9/11/2001

Six a.m. I’m driving an airline crew van on a dark two-lane highway north of Sacramento. This is the quickest way to the airport, avoiding the early morning freeway traffic. I have two airline crews on board; one from Southwest, the other from United, a total of 10 passengers.

None of them have their seatbelts fastened. Airline crews never fasten their seatbelts in crew vans, even though the trip to or from an airport is statistically the most dangerous part of their journey. In four years of driving airline vans, six-thousand or so pilots and flight attendants, seatbelts got fastened on only one occasion. This morning was that occasion.

A white pickup truck ran a stop sign and crossed an intersection about 50 yards in front the van.  I was the only one who seemed to notice.  I pulled over and came to a stop.    

"Hey, everybody," I said, "we almost got t-boned back there. Please humor an old van driver and fasten your seat belts.  Anyway,  United’s insurance won't pay medical expenses if you're hurt in an accident and the cops report you weren’t buckled up. Southwest probably has the same deal."

No one said anything, but I heard 10 buckles snapping into place in the dark.  I turned on the radio and tuned in the all-news station just as the first sketchy reports were being broadcast about planes hitting the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

The first to break the stunned silence was the Southwest captain. "They’re going to shut down ATC," he said, meaning the nationwide air-traffic control system, grounding all flights. The United captain agreed. I said I would drop them off at their terminals, but would loop around the airport until someone came out and signaled me to either pick them up or go about my business. Then I radioed my dispatcher and asked that she turn on her radio to the all-news station, saying  we may have some scheduling changes for the nine airlines we served. 

The Southwest captain's prediction was prophetic.  We spent the rest of the morning bringing order out of chaos, but managed to get all our crews plus another not under our contract back to their hotels within two hours, where they could try to call home through a jammed telephone system.

Later that day the clear skies over the Sacramento Valley were eerily silent. Freeway traffic slowed. People in public places were subdued. I stopped at the hotel where our vans were based to fill out paperwork, then it was time to call it a day. On the way out of the parking lot I spotted three Southwest flight attendants walking on the short road between the hotel and the adjacent shopping mall. I stopped for them.

"Hey, it’s our van driver!" one said, a perky 20-something. All Southwest flight attendants are perky. Even the middle-aged ones. Probably a hiring requirement.

"Hi Mr. Van Driver!"

I asked if they needed a ride. They piled in.

"Thank you for stopping," another one perked. Then: "Are you married?"

I said no.

"She asks all the van drivers that," perked another.

"Oh I do not!

"Hah!"

"Well, only the cute ones."

I was old enough to be her grandfather and said so.

"Do you have grandkids?" she perked again. I said I hoped not and suggested they walk back to the hotel in a group. There have been muggings on that road.

"Will you come and get us?"

I said I’d check with the dispatcher, but I would probably be sent elsewhere, and was. Too bad. They had given me one bright moment in an emotionally dark day, having the blithe spirits of people who believe they will live forever in the springtime of their lives.  They reminded me of something Nobel laureate Saul Bellow wrote in Henderson The Rain King: "Every 20 years the earth replenishes itself with young women." 

 As a matter of fact, he was writing about an airline "stewardess," as he put it, before political correctness got a permanent hammerlock on the English language.  Just as well.  The job is now gender neutral anyway.  

"You're the nicest van driver I've ever met," she said. 

Oho!  What a delightful little con artist!  I just smiled, thinking, "Sweetheart, if I could, I would drive you and your friends to the gates of heaven itself on a highway of stars."

Comments and Indictments:

Beautifully written, Mike. Thanks for including me in the list of friends who get to read your magnificent writings -- Amanda St. John

Oh my.  The next sound you hear will be that of an expanding bald head.  MB
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9/11, another day in the rehab ward. 9.30 physical therapy; but the therapists were sending us back to our rooms without explanation. Makes it easier to herd cripples. Once everyone was in his room, they decided to herd us into the central room and turned on the big screen TV just in time to watch the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower.

Ok, i was in a hospital, which is something like being in jail except the food isn't as good. I was breaking half a dozen rules just to go out for a smoke, so the world outside the window was only a theory, and watching this mishegos on TV wasn't much different from watching a movie. Just  less believable.

The cripple consensus was Arab terrorists. This was before they told us it was unfair to blame Arabs, that it was hyphenated terrorist-Americans, a multi-culti celebration like a WW2 movie with the southern guy, the Italian guy, the wise cracking Brooklyn Jew.

I guess us cripple-Americans just aren't fair. It took 10 months before I got a chance to read about it. I still think it was Arabs. -- Sunne
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I didn't think I wanted to read anything more about 9/11 today.

I'm glad I did.I'm always glad when I read one of your pieces.
Thanks. -- Beatysr

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That was an interesting story. The thing about all these events - JFK's assassination and the aftermath and funeral, 9/11, Katrina, etc., is that we have actually been able to watch things unfold LIVE on TV if we are able to take the time to do so.

The last 50-60 years or so is the only time in human history when such a thing has been possible. I saw Jack Ruby shot, LIVE. I saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center, LIVE. I saw those poor souls sitting and waiting and WAITING for help after Katrina (that whole bureaucratic mess and the suffering still makes me livid). Seeing all this stuff happen LIVE should make us more compassionate human beings, but it probably doesn't, in the long run. Human nature is human nature. Like your stewardesses, our own lives take us over. However I am always glad to see that a percentage of people always seems to turn up after a disaster to help out.

