DWARVES IN MY MILK

Lobo

There's an old man that lives four doors down from me.  His name is Lobo and he rents his apartment on the first floor of a rowhouse.  He's paid $25 a month every month since 1968.  The second floor of his rowhouse was a separate apartment, rented by a family of Chinese immigrants.  But one day about two months ago, men were throwing every personal item the Chinese tenants owned out of the second floor window and onto the sidewalk below.  Locals came by and scavenged most everything tossed out, leaving a few articles of clothing and photographs.  They simply do not fuck around with evictions here in Charm City.  You don't pay, then you go, no negotiations about it.

So Lobo lives in the house alone, and on days that are not too hot or too cold he will sit in a lawn chair next to his front stoop, listening to the Orioles on a transistor radio, or--when baseball is not on--old 45s on an ancient, battery powered turntable, a kid's turntable.  Most of his wardrobe is courtesy of the Lutheran Mission donation pile, which he picks over every morning before the shop opens.  He takes the best stuff for himself, leaves the rest.  Which is why it's not unusual to see him wearing a Celtics windbreaker with gray dress slacks and a too-big Hawaiian shirt.  He also steals stuffed animals, which he uses to decorate his front window sill.  Every now and then he'll have a sidewalk sale and try and pawn off stuffed animals he stole, each for $.25.  I don't think he makes any money.  He must be well into his 70s, is exceedingly thin and wrinkly, and recently he looks as if he's lost even more weight.

Today was the annual Jazz & Blues Festival, right on my street, two blocks from my house.  I saw Lobo there, sitting in a lawn chair about 10 feet from the stage, eating chicken on a stick and wearing a Donald Duck hat.  And by that I don't mean a hat with a Donald Duck logo on it.  I mean  a hat that looks like the top of Donald Duck's head.  It's ridiculous.  It's something my mother would wear as a joke to a neighborhood picnic.  This was not the hat for a grown man.

"Lobo, you need to get a new hat!" I yelled to him, trying to be heard above the band on stage.  Lobo looked at me and smiled and waved me over, and showed me a picture of him from 1943.  In it, a handsome young man stands holding what looks like a latrine pan in front of a tent, in a desert setting.  The resemblance is faint, but there.  "I used to be a good looking guy and I'd get my share of dances at the USO on dime dance night.  You know that?  But let me tell you.  I get a lot more pussy with this hat than I ever got in the war!  Ha ha ha ha ha!"  Then he went back to eating his meat on a stick. 

I believed him, too.  That's the sick part about it.

Dead Bodies I Have Known

When I woke up this morning and dragged myself, hungover, out of my bed, I stood and stretched and walked to the sink to begin the day-long process of peeling layer after layer of caked-on mouth-plaster through the palliative application of smoothing water and sandpapery Pringles.  And I stopped, staring at the floor, because there was a dead body in my bathroom. 

Well, okay, not really.  But for the wholly disoriented thirty seconds I stood there in my boxers and t-shirt, head pounding in dehydrated pain, I was mostly convinced that I was boggling at a dead person.  And, frankly, nothing helps to sharpen and focus the mind in the morning like seeing a dead body in your bathroom.  You stand perfectly still, hands splayed, mouth slightly ajar, and you instantly reduce thirty-five years of your life into the single, repeated phrase what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck?!  But then the body groans and moves a little, and your heart begins to pump again, and your life slowly returns.

My friend, Tom and I had been drinking the night before, celebrating nothing in particular with a coterie of like-minded friends.  I am a reasonable drinker, for the most part, and can usually recognize my limitations.  My limitation stared me in the face seconds after I downed a shot that contained mostly vodka and some citrus flavoring and saw the face of God.  It was 11:45.  I called it a night and walked the two blocks to my house.

Apparently my friend Tom crossed the line between moderation and excess, boldly crossed the line, bought a house across the line, and in the process lost his keys.  Having no key hidden under the mat, no neighbor to call on, no bed to call his own, he did the sensible thing and took the key under my mat, entered my house, and crawled to the floor of my master bathroom to pass out, making sure he was near a toilet.  He was wearing a softball jersey and his pants were unbuttoned.  He was embracing my bath mat.

This is not the first time this has happened to me, finding a body in my house.

Seven years ago, I was living alone in a one-bedroom apartment in a high-rise apartment complex just outside of D.C.  It was a simple place, a bedroom, a bathroom, a living room and a small kitchen.  It cost me more in rent than my mortgage for my two bedroom house in Baltimore does now.  Such is the D.C. market.

I had a beach house with friends that summer, and spent most weekends at the shore, away from the congestion and the traffic, baking my pale flesh, drinking fruity drinks, forgetting my weekday lawyerly existence.  One Sunday night I returned home from the beach, dropped my bag in the small foyer, and collapsed on the couch.  I think I had watched two full episodes of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and was staring on my third when I got up to get a drink of water.  When I walked around the corner, I saw two legs clad in work boots and green pants sticking out of my kitchen.  Someone was laying on the floor of my kitchen and I could see his legs.

I froze.  I froze because I was unable to move, even though a panicked voice in my head was telling me, there's someone laying down in your kitchen, it's a body, it must be a dead body, it's a dead body in your kitchen and the person who killed him is still in here, hiding, run.  I couldn't run, I couldn't turn and go to the phone, I could do nothing.  I just stared at the legs and felt gripping paralyzing fear.

