Thoughts On Dressing Up For Halloween

“Why worry about Halloween when there’s a new holiday to worry about?”
Jello Biafra, lead singer of the Dead Kennedys, Cabaret Metro, Chicago, Illinois October 31, 1984

Halloween is a fucked-up holiday. We dress up to get out of our realities for one stinking day and then jump back in the saddle, business as usual. That’s far more frightening than reality itself. It’s a far bigger business for adults than it is for children on some levels. Too many people cannot see into themselves far enough not to dress up as anything other than their own self.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about Halloween. Dressing up has been part of my life for the better half of my 20s, 30s and now into my 40s, both as an artist and sadly, as one who seeks to better himself in terms of career changes. Unfortunately, the business world seems to dictate the latter part of that bullshit.

But for the past several years at the jobs I’ve held for that matter, I’ve always dressed up as “something” or “somebody” other than my own usual self. This year however, has been different, as I’ve been jet-setted toward a different direction.

Every year about a month before Halloween actually occurs, I always get asked the same question; “What are you dressing up as?” In the past I’ve always said, “I don’t know,” because frankly I never knew what I wanted to be.

For years I dressed up as a cow with interchangeable parts, such as hair, horns and face changes. A few years ago I dressed up as a woman and last year, I dressed up as a dying soldier from the on-going terrorist war that our wonderful (sic) president loves to talk about and promote with a happy gleeful face so much.

I called myself “G.I. Joe Stein,” and found things around my apartment, as well as going out to buy make-up from a local store and proceeded from there. I think for the little extras, including make-up I spent close to $9.57.

These days it’s a little hard to compete with folks who go out and buy store-bought costumes verses costumes you make up on your own with your own materials. It’s a little like Christmas, but that’s for another time.

For my G.I. Joe Stein outfit, I wore a white tee shirt, a green army shirt too short for my body then, a pair of rice patty pants, an old military police helmet, a gas mask wrapped around my neck, plus I used an old warped crutch to lean on, a bent bugle for show and effect, besides the make-up and fake blood I used on various parts of my face.

I competed against a woman who dressed herself up quite nicely as a Zombie, very detail-oriented and another who was “Thing” from The Addams Family television series, a rather creative costume. And then of course, there were some average basic costumes too.
But the judging wasn’t exactly fair. Second place went to a tall young woman who wore a flannel shirt and a straw cowboy hat and was of course, cute. Beauty over brains always wins hands down at the workplace.

Then the person dressed as the Zombie of course had several friends, as well as being part of the management team, so clout and friends always go hand in hand, don’t they? All of her friends all shouted out that she (the Zombie) was the best-dressed, so of course the judges were leaning toward her, when all of a sudden I blurted out “I can play Taps on this bugle.” I played a bad version of “Taps” on it, knowing full well it wasn’t the actual tune, but it got the attention of another judge and sure enough, I took home first prize!

The woman who dressed herself up as “Thing” walked away with the grand prize, which only goes to show that having friends who scream their lungs out for you doesn’t always work.

So back to the matter at hand; the last several weeks I haven’t been feeling like dressing up at all, nope my life has taken a different direction entirely and it makes me feel extremely uncomfortable that I have to dress up just to please someone else.

But why do I have to? Why don’t those who ask me even bother to dress up? Because they are terrified or frightened of what someone might say back to them. That is a true ramification. Or perhaps it’s something more like a closeted fear of how they might never live it down after weeks of being in a costume.

I thought for certain I was going to cave in today to pressure by my peers and don my Halloween outfit, but at the last minute, I stuck to my guns and decided against it and boy did it feel good for a change!

Nevertheless, several people still wandered by my desk and asked me what I was going as and even later after the 30-second costume contest strut-fest was over and the various movie gift card prizes were handed out, several people in the lunchroom confronted me and dared to ask me why I didn’t dress up.

As I found out later, the judge was willing to hold up the contest back for a few minutes to wait for me, which goes to show, that even without clout, I still have the power. As I always say, expect the unexpected. You'll sleep so much more peacefully at night!

On My Poem Performance AKA Rejection Feels Like A Slap In The Face

Rejection feels like a slap in the face, a slap so hard and so unexpected, it makes you feel cold and abandoned.

It was in the early part of May 1996 when I was looking for a new outlet to perform at. I was getting tired of Chicago open mics and wanted to try an alternative to the otherwise aggressive city scene, so when I spied the listing for the Arlington Poetry Project’s (APP) gathering at the now-defunct Vail St. Café location in Arlington Heights, I jumped at the opportunity to try it.

