"Did you ever undress in front of your dog?"

For several years now, I've been one of those people who wakes up repeatedly during a night's attempt at sleep. Early this morning, at 4:20am, I woke up with one thought on my mind, "why did I take the pork chop out of the freezer before I went to bed? That wasn't what I'd intended to make for tonight's dinner." I was perturbed, but I'm not sure if it was over the waking or the pork chop.

The news finally reached the online services I read this morning. Jonathan Winters passed on Thursday. I hate writing phrases like that. Words like "died", or "dead", euphemistic terms like "passed away", are all so final. "Passed" is not much better, but it leaves things a little more open. See, the thing is this; Jonathon Winters can never die. He lives every time a comedian takes an off the wall chance to either succeed or fail, and quickly changes the subject no matter the reaction. He lives every time Robin Williams performs in public. Williams famously referred to Winters as his "mentor", to which Winters replied he'd prefer "idol".

When he was 7, his folks broke up and Jonathan was taken to live with his grandmother. You can just tell he didn't fit in anywhere, and must have spent a great deal of time alone in his room. I can relate. He left high school to join the Marines and fight in the second World War. He married in 1948, and shortly thereafter found himself in need of a watch. Watches were much more expensive in those days than they are now; the young couple couldn't afford one. His wife challenged him to go to a local amateur contest and win the needed funds. He did, and got a radio show out of it. Sometimes there weren't any guests. He made them up. He soon found himself in New York working at a comedy club.


One night a janitor sweeping up at the club told him that doing imitations of famous people and making fun of them was okay, but asked him why he didn't make fun of regular folks, the people he'd left behind in small town America. The odd ball characters in his head were let loose. One of those characters, Maude Frickert , was basically stolen by Johnny Carson as a recurring character on the Tonight Show as "Aunt Blabby".

In the later 1960's, I heard that Winters had been institutionalized, locked up in a sanitarium. They only let him out to perform. There was some truth to the rumor, and in later manic sketches if a character was too much or didn't work there might be a quick aside, "No, not that one, they might put me back in." It was typical Winters.

Winters could throw out a punch lime, but his real humor was in his characters. All of it seemingly improvised on the spot, and quite "off the wall", a trait that only his contemporaries Jean Shepherd and Ernie Kovacs shared.

Like Kovacs, Mr. Winters gallops through many of my early tv memories. He was a guest on any number of shows, particularly when Steve Allen or Jack Paar was the host. Paar once gave Winters a piece of wood and challenged him to do something with it. For a few seconds he used it as a fishing rod, then a judge's gavel, then as baseball bat, then a lion tamer's whip - cracking it over the heads of the audience before a quick look at one person with an, "Oh. Sorry." And it was on Jack Paar that he famously asked the audience if they'd ever undressed in front of their dogs. (Pause.) “You think about that for a minute. A bird somehow doesn’t count. Or a cat. But a dog.” (Pause.) “They really stare.”





While it's true that almost every comedian or comic writer of the last 50 years, right down to those working in the business today learned form him (whether they know it or not), I don't like to think of a world without him. This morning's pork chop incident suddenly plays in my mind, and I giggle. Jonathan Winters taught me that. In one of his few movie appearances, he played twin brother undertakers in the film adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's "The Loved One". One of the brothers devises a plan to cope with a crowded cemetery by launching coffins into space, labeled "Resurrection Now!" If only.

...and now the scratching starts...

Currently, as in all day today, I seem to be experiencing anger, frustration, anxiety, resentment, oh, just a whole heavenly host of Holiday hoo-has. Early this morning I managed a ride to Vernon where I have stuff in storage in a friend's barn. This was happy news. I hadn't been there in a couple of years, and the potential to locate missing items (as well as check on the collectible  movie posters) was heartening, But, as it turned out, Bob (the fellow being kind enough to give me a ride there and back) really didn't have any time available. It was grab and go. This did, however, turn up an item in the suitcase I grabbed... I mentioned the other day that my friend Tom Toth used to make Christmas cards featuring Carole Lombard. Here's the last one I know of that he did, and the least fancy (the others got printed in frames, with printed greetings, & etc.):

I did make a wee little change. Tom had it printed in sepia. I think t looks slightly better in black and white...

