Call Me Ricky

I've done it again.
   A while back I posted about a predicament entirely of my own making. Seems one of my neighbors started calling me 'Dan' and I never corrected him, figuring that there was no way we'd live near each other long enough for that to be an issue. Fast forward six years and Bob was still calling me 'Dan' and I had let it go on so long that I couldn't correct him without it becoming obvious that I was negligent, dismissive prick.
   It's happening again.
   At work there's a lady - whose name I do not know, and I'm fairly certain we've never been formally introduced - who called me Richard. She did this in passing a few weeks ago and I wasn't certain she was talking to me. So I let it slide.
   Then she did it again a week or so later. Again, not looking at me, but I was the only male in the room so unless 'Richard' is a mouse in someone's pocket she was talking to me.
   She did it again Monday. Richard. Not looking at me but clearly couldn't be talking to anyone else. I don't even know where that comes from, the initial on my ID badge, which I wear diligently, is a big bold 'D.' There must be another devilishly handsome, generously endowed man named Richard who resembles me wandering the office from time to time. It's really the only explanation.
   I am half-tempted to let this one go too. Not because I can't be bothered to correct her... well, not entirely for that reason... but because I want to explore why she calls me by someone else's name. She hasn't looked at me once when she's using the wrong name, so I suspect she doesn't really know my name, and is using the wrong one to prompt me to correct her. And if that's the case I absolutely cannot. It's the principle of the thing.
   I'm thinking of it as a science experiment. Sure... let's go with that.

I Need A Theme Song

I was watching Guys and Dolls last night, the movie version with Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando. Yes, I own a copy, you got a problem with that? I didn't think so...
   Anyway... Sinatra sings most every song in the movie, EXCEPT for the one he's probably most recognized for. In the movie Brando sings 'Luck Be A Lady' not Sinatra. Yes, Brando sings, and evidently he really did, they say that's his voice on the soundtrack. But, aside from 'New York, New York' that song, 'Luck Be A Lady' is what most people know Sinatra for, especially with the Baise orchestra backing him. It's kind of his theme song. Whenever I think of this song I think of Sinatra, and whenever I think of Sinatra I think of this song.
   I need a musical score like that. You know, something iconic, something that ties me to it and it to me down through the ages. Something that could accompany me as I make my rounds in the salons, imparting my bon mots to a mildly amused intelligentsia.
   So I thought it through and came up with a few suggestions. I went through a few iterations before I found the perfect one.

Some Kind of Wonderful, Grand Funk Railroad.
   Hold on, this is about a girl... maybe not. Besides, who remembers the Railroad except hippie burnouts? Well, and me.

Been Caught Stealing, Jane's Addiction
   Except I haven't been caught. Not that I steal. That any of you people know of. Don't need to call attention to that. So that one's out.

Free For All, Ted Nugent
   Uh... while I might be The Nuge where it counts, deep inside - and the tune is definitely catchy - I think people might get the wrong idea if they heard this whenever I was around. Or maybe too much of the right idea. Keep looking.

Nobody Home, Pink Floyd
   Quite possibly my favorite Floyd tune. But it's about a guy slowly going crazy as his wife cheats on him. Mebbe not just yet for this one.

Sex Machine, James Brown
   Nah, hits too close to home and sounds more like an advertisement or testimonial. Or bragging. Try again.

If I Should Fall From Grace With God, The Pogues
   And... we have a winner. A jaunty Irish tune that's filled with macabre imagery sung by a man who got kicked out of an Irish band for drinking too much. Yup, that's right. He was too drunk for an Irish band.

So now you can all imagine that song following me wherever I go. The grocery store, the gas station, the gym, the office. You know, everywhere a reel performed by an inveterate lush is appropriate.

