DUI Donkey: Film At Eleven

I've always enjoyed reading small regional newspapers. Whenever I travel, I make it a policy to hit a newsstand and pick up the local sheets and see what's going on in the community. If anything, it humbles me in remembering that not everything we are agonizing over in this town is of the slightest interest in other parts of the world. One autumn, I was leaving for Boston the morning of the Million Man March (MMM.) D.C. media had been speculating about "what's going to happen." Resurrection City Redux. Getting over to National Airport was a logistics nightmare. That night I turned on the news and the MMM was a blip on New England radar.

When I used to spend longer periods of time in London, I would leave via Dulles with some political issue raging for weeks, then hit W.H. Smith for the newspapers (and London has many,) and their big news was that some low-end grass (snitch) and his son in Hoxton had been run through a grinder, (including the little boy's teddy bear,) and whatever it was I had been hearing about in D.C., was two inches on page ten.

I subscribe to several small community newspapers in Massachusetts, and one of my favorite things to do is to read the weekly crime reports. There's always been a lot of DUI in these places; where the teenagers are intent on wrapping themselves around the unyielding trees of Route 6A. In the past ten years, my feeling is that crime has increased there, and I'm reading more about stolen iPods and GPS systems out of cars. For the longest time (but not anymore) the locals would tease me about locking my house door, or car door, and I always responded in pragmatic city girl tones that I had been securing these things all of my life. Why would I break the habit just because I'm in an allegedly safer environment? Bad behavior crops up anywhere.

One thing I learned over time in becoming part of a smaller community is that I can't disappear as easily in the city, and things that happen to people hit the chatter circuit with a rapidity that would put Google to shame. You have one too many drinks, you fall off the stool in Bobby Byrne's Pub, and the next day everyone knows it. Not only do they learn what occurred with lightning speed, but then that incident becomes part of your history. A bad deportment mark in second grade can follow you a lifetime.

You learn to be circumspect in discussing your personal business, and in what you say of others. Complain about a cashier at the Stop N' Shop while getting your nails done and the next thing you learn is you just told her cousin. The bar stool incident happened to the woman who does my hair. She told me this story and added that 1) if she's drinking, it's at home now; and 2) she doesn't have any close female friends because of this pervasive small town gossip circuit. Even though she told me the story herself? I heard it from others. "Who does your hair? Oh. She fell off a barstool in Bobby Byrne's Pub." We'll put this aspect of small town life in the "con" column.

I was reading last week's crime reports and I wish I could tell you it was abnormally off up there, but these are pretty much what you see when you read the news. I'm leaving out the bulk of the drunks and smash-ups and abuse and giving you some of my favorites:

...And One For The Road

M.A.D.D. (Mothers Against Drunk Donkeys)

A forty-year old donkey was hit on 6A, near it's owner at Loring's Farm, when a man came upon the donkey at 12:35 AM. The donkey was standing in the middle of the road, and the driver was unable to stop in time. The driver was uninjured, but his car suffered extensive damage, and the donkey died on site. No citations were issued. (I would add--I know this farm and the road is Route 6A (oldest road in the country I think.) It's a twisty, turny narrow two lane country road. When you're out there at midnight it is dark, dark, dark, and you are always seeing critters run in front of the car. I saw a horse out once on Route 149 and chased it off the road, then went to the general store a few yards down to have the shopkeeper call the owner. That's another thing about small towns. You know whose horse it is.)

A resident at Lakewood Drive called the police at 9:57 PM to report a suspicious vehicle parked in front of her home. Police determined it was a Domino's Pizza delivery man. ("Put your hot pack down and step away from the vehicle." Knowing how things can go up there...she probably called in for pizza.)

A resident called police at 3:53 PM to report children throwing rocks at the old freezer plant (which they are tearing down, I might add.) Police found that it was not children, but the security guards who were throwing rocks.

A resident of Greenville Drive called police at 4:50 PM to report a $600 table saw had been taken from his back yard. The resident called the police back a second time to report that his wife had brought the saw inside the house the night before and it had not been stolen.