Regards and thanks for sending me the T - Times -- WPE
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You'll most likely never drive me anywhere...but I'm sure I would have enjoyed the ride. -- Gerard

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If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck....etc....thanks for this...there is so much gloom in today's writings and events. -- Canny
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I enjoyed your essay. I especially enjoyed the dialogue with various people. I had been writing cartoon captions for months, wondering if I would again sell any after having sold more than 150 captions, and then I received a check for two of my captions, so I am now having pleasant thoughts about seelng many more captions. -- Ken
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The earth replenishes itself with young men too. Often very stupid. We digress. -- L
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Really enjoyed the article. I love your writing.  -- Ann

High praise indeed!  Ann is Ann C. Crispin, author of 24 books including the Star Wars series:  http://www.accrispin.com/.  She also created and co-edits a web site dedicated to exposing scam literary agents and publishers:  www.writerbeware.com. -- MB

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I am thinking of starting a blog. That was an interesting blog entry. Very well written too, if f I may say so.

I once complimented a priest on the ''great" mass that he had just said for the parish, and he acted completely insulted and indignant that , a lowly member of the parish, would ''judge" his mass-saying talent. I was one of the last parish members to stay on at that place, but I left last year.

My brother-in-law told me he had a blog, so I made a mental note never to have one. I consider him one of the worst Internet addicts I've ever heard of. As a matter of fact, I have a secret fear of chatting with him online without knowing. He seems to be everywhere, from what he says, and he's written a book which makes me even fear {chatrooms] even more.

I was in [a chatroom] one night, and two venomous women started talking about a woman I know in a nearby town. I’m sure they were talking about her. The details were too exact, and one of the names they threw around made me totally convinced. It was an eerie moment. After I checked one of their screen names on Facebook, I saw that she lived in my friend's town--so yep, it was her.

But, maybe I will make a blog. I have been considering it for about two months. -- [Name withheld by your editor in the interest of Internet harmony.]

To quote essayist and novelist Joan Didion: “Writers are forever selling someone out.” Also, when Sara Davidson, author of Loose Change - Three Women Of The Sixties, was 13-years-old and in a panic when she had her first menses and didn’t know what was happening to her, she ran to her mother, also a writer, who said: “Write about it! Everything is good copy!” -- MB
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I love your reflections. -- Fay

I talked to the reflections and they all say they love you right back. MB
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Delightful as always, Mike. I hope you are doing well, my friend. -- Peg
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As usual thought provoking, timely and this time pleasant with the 20 somethings.-- Wht
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Thanks, I loved that. If I have not said before that you write very well, I say so now, and I have always thought so. -- Trog
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Hey Tomato-Fer-Brains:

Whattsamatta? You running out of new material that you gotta recycle your old junk? Jeeze, why doncha get out more often, huh? -- ZipLePrune
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You always have a way of touching the heart or the nerve (just the right way) Thanks for sharing this one, i especially love the detail of the day, the attention to each person and each event. Must say my favorite was of course your close.

I'm working midnight shift at a retirement community where we do moderate assistance. One lady asked me the other night “What are you going to do at this point in life?" She of course was speaking of her own transition into moderate assistance.

Sometimes I'd like to take her outside and sit quietly staring at the stars and tell her we are temporary in this place, and perhaps if we chose or by some mystery or design, we shine like those stars even through the seasons and transitions of our lives.


Well done as always Mike. Thanks again for sharing this one - you inspire me and that is no small gift. -- Carol
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Love it. Thanks, Mike. -- Sum

Thanks.  Your checks will be in the mail as soon as I can find some blank ones. MB
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Your story struck me in several ways. I remember where I was when I first heard on the news that the Twin Towers had been hit. I was putting on lip gloss getting ready for work, one ear on the morning news on the bedroom TV. It's one of those things that people remember throughout their lives - what they were doing when it happened - John Kennedy being killed when I was in homeroom in the eighth grade, Mt. St. Helens erupting and the ash hitting as I stepped off the front porch of my ex husband's grandparents' house - you know.

And then there was your mention of those young girls in their twenties, concerned about things in their immediate world - and not surprisingly - because that is what young people do.

I remember well when I was nineteen, planning a high mass Catholic wedding, marrying a man I was sure would rescue me from the nefarious life I had been leading. He was going to be in law enforcement. God Almighty, what a stupid decision I made - worse than any plan to go out and drink too much lime vodka, smoke too much pot, drive too fast, and have sex with a dirty hippie that at the time rang so many bells for me I was deaf afterwards.

I thought the world revolved around me and whatever I was dragging behind me and carrying in both hands. Naive isn't even close. No, I didn't know one solitary thing about what I was doing - and how astonishingly wonderful I thought my life would be. Immature fog is a mighty big blanket against a world like mine was, and was about to be.

When it got jerked away from me and the cold hit, I grew up. I married the police officer, and six months after that he hit me so hard I rolled into the next room. Six months after that he stabbed me and I almost died. Long story, the details of which I don't think I want to tell. Suffice it to say, the dirty hippie would have been a stunningly better choice. Little did I know. Hindsight, and all that. Oh, my stay with Mr. Longhair would not have been too long, either - but I'd have come out of it so far less damaged.

But, not to feel sorry for myself. Others never come out of such things. I did. However, when I was nineteen...I had no clue the color of the world that would unfold for me. I didn't know I'd end up on the road I did, nor did I know I'd jump off it so fast I didn't even brace myself. I got right up and kept walking. Didn't look back. Not once. Others never get that lucky.

So, thinking back, I have been so many places - both across the country and in my head. And astonishingly, I have come to 60. I've lived 60 years and I've learned some things - life is too short, you can't spend too much time wishing you could do it over, and ... I am eternally grateful I am more wise than I was when I was nineteen. I am glad I see the bigger world - even with the dark corners I never imagined before. I see really good stuff now, too.

Stupid girls. Loved your work, as always. -- A Friend 

Thank you. MB

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

Goldie Hawn doesn’t know it, but she jumpstarted my freelance writing career when the production company for her movie Protocol came to Sacramento in 1984.  The plot was centered in Washington D.C. The producer, Anthea Sylbert (Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby, Day Of The Dophin), wanted a location that looked enough like Washington D.C. to spare the expense of moving cast, crew, and equipment to the nation's capital for a single scene requiring a backdrop of Greek Revival government buildings. There are two of them in Sacramento, facing each other on the Capitol Mall traffic circle, across the street from the capitol itself. Just the setting the producer wanted.

