and didn’t have to pay for a cafeteria lunch, I fulfilled another goal of mine – to Buy No Meal if I could avoid it. Which, if you think about it, is just a fittingly algebraic way of solving a binomial expression – also known as a “Buy No Meal” expression.   

 

 

In Praise of Those I Didn’t Get Then, But Do Now

 

Fortyish-year old math teacher Miss Patrick was a very rational and exacting math teacher (maybe that’s why she gravitated to the very rational and exacting field of numbers). So steeped in algebra, she always seemed to have a binomial expression on her face. We kids weren’t quite sure what her sexual proclivities were, but the consensus was she probably spoke heterosexuality as a second language. Our revered Miss Patrick commanded respect. You just didn’t talk out of turn in her class like you did in every other class. You didn’t even want to. She was a next level caliber educator.

 

Yes she may have been a no nonsense teacher, but on St. Patrick’s Day she let down her close-cropped hair and transformed into a kind of Impish Irishwoman. On St. Patrick’s Day, instead of the usual orderly use of the black chalkboard with white chalk, Miss Patrick would turn her back to the students and begin writing a quadratic equation on the blackboard in green chalk. The usually silent class would begin to giggle. She’d then turn slowly around and deadpan to us students, “What’s the matter, haven’t you ever seen green chalk before,” to which we’d all bust out laughing like little leprechauns.  

I (along with thousands of others) have enjoyed a satisfying career working very indirectly for many Presidents in the Executive Branch of government while employed by the DOT (Department of Transportation) in the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) as an ATC (Air Traffic Controller). It was during this period of my life I developed my passion for acronyms.

 

If you climbed my governmental employment tree and followed the Executive Branch out far enough, you’d eventually find me – a little leafy twig way out on the FAA limb. And although far-removed from the corridors of power, at one time this federal position placed me 198,744^th in the line of succession for the office of the Presidency – not so many people standing between myself and the office as to mathematically eliminate all hope of reaching it, but far too many people to consider any kind of mass liquidation of those obstacles blocking my path to the Presidency.

 

So I soldiered on in my profession as an air traffic controller in the slim hope that Avian Flu might miraculously strike down all who would deny me my rightful spot as the Chosen One in becoming your Commander-in-Chief. Alas it was not to be. I retired in 2013 a little closer to my goal (196,321^st in line), but still a Spokane, WA away from the Oval Office. I can only express my disappointment in words unspokane.

 

 

Newsflash – Mystery of Life Remains Unsolved

 

Who knows why one develops an intense appreciation for something that’s not an inbred physical need (e.g., food, sex, shelter), but rather something that’s created by man (e.g., art, NASCAR, or in my case Presidents). I’ve always wondered why I’m so mightily and unaccountably drawn to our Presidents; particularly the pre-Civil War presidents and specifically our 11^th President James Knox Polk (1845-1849). My preternatural affinity for the man supernova’ed with the chance opening of the book Atlas of the Presidents at Syracuse’s Paine Branch Library in 1965, when, at the age of 4, I serendipitously opened to the indelible image of President Polk burning its eerily familiar countenance into my psyche and eliciting an otherworldly feeling of recognition – “I know that guy.” I’ve never been able to explain or understand this connection. I think The Monkees expressed it best when they sang the Neil Diamond penned song I’m a Believer:

 

Then I saw his face

Now I’m a believer

Not a trace

No doubt in my mind

 

 

 

I might speculate that in a past life I was James Knox Polk, but more likely I was his horse groomer or his Postmaster General and Nashville crony Cave Johnson. Despite my intense interest in the Beatles I know I couldn’t have been one of them in a past life because we existed simultaneously, but with Polk there was at least a mathematical possibility.

 

When imagining the early years of our republic I’m free to happily speculate (fantasize) on the historical personage I may have been and what role I may or may not have played in shaping our raw nation. While these kinds of fantasies put others to sleep, they keep me up at night. This may account for my fascination with a time period most people simply regard as “Are you kidding me? – no indoor plumbing.” Potty breaks aside, I’d thrill to sit down to a Presidential state dinner in the time of James K. Polk’s mentor Andrew Jackson (1829-1937) and break bread with John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John Calhoun, Dolley Madison and Martha Stewart (It’s my fantasy so Martha is coming with us to help with the food and decorations. And that’s a good thing).