A resident of North Shore Boulevard called police at 10:23 PM to report 50 to 60 youths drinking alcohol, urinating in the sand dunes and having bonfires. Six police were dispatched to the area, but the group had fled. The fire department extinguished the bonfires. (This road is a dirt road running parallel to a large body of water in a beach community. So much for Having A Wild Weekend.)

A resident of Pondview Drive called police at 3:45 AM to report there was a group of youths playing basketball at the courts. Police spoke to the youths who agreed to go home for the night. (Don't you love it. Playin' some hoops at 4 AM. I guess it wasn't a school night.)

A resident from Shore Drive walked into the police station at 9:29 AM to report being assaulted by his roommate. The victim told police that he got into a altercation with his roommate because he drank his milk. During the altercation, his roommate bit him on the arm.

A shop owner at Merchant's Square called police at 11:14 AM to report a woman was lying on the sidewalk staring at the sky. When police approached the woman and asked her to get up, she reported she was sunbathing.

A driver called police at 2:15 AM to report a strange vehicle parked out in front of a store on Route 6A. Police determined it was a newspaper delivery man. (It is not easy making a living up there, I'll tell ya. Pizzas. Newspapers.)

I saved my favorite for last:

A resident from Tupper Avenue called police at 7:46 AM to report that her vehicle had been egged and also covered with yogurt and bologna. There was no other damage done to the car.

I think it's the bologna that did me in.

Now I'll tell you how I must have wound up in this newspaper last fall.

The Red Sox were playing for the Series, and the last game they played in Boston, fever was high. I saw banners all over town, and everywhere you went, that was the topic du jour. One night I was sitting in my house out by the water and heard a flare go off. A very distinctive popping sound. I saw the glare shoot across the water, and my first thought was "there's a boat in distress." Given as how I look out to where the big ships come in off the ocean, I had a long view to the horizon. The full moon gave me lots of light on the water, but I couldn't see anything of note. I hedged calling the police, but did it anyway. They asked me to go out on my upper deck with binoculars to look again. They also speculated if I should call the Coast Guard. We left it at that.

A short while later, another flare went off. Same thing. I called the police, checked outside trying to see if there was anything unusual. By the third time I asked the desk police, "Do you think it's possible some nitwit is shooting flares off his deck over the water every time the Sox score a hit?" He laughed and said, "Oh yeah. That could be it." We left it at that with me to check back if it happened again. By the end of the game, and many flares later (and, no, I didn't call back,) it was obvious that was it: celebration for the home team. What I didn't realize then, and now do, is that somewhere in this newspaper crime report archive is:

A resident called in at 8:12 PM, 9:34 PM and 10:05 PM to report flares going off in the vicinity of the Bay. Resident was asked to determine if a boat was in distress. Speculation is that there was neighborhood alcohol consumption and dune urination throughout the night. We're #1! We're #1!

Bo Diddley: 1928-2008Write His Name On The Heavenly Stair

Bo Diddley - Elas McDaniels

1928-2008

I met Bo Diddley (Elas McDaniels) once. He was in Washington, playing in a small club in Georgetown. I remember two things he said that night that stuck. I was in attendance at an interview, and my friend was trying to draw him out about "the good old days." Mr. McDaniels said, "Those were the bad old days of coming through the back door or kitchen because of segregation and then not getting paid by the club owners." He also said, "Eat food as much as you can, whenever you can, because you never know where your next meal is coming from."

Bo's Sister, Duchess

I had another friend who lived in a house in D.C. off Eastern Avenue in N.E. where Bo Diddley had once lived. Bo also lived for a time on Rhode Island Avenue....2416 or in that vicinity. I also remember he hit on me that night. Some fool line about how I reminded him of someone. Old men and their ways. I guess if they're lucky, the fire is still there.