I must have stood that way for at least two minutes, because I could hear that Rob Petrie had successfully avoided the pesky ottoman and was now talking convivially with his co-writers Sally and Buddy about the hilarious shopping habits of Buddy's wife, Pickles.  The legs didn't move.  The fear and panic ebbed enough for me to move, and I walked so very cautiously toward the kitchen.  I grabbed a brass candleholder off a shelf for protection, and I turned the corner and looked in my kitchen.

It was a maintenance man.  Wearing a pair of green pants and a khaki shirt, a maintenance man was laying next to the louvered doors of the laundry closet.  His eyes were closed.  I didn't see blood.  I didn't know if he was dead.

I bent over, looking at him, and couldn't tell if he was breathing.  I checked his pulse on his neck with my middle finger.  He was alive.  I darted to the living room, picked up the phone and called 911.  I told the 911 operator that a maintenance man had collapsed in my kitchen, and I didn't know from what.  I gave them my address and the operator told me to sit tight and not move him.  I then called the front desk--the complex had a 24 hour concierge--and told them a maintenance man was unconscious in my apartment, and EMTs are on the way.

"That's gotta be Manny," the concierge said, and explained that they had been trying to call him on his radio all day.  I asked what he might have been doing in my apartment, and she told me that they were doing a routine changing of air conditioning filters and checking to make sure dryer vents were clear.  She had no idea why he might be unconscious, and then told me that she would call the manager and someone would come up to my apartment.

In 10 minutes, the EMTs arrived.  I stayed in my living room while the EMTs worked on him, talking with the apartment manager.  He awkwardly told me that several days before I moved in, a woman had killed herself in a different apartment in my building.  I'm not sure why that story was relevant, but it seemed to bring him a kind of well-what-can-you-do? comfort.  The EMTs took Manny, and I stayed up all night with my windows open, unable to sleep and afraid that a gas leak was what laid Manny low, and would get me, too. 

I later learned that Manny was diabetic, and had slipped into diabetic shock while checking my dryer vent.  He was kept in the hospital for a few days, and the next time I thought about him was when he and I shared an elevator together.  It was about a month after his collapse, and I recognized him when I stepped into the elevator.  Having never seen me, he didn't know me.  I asked how he was, and he said he was fine, thanks for asking.  I didn't tell him that it was my apartment he'd been found in.  I didn't see the point, and I didn't want any awkwardness.  No need to embarrass the guy.  So I told him I was glad he was feeling better, and he thanked me, and I went to my apartment and I never saw him again.

I didn't take nearly the same steps to avoid embarrassment on Tom's part.  Shortly before writing this entry, I e-mailed to several mutual friends photos of Tom laying on my bat room floor, clutching the bathroom mat.  I made sure I got several shots of his face.  They are valuable.

Iraq is All My Fault: A Lover's Tale in Three Short Acts

Under the curt and accusatory headline of a recent online item ("Iraq is YOUR Fault") I was obliquely charged, as a member of the American voting population at large, with being responsible for the invasion of Iraq.  How I was responsible as a voter was, well, unclear. 

Now, rather than allow blame to be spread broadly over my fellow Americans, I did what I think any good patriot would do.  I owned up to the fact that the war in Iraq--the whole thing, mind you--was probably my fault.  I had to take that position.  Given, of course, the fact that my actions led directly to the war.

Look, it was a messy affair with a pretty young thing, but how was I to know?

This is an ancient question, one that has haunted men long before me, and that will haunt men long after me.  I cannot answer it for them.  I can only wrestle with my own demons. 

But still, how could I have predicted that my fleeting, seemingly harmless homosexual tryst with Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz would lead to the wholesale invasion of another nation?

Sure, it started out innocently enough. We were both at a PNAC reception at the National Building Museum, and we happened to be at the buffet table at the same time.  I was reaching for a piece of milk-fed veal, and he was leaning over at the same time for a helping of Harp Seal cutlet when our serving spoons crossed, clinking. Clinking and signaling the beginning of something both exciting and dangerous.

He looked at me with those big watery eyes, and smiled.  I saw that he had a dollop of hollandaise on his chin, and I leaned over and wiped it off brazenly with my thumb, saying, "Here, let me get this sauce off your chin, Mr. Wolfowitz.  I doubt the chef intended that someone would eat you."

Maybe it was the booze that made me do it, maybe it was his charming and well-placed hair.  But whatever it was, I boldly licked the sauce off my thumb and, let's face it, we were off to the races.

Oh, sure, the sex was good.  And there were all those days at the National Gallery, looking at art and holding hands, then after, a big steak at the Caucus Room and a nightcap of uninhibited, really gay sex.  I have to confess, it was great. 

But Paulie was a clingy guy.  Needy.

He'd call two, three times a day, wanting to know what I was up to, what I was doing later.  Always it was "Can I see you again?"  And if I said no he'd get pouty and sullen and would take it out on his work, getting testy with his secretary, screaming at OPEC ministers who didn't deserve it.  If I told him I had to go out of town on business and couldn't see him for a couple of days, the next thing you know, gas is $2.20 a gallon.  It was ridiculous and petulant.  So I decided to call it off.

Paulie refused to accept it at first, telling me he was almost a cabinet secretary, and he would decide when it would end.  I knew him too well to truck to his dramatic power plays, and he knew it.  After a while, he stopped playing the jilted queen and resorted to pathetic, showy displays.  Sending flowers to my office almost every day.  Love letters under my door at night.  Those dozen fucking Vermont Teddy Bears he sent to my office with the card reading, I can't bear to be without you.  It was too much.