Anyway, after lots of strum und drang yesterday, I managed to get a Christmas tree. I'd come to the end of the paycheck until next Thursday, and there really just wasn't anything left. Last year, I noted that the Rotary and other Christmas Tree purveyors were sold out almost a full week before the holiday itself. So, after enlisting a friend with a car, I managed to get the Rotary guy to agree on a postdated check, and purchased a scrawny but full (from one angle) tree. I'd been sniffling and occasionally sneezing all day yesterday at work. Friggin people who sneeze on you.... The inside of one nostril felt swollen like it had a a blood vessel had burst. But it wasn't too bad. Until this morning.

Arrrghhhh! There''s only one string of lights left... Gggrrrrr.

I've been sneezing like a fairy tale dwarf all day. I am, of course, paranoid that I have now developed an allergy to Christmas trees and will have to put this one down. Or maybe they've sprayed some preservative on the tree so it will last longer or smell nicer that's the culprit. I do hope that's not the case. It was just one such sudden onset of swelling, watery eyes, and sneezing by my stepmother that was responsible for the premature destruction of one tree some years back when my father was still alive. The following year or two there was a mid sized artificial tree. When Dad started the six year slide into the finalities of prostrate cancer, she was too distraught to think about Christmas. I can't remember if she got a tree that first year or not. The next few years saw a minimally decorated 3 foot artificial tree. I would go "home" for the holidays, enter what had been my bedroom and find the tree, decorations, lights, and all, sitting on my bed. She'd pick it up, carry it back to the living room, find a spot for it, plug it in, and the deed was done. Quick, efficient. Not my style, but I like it. 

I'm still part way through putting the lights on this year's tree. I've been at it since about 10:30am this morning. Along the way there was a successful hunt and updated software replacement for my printer/scanner/copier. The programs on the new computer had more than enough stuff to run the show, but I liked the results of the program that came with the printer much better. I'm glad that's been taken care of. And there have been radio station phone calls and emails to deal with. And enough this's and thats's to drive anyone into bouts of delirium. Use the toilet, and the flush thingy beaks. Again. Take a few steps and the only belt I have stretches a little more and my pants start to fall down - again. And again. How do today's kids do it? I guess you have to have a bubble butt. I'm from a family of flat butts.

In an small studio apartment this size, there is little room for anything. Need the stapler? Move this there, that there, and viola! One stapler plus instant mess. This past summer I began rebelling against the spartan minimalism in which I've lived the past few years. As I closed the paid for storage place, I added a guest chair (the other one I had replaced my rocker office chair which, sadly, is no more), and my old art deco side table - the one with the etched blue glass, into the "living" room. I can not get everything I need to into the small storage space my apartment gets in this building's basement. The result has been stuff everywhere, especially as I've been trying to get the pre bleak winter deep cleaning and dust dinosaur eradication done. I'm putting the old dust catchers back into play, and it is making me feel better. There is absolutely no reason I should have or need to have an hour glass, well, more like a half hour glass, but it does reflect something about myself and I like having it out. Ditto the picture (really a xerox blow up of a polaroid) of my Dad from a Christmas long ago (c 1954).

Every step backward is met with an oops! Every reach to get something results in something else being knocked over. Every step into the kitchen or bathroom means moving the pumpkin which still hasn't been cut up for pie. (It sits in a corrugated cardboard box so I don't kick it to death - and I do end up kicking the box a lot). There is no place to put anything. There is no room for, well. there is no room. I've spent most of my life living in studio apartments. I'm sick of it. Having the space to have your stuff where you can get it without moving things around like a chinese puzzle box has become a luxury. I'm not poor enough to get anything better. As I get up to get a tissue to blow my nose, I trip on my cane. If it's Christmas can anyone hear me scream?

Well, I'm going off to make some shells and veggies for dinner. Then I'll move enough stuff to get into the built out closet where I put the spare Christmas tree light bulbs so I can replace the ones that didn't make it through to this year.

But before I go, here's a couple of scans I did this afternoon to test the replacement program. These are protective sleeves in which single 45rpm records were sold. And yes, I still have the records.

Just so wrong

Some things are wrong.
Period.

The last several days have been a lunartics Holiday. Full Moon. And Seasonal Panic. People who play the wretched card have been dealing aggressively and attempting to "buy the pot", which is kind of amusing in a return the circle to the wretched kind of way as there is no pot to be had.

Yesterday, I started work at 11:30am. By the time I was sent off on my first break at 1:15pm, I had managed to experience the worst, most abysmal hour and three quarters I have ever spent in retail. In my life. I am 61 years old and have been in and out of retail situational ethic awareness employment since I was a teenager. I've been dealing with the public in some form or other since I was 6 or 7 years old, when I would occasionally cover the town librarian when she needed to excuse herself, or had other work which needed her attention. (Luckily, she never held that incident where I chased Patricia Ann Smith around the library stacks in order to obtain a kiss against me.) Somewhere around 8th or 9th grade, I even ran the regional school's student supply store, so I've been around, ya know? Read that again. A student run supplies store for student purchases.  Yes, I'm that old.