He had so many great songs and such a huge influence on rock and roll, I'm not going to eulogize him here other than remembering the man tonight. In one song, "Dearest Darling," he said:

"If I get to heaven before you do

I'll try to make a hole and pull you through

If I go to heaven and you're not there

I'm gonna write your name on the heavenly stair

If you aren't there by Judgment Day

Then I'll know baby you went the other way."

I'm adding a You Tube of the British Invasion group the Animals doing their infamous "The Story of Bo Diddley." It's well worth the length, full of the Bo Diddley rhythm and beat and really captures the spirit of the man. Ooo wee oh oh. Ooo la la that rock and roll.

No Kingdom For Old Men

" There's Aliens In Our Midst...And They Bring Us Guacamole." *

I went out to White Flint Mall in the early part of the evening to get a little shopping done, and I thought I’d take in a movie. Normally I avoid White Flint for flicks. (small screens.) Iron Man had already started, and I knew Sex and the City would be a first weekend sellout, so I opted for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. From the opening action sequences, I thought, "Harrison Ford is going to need a hip replacement." Have we become a society that feels so inadequate that we need superhuman powers? In all of the previews I saw, Will Smith’s Hancock, Batman, even the animated Kung Fu Panda, there seems to be this overriding theme of needing to possess superpowers. Are we all feeling that ineffectual in our lives, or is this just summer movie madness 2008?

From the opening moments, I kept thinking “PeePaw Jones. Harrison Ford is way too old to be playing this role anymore.” I hated the computerized special effects. I was annoyed by the goofs and obvious inconsistencies. Oh. I see. You just scrub Indy down with an industrial broom and any residues from surviving a nuclear explosion are gone? The premise of him even surviving a nuclear blast was stupid. The digital countdown numbers which didn’t exist in 1957. The slip and slide in the nuclear front yard that didn’t exist until the 1960’s. Karen Allen’s hairstyle, which did exist in 1990, but not in 1957. And what lens did they use on her? It was so blurry, it looked like it was smeared in Vaseline. My friend Tony and I were discussing this later, and he said, “You would have thought it was Barbara Walters, that lens was so coated.”

"I Vant A Vax, Not A Shave!"

Cate Blanchett was made up impeccably, but under a hard pancake makeup and harder lens. You could see the pores in her cheeks, and what was with the facial fuzz? How much did Spielberg and Lucas spend on this film? Millions. And they can’t get her under a pot of hot wax and some muslin strips? That nasty Shia boy doing a direct rip off of Marlon Brando in The Wild One (a movie I have mentioned many a time on this blog.) Sacrilege. He certainly couldn't fill Brando's jeans, sneer or contempt for square 1957 America (and his motorcycle wasn’t even accurate. )

Accept No Substitutes

And the ants. African. Not South American. Duh. Tony added, "Ants? What the hell was with that monkey swinging??? The Aztec calendar on the floor of the temple? No.” I said, “John Hurt could have passed himself off as a Mayan artifact, but he’s been looking like that since Alien.” And Mutt is his son??? Try grandson, PeePaw. Your son would be forty. I told Tony it would have been more interesting if the film was PeePaw Jones and The Crystal Meth Lab. That’s when we let loose:

PeePaw Jones and the Search for Calista Flockhart’s Weight
PeePaw Jones and His Lost Sperm Count
PeePaw Jones and His Adventures in Colonoscopy
PeePaw Jones and The Early Bird Special
PeePaw Jones and His Erectile Dysfunction

Potatohead Jones and the Kingdom of Hasbro

Tony said, “When the Russians were in that warehouse of U.S. Military Intelligence, don’t you think they would have taken more than what they were looking for? For God sakes, it’s military intelligence artifacts. All of the stuff in there would have been worth something. When we glimpse the Ark earlier in other films? The Ark was stacked on top of boxes in the warehouse. In this movie it was on a lower shelf.”

Then we started up again:

PeePaw Jones and the Search For Kidney Stones
PeePaw Jones and the Ruins of His Face
PeePaw Jones Mystery of the Prostate

Tony added, “I thought at the end, “Wait a minute. They’d bury a flying saucer that could travel great distances to Earth, and then have all of those stupid traps?”