Of course, I responded to none of it and tried to move on, but he persisted. The final straw was when he showed up at the Capitol Grille during a lunch meeting I was having with clients.  Showed up and started crying.  It was embarrassing, and--worst of all--I could tell my client was embarrassed for me.

And that just made me angry.

I excused myself and whispered forcefully to Paulie, "Not here.  Outside.  Now," and stormed out in an absolute rage.  How could he do that to me?  Just who the fuck did he think he was?

My anger was met with Paulie's hot tears.

"Please, can't we just go back to the way things were?" he sobbed.  "I love you, baby, and I just want your strong hands running over my soft but slightly concave chest! I'll do anything to make it work!"

He was actually begging me, there on the sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue. I've never seen a man so humiliated, and it was humiliating to watch.

"Forget it Paulie!" I shouted.  "It's over! I could never be with a man who is so fucking weak!  Look at yourself!  Blubbering like a prissy little schoolgirl!  I couldn't be with someone like that and stand to even look at myself in the mirror.  It's a miracle how you sleep at night!  You're pathetic!"

That hit Paulie hard.  He knew then that it was over--really over--and that left him incensed.  I could feel the heat of his anger radiating through the thin sheen of tears that had run down his face, smearing his mascara.

"Weak?! You think I'm weak, you cocksucker?! All I wanted was your love, and you shit all over it! Well, I don't need it! Fuck your chunky thighs, and fuck your playful insousciance, and fuck you, too!  I'll show you whose weak!"

That set me off.  I was pissed for having been made the bad guy, pissed for having been made to watch his embarrassing little puppet show, and pissed about his knock on my legs. 

"What are you gonna do, Paulie, huh? Keep calling me? Keep sending me fucking Pick Me Up bouquets?"  I balled my fists and shouted into his face.  "I need a man, Paulie!  Not some whiny, dependent little fairy!"

"You'll be sorry!" he tried to shout, but it came out thin and strained.

"What are you gonna do, huh?" I demanded.  "You don't have the balls to do anything, little man.  You are powerless over me, and you have no power anywhere.  Now I'm done with you!  I have to get back in there to my client, and I'm done listening to your stupid shit!  Get out of here!  I never wanna see you again!" I spun and stormed back into the restaurant.

That was the last time I saw him, looking at him through the restaurant windows, crushed and enraged, there on the sidewalk. The last time I saw him in person, anyway.

A mutual friend who worked at the Pentagon, Trisha, told me that later, in December 2001, during the war planning, Paulie would always ask about me with remarkable bitterness.  She said when she told Paulie I was fine and had moved on, he'd always sit there and grumble and look over his maps of the Middle East.

Look over those maps with the scorn known only to a jilted lover.

So.  Maybe it is my fault we're in this mess.  I don't know.  I tried to make it work, but, as I always say, if it's not going to work out with an under-secretary of defense, it's just not going to work out with an under-secretary of defense. In the end, I did what was right for me and, I think, in the long run, for Paulie.

I just wish he'd stop using an entire sovereign nation in a geopolitically turbulent region to get back at me.

Chechnya: Oh, the Things You'll Learn!

I posted this in response to the following submitted request, raised shortly after the attack by Chechen rebels on a school: "In 30 words or less, explain the situation in Chechnya, preferably with poetry." 

***

Chechnya!
What's there to see?
Let's take a look at history!

First, Nicky I, he made a play
to make it his, one awful day.
With little weeble-wobbled men
he fought the brave caucasians.
Bap! they frought!
Bip! they froed!
And Nicky's men were made to goed!

Next Russians came (the olden ones)
With heavy coats and shiny guns.
They bonked Caucasians on the head
until the streets were filled with dead.
Bop! they hit,
and Bam! was heard.
And Chechnya was conquer-ered.

For fifty years they stayed that way,
'til Bolsheviks took stage to play.
(The Chechnyans were known back then
as scrappy little Dagestan.)

As Lenin read a book on Marx,
the Dagestans, they met in parks,
and darkened halls, and public squares,
and vowed to get right out of theres.

But Lenin smelled a dirty plot,
and all the traitor-ors were caught.
Zip! he ripped the land in two!
And Zap! he stuck them back with glue!
The Dagestans, they took their lick
and were made into a republic.

So under Soviets they'd fallen,
but then along came Mr. Stalin!
Old Uncle Joe! Boy, what a man!
He took the Chechens by the hand!
And beat them hard, in ways so many,
they looked for help from German-any.

Help us! they cried!
Save us! they pled!
For many had been rendered dead.
And Uncle Joe, he saw what's doing,
he smelled the independence brewing.

So in this mass his-teria,
he sent them to Siberia.
And Kazhakstan.
And to the grave.
Their freedom lost, which they did crave.
So in this state of prison-ation
languished weak, this one proud nation.

Their spirits broke, the fate of whims,
and soon along came Musl-ims.
From whence they came? We do not know!
They'd been shipped there
by Uncle Joe.

Now skip ahead, dear boids and girlds,
through coldish wars fought between worlds.
There came a time,
it came to be,
that Chechnya was finally free.

How's that?! you ask.
How come?! you beg.
I do not like green hams and egg!

What happened was (it's plain to see!):
The Soviets, they ceased to be.