At the time I was in a period of creative repose, a polite way of saying unemployed, when a buddy called saying a movie company was coming to town and hiring locals as extras. “They want people who look like anonymous bureaucrats,” she said. “I thought of you right away. I mean, you were an anonymous bureaucrat for eleven years, so you don’t even need an acting coach. Just be yourself.”

Gee thanks.

“You get $50 and a catered lunch.”

That clinched it. I asked if I should have my people call their people.

“Very funny. Look, one of the associate producers is screening people at the state employment office tomorrow. Wear your sincere suit, the blue pinstriped one.”

I showed up at the employment office five minutes after it opened. A handwritten sign had been taped to the door stating all the movie extra positions had been filled -- probably by employment office staff plus their friends and relatives -- but I saw this as a karmic test. Buddha dwells everywhere, even in adversity. So, if I couldn’t be immortalized on the silver screen and get $50 and a free lunch, I could at least write about the local people chosen as extras and peddle the story to a magazine.

But Buddha wasn’t done with me yet. “This is a closed set,” the unit publicist told me when I showed up in my sincere suit with an expired press pass pinned to a lapel and a 35 mm camera slung from my neck.  “No media allowed,” she said. Some publicist.

A uniformed cop moved closer in case I made a fuss. I later learned the film had drawn the ire of Muammar Khaddafy’s Libyan government for its portrayal of a Muslim diplomat’s attraction to an American cocktail waitress played by Ms. Hawn who was -- worse yet -- Jewish in real life. Not only that, but the estimable Ms. Hawn was a practicing Buddhist. That made her a double whammy infidel in the eyes of the Prophet Mohammed and his nutty disciple in Libya.

So what did that have to do with me, a publicist and a cop on the other side of the world? Well, since the movie was also being filmed in Libya, Khaddafy’s displeasure had real traction with the U.S. Department of State -- and with the cast and crew who needed Libyan visas stamped on their passports. The last thing the producer wanted was publicity at this stage of the game, any publicity, even the kind generated by a bush league freelancer in a pinstriped suit.

I was blissfully ignorant of all this fuss, but it would not have made a bit of difference if I had known.  Opportunity was not just knocking on my door, it was hammering with a closed fist.  I made a big show out of looking around at the assembled crowd. “Doesn’t look very closed to me,” I said. “Anyway, I just want to talk to some local extras and be on my way.”

In other words, leave me alone and I won’t make waves. Not that I could, but this Hollywood gofer didn’t know that. Besides, I had Buddha in my corner. No way I was giving up this contest of wills, especially after being aced of $50 and a free lunch.

The publicist decided I wasn’t worth the trouble. She shrugged and walked away. Since she wasn’t making a fuss, the cop didn't make one either. He swaggered away, probably thinking all reporters should be required to wear shrouds, like medieval lepers, and clang little bells while shouting “Unclean! Unclean!” when venturing out among decent people.  Most cops feel that way about reporters. Hell, I sometimes feel that way about reporters too.

The production company was quite a production in itself. Big windowless buses were parked up and down Ninth Street across from the capitol, along with 40’ trailers that served as dressing and conference rooms. One of the trailers contained a kennel housing two Afghan hounds that were needed for the scene. Extras, grips and technicians with earbud radios milled around, looking important. A man later identified as the director, Herbert Ross (Funny Girl, The Sunshine Boys), was stripped to the waist and doing pushups on the Capitol Mall lawn.

One guy wearing a baseball cap and who needed a shave was sitting on a plastic cooler reading a newspaper. The unshaven dude was not an actor, but I recognized him anyway. He was the screenwriter.

“So, this is what writers do when they’re not writing,” I said.

“We read,” Buck Henry said in an annoyed tone. Bad enough that he was stuck in this goddamn boring government town, but he had to put up with chatty locals in sincere suits as well. There oughta be a law.

No matter. While I was duly impressed with seeing the man who directed The Graduate, I was here to interview the Sacramento based talent, not yak it up with the Grand Panjandrums.

I singled out three of the locals. One was an attractive middle-aged woman in a peasant dress who sat in the shade reading a hardbound book, her long graying hair pulled back in a ponytail. I imagined she was a retired teacher who volunteered at a public library and organized neighborhood fundraisers for Walter Mondale. I asked her about that. She looked up from her book. “No,” she said, amused. “I’m involved with Little Theater. That’s how I heard about this.” She returned to her book.  The other two extras were an off duty deputy sheriff and another man in a period of creative repose, like me. Neither were talkative. I guess they were getting in touch with their Inner Extras before the cameras rolled.

Then the star emerged from her trailer. The cast and crew jumped into action. The publicist hustled over to Ms. Hawn and pointed me out. Ms. Hawn gave me a look of critical appraisal, perhaps thinking I was a government snitch in that stupid blue suit.  I snapped the above underexposed photo of her for my FBI/CIA/Tinfoil Hat conspiracy files. The smudge on the left is the back of Ms. Sylbert's head.  I don’t know who the woman on the right is.  I was told that Ms. Hawn later posed with the assembled fans who had Instamatics once that government fink in the pinstripe suit had left.

The scene required the use of three huge cameras and an array of arc lights despite the cloudless sunny day. A string of locally owned late model cars had been corralled and fitted with fake Virginia, Maryland and D.C. license plates to circle the mall during filming. Extras in sincere suits with briefcases walked purposefully to and fro.