 

I’m desperate to convey more to you than just a heartfelt description of a time that calls to me. I don’t want these words to just lie on the page as 2-dimensional symbols of the rich universe I dimensionalize when conjuring up this vital and vibrant time period. I want you to feel the same mystic chords of attraction pulsing through your being that I experience in ruminating over this pivotal era and its stout people. I’d like the same pleasure coursing through me to stimulate you when I project myself into the lives of these intrepid men and women who pledged their “lives their fortunes and their sacred honor” to one another as they did at the end of the Declaration of Independence.

 

Fast forward (backwards?) to the 1840s and witness an awesome epoch fraught with conflict and rife with accomplishment. Without these struggles and achievements our nation might have perished from the face of the earth. I’ve read the history and if I were to be granted a 7-day, 8-night excursion to visit “the time before plumbing” I’d know exactly where to go and what to expect. More importantly, I’d be honored to take you with me and act as your personal tour guide. And while our mini-tour package goes well beyond the scope of a short essay, let’s take the journey anyway – just the two of us. Reviewers will say this intrusion or digression lends itself to choppiness or “too many notes.” You and I know better. Art imitating life. Let’s go! We can always return later to modernity should we need a proper shower or a Costco rotisserie chicken.  

 

The Road Less Traveled. Alright, the Road Never Traveled, but Let’s Go there Anyway

Journey with me to 1840s Washington DC or as it was known then: Washington City. At that time our nation’s capital also comprised a chunk of land on the Virginia side until that unused portion was retroceded back to her in 1846. You want detail? That’s detail.

Originally the District of Columbia (the site for our new nation’s capitol) was a 10-mile tipped square courtesy of land ceded by Maryland & Virginia. When all the development seemed slated for the Maryland portion, Virginia reacquired (retroceded) their parcel.  

We live just north of the White House on historic Lafayette Square, which at the time is a 20-year-old ungainly and deforested field with a few trees and muddy walkways in it. We light candles, empty chamber pots and spittoons and tend to our horses and precious firewood. There are no strung wires anywhere except for one…hmmm.

We revile the pungent aromas of the unwashed which, at this time, is pretty much everybody and everything. We are buoyed by the elevated discussions of Manifest Destiny and we despair at the bellicose sectional rhetoric surrounding involuntary servitude (slavery). Perhaps we take a steamship to New York and travel the 363-mile Erie Canal like Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette did in 1824 on his farewell tour. We glide through the storied, pastoral settings of America’s first novelists – James Fennimore Cooper (The Last of the Mohicans & The Leather Stocking Tales) and Washington Irving (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow & Rip Van Winkle). While plying the commercial waters of this vital artery, we witness the blooming of the Empire State and the resultant flourishing of New York City as our financial capital. We pause to realize that shipping a barrel of flour from the Midwest was reduced from $10 to just $1 with the advent of the canal thereby greasing the wheels of commerce and producing economies of scale for everyone. In this case a rising tide truly did lift all boats.

 

A few decades after the Erie Canal was completed we watch as a spider web of railroad tracks (the iron horse) infiltrate the countryside, literally connecting the dots and making it the first worldwide web. We’re bewildered by the invention of photography and the development of the telegraph – and this is just the 1840s folks! You think it’s exciting to be alive now; try transitioning from foot and wind power to mechanized steam power (ships, railroads and the Industrial Revolution). In this watershed moment, we transition from news traveling at the speed of hooves to messages sent at the speed of light (the telegraph). Oh, that’s what that wire was for. For the first time in history we are now able to demystify so many illusions and so much misinformation from afar by virtue of the daguerreotypist’s unerring lens.

 

All aboard. Time to take the train to Washington City (OMG. No rutted roads or jarring carriages). It’s time for dinner at the White House (then called the President’s House). We check in at Stephen Decatur’s boarding house, put on our best suit of clothes and walk by St. John’s Cathedral as we make our way through, muddy unlit Lafayette Square (gas lighting in 1848). Alighting onto the north portico of the President’s House, we hand our dinner invitation card to the steward Henry Bowman who sleeps and conducts all his business from the tiny porter’s lodge adjacent the entryway. We then cross the transverse hall and enter the oval Blue Room for drinks and mingling before conducting ourselves into the candlelit state dining room. 