PeePaw Jones and the Search for His Dentures
PeePaw Jones and The Raid For His Next Hip Replacement
PeePaw Jones and the Lost Nap at Noon

I saw the saddest thing when I was leaving. All of these young girls, early twenties, all dressed up and waiting in the lobby in their groups, waiting to go in for the next showing of Sex and the City. Every single one of them had on a short dress with cleavage, bold prints, jewelry, and very high heels. They had on makeup. They had their hair done in au courant disarray, which is to say "styled to look unstyled," but they weren’t wearing Dior or Westwood or McQueen. Macy’s. The jewels not from Fred Leighton and Harry Winston. Claire’s or Forever 21. No Manolo’s or Choo's. DSW.

SJP And The Legend Of Zombie Hands

I found it odd these twenties were going to see women in their forties (and older) living out this fantasy. The gossip blogs have been vicious these past few weeks on Sarah Jessica Parker (SJP) in particular. There’s now a website called Sarah Jessica Parker Looks Like a Horse, and that’s what it is: a website with side by side pictures of SJP and horses in similar poses.

As I exited, I saw another group of girls walking in, all done up and nowhere to go but a suburban mall; all going to see the fairy tale. There was a group of young men waiting to go into Dave and Buster’s right next to the theatre. Wrinkled polo shirts, crinkled shorts. Mussed….and not being bussed. I thought, “There’s something wrong here.”

This morning I was telling all of this to my friend Drew, while I was driving and on my way to do my errands, and when I told him about the young men at Dave and Buster’s he laughed and said, “Hell….that sounds like a better trade-off to me. Dave and Buster’s, getting drunk, and killing zombies.”

Kill the Brain. Kill the Zombie.

* I threw in a link to a punk group out of California called "The Twinkeyz" singing "There's Aliens In Our Midst." They've also got a My Space page: MySpace.com - the TWINKEYZ - Experimental / Punk / New Wave - www.myspace.com/twinkeyzusa

Water Falls

When I got up this morning, I immediately knocked over a poorly sealed water bottle, a glass half filled with juice left from the night before, and my full coffee cup, which split in two. Two clean halves. Such a sodden fumble and what a way to start the day.

Yesterday was horrible for me. I couldn’t stop crying. Another wet mess. It was one of those anniversary days we mark off in our head, and I cried over my disappointments in how my life had changed: the things I had desired… and what I never got in return. It was a very difficult day, and my foolishness left me with a splitting headache that I’m still carrying around.

The funny part of all of this, (if there can be a funny part,) is that last night while I was sobbing, I was still wrapping sold Amazon items and sending out emails to people and talking to friends online giving opinions on curtain fabric choices and being productive. “Sure I’m miserable, but go with #1.” Also, my manicurist had said in passing last week that she had been thinking about opening her own shop some day, but she didn’t know what it would entail and could I help her by finding some “building a business” information? I remembered last night, so all of that was printed out and ready for her today. Will it happen for her? I don’t know, but as I told her, “I would never dissuade anyone from their dreams or hopes for the future.”

I opted for a manicure color I would normally never wear, a layered thing of a pale gold covered by a silver, giving the whole thing a shimmery effect. Mermaid fingers. Everyone loved it. So I’m sitting there drying, spa is humming with activity, and the lady across from me cries out. Her pedicure bowl is overflowing and won’t shut off. The pedicure chairs are high end and called The Murano Chair (the bowl being Murano glass.) They sell for $12,000. They do everything but pay your bills. She just sat there, complaining, so I said, “You’re getting the full spa experience.” Everyone laughed.

