A Big Splash

He was different. You could not help but notice this the moment he entered the YMCA natatorium. It was the way he walked, up on the balls of his bare feet, with his hands out at his sides. He looked like a young girl in her mother's high-heels, in danger of toppling over. My two friends and I quit our tomfoolery to watch him.

To my surprise he came directly over to where I stood aside the diving board.

"I can make a bigger splash than you," he said.

With that he hopped up on the diving-board.He paused for a moment, then he sailed off the end of the board and up into the air. He tucked his knees into his chest and came down with a resounding cannon-ball. I followed after him with a jack-knife. By the time we pulled ourselves out of the pool we were both laughing and ready for the next go round.

"See," he said. "I told you."

For the next half-hour he and I and my two friends turned the pool water choppy with our vast repertoire of splash making plunges off the end of the board.

Afterwards while we were toweling off and changing into our street clothes I asked him why he walked the way he did. He said it was due to an ice-skating accident. With that he asked me to accompany him to a near by drug store. There was something he said that he needed to get.

The sky was slate gray and overcast, a typical New England fall day. We kicked at pebbles on our way to the store.

Inside the store was festooned with ghouls and goblins, witches and ghosts. Without hesitation he walked directly over to the aisle with headache remedies and slipped a bottle of baby aspirin into his coat with the finesse of a practiced thief.

With that we left the store. Beneath the slate gray skies he offered me an aspirin. I declined. He popped one into his mouth, chewed it down to nothing, and swallowed. He had another and another. He said he like the flavor and had another.

By the time we made it back to the YMCA he had eaten the entire bottle. We parted company then. He went to one part of the building and I to another. An hour or so passed.

I was not surprised when the ambulance came. Even if I was only eleven years old I knew enough about medicine to know that it was not candy. Paramedics wheeled him out on a gurney. They placed him in the back of the ambulance and closed the doors. I watched the ambulance go until its siren and whirling red lights faded in the distance.

I never saw him again.

In the ensuing forty years that have come and gone since that day I have thought of him off and on. And when I do I like to think that he became the queen he was destined to be and that he continues to make a big splash whenever he enters a room.

A Band Driven By Ideas

Son of C.O.D. was a headier band than Cargo of Despair. The group came into being when three of us original members of the latter group all wound up living in the general environs of Atlanta, in 2002. (This was some ten years after the demise of Cargo of Despair.) We were once again a band. No longer however were we armed with guitar, bass, and drums. We were also no longer penning such ditties as Flipper:

Get it up my flipper he sure looks fine

Driving his Mercedes down Hollywood and Vine

See him flip his fins to the ladies walking by

He can pick up any cutie just by winking his eye

Chorus:

Flip flop flippy flop, flip flop flip

Man that porpoise is really hip

Flip flop flippy flop, flip flop flip

I really dig that flippers trip.

He’s a well-hung porpoise if the rumors are true

And the National Inquire says he loves to screw.

He’s free basing coke and popping pills

And cruising all night through them Hollywood hills.

Chorus:

He made a million bucks on his TV show

And he spends all his money on brawds and blow

He loves getting off between the girls legs

And he wonders if the kids will come out caviar eggs.

Chorus.

Flip flop flippy flop, flip flop flip

Flip flop flippy flop, flip flop flip

Flip… flop… flippy…flop… flip… flop… flip...

Verse and chorus songs were a thing of the past. So too for the most part was our standing up. Son of C.O.D. was more of a seat of your pants band. We sat and twiddled with knobs and veered ever away from conventional music structure.

Our improvised compositions were based on ideas rather than raw emotions. For instance our “lyrics” for one piece of music were entrees from a Chinese menu that we recited, recorded, and then burned onto 3 CDs that we played back on 3 different CD players set on shuffle. These we broadcasted through our PA system and accompanied with flute, audio bleats, and Theremin. Another composition saw us incorporating birdcalls and wood-chimes. Then we left melody completely behind and constructed music for instance that subsisted entirely of tones of varying frequencies. It was as if a hearing test had gone completely awry.

But don’t get me wrong. There were also sublime moments when we poured into the music more than simple thought process. But those moments were perhaps too few to sustain us as an ongoing enterprise. Before we imploded five or six years into it however we shared some magical interludes and wowed some audiences.

At one point we incorporated an electric clothes dryer into our sound making and stage presentation. I can still see the dropped jaw couple in the audience staring into the strobe-light illuminated tumbling mouth of our dryer filled with rocks, metal, smoke bomb, and other debris. Id never seen such intent staring as I witnessed in that young couple. It was a look to broach a cliché that I’ll carry to the grave.

Not too long after that show we gave what would be our final performance, a heated rendition of the Door’s Lizard King. It was a fitting end to which I believe we will never return. Son of C.O.D. resides now in history and memories with Cargo of Despair.