 

On this visit to a James Know Polk’s 1847 White House for a diplomatic corps dinner (foreign ambassadors in attendance in full formal regalia) we feast on Canvasback duck, terrapins, bear and partridge. OK, I’ll grant you others might feast on these dishes, but you and I would probably pick at these gamey entrees (that’s why we’re bringing Martha Stewart). After the dinner and the several toasts, there are cigars, Madeira and light cakes. With all the chandeliers ablaze, guests meander into the Red Room to share a snippet of conversation with then Secretary of State and future President James Buchanan. In no time we realize he’s a confirmed bachelor. A very confirmed bachelor and as publicly gay as one dare be in the days before Stonewall. A gay man in those days was referred to as an “Aunt Nancy” – amongst other epithets.

 

We press on to the crowded and creaky oval Blue Room which venerable Senator Daniel Webster humorously suggests “is standing only by force of habit.” Onward through the Green Room where we pretend to hold a conversation with British Ambassador Sir Richard Packenham. He’s so stuffily aristocratic that even though we speak the same language we don’t understand a word he’s saying. We nod our heads and make our way into the Transverse Hallway (the long red carpeted hallway you see behind the President during a press conference) and on into the East Room where the swinging Marine Corps Band is playing popular dirges of the day. There’s no electricity, no plumbing, no recorded music or much hygiene for that matter (Martha will bring Wet Naps). Life was tougher, crueler and perhaps lived more appreciatively as a result. Nutritious, wholesome food was not always available especially since refrigeration was then known as salting (I’m bringing Trail Mix). My heart swells as I’m allowed to both participate in and bear witness to the colorful parade of history passing before us. My enthusiasm is infectious and now you’ve got the bug and ask if we can extend our stay.

 

Our excitement is incalculable the next day when we visit the Capitol in 1847 and wave to a lanky 38-year-old Whig congressman from Illinois as he denounces the Mexican War in the House of Representatives. That man is Abraham Lincoln. John Quincy Adams then known as “Old Man Eloquent” looks on approvingly then rises to rail against slavery. If they were alive today, they’d both be on MSNBC a lot. On the senate side South Carolina firebrand John C. Calhoun will brook none of this scolding Yankee abolitionist censure heaped on the “peculiar institution” so fundamental to the Southern way of life, “If we were to free these poor souls where would they go? Nay, our plantation slave system is a form of benevolent paternalism and should be allowed to spread throughout the new territories.” He’d be on FOX News a lot.

 

When you and I are through listening from the galleries we’d have our carriage sent for and then rumpety-rump our way back down the Capital Hill along the 1.3 miles of Pennsylvania Avenue to our Lafayette Square (so named after the Marquis) boarding house where I hope the fireplace still has some glowing embers in it for starting a roaring blaze. We don’t want our water pitcher to freeze over again like they do almost every winter night.

 

 

Dolley Madison Stops in for Dinner

We settle in for an evening of card playing and roast lamb which we share generously with the elderly and still vivacious Dolley Madison who has moved back to the capital in late 1830’s following the death of husband and former President James “Father of the Constitution” Madison. Dolley is such an enduring figure in our nation’s history that she is reverently referred to as Washington’s other monument. Dolley’s profligate son John Payne Todd from a first marriage has saddled her with considerable debt (gambling) and it’s only fitting that we assist the Nation’s first First Lady by sharing our good fortune with her.

 

The next day we accompany Mrs. Madison to St. John’s Episcopal Church where she and her husband first worshipped at in 1816 when the cathedral was completed. President Polk and his wife Sarah Childress Polk are also in attendance and after services, we all stroll back to the nearby White House for a visit. First Lady Sarah has befriended the venerated Dolley and has used her as a resource for entertaining and social advice. There we partake of some refreshment (tea and cakes) and enjoy the southern hospitality while being served by Polk’s personal slaves he brought with him from Tennessee to cut costs.

 

 

This is likely a Sunday afternoon, post-church daguerreotype of then Secretary of State and future 15^th President James Buchanan (on left), his niece Harriet Lane, First Lady Sarah Childress Polk and our 11^th President James Knox Polk (in center) and former First Lady and revered national matriarch Dolley Madison (2^nd from left – she moved during the long exposure time). They are all dressed in their Sunday finery or possibly before a state dinner or diplomatic reception.

 

Dolley’s first husband succumbed to the Yellow Fever epidemic of Philadelphia in 1793. That’s where the Nation’s Capital was at the time and where Aaron Burr (the bastard who shot Alexander Hamilton) introduced her to Congressman James Madison whom she married in 1794.

 

One can only imagine the spritely conversation these luminaries engaged in that afternoon. I know I do. In recognition that past is prologue, I believe the way they respectfully conducted themselves, informs the manner of public discourse today – at least I hope it does.