I got up and joined a few of the manicurists who were throwing towels down on the floor. They had unplugged the chair, but the water kept coming out. The eldest manicurist (and most level headed), Cheryl, said, “There’s a manual switch under the chair that overrides this.” Two people got down trying to find it, but by now there was a deep pool of water all over the place. Without thinking, I hiked up my pants, got on my knees and started feeling under the chair, asking Cheryl what I should be feeling for. I finally found the lever and pulled it toward me, and the flow stopped. I went and got a glass and started bailing out the bowl while this fool woman continued to sit in the chair saying, “Where are my shoes? I don’t want to get my feet wet.” It's moments like this where you think, "You can't make this stuff up."

Once during a hurricane our old neighborhood flooded out. Everyone’s basement was ceiling high in water. My father went and got fire trucks and led a team to pump out house after house. He was the neighborhood hero. He then followed through by going back to those houses to work out sump pump issues to make sure it would never happen again. I never forgot that. His immediate "take action and fix it" behavior. But he was always doing things like that.

As I left I said to Cheryl, with a meaningful look, “Have a good work week,” and she laughed and shook her head. One pragmatic woman to another. When I was leaving the spa, the front desk people thanked me profusely. Manicure dinged, of course. All in a day’s work for bicycle repairman.

This afternoon I took a nap, trying to recover from these past few days, and when I got up and sat on the edge of my bed, the first thought that popped into my head was, “That was your father. What you did today was your father.” My father was one of those men who never hesitated to jump into the fray. He was one of those rare men who could build or fix anything: carpentry, plumbing, electricity, air conditioning, car motors. Dig a hole to build a swimming pool? Sure. Build a church camp? Sure. I’ve always thought that all of my own mechanical skills and comprehension and ease with machinery and technologies came from him, but my thinking “That was your father” comes with a price. A heavy, sad price. Things I won’t even go into here. Things that I carry around. Things I don’t think will ever go away. But yes, that was my father.

Fried French

" Yo. Vous want frites wit dat?"

As many of you know, I sell books, CD's and DVD's on Amazon in my continued efforts to simplify my life. Today I sold a boxed DVD set of The Wire (Fourth Season) to someone in Paris, France (not Texas.) I usually write a personal note on the invoice slip, thanking the person for their purchase. I wrote in French, "....Merci, pour la commande...."but I was thinking of the buyer and how a French person would interpret inner city school life in West Baltimore. For example, when Prop Joe says, "I'm like a marriage counselor. Tell the man he oughta bring the bitch some flowers every once in a while. Tell the bitch she gotta suck some cock every once in a while. That sort of shit," it translates into "Je suis comme un mariage conseiller. Dites-il l'homme oughta mettre la chienne quelques fleurs de temps en temps. Dites la chienne, elle dois sucer certains queue tous les temps en temps. Ce genre de merde," but can you truly translate that? And in this country, would it really be flowers and chocolate ice cream anymore, or tears, tantrum and a new car?


And who gets to do the voice overs on these things? Standing in a black room in front of a white screen, asking the dub director, "Quelle est ma motivation ?

I must have been in a Frencified frame of mind, because I went over and dumped a comment in French on Les Playaz blog, as if I was reviewing Phil's video effects for Cahiers du Cinéma and taking him to task for not using a soundtrack of Steve Earle's "Copperhead Road" and Buck Owens "Will There Be Big Rigs in Heaven,":





Ce n'est pas un véritable exemple de Cinéma vérité aussi connu sous le nom de "vérité vérité" car il n'est pas modulaire underlaying le thème musical de conduire l'action en avant en vérité. Vérité une vérité en quelque sorte. Où est "Bonnie Jean": La distance de femme par rapport à la perte de la télécommande, une utilisation obsédante de Steve Earle's "Copperhead Road" a thématique s'inscrivent dans les traditions des générations du Sud avec le jugement qui nous attend tous, comme envisage de Buck Owens "Sera-t-il Big Rigs dans le ciel?" On ne peut pas inscrire ce travail dans le même genre que "Tirez sur le pianiste" sans ces considérations. Truffaut de "La mariée était en noir" fait bon usage de cet effet qui pourrait bien être ajouté par une application judicieuse de "The Girl on the Billboard." Et où est Wayne? Un article récent paru dans Cahiers du Cinéma revendications scènes cruciales ont été laissées sur le plancher salle de coupe en raison de différends contractuels. On ne peut que s'étonner de voir ce travail dans sa globalité.