Free! they were singin'!
At last! they were gushin'
But wait a sec--here come the Russians.

And so, again, their hope to be
allowed to run to, fro, and free
was gently pushed under the mat
by Bo Yeltsin,
the drunkocrat.

Boris tried to hold together
the states that were once of a feather.
But though he sat
and thinked,
and thunk,
Boris was a little drunk.

And he declared, one fateful day,
"I'll just make bad Chechnya stay!"
5,000 Russians (in '94)
came and knocked upon the door.

Be off! Chechens shouted!
Go 'way! Chechens blared!
But in a war they were ensnared.

Now here it gets a little sticky,
confusing
and a little tricky.

Remember the old musl-ims?
Who said their prayers and sang their hymms?
In Chechnya they were still there,
madly pulling at their hair.
"We've got a deal, we think it's handsome..."
And soon Russkies were taken ransom.
The war it waged, both day and night,
and radicals fought back with fright.

Boom! went the theater!
Bang! went the raid!
A tug of war...
For a decade.

And in the hazy, hanging smoke,
your wizened beard you sit and stroke.
Pondering aloud, "What has it brought
but hate
and death
and fear
and fraught?"

"Who will lose?" you wonder.
You ask, "Who will win?"
But ask any old Chechny-an....

He'll tell you, sadly,
thinking back,
to Nick and Joe,
and that whole pack:

"It doesn't matter, in the end,
who sits inside the Krem-a-lin.
Whether Lenin...
or Gorby...
or Boris..
or Putin...

Expect the same sometime again."

The Story So Far, or Sorry I Skipped The Sixties, Hippies

A re-print of a response to a thread on Fark.com that inquired, "What's the long story on why Fark does not accept links from Ananova (an internet-based news site)?"  I gave the questioner what he wanted.

***

First, before all, there was the Big Bang.  Stars formed thereafter, and then, planetary systems.  One such planet, out of eleventy billion billion was a small, insignificant planet that would, billions of years later, be called Earth.

The Earth cooled.  Molten masses cooled to form land masses, and soon, gases formed by the cooling molten masses formed base elements such as oxygen and hydrogen.  Water followed.

In time the Earth, lifeless, formed oceans that rose over the cooled masses. Billions of years later, these would form continents.  But for now they were, it is believed, a single land mass.

Through a complex interconnectedness of chemistry and physics, molecules formed.  Thereafter came amino acids.

In time, when the planet had cooled sufficiently, amino acids began merging to form the building blocks of that which we call life.

Single celled creatures arose. In eleventy million years they formed multi-celled organisms.  An abundance of life, mostly plant in nature, began spreading across the planet.  Soon, evolutionary forces created animal life.

Simple animals at first.  Little worms and plankton and such and such. Then came fish and other aquatic creatures.  In time, an unheralded creature whose unknown name will never be known, crawled from the water and settled in  muck. Over time, similar creatures evolved. Soon--over millions of years--other creatures dotted the landscape.  Dogs and pigs and such and such.  Over there, in the fields, some dinosaurs were gallivanting around.  Then a Big Rock came and killed all of them.  Back to square three.

Then, life evolved again, and smaller creatures that had survived the desolation brought by the Big Rock changed and grew.  Then came more dogs and pigs and such and such.

Then came the monkeys.  Soon, monkeys evolved into larger creatures that walked erect.  Their brain capacity grew.  In time, and with help from the Monolith, they learned to fashion bones into tools.  This still occurs in parts of Alabama.

Monkeys evolved into men, and men--who were largely nomadic in nature--began to gather together.  In time, an unheralded monkey-man, whose unknown name is lost to the sands of time, learned to generate fire from the rubbing of sticks.

Monkey-man became the species of man.  Men formed communities, gathering for hunt and shelter.  Over tens of thousands of years they formed societies, complete with unwritten rules derived by genetic necessity.

In the era of unrecorded history, man achieved miracles.  He invented oral traditions and from those oral traditions came lessons that became law.  Soon, man began writing down what he had learned, and history was born.

The earliest civilizations established the remarkable.  In the thick jungles of South America, natives built ziggurats and stone shelters.  They would later serve as the rebel base in "Star Wars."

In North Africa, a people known as Egyptians built mighty pyramids.  They were built by Jews, who served as slaves, and whose troubles were really only just beginning.

In greater Africa, tribes formed that would spend thousands of years battling over scarce resources.  Then they would battle the Belgians and the British and the French for their freedom.  When they got it, they would go right back to battling each other until they were largely laid low by a tiny virus.

In Asia, a mighty people would arise as great warriors and poets.  They eventually would make houses out of paper and offer three-item express carry-out for $4.95 (fried rice extra).

In Europe--where we shall dwell--a bland people arose.   Nomadic at first, they created villages and hamlets towns and then cities.   They brought great civilizations, and painful dancing moves.

First, there were the Greeks.  They invented a flawed concept, democracy, and a perfect one, butt sex.

Then there were the Gauls.  They invented and, over centuries, perfected, the art of surrender.  They consoled their losses in battle by grooming small, hated creatures called poodles.

Then there were the Romans.  They invented roads and aqueducts and arched constructs and a republican form of government and sanitation and atriums and perfected irrigation.  In time, their empire, savaged by invading hordes, would be reduced to inhabiting a land that looked like a boot.  After that, their achievements were reduced to one, Sophia Lauren.