 

Well, our journey has come to a close. It’s almost the 1850’s and time for Henry Clay’s Missouri Compromise, which staved off the “irrepressible conflict (the Civil War) for a decade.  

 

Epilogue

 

I regularly project myself back into this romantic period. The mystical bands of attraction hold me close to that era and an examination of that attraction is altogether fitting and proper. And even though I am over the moon for this era in our nation’s history, I would only visit if I had return rights to this era because despite my ardent sentiments; you can’t flush a chamber pot. Thanks for tagging along. You have been a boon travel companion.

This story alone rates a book in itself and is probably my most requested story. Whenever I’m with friends or family and they realize someone hasn’t heard it yet, they invariably plead, “Oh please, tell them the Toby story.” And I will and it goes something like this:

I was fortunate that whenever I had idle time I could be immediately and profitably absorbed into the work force at our family glass and mirror company known as Eastwood Glass. And during summers I worked there as a glazier-in-waiting, learning the trade and making limited contributions. On this particular day, August 11^th 1974 (which I simply refer to now as 8-1-1) I knocked off work around 5 and my dad dropped me off back home. He dropped me off because he didn’t live there. He lived in back of the glass works sleeping on a cot with a shotgun resting against an open dresser constructed of plywood and 2X4s where he stored his meager clothing (I kid you not). There were quarters.

 

In any event, leaving dad and entering our modest 3-bedroom 1 bath 1100 sq. ft. middle class home, I was eagerly greeted by our excitable Yorkshire Terrier named Toby. In his eyes, I’d returned from the hunt and he was welcoming me back to the pack. He proceeded to jump up and down demanding his slobbering dollop of canine attention. Standing there in the hot doorway, I wasn’t prepared to bestow any doggy love. Instead, on this steamy summer day I walked down the long hallway and lay down on my sister’s bed to stretch out and relax. This allowed the little yapper to jump up on the bed, surmount my chest and commence to give me a proper pooch greeting by furiously licking my face.

 

Now even though I was only 13 years old, it had been a long day and my fatigue was manifested in a glorious and well-earned yawn. The kind where your eyes close and your jaw unhinges as you fully articulate the yawn cycle. As my eyes lazily opened and Toby was frenetically slurping my face, I witnessed something no human being should ever have to see. Evidently that little Yorkshire Terrorist Toby, had just eaten his Alpo prior to my arrival and as he stood on my chest joyfully licking his master’s face it happened. Without any indication something wretched was about to occur, he forcefully jettisoned a freshly digested arc of slimy dog vomit into my gaping mouth, past my retracted tongue, off my dangling uvula and into the back of my throat where it rebounded forward until the offending chunks rested on my taste buds.

 

This got my attention. It was a million to one swish from 3-point range. I was helpless as the putrid steamy lumps passed unscathed right past my teeth and rained down into the inner recesses of my now violated pie hole. I know that Einstein was correct in his theories of time dilation because as I jetted to the bathroom at the speed of light to wash out my mouth, time actually did slow down and I was able to experience the event in slow motion. Now if there’s one thing to be learned from all this it’s that you’ve never really experienced life until you’ve felt hot chunky dog puke ricochet off the back of your throat and onto your tongue. To this day I cannot yawn without sealing both hands over my mouth.

Gemstones, long thought to be perfectly content being ogled for their beauty, are now demanding to be recognized for their brains too. Spokeswoman Katie Clarity remarked, “Gemstones are more than just Pet Rocks and they deserve to be treated like the elegant ornaments they are, and not the trophy trinkets they’ve become. These precious stones, incubated within Mother Earth’s geologic uterus, are primordial bling and worthy of your deepest appreciation.”  

 

Gemstones: Coming of Age

Probably as a result of exposure to AI’s ChatGPT and the contrails of certain airplanes, many gemstones have anthropomorphized to the point where they are not only sentient, but also fraught with feelings. These days there’s no telling what their state of mind might be – especially when it comes to those fickle “mood rings.”

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In recent years, self-aware gemstones have slowly evolved from bimbo baubles to accomplished adornments. They can no longer abide being gawked at for their superficial charms and then, when the party is over, crated away in some dark jewelry box like an anxious Pet Rock looking for comforting refuge. Some say these newly-conscious jewels are acting way too “precious.” But what else should we expect? They are precious – literally. They are precious stones just playing their part.  