Buzzards

Okay, technically turkey vultures, but we called them buzzards growing up. They'd circle the thermals out in the country, waiting for something to die. Since they're vultures they're carrion birds which means they eat dead animals, but you knew that. In the mornings in West Texas, where they have to roost on the ground, you can see them standing on fence posts with their wings outstretched to dry so they can begin the day's scavenging. They're big too, like two or three feet tall. And stink... whoo boy. They're all over the countryside around Texas.
   And now, evidently, they're operating well within the San Antonio city limits.
   Time was you knew you were in the country when you started seeing buzzards. Last week I saw two of them perched on a lamp post near my house, and just today I saw two perched on a lamp post near my mother's house. Two different sets of buzzards, lurking in suburban neighborhoods.
   Unless they were the same two buzzards both times, stalking me as they wait for me to keel over from the heat...
   Ignoring my paranoid conspiracies, I don't think having turkey vultures in town is a good thing. Aside from them being terribly ugly and not at all in keeping with the non-Gothic architecture, vultures are country birds, they don't belong on lamp posts. And yet, there they are, like Beaky Buzzard* in Death Valley.
   Why?
   What has changed to bring turkey vultures into the city? And I don't mean on the fringes, I mean smack dab in the middle, with miles to go in any direction before they find what used to be their natural habitat.
   Kind of scary, if you think about it. I don't mean in my paranoid 'are the buzzards following me?' kind of way, I mean in the 'why did a species of wild animal change its habits so drastically?' way.
   Besides, they creep me out, hanging around like my street is some kind of Old West Boot Hill. They need to go find a dead armadillo or something and leave me the hell alone.


*reference courtesy of the Warner Bros Archive of Cartoons Kids Don't Watch Nowadays

Snap, Crackle, Creak

I have to get used to new sounds.
   Back in SoCal I'd been in my place so long - eight years - there were sounds I just didn't hear any more. Like the guy next door leaving for work on his Harley. Or the garbage trucks backing up beeping, or the shower from the apartment downstairs.* Sounds so regular that I knew what they were and ignored them.
   Now I have a whole new set of sounds. Not creaks, this house I'm renting is too new for that, but there are... pops? Something falling? Something outside?
   Every time I hear a new sound my frightened-mammal brain perks up, it wants to know what caused that sound, where it came from, and how to prevent it from making that noise again. It's exhausting paying attention all the time.
   There are some things I recognize. Dogs outside. Training airplanes from the Air Force base flying overhead. Wind chimes from the wind-chime family in the house behind this one. I know what these are but I'm not used to them. And I'm certainly not used to the 'snap' of the refrigerator coming on. Or the clunk the ceiling fan makes when it is just coming up to speed. Or the moan of air being sucked up the chimney flue when the wind blows hard.
   I'll give it time. I really am glad to be home, but this is going to take some getting used to.



* I never got used to the fire trucks at the old folks' home across the street. Whenever I heard an approaching siren I held my breath, because if the sound stopped in front of my apartment that meant emergency workers were responding to a call in the old folks' home. I always hated that.

Swirling Chemicals

I've been sick for a while now. A week, give or take. My illness moved from a simple cold to a sinus infection, confirmed by a visit to the doctor. And to combat that I now have a whole new cocktail of chemicals running rampant through my system.
   First there is the antibiotic. Amoxicillin. A full 10-day course. This will deplete not only the bad bugs in my system, but it will get rid of the good bugs too. Antibiotics usually mean diarrhea.
   So, to combat that I bought some probiotics. Yakult, which, come to find out, is actually made in Mexico - ironic considering I got it to keep from getting the Hershey squirts - and some stuff from the Vitamin Shoppe. Hopefully that will put beneficial flora back in my gut to replace what the antibiotics kill off.
   I also got some vitamin C. Which does make my pee an alarming, almost super-heroic shade of yellow, but otherwise I'm not certain does anything but add to the chemicals coursing through my bloodstream.
   I have some decongestant still hanging around too. Sudafed. Which, if I were a chemist and totally amoral I could turn into meth.
   Then there's the nasal spray. I got it free from the doctor, but it's a nasal steroid, so that's added to the brew inside me. It also really dries out the boogers in my sinuses, so that in the morning I basically blow out the lining of my nose. Which I think is cool but others might have a different idea.
   So instead of blood in my veins I now have a witch's cauldron of eye of newt and wing of bat. I'm not so certain it's good for me, to tell you the truth. But at least I can breathe at night.