Then there were the Celts.  They invented mead and, some historians claim, saved civilization through the preservation of history and the reproduction of scrolls and tablets into the form we now call a book.  They indeed saved civilization, but not for that reason.  They saved civilization because they invented mead.

Over time a great plague came, then a time of great darkness and desperation. Serf's up.  Then a renaissance, bringing velvet and oil-based art showing naked men and women and statues without arms but with perfectly crafted breasts and penises.  And life was good.

So good, in fact, that soon the Europeans wanted to see if there were breasts and penises in other lands.  They sent a man named Christopher Columbus to find India.  He went the wrong way and found North America.  The people who lived there were nevertheless called Indians  by the settlers, an early example of the magnanimity the people who would eventually settle there showed to different cultures.

After Columbus came the colonists.  The Spanish sent gold seekers, who would settle in South America and in greater Los Angeles.  The Gauls, having changed their name to the French under new management, settled in Canada to catch beaver and play on the ice.  The English got the rest.

The English colonists--on who we will dwell--formed "states" based on religious and political principles.  Georgia was founded as a Catholic state, but would later change its religion to NASCAR.  Massachusetts formed based on religious freedom and then, showing a level of rationality and practicality that would later hallmark the Big Dig, burned little girls as witches.  New York was founded as New Amsterdam, but then beat up Holland and called its mother names, and then became New York.

Over time these colonists became restless.  They didn't like being told what to do by a large, faceless foreign government, so they threw off the yoke of their oppression and fought two wars of independence, becoming the United States. Although it was the United States and only a part of the Americas, the citizens called themselves Americans, another example of the magnanimity the people there showed to different cultures.

Over one-hundred and fifty years later, the Americans became restless.  They didn't like being told what to do by a large, faceless domestic government.  But this time they invented television.

The invention of television spawned the invention of enormous machines called computers.  In time these were refined by a tribe called the Japanese, and then perfected by a tribe called Nerds.

These computers promised an age of advancement and enlightenment.  They promised answers to difficult scientific questions, and a revolutionary advancement in business.  They served as backdrop in a show called "Star Trek."

Soon a man named Al Gore was born, became an important governor of the people, and, bringing to bear all of his expertise as the son of a politician and a Tennessean, invented the internet.

The internet promised a greater age of information and a quantum leap forward in human knowledge.  What it delivered was a greater age of pornography and pop-up ads.

And then one glorious January morning a man named Drew Curtis--the equal of a Columbus, in many respects--used the internet to disseminate great knowledge to those throughout the land: he presented a large nut-sacked squirrel.  Like a golden calf, it drew others.  Soon, people from all over the land began submitting news items and funny stories.  Flame-wars ensued.  And sometimes, peace.  It was a site called Fark.

Many of the stories posted to Fark were soon misappropriated by a lesser news source called Ananova, which was created by fugitive Nazis and other ne'er-do-wells.  Drew Curtis inserted spikes and false stories into his site to detect misappropriation by Ananova.  And they were detected.  So Drew attempted satisfaction from the Ananova proprietors.  But none came.

Exercising sage wisdom and cold revenge, Drew cut Ananova off from Fark, and left it to wither and die in a sea of its own urine.

And that, my son, is the long story.

Serving Michael Moore

Back during the Presidential campaign of 2004 there was a rumor that Michael Moore was hanging out in Boston the week before the Democratic National Convention, directly advising the Kerry campaign.

This rumor is bullshit, and I have proof.

Michael Moore and I were on the same intra-mural volleyball league that summer in New Jersey.  I couldn't get into a competitive league here in D.C., where I work, or in Baltimore, where I live, so I looked outside the six-corners of the tri-state area and found one operating outside Newark.  Eight teams per league, slots open on two of their A League teams.  The "competitive" league.  Not the let's-get-together-and-have-fun B and C pussy leagues.  My mad skills can't be wasted teaching a bunch of buzzed snot-noses the ins and outs of the proper set-up.  I jumped on it, and became a Toano Auto Service MeatHammer.

Oh, sure, the commute was a hassle.  Games were every Thursday night, so I have to cut out at 2 and hop on 95 North to get there by 6.  But I left my suit jacket over the back of my chair and my computer on, so no one was the wiser.

So one night I get to the Rec Center where games are played, and I'm warming up with a few calisthenics on the faux beach they have near the softball diamond, nothing special, just a few dozen push-ups and a hundred or so crunches.  Just waiting for the rest of the team to get there, just waiting for my taste of the action.  Waiting to drive the ball right into the other team's faces and give them a little taste how we do volleyball Mid-Atlantic style.    

And up walks Michael Moore.

Oh, you could tell the second he came into sight that he was all about looking like he was trying to bring it.  Tattered Gold's Gym T, sleeves cut off to reveal his broad shoulders.  Those tight blue biker pants that showed everyone not only was he there to drill home some off-speed shots, but that he had the sack to do it, too.  Matching black headband and sweatbands, safety glasses, the works.

Well, I'm there stretching the quads and he kind of sidles up and throws down his big Adidas bag and starts doing toe-touches.  And I can tell he's looking at me out of the corner of his eye, sizing me up.  He stands up, stretches, and says, kind of quietly, "Good day for a game."

I bit.  What the fuck.  "Yeah, good day. Not too hot."

"Oh, it's gonna get hot, Nancy.  Don't you worry about that." He kind of chortled when he said it, the way only guys like him can.  And then he kind of sidled away again.