Bookstores, Department stores, bookstores and department stores at Christmas, Dining room service, free loan film services where hiding behind a desk and a phone was no insulation from the inane insane. And so on and so forth.

The parade of torment and pain seemed never ending. It wasn't the monosyllabic grunters, they were (by and large) reasonably well behaved. It wasn't even the people who refuse to speak to you at all - it's usually beneath them, you know. It wasn't the woman who watched me ring up and pack her $120.00+ order on express, and just as I started to pack her last 3 items spoke up, "I have my Own bags." Oh, how nice! I'm glad you're doing this, it does so help the environment. The plastic trees are endangered, you know. It wasn't the woman who grabbed things out of my hands as soon as I had rung them up. No, it took at least 10 minutes until she arrived. She held up a gallon plus size of liquid Tide and said "5". She held up her fingers, "Five". No, mam. You have two different products there, I will need to ring them up separately. Empty Blank Stare. Hand up. "Five". No, man, I'll need one of the white bottles and one of the orange bottles, "two", plus "three". She stood there. She waved her hands around. She pointed. She spoke no English. She didn't understand. I walked around the counter, around her, reached in to her cart, moved the two white topped bottles to one side, and the three orange tops to the other side. I counted them, one, two - and rang up the white topped bottles. I then repeated the effort with the orange three. She looked at the computer screen. No, no.  She put her finger on the computer screen over the sale discount, a minus line item, as in " - 10 cents". I tried to explain that she wasn't paying that amount, it was on special.  People were rolling their eyes and loudly grinding their gritty teeth, and they weren't even in my line. Eventually, the war of comprehension was won when she waved at one bottle of detergent as though she were pushing it away. I took it off of her purchase. She was satisfied, and thankfully left. 

A minute or two later, a well dressed middle aged woman set down her purchase of a container of fresh soup made by our deli. I rang it up. That's six dollars and fourty three cents, please. "SIX DOLLARS!!!" (It wasn't a question.) "SIX DOLLARS !!!!!  !!!!" THAT'S OUTRAGEOUS". Well, mam, it's this amount per pound, and you got this weight - would you like me to re-weigh that? "SIX DOLLARS!!!!" Yes, mam, I'm sorry but that's about right. "I DON"T EVEN HAVE SIX DOLLARS." "SIX DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!!"

Then came to the two backwoods types. As I rung up the first guys' order, it was evident that he was  concerned about the second guy. He said he was going out to the car and would wait for him, and no, it was all right, he would drive him home, he wanted to do that. The second guy looked horrible. Long term sickness haggard look. Hi, how are you today? "Not good." Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. "I just lost my job". He worked as a handyman for someone who'd had a heart attack a week ago. The son had just let him go.

A smiling bald headed woman stepped into view. "Hi, Steven". Hi. We used to work together at Northeast Cooperatives. She'd lost weight. And had a very shiny head. I see you've had a few changes to deal with.... "Well, they told me if I was going to get cancer, then this was the one to get, it's only a year or so of chemo left..." I told her how much I admired her for not covering up, for being seen. I don't think I would have gotten through the rest of the day without her.

And so it went, people whose bank cards were declined and who had to return food. A few feeling no pain thanks be to the spirits. The children who stare at you with hollow eyes.  The woman who was upset because the plush toys display didn't have a full set of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer product tie ins. She'd purchased the tv show's characters over the previous two years, but never got a Clarice. She has to have a Clarice. I mentally hear Anthony Hopkins and manage a sympathetic smile. Sorry, mam. 

A guy who likes to talk politics (even though I've been "requested" to not do so) was next - he has no money for presents this year and was wondering about the morals of selling a photo he took years ago when he was standing next to Robert Kennedy in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel.

There was my ex-landlord and his wife - he looking gaunt, obviously living with something ill. I rented from them until he got upset over a late promised check to catch up my rent (in arrears after Northeast Coops was bought out and there were no jobs available) and had me evicted after having rented from them for 10 plus years.

About 10 minutes before I was sent off to break, a woman I've known for years - since back when Sovernet started up and finally offered a local dial up ISP service in Brattleboro, fer Christs'sakes,  put her purchases on the register station's belt. She smiled broadly and said something on the order of, "It's so good to see you again".  I started to cry. Really. It was the first nice thing anyone had said to me all day.