Pancakes Are My Weakness.

Pancakes are my weakness, burritos and sushi too. If I had to, say by some weird gastronomical decree, I could eat them each and every day. Fortunately however my daily menu is not so militant. There is plenty of wiggle room. Thus some mornings I scoop cereal from my milk drenched breakfast bowl, while other days start with a muffin, scone, or raisin-toast. Or a serving of yogurt with some freshly sliced fruit. I'm ever versatile when it comes to my first nutrients of the day. As long as there is rich, dark coffee I am all set.

Then it's off into the day until mid-afternoon when it is time once again to feed the machine. You can't let the engine run out of fuel. Give it some cheese for instance, preferably grilled, between two slices of buttered bread slathered in the middle with a hearty brown mustard. Or perhaps it's pasta you prefer. Or maybe fish. Either is fine. But don't forget, you can never go wrong with any combination of rice or beans. I even know a place up the street where you can get a fried chicken taco. Call it the cuisine of southern Mexico. The thing of it is all that really matters is that you take a break in your day to consume some nourishment. That's not too much to ask, is it?

Come evening time the supper hour rolls around. This is a meal best enjoyed amid family and friends. Food for this meal is best served family-style in large bowls that are passed among the gathered. Sharing is a state of grace. Take time among your loved ones. Talk, relax. This is the meal that truly separates us from the beasts.

And what of snacks? By all means indulge. If the Hindus are wrong you only go 'round once. Why not do so while taking every so often an extra slice of pie, or a freshly peeled orange. It's taste is almost of nectar.

There is too another meal celebrated most often on Sundays with mimosas, bloody Marys, or the hair of the dog. Even if you are not imbibing alcohol this is a wonderful meal best served in the company of friends. So sip your coffee and share your New York Times. You know you'll never read the whole thing no matter your determination to do so. The world at large is demanding your attention. There are trips to the big box stores to attend to. And you've got to get home to let out the dog. Not to worry. All in good time.

And while your at it, on your way home, why not pick up some steaks. You know your just dying to break out the grill.

A Gold Fervor Daydream

The wrong set of parents brought me home from the maternity ward. I know this because all evidence points to my being a leisure class baby. Take for instance my attitude about work. I've always had disdain for whatever my labors. It mattered not what the job, of which I've had many. I've regarded them all with the haughty air of one to the manor born. Then too there is the way in which I wallow in the empty hours with little to do. One would think upon regarding me in my down time that this was my true calling. And I would have to agree: With all apologies to Mr. Sartre, but I put the being into nothingness. I can also cat nap the fur off of any given siamese, Persian, or calico. Just give me an afternoon of labor free indulgence and I will curl up with a smile and a standard set of fantasies, all of them centered on lottery wins. And as surely as sleep will eventually over take me in these fallow hours I will in the mean time petition heavenward for the right combination of Mega Million numbers. And you may trust that I will do so with pious promises of magnanimous dispensing of my deity's delivered riches.

Be that as it may I wonder where my rightful mom and dad are. Perhaps they are out back on the veranda of the country manse imbibing mimosas or mint juleps. And what of that phantom aroma of a fine Cuban cigar now wafting this way. Is that my true father smoking in contemplation, wondering why his namesake is such a dolt? If only he knew that I was his rightful heir. How proud I would make him with repartee, bon mots, and philosophical conversations imbued with esoteric footnotes.

But no. Such is not to be. The curse it is cast. I am the son of a blue collar couple who is fated to work until my final years of AARP

For the last ten months however I have been gainfully unemployed. I have borne these unimpeded hours with a measure of sloth. An afternoon has not passed with out a nap, each one a horizontal reward for a morning's labor of surfing the net. For the job of the unemployed is looking for work. Thus Monday through Friday in the AM hours I sit at this keyboard crafting cover letters for jobs I don't truly want. In this matter you might say I am a pragmatic liar.

But what if I didn't have to lie? (insert angelic chorus) What if the world were as I daydream it? Wouldn't that be grand - for me anyways. Yes. I would make my way in this world with a benevolent Midas touch doling out riches rather than turning others into gold. How great that would be. I see it all clearly. It is truly meant to thusly unfold.

Pardon me then if you will. Mine is a mission blessed by God Himself. Hark unto me I say. And behold this righteous servant doling out the dollars gained through lottery win. Thank me if you will. It matters not. I dispense the green not for adoration. No. I do so out of a loftier mindset. Let then the trumpets that rendered the walls of Jericho into rubble blow their clarion call: As it was said, all is right with those of my ilk for I am come bearing bills of grand denominations. Have a few my friend. There are plenty more where they came from.