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(As It Pertains to Peoples’ Names)

Be it known to all homo sapiens, that I (your eternal pal, the Almighty) am not a fan of these designer, boutique names that so many of my errant flock have wantonly applied to themselves. These hip-hop and vacuous monikers conjure up unjustified notions of characters ranging from gilded royalty to gritty street urchins. It is therefore incumbent upon me to apply some long overdue divine intervention in the realm of names.

 

Commencing immediately I shall expunge all names with hyphens, numbers or overly long names with too many consonants that even I lose interest in pronouncing halfway through. I fully support plain, understandable American names – the way I meant them to be. Stout, coherent names like Calvin Coolidge, Courtney Cox or Neil Armstrong. Bear in mind, P Diddy or Lizzo or Dua Lipa are not names. They’re brand names. Alanis Morrisette is as exotic as a name needs to be.

 

It is my edict that all single names are abolished. Except for Cher. I’m grandfathering her in. Only she and my son Jesus get to keep their one-word names. Names like Marlon Brando, Harry Belafonte or Sophia Loren are wonderful names and lightly evince a cachet of both sophistication and class – listening P Diddy or 50 Cent. Put another way: Alanis Morrisette – Good, Vanilla Ice – Bad. Listen my children, you’re already special. You don’t need to wrap yourself in a craven moniker to make you feel even more so.

 

So, as a service to my flock I’m providing guidelines for proper name-age. I bring forth these tablets from Mt. Sinai containing The New 14 Commandments as it pertains to names:

1. 

   Yeah, what he said.

   Henceforth all middle names shall be smack in the middle of the name, where they belong. They shall have a one-word first name on the left side, and a one-word surname on the right side. And because I’m such a compassionate Deity, exceptions to this rule are allowed in the South for Billy Bob’s, Billy Jo’s and Mary Kay’s.

 

2. All believers shall be permitted a one-word last name. No hyphens. No two parts. If one is to marry another, one can either take the spouse’s name or keep their own, period. Let us never forget what happened when Caroline Cumberbatch married Reginald Humperdinck and became Caroline Cumberbatch-Humperdinck. That’s a mouthful the Church simply cannot countenance. It’s inherently disordered.

Hyphenated last names left untreated can lead to even graver consequences, as when Sheila Campanella-Firestone married Kenneth Binswanger-Kravitz, and kept her name while adopting his. Suddenly we were introducing, Sheila Campanella-Firestone Binswanger-Kravitz to her wedding planner, Kirsten Moultrie-Goddard Bulwer-Cavendish. This is unsustainable and must end now. Non-simplifiers shall be smote on the thumbs with a branding iron of not less than 350°.

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3. And as a friendly reminder, ye shall not take the Lord’s name in vain, nor shall ye take any drugs in vein

 

4. Nicknames are fine (“Buzz” Aldrin for example), but thou shalt not be generally known by a one-word name like Lizzo, Ye or Pink. As mentioned, Cher will be grandmothered in and allowed to keep Cher (Sarkisian). And of course, baby Jesus’ name is untouchable; and if he approves it (after consulting with his mother), Madonna may keep her single name.

 

And one more thing about this “Ye” guy who arrogates to himself powers of arbitration on all that’s fashionable; he is not Ye. Talk about your false idols, Ye is a fraud. I am Ye. John Lennon said it best about Ye when he sang: ♫I am Ye, as you are Ye, and you are Me, and we are altogether. Goo Goo G’joob. ♫

 

 

5. Under no circumstances may one covet thy neighbors’ name. Nor shall ye lay with another man’s name unless it be Sealy, Serta or Posturepedic.

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My buddy Franco is not elderly. Norman Lear was elderly. Franco is ancient. He’s older than dirt – literally. He’s so old he still suffers from hearing loss from standing too close to the original Big Bang. But more noteworthy is that he’s the only person with 24 pairs of chromosomes (instead of the usual 23) – a genetic mutation caused by a very tempting apple his mother Eve probably shouldn’t have eaten. Well, she was warned, but that’s another story.

And on the genes of that 24^th chromosome were pristine DNA strands that prevented Franco’s bodily tissues from ever aging; so he’s never gotten old. He’s like one big stem cell. In fact, when he submitted his saliva for genetic testing to 23 and Me, the findings revealed he was related to everyone, everywhere, all at once. As a result, he’s the answer to the question: Who’s your daddy?