I won't bore you with the details of how the game progressed.  Needless to say, when the MeatHammers show up, we show up to play.  We served 'em up some of that South Jersey style, with a little extra Baltimore spin, if you get my meaning.  And the Franklin County Flintstones gave it right back to us.  Down balls and cross-court shots were punctuated by the grunting of straining bodies.  Guys  eating sand after every hit, the volleys going seven, eight sweeps long.  We were digging in so much the court looked like had been attacked by a backhoe. Sweat dripping from every pour, guys leaping in ways the body was not designed to handle.  It wasn't the Toano Rec Center Volleyball Court.  It was Omaha Beach.  And we were storming it.   

Here's what happened:  We're up by one and I'm playing front ranks.  I got a lot of sweat and more than a little blood in my eyes.  The rotation is just such that I'm facing off against Michael Moore.  Game point's on the line. 

"Told you it would get hot, Susie," he taunted wiping his brow on his meaty arm. "You think you have the stuff to take me, you pussy?  You don't know shit, assface."

The serve came and the Flintstones didn't dick around.  Beautiful pump, set, and a spike.  But the MeatHammers weren't giving up and my teammate Roy stopped the spike and passed beautifully to Hank, a longshoreman from the Jersey docks. The set-up he gave me could have been photographed and printed on a postcard. It was that beautiful.  Not too high, and just the right angle of lob to put the ball at its apex three feet above the net, just over my head and to the right a little.  I swear to Christ that thing just hung there, waiting.

Michael Moore and I went for it.

Now, I'm no thin minnie.  I've put on a little beef since high school, and let's face it:  who hasn't?  But I've got strong legs, strong enough to get me the lift I need just when I need it.  And when I went up, I could see Michael Moore was losing, just a little, to that cruel mistress we call gravity. 

I had him by two feet.

I am here to tell you that the ball was a blur when I spiked it.  I put everything I had into it, letting out a Paleolithic roar, and that ball fired down towards Michael Moore's face like a rocket-fired, asshole-seeking missile.  And it had found its target.

Michael Moore missed, of course, his bulky arms pinwheeling for purchase, and finding only the hot wake of my shot.  The ball hit him on the bridge of his nose, shattering his glasses.  He came down like a ton of bacon fat, hitting the earth with a booming thud.

He didn't move for five or ten seconds, but when he did, he came up holding his face.  "Holy fuckin' shit! You broke by nobse!" he cried, his team gathering around, pulling him up.  "You sub ub a bitch, by fuckig nobse!"

Needless to say, a fight broke out.  Arms swinging, guys falling to the sand, a real bench-clearer.  When all was said and done, though, the Flintstones were loading their wounded into their SUVs and we were limping over to Hapspert's Tavern with victory in our hearts.

My friend Rudy from Jersey, a Teamster who happened to be loading sound equipment for Miramax, told me that Michael Moore didn't show up at the film studio the next day, and heard from a buddy that he didn't show for work all week.  He was laid up at St. Vincent's.  Thirteen stitches, a broken rib, and a concussion.  He'd bitten his tongue, too, and had cracked a thumb and an index finger in the ensuing fight.

I sent him a get well card. Signed it "Sorry about the nose, Sally.  Don't ever fuck with me again."

So Michael Moore was in no condition to be tooling around Boston, advising the Kerrys, talking policy and putting together coherent sentences.  He was in the hospital, wringing the blood from his skirt and crying like a girl.

I know.

Because I put him there.

Hollywood Tales, part 2: Living with Liberace

A friend of mine just told me she's moving out of the apartment she's shared with her roommate, and will, for the first time in two years, be living on her own again.

"Oh, you're going to love it," I told her. "Living alone is the best thing in the world.  But, you know, if you get bored with it, you can always get a roommate to help with the rent.  Just don't get stuck with a Liberace."

Oh, sure, the first few weeks living with Liberace, things were fine.  We'd talk a  lot and a couple of times we even went to the park to get in on a pick-up game of five-on-five.  We went for beers a few times, and everything seemed fine.

But then it started going downhill.  Little things at first, nothing too annoying, but then it just gradually but rapidly escalated.  I'd come home from work and the mail would be sitting on the floor where the mailman had dropped it, because Liberace didn't pick it up.  I'd find stripped toilet paper tubes on the spool and would have to replace them, because Liberace was too slack to do it.  I'd have people over for dinner and would spend half the day picking up his gold rings and satin capes off the floor, because Liberace couldn't be bothered to put his shit away.  A couple of times friends would call and I wouldn't get the message because fucking Liberace was too fucking lazy to get his ass off the couch and find a goddamned pen.

I would come home from work and he'd be sitting on the couch eating Cheez Doodles and watching "The Christopher Lowell Show."  Dishes and plates everywhere.  I swear the guy never cleaned a goddamn piece of flatware the entire time we lived together.

"Have you done anything productive today? Any fucking thing at all?," I challenged him once, out of seething anger.  But Liberace just looked at me and calmly responded, "Nope. Just eatin' my Cheez Doodles, checkin' out some wainscoting."  I hated his laziness, his I-couldn't-care-less attitude, and the way he put his white leather shoes on the table.  My table, I should add.

For months it was like this.  The guy was between runs of his Vegas show, so he didn't leave the house except to run to the liquor store and get more beer. National Bohemian, which I hated, and he knew it.