Finished with his push-ups, Mr. Ross took control and called for action. The cars circled, the extras extraed, the Afghan hounds hounded.  The dogs were released to run across the lawn with Ms. Hawn in pursuit. Her character was supposed to be taking care of them. Then she tripped and landed butt first on the grass, laughing. Cut and print. That was it. All that prep, all those cars, all those those extras, and all those free lunches for less than 10 seconds on the screen.

I went home and wrote up the story, which was accepted by a local magazine. Not only was the story accepted, but I was accepted too. The publisher hired me to be the managing editor. Unfortunately, the magazine went bankrupt the month I was hired. Even so, a credit is a credit and it opened the doors to other publications.
　
So, thank you, Ms. Hawn.

Still, I wish I could’ve gotten $50 and a free lunch.

Comments and Indictments:

Greetings...rather, G'day...from Balmain East, a community of Sydney, Australia. Toasted bread, filled the apt. with that smell, opened the door, and so am sitting here freezing!  It's the strong black coffee I'm drinking that reminds me of you. Rained last night and the sky is gray this morning.   Ninety U.S. cents to their dollar, and I thought Hawaii was expensive. Still, good things are happening here and there are oodles of great dogs.  My kind of place. Tomorrow, we fly to Melbourne, where, I'm told, I'll be even colder.  Swell.  After another 5 days, up to Brisbane and possibly Gold Coast and back to Sydney for 31st departure.  I'm glad Ms. Hawn looked at you.  -- Thea

It was a frosty look.
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Thanks for the Memories!  I was an extra in a movie called, The Delta Factor, with Yvette Mimieux and Christopher George (at least you got a good movie with good actors whose names you could pronounce). I was working in downtown Nashville, at an ad agency, and they were filming across the street at a place called Printer's Alley. Yes, it was as seedy as it sounded. I got paid about the same as you'd been offered to sit in a bar, drink as much warm coca cola as I could tolerate, and smoke (free) cigarettes, while the stars walked through the bar, took their seats, said 2 lines and walked out. Ergo, my discovery of the meaning, "Hurry up and wait." Our catered lunch was pork barbecue, outside, in 90 degree heat. I passed. I had pretty much dumped that whole experience. I'm taking the "thanks" part back. I like your memory better. -- Beaty
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I think she at least owes you lunch. -- Shag

I’ll have my people call her people.
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I agree with Shag- she DOES owe you lunch!!!  Great story, Mike!  -- Kerry

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I enjoyed reading this. By the way..Does your "Sincere Suit" still fit? -- Pirate

No. Smarty.
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Dang, write me a vehicle! You're better than any of deez guyz! -- Amanda
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Love it... Liked "Protocol," too. You've led an interesting life, Mike... AND you're so unerringly entertaining when you tell us about it.  Don't stop. -- Sum
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Enjoyed it, as always. Well done! -- Trog
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Wonderful as always -- Juli
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Ty for the story, Mike. I always love your stories. -- Fay
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While many of your stories are just the everyday things of the everyday man, some step off that path, to be sure, and all, Mike...all very much worth reading.Thanks for the nice read. -- Zoey
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You sure work cheap. -- Zip Le Prune
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Very good stuff...primo! -- Gambatay

The Dog Days Of Summer

No sooner did the American Meat Institute get Congress to declare July as National Hot Dog Month than the Vegan Vigilantes weighed in with a list of health hazards associated with one of America’s favorite summertime snacks, the All American Coney Island Red Hot Sausage In A Bun.

Inspired by America’s premier wet blanket, Ralph Nader, who alleged that hot dogs are “more dangerous than cruise missiles,” the American Institute for Cancer Research, Consumer Union, the World Cancer Research Fund, the National Institutes of Health, and even those cranky troublemakers of the American Association of Retired Persons, piled on the poor humble hot dog like a gang of subway thugs on a handicapped tourist. They claim the hot dog is the packaged food industry's equivalent of Typhoid Mary whose flaws are covered by the pancake makeup of mustard and onions. 

The American Meat Institute was quick to respond: “Hot dogs are part of a healthy, balanced diet,” AMI President J. Patrick Boyle said in a news release. “They come in a variety of nutrition and taste formulas and they are an excellent source of protein, vitamins and minerals.”

That drew cynical snickers from the bean sprout bliss ninnies. They added that hot dogs also include:

* Animal esophagi, ears, lips, intestines and snouts.

* Insect parts.

* Rodent hairs.

* Spinal fluid from cattle.

* Snips and snails and puppy dog tails.

* Jeffrey Dahmer's failed experiments.

* Sodium nitrite, sodium acid pyrophosphate and glucona delta lactones. In short: preservatives. They also add color to a product that would otherwise look as appetizing as a pair of high mileage sneakers.

Chemical free all beef kosher dogs are not exempt from the critical glare of the nutrition nannies either. They claim that even kosher wieners in an unopened package are just as dangerous as shrink wrapped pipe bombs ticking away in your refrigerator, as they may be sprouting listeriosis bacteria. Those little listers can cause fever, muscle aches, nausea, stiff neck, loss of balance and convulsions, heart disease, type-2 diabetes, and are especially hazardous to pregnant women. Other risks cited by the Weiner Greenies include colon-rectal, brain and pancreatic cancer, and someone somewhere is choking on a hot dog, often a kid.

So, what can we do about these squawking Chicken Littles and their dire warnings in The Liberal Media, other than hunt them down and stuff them into sheep intestine sausage casings? Well, you can chew your kids’ hot dogs for them to minimize the choking risk, but other than that, not much.  Kids can be such little fussbudgets about anyone else chewing their food anyway, so just relax and enjoy the dog days of summer.

Bon appétit.
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Comments & Indictments:

I think the real question should be: since hot dogs taste so good, why can't they make a healthy one? 