The day doesn't bode well. I had already cited John Wayne Gacy on another blog saying I couldn't see Ronald McDonald without thinking "serial killer clown." I think my day should end this way, and I just happen to have a bottle, chillin' in the fridgedaire. It ain't Mad Dog 20/20, but it'll do:

Ce qui un jour!

I Relish A Good Pickle*

I have had people in the past tell me, "Oh. You're one of those people who sits around and adds things to Wikipedia, aren't you?" Given the nature of my interests that I cover in my writing--my "digressions" as my friends kindly call them-- I can easily see how one would picture me wikiing away on a rainy Saturday afternoon. In truth, up until yesterday, I had never bothered, even though I had seen gaps that needed filling** when I was researching various things.

I had a jar of Ploughman's Pickle. I suppose that was the trigger. Proust had his madelines. I had Ploughman's Pickle. I was remembering the Ploughman's lunches I used to have when I spent time in London, and that led to my next mental jump which was "Gentleman's Relish." I first stumbled on this food in a novel, actually. Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate, so I went to Wikipedia to see what they had to say about Gentleman's Relish . I noticed they didn't even cite Mitford so I decided to take that big Wikileap into being an online know-it-all.

"The Hons"***

Here you are going to have to do some Wiki yourself, because the Mitford clan was a fascinating family, and they cross a lot of boundaries from Country Squire Quirks to Bright Young Things to Neo-Fascism to a daughter named Unity in love with Hitler. One of them did an infamous exposure of the American funeral business called The American Way of Death, which also inspired Evelyn Waugh (a friend of Nancy Mitford's) to write The Loved One. Deborah...Debo...married a Duke, Unity shot herself, Tom died in the War, Diana and her husband were either in prison or being watched on the facism.

She should have poisoned his big saucy

bangers when she had the chance****

So this is how I learned about Gentleman's Relish. One autumnal day, reading Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate, purchased from Hatchard's. The quote? Here it is, and for some reason, it has lodged in my memory:

Good on hot toast or polishing your boots, Gunga Din, Sahib*****

In Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate, the character of Linda Radlett asks her mother for Gentleman's Relish. Her mother Sadie offers her some hot toast at tea (to distract her over the loss of a pet,) and Linda pushes her advantage for sympathy, "Can I have Gentleman's Relish on it?" she said, quick to make capital of Sadie's mood, for Gentleman's Relish was kept strictly for Uncle Matthew and supposed not to be good for children."

What can I say? This is not Noel Coward or Oscar Wilde material.

You see all sorts of odd foods in Great Britain. I wrote, not too long ago, about Spotted Dick. Go into any market in England, and you'll stand in the aisles thinking, "I can't make this stuff up." They eat things like jellied eels (just what it sounds like) and baps . (Memo to self: Correct Wikipedia on baps.) I used to love going into the grocery stores in London where I would find all sorts of interesting things. Like:

(Insert Joke Here)

or

(Insert Joke Here)


or

(Insert Joke Here)

I think the very first time I recognized these oddities was a Sainsbury's in Notting Hill where I found a can of mushy peas. Mushy peas is a very popular food in Britain. I actually brought a can back with me with a far better 1930's graphic to use as a pencil holder, but this will establish it's existence as a food:

(Insert Joke Here)

(Insert Joke Here)


Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever. Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.~~George Orwell, Animal Farm



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* My first bad joke

** My second bad joke

***Hons would take forever to explain in terms of Mitford slang. The children were all "Honorables" from their Lord father. As children, they formed a club called "Hons" and "Non-Hon's" and "Honorable Hons" (people they liked that weren't titled.) Jessica wrote a book using Hon in the title, and older sister Nancy was infamous for writing an essay on "U and Non-U" which covered the proper terminology for things in the English language and other habits of the upper and lower classes. Looking glass viz mirror. Notepaper viz stationery. Putting milk in your teacup before pouring. Snobs? Uh. Yeah.