"Can't you at least pick up a six pack of Miller Lite?" I'd ask, only to be answered with a cold silence from Liberace.  "Maybe just a 40 of Malt liquor, you inconsiderate bastard?" I would slam the refrigerator door hard, sometimes knocking over a candelabra.

I spent a lot of time in my room when we lived together because after a while I couldn't stand to look at him.  And even though he was late with the rent every fucking month ("Oh, man. I forgot to bring my checkbook home from work," he'd offer.  "What work?" I'd ask, a question always answered with a sheepish downcast look and then days of me haranguing him for the money), he still thought he was the king of the place.  Parties until two with that goddamned Rachmaninoff blaring out of the Baby Grand, staying up all night with his stoner friends--I was at my wit's end with this clown, Liberace.

The last straw was when I came home and found my computer had been used while I was at work.

"Hey," I started, furious.  "What the fuck is going on? Who the fuck said you could use my computer?"

"I didn't use the computer," he said.

And the killer was that the fucker looked me straight in the eye when he said it, too.

"Well, okay, Columbo, if you didn't use it and I was at work, who do you think came in here and turned on the computer and typed away, leaving fucking chocolate smudges all over my keyboard?"

"I dunno," he attempted, cramming the last of his Chunky into his fucking mouth.

I snapped.  "I want you out of here by the end of the week. I'm going to New York tomorrow on business, and I want you gone when I get back. I've had it with you and your bullshit!"

I stormed out of the room, giving him no time to come up with a pathetic and lame answer, which he would have.  I was finished, and I didn't want to give him the chance to weasel his way into staying.  Clean break, that's what I always say.

When I got back from New York, he was gone.  But so were some of my CDs. Glenn Gould, Bernstein, nothing I couldn't live without, but I was pissed.  I knew he was probably staying at his stoner friend Steve's house, so I called Steve up at work.  Steve was the delivery boy for Happy Fortune Buffet, so his number was on the fridge.

"Hep youuuu?"

"Lemme talk to Steve."

"Hord on."

Chinese yelling in the background.

"Hello?"  It was Steve.  I layed in immediately.

"Steve, this is Lars.  I want you to give my old roommate Liberace a fucking message for me."

Stoner puzzlement.  "Who is this?"

"4650 Washington Blvd., Apartment 410.  Chicken Lo Mein, no mushrooms."

Recognition.  "Oh, hey, dude, what's goin' onnnn?"

"I know he's staying with you, Steve.  Liberace.  So you tell him I want my CDs back by the end of the week or I'm calling the cops.  This is for the cops."

Then I hung up.

I never called the cops because it wasn't that big a deal, but after about a month I came home and my CDs were sitting in front of my door.  All except the Gould. There's was also a note from Liberace.

Lars--

Here are the CDs. I can't find the Glenn Gould, I think Steve sold it for weed. Anyway, here's my last month's rent, too.  Sorry I used your computer.  Sorry it didn't work out.

--Liberace

Inside there was a money order for $675, his last month's rent and a little more.  I guess the guy at least had a sense of conscience and a grain of honesty after all.

I never heard from Liberace again.  Once, when I was at Safeway, he was in the checkout line two registers down, buying milk and piano wire.  He saw me and kind of nodded his head.  I nodded back.  But we never spoke.

I cashed the money order and paid the outstanding rent, and used some of the leftover money to get some new CDs. My favorite, if you can believe it, is one I got at a Record & Tape Traders shortly after he moved out.  I play it every day. It's pretty good, actually.

Liberace: Live at the MGM Grand.

Fucking guy.

Hollywood Tales, part 1: Johnny Depp Owes Me Thirty Dollars and Fifty-Eight Cents

Johnny Depp owes me thirty dollars and fifty-eight cents.  There's a tale behind that statement, and it goes a little something like this:

So one night I'm hitting Sky Bar with some friends, right?  Just a regular old night out on the town, grab a few dirty martinis, talk with some women, laugh it up, relax, no big deal.  And wouldn't you know it, but just as we're all about to pile into the Escalade--me, Crazy Larry, True Rudy, Roz and Mikey--who calls up?  Who phones up and worms his way into tagging along with us like some annoying kid brother?  That's right, Johnny Fucking Depp.

Now, I know there are those of you who think there's some kind of mystique to Johnny Depp.  That he's far wiser than his years, that you can see his soul in his eyes, that he's a brilliant talent, a deep well of quietude spilling forth with intense blah blah blah.  But anyone who knows him--I mean, really, really knows him--knows that Johnny Depp is just one unbelievably annoying motherfucker. 

Let me give you a for instance: this one time we all pull up to Roy Rogers for a quick bite before hitting a party in Santa Monica, and old Johnny Depp--who just had to tag along even though he knew the car was full and Crazy Larry would have to ride in the way back--takes, like, ten minutes to get his burger all done up right at the Fixin's Bar.

Now, you know me.  I like a well made burger as much as the next guy.  But I take what's on the bar and I boogie on out.  A little lettuce, a little onion, maybe some of that famous Roy's Bar-B-Que, whatever, I grab it, I slap it on, and zip-a-dee-doo-dah, man, I'm gone, back on the road to the next great adventure.

But even though he goddamn knows we're off to this party and we're all hot to get there, Johnny's gotta be all "I'm sorry, but do you have any onion slices back there that are fresher?" or "Excuse me, miss? Could I get this lettuce washed off?" And always with that voice, the soft one, the one he phoned in his performance in Secret Window with.  And this particular vignette plays itself out every fucking time with the Fixin's Bar, man.  Every fucking time. 