Not one to let the rich premise of a preposterous story escape my clutches, I decided to ask Franco about his many and varied experiences, lo these many epochs. And he enthusiastically shared with me great and colorful historical anecdotes I’ve highlighted below:

 

Franco is So Ancient That…

1. He rented the last room at the Bethlehem Inn on Dec. 24^th, forcing Mary & Joseph to camp out in the manger
2. Franco had a platonic relationship…with Plato.
3. His favorite soup? ­– Primordial
4. He came to America via the Siberian-Alaskan land bridge (that is, once he got his Bering Strait)
5. He used to call Methuselah “Junior”
6. When a young Alfred Nobel won a church raffle in Sweden, it was Pastor Franco who presented him with the first ever Nobel Prize
7. At different times of his life, he’s eaten various alphabet soups teeming with cuneiform, Cyrillic or English letters. He didn’t care much for the Egyptian hieroglyph soup – “too many ankhs, not enough ibises.”
8. It was Franco’s idea to humanize his tribal leader Atilla by nicknaming him “the Hun”
9. Same thing with Vlad. When the murderous tyrant wanted to instill even greater fear in his perceived enemies, it was the fertile mind of Franco who came up with “The Impaler.” And it stuck, so to speak.
10. In addition to his platonic relationship with Plato, he had a tactile relationship with Play-Doh. Oh, how he loves his homonyms.

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It’s 1969. AD. I’m 8 years old and happily ensconced all alone in the cozy confines of my downstairs game room where I’m playing pool and groovin’ (yes, groovin’) to Beatles music on our state-of-the-art Magnavox Quadraphonic stereo. I’m the best company a boy can have. And the beauty part is I’m never without me. And while I appreciate the company of other people, I especially like mine. I always seem to know exactly what I want to do and I never have to wait around for me to show up so I can do it. I’ve always been there for me. I have no choice. And being with myself in this special way (in the basement shooting pool and listening to the Beatles) was like a divinely choreographed yogic practice.

 

Sometimes the downstairs game room became my sacred subterranean sweat lodge. A place where I’d forget the world and remember myself. A place where sinking the 9-ball in the corner pocket would take on new meaning when set against the backdrop of John Lennon’s seductive lyrics, “I’d love to tuuurn yooou ooon.” Here in this sacred little kingdom I began to resonate with the background radiation of the universe. Tucked so serenely beneath the predictable tumult of a chattering world, life’s challenges didn’t need to be overcome because they didn’t exist; having disappeared into the side pocket by a combination of my trusty pool cue and a satisfyingly eerie dose of A Day in the Life. This downstairs sanctuary became a swirling meditation of colliding spheres and enchanting sounds – a microcosm of the universe with me at the center of my own time zone. And, like an ordinary iceberg whose superficial display belies its unseen massivity beneath, you’d have no idea any of this exalted stuff was going on if you happened to be outside looking in.

 

When the ethereal opening strains of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds began to permeate the overly-paneled game room, I’m transported to (or reassume) that naturally happy place I remember from before. And like the uncontaminated soul I was, I just assumed everyone was familiar with this place. As an 8-year-old you assume a lot of things and loving ubiquity is one of them. It’s a wonderful life when there’s nothing to fear. Judgments morph into ♫cellophane flowers of yellow and green towering over your head.♫ I was still open to the possibility of all things. Or should I say I wasn’t closed to the possibility of things yet. My hard case (aka my cranium) had not ossified sufficiently to block out the honeyed joy of my source. The Beatles helped me remember that place – the place I had left just 8 years earlier. Sgt. Pepper’s had a way of evoking that memory.

 

There was something so magical and mysterious about some of those Beatle songs. In a very cool and unintentional way they were pointing to a more substantial place. Not this clunky earth, which I admit is a great place if you’re suffering from RPS – Restless Penis Syndrome. But it still seems so makeshift and temporary – like some kind of put-up job for me to buy into and play my part. I can’t explain it (obviously). And I don’t know why I interpret it as I do. It’s not like I took any hallucinatory drug (unless you count a couple sleeves of Oreo’s). There was nothing cross-wired in my head beyond a preternatural urge to rediscover that power behind the curtain. Put another way; as welcomed as my mother’s corned beef hash and eggs were (and they were f*ckin’ awesome) no earthly attraction could contend with the calling of a million suns yearning to radiate from my pineal gland. Y’know, that place just behind where the Hindus put that red dot. Well they put it there for a reason.

