Woo! Woo! Woo!

the strangest and most wonderful incident happened to me last week. as pope john paul II lay dying & the the rest of the world went on pope deathwatch 2005, i started receiving emails from my brother louie.

these emails were not the usual ilk of "come see me read at such & such place or wherever," (he's a published author). no, they contained phrases like "Woo!Woo!Woo!" & "Oh Basil, let's play cowboy one more time before we go see Harold & Maude." when we were younger, my brother louie made up a lot of characters, very creative too, like George Genie who made people walk, talk & act like Casper the friendly ghost & then there were Harold & Maude & Basil, cleverly disguised as pope john paul I & pope john paul II, respectively.

in this creative space, we acted out situations that the each pope would do, beneath cozies (quilts), only well, the popes were kinky, in that, they were always into s & m, carried lots of whips & chains, wrote a best-selling book called "Whips & Chains, Love The Pains" & performed songs like: Whips & Chains, Love The Pains (book & song had similar lyrics & words), John Paul (parody of Frank Mills, from the musical Hair) & even formed a group called the Beat-als (beatles)!

here is a sample of the rough draft parody...

john paul

i met a pope named john paul
right here in front of the vatican
but unfortunately, i lost his address
i love him, but it embarrasses me
to walk down the street with him
he lives in rome somewhere
and wears this white papal helmet
he has whips & chains on his leather jacket
and on the back are written the names of harold & maude
and the beat-als...

i called louie for a different reason altogether the morning before the pope passed away & when he phoned back, the first words out of his mouth were: "woo-woo-woo," in a distressed manner. i laughed so hard & believe me when i tell you this, i mean it most sincerely. for six minutes & forty-three seconds, that was the best bonding i had with louie in years!

we laughed about all the things that Basil & Harold & Maude did, over the years. his wife had wondered who he was talking to, because he too was laughing so hard. then he said something that struck me kind of funny. he said, "i was a strange kid back then, wasn't i?" i disagreed & said no. although the pope is dead & buried & the vendors try to hawk pope memorabilia, i can hardly wait for the cardinals to select a new pope! Woo! Woo! Woo!