No, no, I'm not advocating for a tofutti dog <shudder>!  I mean a REAL hot dog using healthy meat that doesn't come from snouts, lips, and spinal fluid?  I can live with bugs; bugs aren't going to kill us.  Preservatives aren't necessary, and nitrates, except for those naturally occurring in celery salt, are no longer used even in some of the better Oscar Meyer brands (look for the package that says so).  Hot dog producers have made some changes in the right direction, but only because the health foodies have been pushing hard and American consumers are looking for healthier alternatives.

Out here, we have something called a Sonoran Dog. a bbqed, bacon-wrapped (yeee eees), grilled onions, pinto beans, fresh chopped tomatoes, mayo (yeeee eeeesss, don't knock it until you've tried it), mustard, and jalapeno sauce. (I know, I know, I thought the same thing about the mayo, but it works.)

Colon rectal cancer?  Uh. Exactly which ingredients cause that?  Red meat?  Nobody said you have to eat hot dogs morning, noon, and night. -- Tab

According to the American Cancer Society, a diet high in red meat, which includes the poor maligned hot dog, is one cause. So are smoking, alcohol, lack of exercise, obesity, race or ethnic background (especially African Americans and Ashkenazi Jews), and the presence of Type 2 diabetes.  So, if you are an overweight diabetic black Talmudic scholar whose idea of exercise is uncorking a bottle of Mogen David while puffing away on a cigar, you might see an oncologist or proctologist about a checkup.  If you live in Jamaica, proctologists are listed in the Yellow Pages under Pokemon.
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I wonder if the "bean sprout ninnies" know that insect parts are organic? -- Kerry　
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I enjoyed the essay. I am trying to cut down on red meat but still eat hamburgers and steaks once in a while. -- Ken

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That was excellent, Mike. :) I always enjoy pointedly eating my char-barbequed, carcinogenic, cheese-jalapeno-sausage-stuffed hot dog in front of the pasty, unhealthy-looking tofu hot dog eating set. And my husband is THE sweetest man ever, but boy does he dislike the granola types. -- Sandy

Nice going.  Anyway, tofu and granola are not among the four basic food groups:  caffeine, nicotine, hot dogs and Cheetos.

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Clever the way you manage to hammer both sides -- Galen

A pox on both their houses, I say. Jerry Brown's first governorship nudged me toward right, then I worked for a pro-business Babbit mag that sent me scuttling back toward the bean sprout for lunch bunch on the left. So now I'm hemmed in among the radical centrists.
Thanks for reading my rants.
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Amy and I had a hot dog at Sonic as part of a 150 mile round trip, then read your mail after we got back.  Too funny.  -- Nick

Sonic is the only restaurant chain I know of with Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" on the jukebox.  Reason enough to go there.  Good eats, too.
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 Loved it, as always!! -- Juli
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Thanks for putting a smile on my face on a down day. I lost a close friend who passed away Friday night, an intelligent, compassionate, progressive friend I’d known since kindergarten. We would have coffee or just hang at his place about once a week these last few years.

My friend was an oil and gas broker who put deals together for investors and drillers, yet even here in the heart of Oklahoma, with its radical right, ultra-religious society, he was an outspoken liberal thinker on all issues. He never shied away from any conversation, debate, or challenge to his ideas.

I wish you two could have met, but then that's the case for so many of us in the Internet age, is it not? -- Stan

It is, and thank you. I am sorry for your loss.
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Fortunately I am not one of those Green Liberal Vegan Ninnies of non food. There is nothing like a good hot dog, especially at a baseball game. However, please don’t put me in the category of those Game naysayers. I feel certain most of these people must sit around all day wondering if beet greens have any worth at all and if there is any real value to cooked celery. -- Peggy
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Thanks so much for putting me on the list. I am going to enjoy this much -- Tammy
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I intend to keep eating hot dogs. I like to live on the edge. -- Lady W
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As it happens, I just awoke from a very important nap. Only to find out that when I'm down and out, and on the street, I really shouldn't beg for a hot dog. Well, bollocks! -- Beaty

Oh, go ahead. Bollocks are among the ingredients. I just forgot to name them.
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I don't care if hot dogs have bug parts and hamster hair. I only know that when I go to the store to get groceries, filling my cart with fresh broccoli and organic grape tomatoes, fake sugar pears in a can and low-salt soy for my free-range chicken, I stop at the hot dog display with glassy eyes. There they are. Those. The ones with the store-brand label, full of beef tails and pig ears and fat particles from god knows what. I buy those. They really taste good.
And if anyone tries to tell me they are bad for me, I strike them down like a thief kid hovering over my collector Gumby. -- Zoey
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I never considered hot dogs as edible human food. I tried a New York one, once, at a street stall. It looked as if it had long ago died of hydrocution. Soggy meat, swollen belly, no matter how much mustard and cabbage the guy added to it, it still tasted like shit. And in the end I believed it was shit! Anyway...it had been boiling for so long that all the germs were dead. -- Mssr. Gerard.

Zut alors!

Alex And Me

I must have jinxed Alex Trebek.  He suffered a mild coronary after I met him years ago, and this week he injured his Achilles tendon chasing a hotel burglar who had tried to rob him in San Francisco.  Just call me an old egocentric, but I do feel somehow responsible.  Let me explain.

There I was, not at my brightest at 7:30 one Saturday morning while attending a conference of the Sacramento Public Relations Society in the gymnasium at American River College.  I had been invited to appear on a panel discussion as one the representatives of the news media.  A magazine, in my case, but the coffee in my Styrofoam cup had not kicked in as I wandered around, greeting people whose names I remembered and nodding at people whose names I’d forgotten, hoping I wouldn’t doze off on the dais during the Q & A with the audience.

Then I spotted a guy who looked vaguely familiar standing off by himself, far apart from the clusters of gabbing publicists and reporters.  He looked sad and abandoned, so Gladhand Galahad Browne just had to come to his rescue.  It’s a character flaw of mine that can lead to embarrassing moments.  This was one of them.

“Hello,” I said.  “Who are you?”