... And That Little Boy Smile

I have a black velvet painting of Elvis. I've had it for years, it was a present from a friend who knew of my fondness for midways, carnies, Vegas, and all things vaguely seedy and disreputable. He got it in Mexico, Neuvo Laredo I think, as part of a weekend-long excursion he only remembers bits of. The best part is the frame, which he got for an extra dollar. It's just mitred wood, there's nothing to actually hang the picture, which means it's been sitting on my floor for years. I vacuum it every so often - really - to keep the white-jumpsuited, Mexican-looking Elvis happy.
   My philosophy in life has been 'if it's good enough for Elvis, it's good enough for me.' Not that I've ever had the funds to do most of what Elvis did, or the toadying hangers-on to make doing those things worthwhile. But I'm working on it. So I figure a good first step would be for me to get my own black velvet portrait done. Once I have my smiling face beaming down from a wall somewhere I know I'll have arrived, and the rest will just fall into place. I can get a 'TCB' three-finger ring, a big ol' convertible Caddy, and I can start shooting televisions. And a cape. I need a cape.
   It's a natural progression - black velvet painting of myself, then all the stuff, then the cape, then financial independence. The way is so clear, I don't know why I didn't see it before. All I have to do is find someone to paint a black-velvet portrait of me and I'll be just like Elvis.
   I'll take a pass on dying on the toilet, though, if it's all the same to everyone else.

Time To Be A Kid?

I overheard a phone conversation the other day, one of the ladies who sits near me at work was trying to coordinate her family getting places on time and in one piece. She's at that unfortunate age where she not only has kids to keep track of - and her husband, of course - but she also has to provide some care for her parents as well. She's got twice the family she thought she did.
   Anyhoo, she was trying to figure out how her daughter could get where she needed to go while also making sure her son made his appointment/practice/hearing/whatever. Lots of things going on, and I chalked it up to 'just one of those days.' Until it happened again. And again. Pretty much every day her kids have places to be and things to do and people to meet, several different activities every day. They're waaaay overscheduled.
   But her kids aren't alone. Most kids these days have all manner of practices and appointments and meetings and what-have-you. It's just crazy. Insane in the membrane.
   When I was in high school I had several activities and clubs I participated in, which mostly I used as an excuse to stay away from home. Teenagers need that kind of thing to find out who they are. But that's not what I'm talking about. These are elementary school kids. Practically babies.
   When I was in elementary school my only activity was playing the cello, and then later I did gymnastics. But I also had time to lay on the lawn and stare up at clouds. Which I did a lot. Or build model cars. Or run around the neighborhood with my friends trying to find the line between fun and vandalism*.
   I think it's a lucky kid these days who can loafe and spend a lot of quality time doing absolutely nothing. There needs to be more 'do nothing' time in schools. We don't need perfectly-behaved robots, we need imaginative, productive members of society. And we're not going to get those kinds of adults if we don't let kids be kids.
   Remember: every day your kid has more things to do than you have yourself, the terrorists win.



*     come to find out the line for fun intrudes well across the line for vandalism. It's fun to toss dead florescent tubes from the fifth floor of a church under construction. They explode good, real good. Makes you feel like Zeus.

Talkin' Bout A Clambake

It's been a while since I've seen an Elvis movie. And by that I mean sat down and watched one, start to finish. Sure I've clicked through the channels and run across one now and then, but it's been so long since I've become absorbed in one. You know, let it wash over me and just appreciated it for what it was.
   So today I watched 'Clambake.'
   I gotta say, it's not bad, not bad at all. It is an Elvis movie, so he does sing about regular stuff. Like having a clambake, or painting a boat, or being a millionaire trading places with a pauper water ski instructor so he can find true love with Shelley Fabares. You know, what everybody sings about in their own lives.
   Made in 1967, Clambake was the start of Elvis's resurgence, the media storm that resulted in the black-leather Elvis Comeback Special of 1968. He wasn't as young as he was when he made 'Jailhouse Rock' and he wasn't as bloated and jumpsuited as he was towards the end, in the mid-70's. This was Elvis as most people remember him, in his early 30's and vital.
   Since it was made in '67 there is a lot of smoking in 'Clambake,' and themed jazz dinner clubs, and 'dancing' that looks as odd as it must certainly have felt. And the message is about young people trying to find themselves and make their own way in the world. Very much of its time.
   But it was fun. I didn't feel robbed of two hours as I usually do when I watch a more recent movie. And I felt good afterward, like my cares had been released, at least for a time.
   So if you're feeling down don't reach for booze, or food, or cheap sex with strangers. Or cheap sex with someone who owns a themed jazz dinner club, just find an Elvis movie and watch. It'll cure what ails you.