It gets worse, you know. But I just don't have it in me to go on (about it). I've been taking drugs again for a few days now. Just the trazadone. Otherwise I don't sleep. And when I wake up in the middle of the night, my breathing is weird. Which freaks me out because a few weeks ago, when I woke up around 3am, I suddenly said out loud, without thinking about it, "I'm going to die before the summer". Needless to say, even though I put no stock in that what so ever, it doesn't help to make waking up hourly with breaking weirdness a calming stabilizing selection force in my life.

This morning, I did speak with a very nice woman at the Comcast office out there, somewhere. She turned out to be upstate in Burlington, and understands the local economies. I'd expected that I would lose my internet/phone/tv service today. I often call them to point out that their turn off date is always two days before I get paid (sheer accident of timing, yup) and will gladly pay them as soon as I can get my pay into my bank account. I've often  had to have supervisors get involved over this. The bill always shows a huge amount due. I always have to make it clear that I know they bill a month in advance, that the prices listed are before all of the various discounts and deals are figured in when you pay, and that the only money I owe them is about a third of what the computer shows, namely the current month, dammit. I often get a spiel that this is the last time they can offer me a two day delay for 6 months. Et cetera.  This time though, I wouldn't be able to pay the full monthly amount. I just don't have it. But no, this woman gave me no such grief. Problems worked out in a minute. Except that she turned out to be a survivor gabber and I had a hard time getting off the phone. And no, I'm not complaining, just observing.

The dryer in the basement isn't working right. I had to reload it with quarters. It took everything I had. I'd been hoping to use that for the bus fare home tomorrow instead of walking. Oh, well.

When I had been feeling like I could actually handle Christmas, and could interact with it again, I splurged on something I shouldn't have. I bought a new ornament for the Christmas Tree. It was a wild thing to do. It's a little tiny ceramic Tinkerbelle, sitting on a red ball and holding up a star to put on the tree. It's one of those dated keepsake ornaments that won't be made again, and was the last one they had. There would be no more. I bought it. At least I shopped local.

Of course, at the moment, it looks very much like I won't be able to afford a Christmas tree this year to put it on. I'd been counting on getting paid for 20 hours of holiday time at work that needs to be taken by the end of the year or I lose it. I had been getting small payouts on unused vacation and sick time (meant for next year, but subject to the new use it or lose it regulation). But they suddenly stopped after Thanksgiving week when I got a whole 32 hours of work, count my blessings. In asking for a monetary payout to be added to my check, I got a lecture. It was too late to include in the next check. If it gets approved, I might get it the check 3 days before Christmas. I bowed and scrapped and tried not to shuffle as I said "Thank You" to the person whose job it was to have kept the arrangement going in the first place.

So, with this swirl of emotion and loathing, I was looking through some old files on my computer when found the following. As I said, some things are just plain wrong.

Today is December the 13th, the 347th day of 2011, CE.

There are 12 days remaining until Christmas.

There are 18 days remaining until the end of the year.

There are 372 days remaining until the end of time.

Christmas album art

While writing that last post, two great things happened. I realized that this is the perfect time to start this post, and I noticed that our Scottish friend had been Scribblin' again. These two are inter-related as I would hope that he'll find this post and be amused, or at the very least decide he's been challenged to an awful album art contest. And Christmas album art, at that!

Here beginith our meditation upon midnights, clear or otherwise:

Well, that was fun. Blogger decided that it wouldn't allow me to update and save my page after I started adding graphics.  Then, I couldn't sign in to my own account. After that, a search showed that my blog didn't exist! Several weeks ago, Blogger put up a new interface, and I really liked it. The very next day, I got an error message that Blogger no longer supported my browser, IE9. Naturally, since Blogger is owned by Google, the Google Chrome browser is the browser of corporate choice.

This sort of thing will, of course, be continued.

You have been warned.

Inappropriate connections

There is one thing about reaching the age I have (61) that leaves me both wryly amused and/or horrified. Browsing through various Christmas/Holiday music posts on Usenet, looking for nothing in particular, I stumbled across an album titled "The Christmas in You". As if that title weren't already waaaay up on the "you know that has to be dreck" list, you'd have to be around my age to appreciate the effect of noticing that the artist is one Jill Johnson. Thanks to age and the desperate need to upgrade 13 year old or so glasses, I read the performer as "Jill Johnston". She was a one time dance critic for the Village Voice in New York City, and the daughter of a nurse and a man whose family clock maker firm designed and built the carillon for the Riverside Church.