The man looked at me like I was a talking plant.  “Trbk,”  he mumbled.

“I’m sorry, who?”

“Trbk.”

“Oh.  My name is Mike,” I said, as none of us were wearing stick-on name tags identifying ourselves and our organizations, which prompted my next question:

“So, Mr. Trbk, who are you with?”

Well, shoot.  I am just not a morning person but I am a Jeopardy fan, and after it finally sank in that I was talking to Alex Trebek, I wondered if Alzheimer’s was beginning to dodder my way in a walker.  Then again, I didn’t expect to meet His Trebekness or any other national celebrity in a junior college gym in Sacramento at 7:30 on a Saturday morning either.

And I guess he didn’t expect to be greeted like a wholesale tire distributor at a regional sales conference.  No chauffeured limo had met him at the airport.  No little girl in a communion dress had presented him with a bouquet of roses, and the mayor and city council must have been having a working weekend somewhere.  I am not sure if a conference official had met him at the airport either, not even one of our work-at-home-moms with a kitchen table public relations agency and an SUV with toddlers in back.

Even social equality has its limits, and Mr. Trebek thought so too.  “Whenever you have a celebrity visit, try to make a bit of a fuss over him,” he told the conference during his address.

Yes, well I really should make amends to Mr. Trebek for not recognizing him right off the bat when we met, but I'm afraid that doing so would extend the jinx to an even more harmful effect, even if the amends were in the form of a question:

"What obscure Sacramento scribbler will feel responsible if his apologies for not making a fuss over you results in your being replaced on Jeopardy by Dame Edna?"

I’m sorry, but I just can't risk further jeopardizing Mr. Trebek that way. 
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Comments and Indictments: Please let me know if you wish to unsubscribe. -- MB

Did he really say, “Whenever you have a celebrity visitor, try to make a bit of a fuss over him?” 'Cause, if he did, I may have to rethink the opinion I was in the process of forming about him. Not that I think of him one way or the other. Nice piece! -- Beaty

Yup, he did.
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<3 your stories, TomatoMike -- Pirate

And I heart you right back. -- MB
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Keep em coming Mike I read the shit outa these things you do
and enjoy ‘em too -- Nick
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Just send out fewer of these...once a week or so should be fine, that way we don't get inundated. People are busy these days but making time to read this shouldn't be that hard, they're fun to read. Thanks! -- QB

Good point -- MB
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I've always thought that you or Surf would make a fine Jeopardy contestant. Remember when EHSAL [an AOL screen name]  was on "Millionaire"? And we were her "phone-a-friend" backups? (Sitting at home praying the phone didn't ring...) And the only unsubscribe request with my name on it will come from one of my relatives. If you get it, it will mean I've passed on. -- Sum
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What? Unsubscribe? Blasphemy!!! I wouldn't want to miss your missives, ever. Doyle, for instance, is etched in gold in this otherwise feeble brain of mine. Keep 'em coming, Mike! -- Len
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I've been of fan of Mr. Trebek's for years so this resonated with me. -- Rusty
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'His Trebekness' was brilliant. -- Ldy W
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Hey TomatoDork! Naah, keep me on your list. You make me feel superior, you sorry old hack you. -- Zip
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Never take me off your list -- L. G. Vernon
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Anybody who "unsubscribes" to your work is CRAZY!!!! -- Pross
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My father and I sat and did the Jeopardy thing every so often over the years, right up until the last few weeks of his life. My Dad was bright - very bright - and while I am reasonably intelligent regarding the trivia in the world, I couldn't catch him with a well-oiled baseball mitt and Mickey Mantle's hand under it to help me along. Dad was really good at it.

I hardly think you were responsible for Alex's injuries. I mean, we are all in charge of our own running-with-older-Achilles tendon injuries, regardless of the peripheral events.

Jeez, I like Alex. However aided by a screen of perfect answers, he pronounces those cities in Siberia and Mongolia so perfectly I can't help but wonder how he is in bed. -- Z.

You didn't put that thought in the form of a question.  -- MB

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I enjoyed reading this essay.  I am reading an interesting novel, Juliet, Naked by NIck Hornby. The book focuses on a celebrity musician's life. I really enjoyed About a Boy, another book by Hornby. I read it three times and also enjoyed the movie version. -- Ken

Career Moves

July and August are slow months in the limousine business, so I’ve been casting about for a part-time gig to help pay the bills.  Of course I check the classifieds and Craigslist, both of which have an abundance of low paying, humiliating and sometimes fraudulent job listings.  But out of the mud blooms the lotus, and you can find some really swell job opportunities if you know how to look for them.

The trick is to decipher the codes of the various ads.  For example, an ad seeking a "Jewish Egg Donor" does not require much effort to translate.  It’s quite simple, really.  The advertiser wants a Jewish person who’s giving away eggs, possibly for distribution to food banks and consumption by the homeless, I guess. Very straightforward. Noble, even. But not a good career move for me.  I'm not Jewish.

I watch the "marketing/pr/ad" section for possibilities.  Knowledge of the code is crucial here. For example, the ad for an "On-site Event Coordinator" may seem like the advertiser is looking for a person who can organize a fireworks display or a public hanging, but what the advertiser really wants is a kindly granny who can pass out samples of smelly cheese and weird crackers from a cloth covered card table in a Safeway.  Not much of a career move there, either.

But this Craigslist ad really snagged me:  "Help Further The Progressive Agenda."  I just had to check it out, because politically I am a godless commie pinko kneejerk liberal who wants to tax everyone to the hilt so the government can build day care centers for the offspring of unwed crack whores next to expensive gated communities.  Or in them.

I called the number listed in the ad, and spoke with a young person I’ll call Jason.  I asked Jason if furthering the progressive agenda meant attending editorial board meetings and arranging for media-hip liberal spokespersons to appear on talk shows, both of which I have done in a past life, and writing op-ed pieces in fighting the good fight. I’ve done that too.