 

The Beatles spiritually incendiary songs didn’t seem to be so much created, as they were plucked whole, from a vast ocean of shared experience and presented as the sonic essence of the unseen multiverses at work – not an easy thing for a thin vinyl disc to do. Circling the pool table with what seemed like the cunning mastery of a seasoned pool shark, I absorbed the insistent musical expressions of those Liverpudlian minstrels and felt clothed in the immense power of a warm and knowing presence.  

 

So all this is going on in my head while I’m stroking billiard balls on my grandfather’s pool table. The green felt pool table we inherited when he died in 1969. Shoot pool and grove to the vibe. It’s all I wanted to do. It’s all I needed to do – I didn’t need to Turn On, Tune In and Drop Out. I didn’t need to Be Here Now. I Was There Then. I knew. I remembered.

 

After a spell, this tendril of easy rapture would retreat. And in various turns I’d try to recall it, like those colorful snowfalls I remembered from the other place. Back within the klutzy confines of monochromatic earth I was crestfallen to see white snow falling. Especially when I knew the colorful snowflakes were just a click away. After a rousing session of enlightening BeatlesPool in the downstairs kiva, I loathed to reenter the bumptious outside world of drama, calamity and ♫silly people who run around and disagree and never win and wonder why they don’t get past my door.♫ From where I reposed in the buoyant joy of my downstairs amniotic sac, it was getting better all the time. All else was either intrusive or a pale imitation of what it could be. But it was the only game in town – at least the town of Syracuse where I lived.

 

My downstairs basement (as opposed to the upstairs basement) was, at times, a serene and contemplatively glorious Walden Pond where I played Walden Pool. With enough Oreos I could hold out there all night. I’d groove to the grooves on the 33¹/₃ rpm LPs I stacked one atop another. I felt supremely alone and yet totally connected – the sublime contradiction undressed. My brother or sister might come home from a night out. They’d bound down the stairs and I’d see their whole experience before me while my sonic séance was unfolding in the sanctum of my groovy grotto. I inherently understood their scene (their concerns, their loveliness, our shared experience being in the same family). It wasn’t the 8-year-old that knew this, but rather the soul (call it what you will) within that understood it all while it revolved at 33^1/₃ rpms.

 

I was fairly pure back then and seeing things as they were wasn’t anything I tried to do – it was just done. Inherent. As time marched on I accreted the obfuscating rime of everyday life – its praises, its patterns, its reproofs – and the next thing you know old Jed’s a millionaire. That’s not exactly what I meant to say, but you know what I mean. You can fill in the blanks. Remember them? I know you do. It’s twilight. You’re in a small body looking out the window at all the colorful snowflakes falling from the sky. Your dad pulls into the driveway. There’s an outline of presents in the back seat. Presents for everyone. Your best angels are right there and you remember yourself.

 

Anyway, it’s something like that. Be happy I (or anyone else) can’t describe transcendence in its full dimensional clarity – it’s better than that. Its grace to be savored and experienced, not understood through direct observational perception. It’s that thing you forgot you knew. But don’t worry. Don’t ever worry. The amnesia is only temporary. Meanwhile how about a game of pool? I’ll put on some records. I’ve got’em on mp3 now. And no talking. We’ll just shoot billiards and listen to the waves on Walden Pool.

News of the Universe is a weekly digest of newsworthy events materializing in the entirety of our Cosmos. It is published by the Powers that Be – a subsidiary of the Almighty. News of the Universe has been covering everything in God’s creation since before the Big Bang. Yes, they’ve been reporting ever since that lesser publicized, but very enabling Little Bang got the whole singularity expanding in the year 3000 BBB (Before the Big Bang).

 

As one might expect, News of the Universe (NOTU) is a star-studded publication with a stellar reputation and an astronomical reach to its far flung, extra-terrestrial audience. It’s available everywhere except on Rigel-7, where Wi-Fi is spotty owing to disruptions in the space-time continuum courtesy of renegade Black Holes that simply refuse to play by the settled laws of physics. News of the Universe is a decorated periodical that has won a Parsec Pulitzer Prize for blowing the lid off unseen, hypothetical matter and exposing the truth about this invisible material in their spotlight series Dark Matter Matters.

 

The following article is the second most popular article from this week’s publication with over 38 X 10⁶⁵ hits. In case you were wondering, the most popular and ogled section was the Alien Illustrated Swimsuit issue. 