So, as I was saying, we're all piling into the Escalade, getting ready to roll out to Sky Bar, and my cell rings.  And I know it's Johnny, because I have a special ring tone for him, like a warning bell.  Well, shit, man, Johnny Depp knows I'm around, so I have to answer.

"Hey, Johnny Depp," I say curtly, trying to sound disinterested and busy.  "What do you want?"

"You guys going out tonight?" he asks.  That fucking soft voice again, the Crybaby voice.

"Yeah, we're going out," I say, sighing, as I signal the It's-fucking-Johnny-fucking- Depp eye roll to my friends.  Crazy Larry mutters, "Shit, man, hang up."

"Can I come along?" he asks, and there it is.  He always just puts it right out there.  He's the king of the self-invite.  And what the hell are you supposed to say?  No, Johnny Depp, sorry, you can't come?  That's not me, man.  For as much as a beatdown tool as Johnny Depp is, I like to think I'm all about the inclusion.

"Yeah, I guess.  But we're going to Sky Bar, so wear something nice."  I hang up and True Rudy's all, "What the fuck, man?!  That guy's beat!"

"Yeah, yeah, but what the fuck you want me to do?  Guy's got no friends, man!  Tell him no?  You fucking tell him no!"

"Guy's fucking beat," True Rudy says, resigning. 

Ten minutes later we're in front of Johnny Depp's house, laying on the horn because the guy's always running behind.  So out he comes, kind of bounding down the stairs, and he's wearing some Sean John jeans and a black jacket, which is cool, I guess, but also he's got on this ridiculous fucking patterned printed shirt, probably something Tim Burton gave him.

"What the hell are you wearing? We're going to Sky Bar, not the circus, dude," says Crazy Larry.  He's not really crazy, that's just what they call him.

"I'm sorry. But my dry cleaners was closed today."

"Crap, you can't wear that, man," said Roz.  "You need to change your shirt."

"But I don't have anything else to weaaar..."  I hate when Johnny Depp gets that whiny little bitch voice.  So infuriating.

So what do I do?  We it's already two hours later than we wanted to get to the bar, and we don't have the time or the patience to let him go back in and pick what would probably be just some other fucked up shirt.  So I hand Johnny Depp an extra shirt of mine that I had in the back of the Escalade.

"Don't ruin this, man, I just got it from Chess King," I tell him.  Then he's all promising not to get it dirty and stuff, and he's crammed in the back, pushing Crazy Larry and Mikey onto the hump, just making a general nuisance of himself.

Then, true to form, he starts in with the fucking Terry Gilliam stories.  Jesus, don't get me started on how dull those are.  "I talked to Terry today," "I talked to Terry today."  Guy's a broken fucking record when it comes to Terry Gilliam. Christ, just get married and be done with it.

So we roll up in front of Sky Bar and get out, and Johnny Depp almost trips getting out like some Palo Alto nerd poser, and we go in.

Well, to cut to the chase, we get a few drinks and kinda split up, doing a lap of the room, not wanting to look like a pack of dicks on the prowl.  About fifteen minutes later I'm dancing with this sweet Betty from Venice Beach--she's a screenwriter, which is cool--and we're hitting it off.  The next thing you know, though, Johnny Depp's screaming at me from across the bar.

"Hey! Hey! I just saw Jon Favreau! I saw him in the men's room!"

Christ in a bucket, you'd think Johnny Depp would realize, yeah, hey, surprise surprise, we're in L.A., dude.  You're going to see celebrities.  Being one, you think the guy'd not get all girlie about it.  Plus, you see Favreau everywhere, so it's no big deal.

But no.  Johnny Depp has to make an ass out of himself.

"Dude! Come over here! Favreau's in the men's room!"

Well, I guess he got so excited and had to make sure I saw Favreau that he comes running across the dance floor.  And as I'm watching this fucker, he bumps into a chick and the next thing you know, Johnny Depp's ass above teakettles on the dance floor, and lands spread eagle from his fall.

Well, I was mortified.  I mean, really fucking embarrassed.  "Is that guy a friend of yours?" the Venice screenwriter asks, and I say all apologetically, "Yeah, sort of.  That's Johnny Depp."  Then I have to go help him because I don't want to look like a complete asshole who won't help his friends, no matter how annoying they are.  So I help him up, right?  And guess what.

The little fucker had ripped my new shirt.

"Goddamnit, man, that shit was new!" I screamed.  I was hot.  That thing was imported silk, high stitch, the works.  And it was ruined. 

Well, Johnny Depp just looks up at me with those stupid dopey eyes of his and starts making these really embarrassing apologies.

"I...I'm sorry, man! I...I didn't mean--I just was trying. I was just coming to tell you--"

"Yeah, yeah, I know! Jon Favreau."  I looked at the shirt again.  "Shit, Johnny Depp, that shirt was expensive!  God!"

Well, we bolted after that, me, Crazy Larry, Roz the whole crew.  The second Johnny Depp went to the bar to get drinks to make up for being a tool, well, we just kind of all looked at each other and ditched his dumb ass there.  That was Thursday last.  I haven't heard from him since, and I'm sure he knows I'm still pissed at him.  That was a nice fucking shirt, man.

So if you see Johnny Depp, you tell him he owes me thirty dollars and fifty-eight cents.