"You have the right attitude," Jason said, "but this is more of a grassroots campaign.  You’ve heard of Proposition 8, the ban on same sex marriage that passed in the last election?"

Sure.

"We’re trying to get it reversed with petitions.  You would be working directly with the public."

An alarm bell went off in my head.  I’d be standing outside a Safeway with a stack of petitions on an ironing board, ambushing harried shoppers who just wanted to get in the store, then home before their ice cream melted in the furnace heat of a Sacramento summer.  At least the cheese and cracker lady got to stand inside, where there was air conditioning.  I told Jason as much.

"Well, we also canvass homes," he said.

Ohhhhhhhhh no!  Door to door canvassing is often done during evenings and weekends.  That's when homeowners are most vulnerable to doorbell attacks with offers of roofing, siding and solar hot water systems guaranteed not to leak until the minute the warranty expires.  I did that in a past life. The occupants were less than cordial.

And now Jason proposed that I interrupt peoples’ dinners, game shows and weekends to bug them about granting homosexuals the right to be legally married, with all the rights, privileges and misery attached thereto?  I mean, the signators would not even get a free high pressure sales job for a leaky solar hot water system in return.  I doubt the occupant, standing in the doorway with a chicken drumstick in one hand and a can of Budweiser in the other, would get all warm and fuzzy at the prospect of being one of a thousand points of light for gay rights.  That did not seem like much of a career move.

Jason tried to be accomodating:  "We also canvass businesses."

Worse yet.  Most businesses discourage soliciting and post signs to that effect: "Do Not Solicit Here Or We Will Punch You In The Nose."  I can only imagine the reaction if I ignored such a warning and strolled into a shop named Guns ’N Things and tried to get the retired cop behind the counter to sign a petition overturning the ban on gay marriage. The basement scene from Pulp Fiction comes to mind.  Definitely not a good career move at all.

I thanked Jason for his time.

Maybe I should reconsider handing out samples of smelly cheese and weird crackers in a Safeway. While it may not be much of a career move, I could at least have snacks
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Comments & Indictments:

Love this -- Margie
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I'm so glad July and August are slow for you. Well, not for you so much as those of us who are avid readers of The Tomatoman Times. What a wealth of well put together words.  Thanks for all three Wednesday morning wake-up calls.   -- Linda

Cowboys For Communism

Not long ago I saw one of my former professors on some cable program about California’s north coast, where my alma mater, Humboldt State, is located.  The prof was posed by a wall of liquor bottles in a bar, projecting the romantic image of the drinking poet, decked out in a tweed jacket with the obligatory leather elbow patches, a turtleneck sweater and a thatch of carefully coiffed Robert Frost hair.  The narcissistic son of a bitch had even taken to using all three of his names, like the poet William Carlos Williams, although he was not even close to being in Williams' league, and here he was national television droning on about the late poet and short story writer Raymond Carver.  Carver had been a student of his.  So had I.   

Carver graduated from Humboldt with an AB in English several years before I enrolled.  By then he had transferred to Chico and later Sacramento State for graduate studies, supplementing his meager income with minimum wage jobs, one of them as a janitor. "See what a bachelor's degree in English from Humboldt State gets you?" he wife at the time sneered. 

Then the New Yorker and the literary press began publishing his poems and stories.  That led to grants, paid speaking engagements and a gig teaching poetry at Sacramento State.  As JFK once said, "Success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan."

Well, Carver succeeded as a writer, and here was this pretentious twit of a professor claiming literary paternity in a public forum.  That prof's only real claim to attempted paternity was confined to frosh girls who fell for his poet manque nonsense.  Oh, he had male acolytes too; struggling student poets working in bowling alleys, tending bar and writing arcane verse for each other, all of them making me consider changing my major from English to something more functional like diesel repair, as suggested by a Marxist friend of mine.

My  commie pal was Jim McEachron.  Jim was over six feet tall and probably weighed 250 pounds.  He worked on a ranch and wore a straw hat and bib overalls with pockets stuffed with radical screeds about the evils of capitalism.

Jim was the only self-proclaimed Marxist I knew who had a sense of humor, which did not sit well with the radical elements on campus -- or with the administrators of the community college we both attended before moving on to Humboldt State.  They paled at his proposal to start a chapter of Tom Hayden's Students For A Democrtic Society on campus.  The year was 1968.  Not a banner year for favorable press about college students, radical or otherwise. The school, College Of The Redwoods, was funded by bonds voted on by the conservative local electorate, many of whom thought all college students should flogged by hags and sent to Siberia, and Jim was not the kind of student to mellow their view.  Permission denied. 

Jim shrugged and renamed his group the Semi-raspertorious Discussion Society, his idea of a camouflaged derivative for SDS,  which he referred to as Cowboys For Communism.  He even had letterhead printed with a big red star at the top of the page, and took another run at the college administrators for permission to meet on campus, thinking an endorsement from John Wayne might help.

"I wrote to John Wayne asking him to be our honorary chairman," Jim said, "but the Duke must be very busy.  I haven’t heard back yet, but I should any day now."

The school administrators were quicker to respond.  Permission denied.  So Jim changed the name to the Chess Club.  Then the administrators relented.  Jim and his troublemakers were allowed to use college facilities, if for no other reason than to shut Jim up.  Besides, chess players weren't known for taking over campuses, trashing offices and courting televised coverage of their mass arrests. 

No matter.  Jim gave up radical politics when the Jesus movement smote college campuses in the early 70s.  He adjusted to the changing times and claimed to be forming a congregation of Cowboys For Christ.  The Jesus faction on campus got huffy in a most unchristian manner and the idea fizzled.  True believers are never much fun.

