Posts

s T r E a M # 4 0

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You missed the party. Well, you always miss the party. Well, you always miss. Well, you, well… and then you want to eat the potato chips at night. The medication is not recommended by everybody. Well, what’s the difference? Well, I soberly asked for the dip and she poured it all over my head. Maybe she was drunk. I don’t know. I did not attempt to sniff her breath. Maybe I should have. Had I tried, I would’ve tried to kiss her. And then, and then, Lord knows. That’s the one thing we know, don’t we? That the Lord knows. If He’s there, he KNOWS. And if he’s not there, who knows? Somebody has got to know, right? Somebody has to have all the keys to all of the doors. Right? Lord knows. Bo knows, too. Right? Or did he stop knowing once they stopped running those commercials? I don’t understand why they don’t recycle some of those old commercials. I don’t understand why they don’t use jingles much anymore. I’m so much more likely to remember a jingle than anything else advertisers throw my w...
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Eryk's Queenie (18 - 24 April 2001)

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The Playboy woman, whose old fogy folks don’t want her to rent the apartment to a cat owner, keeps calling Eryk. She keeps telling him how much she likes us (or likes him —although I get the sense that she’s not into guys—or perhaps she assumes he and I are a couple, this being “Boystown” after all). But Eryk will not part with that darn cat. * Although the Playboy woman pulled the “For Rent” sign from the building’s front door four days ago, she told Eryk that she’s showing the apartment “to a few more people.” Are we her fallback prospects? Either way, she is very friendly. But then personability is key when your job involves coaxing young women to disrobe and pose for a globally circulated publication. Then again, the place has been on the market for three months. So… she’s picky? Well, you gotta be a picky if you’re the one auditioning Playboy Playmates. Amirite?  18 April 2001  After being strung along for another week and a half, the Playboy woman told Eryk that her m...
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Lest You Forget Tiananmen Square...

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Three Quotes From Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four

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“In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion: the more intelligent, the less sane.”  “Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.”  “Winston stroked his nose gently with a paper-clip.”
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Eryk's Queenie (12 - 14 April 2001)

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You’re not gonna believe this. So, Eryk Eiríkr and I looked at a smallish two bedroom-ish apartment just five doors east of my current address. The woman who showed us the place (on behalf of her parents) works for Playboy magazine—for real! She has the arduous job of auditioning models—yes, that’s right, in the flesh. If we took the place, she told us she’d throw in a couple of Playboy T-shirts. The major drawback to living there, if we choose to do so (we’ll know tonight, after we look at several more potential bachelor pads), is that the one bath room is only accessible through one of the bedrooms. Meaning: One of us would have to sacrifice some privacy. 12 April 2001 Yeah, so, Eryk owns a high-maintenance feline named, Queenie. * I’ll explain. One may only pet this cat around her neck, under her chin, on most parts of her head, and up to halfway down her back. Touch her anywhere else and without warning she’ll bite you. She’ll also bite you once she’s had her fill of being pett...
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Temple Every Friday

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Pop likes to ask, "If God's in charge of everything, who appointed God?" He's asked rabbis and he's asked priests. He's being honest, too. You see, Pop was an accountant by trade; out of habit, he's got to account for everything and everyone.  Pop belongs to two temples (the reasons are somewhat complicated); he goes to one or the other every Friday evening. Since he doesn't like to drive at night, I chauffeur him and his "companion," Betty, to and from whichever temple. Thanks to his two lousy hearing aids, he can't even hear the service. He goes all the same. Afterward, Betty, with her shaky memory, does her best to sum up the rabbi’s “drasha” on the car ride home.  Back when Grandma was alive, Pop rarely went to temple at all. Sure, like everybody else, they’d attend a service or two during the High Holy Days—Pop would even serve as an usher. But after many years of this, Grandma finally asked, "Why are we paying dues to two templ...
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S T r E a M # 3 9

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When I had the baby I didn’t think she would be so green. I figured she’d be more orange, like her mother, or, perhaps a shade of turquoise, like me. I am turquoise, through and through. I am a semiprecious stone, “typically opaque and of a greenish-blue or sky-blue color, consisting of a hydrated hydroxyl phosphate of copper and aluminum.” * But I don’t mean to brag. When I pooped out the baby, she said, “Mazel tov!” And I said, “Bitch, that’s MY line!” And I said to the doctor, “Bitch stole my line!” And that’s when the baby commenced to cry. And that’s when the doctor said that I’d given birth to a healthy baby girl. All this from eating that funky pizza. I should’ve known. I was warned, but what can you do? It looked tempting. And I was hungry. So she grew up and became a success at everything and retired young and traveled across the universe and set me up for life in a mansion atop Mount Rainier. She’d purchased Mount Rainier for a pittance. I was left all alone. She didn’t mean...
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"Is It On?" (Part Two)

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Clive and I have recorded exactly fourteen hours of conversation. It started when he picked me up at the Linden Purple Line Station last Monday and it ended last night. We did not record for fourteen hours straight. No, I had work and sleep and hunger and various chores and errands to contend with; but every time we spoke—even on the phone—the tape was rolling. (That is, assuming I didn’t forget to turn the thing on.) We may even record Friday night’s Star Wars Trivial Pursuit Extravaganza with Eryk Eiríkr. *  Alas, a few seemingly precious moments of conversation were, inadvertently, left out of this week’s recording sessions. (Id est, it wasn’t on.) How curious that the best stuff always seems to escape the tape.  29 March 2001   * [Not his legal name, nor one he chose of his own accord.]
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“Is It On?” (Part One)

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My Timex reads four o’clock ante meridiem. Instead of sleeping, I’m shivering. My nose is stuffed. In my head, Eva Cassidy’s take on “Over the Rainbow” is stuck on repeat. Last night and earlier this morning Clive Churner * insisted that we read (aloud) the rather unique letter (a creative hodge-podge of thought) that he’d sent me (months ago) and critique it, section by section. Said readings and critiques have been preserved for posterity on a series of microcassette recordings, titled: “Is It On?” (The aforementioned query refers to the status of my microcassette recorder.) Clive’s letter is roughly thirty pages long, if not longer. At the risk of being overly reductive, he’s taken the people we’ve both known and events we’ve both experienced and spun them wildly out of control in silly little yarms—I mean yams—I mean yarns. Please note that I’ve sat here coughing and gagging after—and, at times, straight through—every one of the aforementioned sentences, along with this one, and v...
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Table Manners

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Pop,  God love him,  has an aversion to using flatware  —but especially knives.  He prefers to push food  onto his fork  with the side of his index finger.  He'll grab a slice of  butter–and–syrup smothered  French toast  right off the plate  with both hands and  shove it down his gullet.  Pop never puts his napkin on his lap.  No matter its condition,  he’ll leave it  bunched and  smudged  beside his plate.  He prefers to drink his liquids  only after having consumed all of his solids.  That's my Pop.  For starters. *  April 8, 2004  * [Two decades ago, The FireVaney refused to limit himself to one blog. Blogging was—and, for him, remains to this day—an excellent way to avoid writing anything worth publishing, staging, or filming “IRL.” One of the half-dozen or more blogs he maintained back in 2004 was called, The Braeside . With apologies, Dear Reader, he will not al...
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