As the 1960's gave way to the 1970's, she lost her capital letters and began writing about sexual politics, becoming one of the founders of the lesbian separatist movement. The idea of that jill johnston recording an album of Christmas music can only be trumped by the idea of what she would say about the album recorded by Jill Johnson.

See, part of the problem with these little synapse breaks taken by our dancing neurons is that while they are often drolly amusing, their humor is often destroyed by attempt to try to explain them. Now, this kind of thing happens to me all the time these days, but I rarely remember them. This little less than a gem just happened to occur when I had a window available to post it into this blog. I'll try to remember some of these as time goes by so I can post them here. In the meantime, who out there has a favorite to share from their own reading and comprehension escapades?

In case you get to wondering, the song list for this album did have a little potential:

I mean, "Blame It on Christmas"? That could be potential holiday song gold, right? Ehhh, wrong!  Country western pop. Not unexpected you know. She has an okay voice and presentation. But the blame she's laying is that she misses you so, or was that she misses God so? I don't really want to listen to it again to find out. Yeah, the operative word is "dreck" allright.
       
           

A little favour to ask...

(Sigh). Yesterday I got "spoken to" at work again. A customer had asked when the minimum to not have to sign a debit or credit card had gone up to $65.00. I answered and added a comment that I considered it sad that the bank card companies felt that $65.00 was too little to worry about. I thought nothing more of it until I was taken aside just before the end of my shift. My boss wanted to ask a 'favour' of me. (Translated, it means don't do it again, and it's not really a request.) Along with that comment, it was mentioned that the bank card companies are our clients and should be treated with respect; and that tough times were being had by everyone - not just me. That last part was interesting. I hadn't referred to my financial condition. Well, I had earlier when I met with the store's personnel officer - I wanted to cancel my health insurance as it will put about $250.00 a month in my pocket (includes going off meds). I was told that I can't get out of my policy or stop paying my premiums until  the start of the new year. I did say that that wasn't quite what I wanted to hear. (I do nothing to cancel the policy - the company is switching carriers again, all I have to do is not sign up.) I can only assume that the personnel person repeated the story to my boss. This is the same personnel person with whom I had the the discussion about my minimum hours and my part time level. If she mentioned my involvement with her "manager's meeting reminder", that sure would explain why I suddenly got three night time shifts, one until 9pm. I got another till 9pm this week. I have to stop thinking like this. After all, they "don't retaliate". Oh, I was also warned not to discuss politics at all. Free speech is great - for those who can afford it.

  

Cast of the new Tim Burton movie "Dark Shadows", starring Johnny Depp (center) as Barnabas Collins.



Is that card upside down, or...?

 

 

Catching up

It's an insanely beautiful day. The light is a little different here,  just like Cape Cod has a silver quality to it, here it's something about the blue of the sky and an interplay of light and shadows. Its the kind of light that gives great depth perception.  The temperature is cool, daddy, cool in the mid sixties. It's a perfect beach day and my mind starts to wandering wondering. But stop. The catching up needs to happen.

Back when Murder at the Co-opt was being written and performed, I had started to name my three favorite blogs of less than 300 followers. Rory gave it  to Austanspace, who gave it to me.  Yes, I'm talking about the
award. I've found references to it seem to start this past February. No obligation to pass it on, no need to write about 3 others, it's jes' us talking to us.

Both Austanspace and Rory have great blogs. I highly recommend both of them. Rory has two blogs. His main one is The Scottish Scribbler which currently has a wonderful story about Rory and his sassy daughter, and one about bad art album covers. I've been saving such things for quite awhile now, and immediately thought, "I've got to send or post the cover of The Faith Tones' "Use Me Lord". But then I saw that he had it in the "ultimate" spot. I have to admit that this did not "sit" well. I had to examine my feelings. And I saw it as a challenge. You know what I mean.  About a step before the "of course you realize this means war" stage. It has occurred to me that this attitude might be a bit too aggressive . But still the hunger lurks. Peons. I still have the insert for Sgt. Pepper's, dammit.  And I still have one of the fuzzy red flocked in gold letters "Odessa" albums too! So there!

I love album art. Even the bad ones. Intended without pain or injury, no challenges (unless you want to pick up the gauntlet) here's a few of my "bad" (a relative term which implies a prejudged oh never mind) favorites, In no real order, my contribution to the field.

So how's that! And I'll raise you an "All My Friends Are Dead".

to be continued...