I ran into Jim as he was walking out of the local Sizzler steak house a year after we graduated. Gone were the bib overalls.  Gone was the straw hat.  Gone were the radical paperbacks bulging from his pockets.  He was wearing polyester slacks, a polyester shirt, and a clip-on tie. 

"Jim!  You sold out!" I said with mock horror.

As a matter of fact, he had.  Big time.  He was working as a reporter for a weekly newspaper so right wing that it made the Hearst papers look like Pravda.  Jim took a toothpick out of his mouth and summed up his political conversion with a single on-the-mark question:

"Mike, do you know there are forty-nine ways to make macaroni casserole?"

Ah yes, hunger trumps politics every time.  I'm not sure Jim was really a radical anyway.  He was more of a satirist, and satirists are often conservative.  From Jonathan Swift to George Carlin, satirists have used a personal conservatism to satirize the world as they see it.  That does not mean actual conservatives are intentionally funny. They aren't.  But they sure provide a lot of comic material.  Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh come to mind.  

Even so, radicals, conservatives and satirists have one thing in common:  they all have to eat, as my friend Jim McEachron so trenchantly observed with his question.  Even tweed bedecked English professors who give interviews on national television have to eat.  I just wish their diets included a few slices of humble pie. 

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Comments & Indictments

Raymond Carver's lover was my poetry teacher at my university. Wild Irish woman. I hear they're making another movie out of another of his stories. -- Tab

Was your poetry teacher Tess Gallagher? Last I heard, she was living in Port Angeles, Washington, and If there is a sequel to the 1993 release of Short Cuts, directed by Robert Altman, I hope it's a good as the first: Short Cuts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Nice blog. Unfortunately, I read satirist as satanist the first him thru....caused a double take. -- Doc

A lot of satirists’ targets would agree with your first reading.
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SWM Seeks SWF

Okay, okay already!  So I don’t look like Brad Pitt!  Brad Pitt looks like Brad Pitt, but he still could not hang on to Jennifer Aniston.  I like to think I have more staying power than Brad Pitt. Hell, I even wrote to Jennifer Aniston and said so. I mean, you don’t get to be my age without being equipped for the long haul.

What’s more, I offered her what a lot of women claim they want, like walks on the beach in the rain, cuddling by a fire, candlelit dinners, and wrote that I even like cats. That last wasn’t really a fib. I really do like cats. They taste a little like chicken, but I didn’t mention that to Jennifer Aniston.  She might be one of those women who get all squeamish about cats as a dinner entrée.  Guess she hasn’t had tandoori chicken at her local Bangalore Buffet.  You should try it sometime. The leftovers found in the better class of dumpsters are quite piquant, even if the leftovers once had fur and not feathers.

Anyway, Miss Aniston didn’t write back, for some reason.  Could be because I talk too much and was overheard by a jealous rival.  I mean, maybe someone blabbed that I had been banned from all public beaches that I thought were clothing optional, or that my fireplace was actually a curbside barrel, or that candles were my sole source of heat and illumination since my electricity was shut off because of an obvious misunderstanding with the power company. Some sort of mishmash about a supposedly unpaid bill.  Whoever said “you can’t fight city hall” never had to deal with some electric company pinky who writes snotty letters threatening customers with eternal darkness and cold tandoori chicken.

That reminds me of another condition a lot of women impose on a potential mate: financial security.  That seems to be an unfair burden, especially considering the amount of loot Jennifer Aniston makes for a so-so sitcom, a few ad layouts, and whatever the trash tabloids pay her to be photographed outrunning the other paparazzi.  I saw in a castoff edition of Forbes that she’s worth 18.5 mil. And she would expect me to pick up a dinner tab? Fat chance.

Still, I did plead for a little understanding on her part, but she seems to be playing hard to get. Pleading is overrated anyway.  Over the years I’ve learned that some (but not all) women think begging is an undesirable trait in a man, especially as a prelude to foreplay, and I guess Jennifer Aniston is one of those women.

Well, so much for her!  Anyway, this ad is a open ended response to the numerous ads posted by women seeking a male companion for walks on the beach in the rain, etc., etc, and I have a few questions of my own.  Here goes:

1.    Do you weigh less than a Toyota?

2.    Do you have any cats?

3.    Do you have a credit card or cards?  If so, specify limits.

4.    Do you have access to firearms?  If so, where do you keep them?

5.     If no, are you currently on probation or parole?

6.     If yes, were you convicted of a crime involving firearms?

7.     Are there any liquor stores or 7-11s in your immediate area?

8.     Do you own a car?  If yes,  provide the Kelley Blue Book value.

9.     Do you believe in love at first sight?

10.   If yes, do you believe in sex on the first date?

11.   If no, are you willing to listen to reason?

12.   Are you taking any prescription medication?

13.   Would you describe yourself as a sharing person?

14.   If the above answer is no, see question 11.

Any additional comments you may have are welcome. Please respond with a current photo.

Thank you.

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Comments & Indictments:

Mike, this one is a PERFECT comment on our times, and our foolishness when it comes to trying to find a mate! Thanks for sending it my way! -- Amanda

Tease.

You know, if I weren't already married to a much younger man …  Shag

I don't know where you found that pic, Mike, but I'm saving it to share with Anthony in case he ever starts thinking about getting a tattoo. And now I must go scrub my eyeballs with bleach, thank you very much. -- Sum

That's a shirt, right? RIGHT? They're not really tattoos? Surely nobody could be that stupid. Don't you ever just want to ask ..."WHAT ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH WERE YOU THINKING??!!!!" -- Tab A

I met a New Zealand sailor in Singapore named Pricky Price who had…well, who showed a picture of 13 tattoos on his … oh never mind. You get the idea. I have an idea that Pricky’s thinking was probably influenced by a flowing abundance of Malay Tiger beer.

Just tell me this man would not be our neighbor!  Please! -- Beaty

Haaaa wonderful one!:) -- Juli