****Next bad joke. Instead Unity shot herself when she had to return to England at the start of WWII, in despair over her love of Hitler. She survived the bullet in her brain, but it left her impaired, and she died in 1948. That's what they get for naming her "Unity Valkyrie."

*****I wanted to get Kipling in here somewhere! This is just the kind of thing Colonial India soldiers would eat in Mess, pining for Pinge. (Wiki-Memo To Self: Write about Pinge.)******

******My next bad joke.

No T.V.? Sheeeeeit.

"You didn't vote for Syesha? Sheeeit."

I was reading Arjewtino’s blog this morning where he wrote about the peer shame of texting in a vote for American Idol, but more importantly, the idea of dating a girl who doesn’t have a television set. I have to say that for a few years in my late teens and early twenties, I didn’t have a television set, (or a telephone or a computer.) I had a mattress on the floor in a room I had painted sky blue and airbrushed in multi-toned clouds. Ultimately I broke down and bought a tiny television set, and I have to say it was heaven to curl on the mattress at night, watching t.v. sideways. Life was a lot simpler then--and cheaper.

Growing up, I always had television. There is the famous moment in my family's history when my brother and I got up early on a Saturday morning to crank up the cartoon shows, and the television started emitting blue smoke, a strong electrical smell followed by a groggy Dad yanking the chord. I remember how upset my mother was, because part of the t.v. melted onto her oriental carpet; a carpet I have in my bedroom to this day. The bare spot is hidden, but I think it gives the carpet “character.”

There was only one boy in my elementary school that didn’t have television. I remember his name (which I won’t repeat here,) and I remember his family moved into the neighborhood when we were all in about fifth grade. For some reason, memory tells me his father was a German rocket scientist. Space, German and Mathematics, definitely. The boy’s hair was cut military short, and he always wore a gray crewneck sweatshirt to class. When he announced to his classmates that he had no television, I remember asking him what he did at night. He answered that he “spent time with his family, and his father helped him with his math homework.”

Thinking back, it’s odd, how such an obviously intelligent boy could be so removed from his classmates and his culture. I do know this. He was quite proud of the fact that he didn't watch television. Children spend the next day discussing what happened on t.v. as much as their adult counterparts at work. I was telling a friend about the comment I had left on Arjewtino’s blog, and he said, “I always thought of television as my third parent.”

I can’t imagine any parent in this day and age that wouldn’t utilize a television set in some manner. Blues Clues and Baby Einstein at the least. I am sure many censor the viewing subjects and viewing times. Some do not. Those parents are the same ones who take their kids to see the tee bagging in Borat, passing a pint of Barcardi 151 over the kid’s head.

"Where the Honey Nut Cheerios?"

It’s all kulturny. Me? I'd have my child watching The Wire (Season One Boxed Set) and him telling me he didn't like oatmeal for breakfast, "Where the Count Chocula re-up? You feel me on this, Yo?"

"5-0 Coming Y'all. 5-0"...and I don't mean Hawaii 5-0^*

^* In HBO's The Wire (Season One) a lot of the story line centered on the drug trade in the low rises (poverty apartments.) The drug runners would yell out "5-0" to warn and scatter that the police were in the vicinity. There was one episode when three police go into the projects at 2 a.m. to roust, and the residents in the inner courtyard start throwing televisions down on their heads and their cruiser (which is later destroyed.) Cultural nirvana would be yelling 5-0 is coming, throwing your t.v. out the window while watching a re-run of Hawaii 5-0. At that moment in the world, every coconut would drop from every palm tree and split open to reveal a beatific Buddha Wo Fat. Steve Lord in his big wave hair would descend on a big wave swell of clouds, hanging ten and yelling "Book 'em Danno."