 

From News of the Universe May 4th 2023:

 

 

Miracle in the Milky Way

 

~ Billions of Humans Found Alive on Planet Earth! ~

The planet earth, previously believed to be incinerated in the Milky Way’s supernova of 1054, has been found intact and teeming with 8 billion so-called humans, living unsupervised in something they call a “society.” The cosmic hierarchy was stunned to find these orphaned children of God mostly healthy and seemingly insensible to their predicament. The rediscovery was made quite by accident when heavenly accountant Coopers & Lybrand’s was performing their annual inventory of the 2 trillion galaxies for the Almighty. Read the rest of this entry »

Stonehenge, the most overbuilt monument to ancient calendaring ever created, would’ve been one of the Seven Wonders of the World if its boosters had only been a bit more spirited. Instead, their efforts flagged and the richly deserving, colossal chronometer landed at #8. It was squeezed out of the coveted 7 spot by the underwhelming and easily curated Hanging Gardens of Babylon. It hardly seems fair.

 

In 800 BC, Mesopotamia wasn’t so much a nanny state as it was a nursery state. This trifling Wonder of forced landscaping was really nothing more than Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II ordering his duty-bound subjects to dangle floral greenery from public buildings like so much Banksy graffiti. Then they all genuflected in dutiful awe at the Royal Gardener’s 40,000 drooping spider plants. “Our King has the greenest thumb in all of the Fertile Crescent.” they crowed in mandatory praise. Big Deal I say. Growing thousands of house plants on patios in warm weather is no Wonder.

 

Compare this leisurely horticultural jamboree to the triumphant feat of the underfed and overburdened Druids. They built a massive sun-earth clock by heroically hefting 25-tonne stones in a precise geometric configuration that is still accurate today. Yet as great as Stonehenge’s celestial clock is (and don’t tell the Druids this), I hear it’s about 10 minutes fast. But still, they accomplished this zodiacal timekeeping in 2500 BC, using only rudimentary tools and without any Claritin to be had in all of the shires. They withstood such hardships with stoic grace and drippy noses. And in the end, nobody wanted to vote for the achievement of a bunch of snot-nosed hooded pagans. Instead, the 1878 Seven Wonders Committee chose Middle Eastern couscous over Middle England’s mucous.

 

Stonehenge’s exclusion seemed preordained owing to the clout of the 19^th century Nursery Lobby (you can’t make this stuff up – although I am). Stonehenge’s supporters were few and feeble – just some Quarrymen from Liverpool who threw their inconsiderable weight behind Stonehenge. Plus, their marketing pitch was less than stellar: Visit Stonehenge: The Gloomiest Place on Earth.  Because of marketing blunders like these on the part of Stonehenge’s boosters, it’s no wonder it’s no Wonder. Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone thought this batch of newly birthed jokes were unrelated – orphaned one-offs tossed out into the jokesphere by any number of anonymous quipsters. However, through forensic jokenetic testing, 23 and Me proved beyond a cackle of doubt that all these jolly jests had a common ancestor – me. Each quip had my unique comedic markers: too clever for their own good, amusing without being actually funny and mildly offensive without being redeeming.

 

I was initially chagrined by the charges brought in the Joketernity suit. And I vowed with insincere legalistic platitudes to “Vigorously defend my innocence and show that blah, blah, blah…” But now, having read the outstanding material contained in the suit, all I can say is…guilty as charged. I accept 23 and Me’s ironclad verdict. And since I am a responsible comedy writer, I’ll raise them as my own and pay joke support for each and every gag my fertile mind conceived. I don’t want these orphaned witticisms growing-up out on the streets, hustling for cheap laughs or getting enticed into a van by an evil jokenapper and being taken to a secondary location for hours of meaningless canned laughter.

 

As part of a joke-bargaining agreement I reached with the Court Jester, the court sentenced me to the opposite of a Gag Order. I was issued a Publicize Order, so my offspring jokes would see the light of day and be broadcast to as many people as possible. I’ve consented to take my offspring out on visitation days and expose them to a polite and chuckling society. In keeping with the spirit of this sentence I herewith, forthwith, and with withering wherewithal present my witticisms to the world.

 

Like a vegetarian mathematician, may these jokes be fruitful and multiply:

 

These are All My Children

 

The Lambshank Redemption

 

Lambshank Prison: Prison dieticians who fed prisoners shredded coconut found their recidivism rate no different from prisoners who were fed slivered almonds; thus concluding, “They’re both kinda nuts.” Read the rest of this entry »