At last, May 15 arrived. I was excited. A new venue. New people with open minds. New ideas. A pure virgin poetry prairie awash with freshness awaited me…so I thought.

They did readings in rounds, something I was unaccustomed to, but readily accepted this new challenge. I thought to celebrate this new venue, I would layout my little thinking poem “Performance,” or the “Ah Poem” as it is now commonly referred to as.

I recall walking up to the microphone and eyeing it like I always did, as to get a feeling for my surroundings, then quickly scanned the crowd and jokingly suggested to the audience that with the poem I was about to read that they “might want to blind their kids’ eyes.”

Performance

In bed,
sex is determined
on whether or not your partner can open up their mouth and say...
Ahhh....

I launched into the poem with full gusto and even though the audience laughed and clapped, I had this strange impression that what I had read was not all right. In the next round, I read another poem although the crowd warmed up to me, I still did not feel on an even keel. Turns out I was right.

I went out to eat with them later that night I recall, but I didn’t talk to many of those who were there, I think I felt too nervous or embarrassed or maybe a little of both. Later, I was informed by Phil Zurawski, the group’s founder at that time, that many members of the group saw me as an outsider. It was at that moment, I realized and knew, I was the true black sheep of APP.

It was not the first time I had been rejected. It was the same feeling I had when I was turned down for as a date for my high school prom and for my true love affair for poet Rod McKuen. To be rejected for that poem was a real slap in the face to me personally and to my art. Before reading that poem at Vail St., it never caused a stir elsewhere, other than being banned for several years, a year later while reading that poem at the Bucktown Arts Festival in Chicago.

For the record, I have always said that, “Performance” is a thinking poem and not about an act of foreplay. It is a conceptual poem, as simple as taking an image and adding a soundtrack to it, similar to a sound recording, but instead it is a conceptual soundtrack for the mind and soul.

However, to be excluded from others because of what that poem does and without even asking me ever what it was about, was wrong. Yet, I kept chugging down the tracks as I always did, kept arriving and reading at gigs and did my best to get to know others even as their resistance was on high alert.

Over the ensuing months, one by one, the hardcore members began easing up their borders and let me inside. I was thankful for that. For me, sharing the human experience means more to me now than it ever did when I first attempted to join ranks.

It has been nine and a half years since I have been with APP on and off. Thankfully the group's leadership has changed hands for the better with Ed Layer Jr., taking the reins as leader. Even though Ed & I don't always see on the same level, I respect the rules a year later after my breakout year of 2004 from APP.

These days I primarily write strong essays (for this blog) and a poem or two, I still read with the same vigor and treacle when I first began at APP and that's about as much as anyone could ask for.

American Yarnprose>Seems Like Zenville Road AKA Don't Panic On Texas Baby, We Can Do That

Seems Like Zenville Road AKA Don’t Panic On Texas Baby, We Can Do That.”

I must have those big bathroom baby greens about me, twinkling in my eyes, for when the boss asks me about the spilled water on the black and white-tiled floor, I tell him about an out-of-order sign that was taped on the door one week ago and he mumbles something about flushing up above and I tell him I’m not the plumber who mucked up the whole works and walks out the door with an empty-handed and perverse look and I take a leak, unzip my pants, think of a little song to while away the fluid flying into the bowl, God bless America, oh mah soul!

I zip up; wash my hands with the fancy perfumed soap. I walk out and get my tea at the company kitchen sink and there’s a conversation between two people abut abscesses and wisdom teeth and they’re so serious and just then a man waves hello, he’s my good old buddy who caught me from falling when I felt low and he turns his head and goes back to work and I nearly burn myself on hot water when I twist around with a sudden jerk and I bounce right up the stairs and people walk past me with smelly perfume that covers their insecurity ‘til half past three and back at my desk, caged in my headset and my paper and my pen, I listen to the fellows who laugh and sing and blab like there’s no end and another fellow joins them as if he has nothing else to do and when I complained about this talking long long ago, all the boss could say was crunch-crunch-crunch those numbers and don’t let it bother you and so they go on gabbing carte blanche, condoned by the boss and my first instinct is to say it’s no big loss and I know in my heart and I know in my soul that a good name is important to keep to yourself alone and outstanding from the rest and as I peck-scribble, peck-scribble my notes like this, another boss is yelling at her staff to always be the best and it never really matters and no one really cares, except for those who have a half-conscious and look directly into a mirror and know the ins and outs of treatment, both routine and semi-altered and the world keeps on spinning and the rats will surely drown in the mire they’ve created, guilty pleasure-bound and I only know what I see and what I feel and what I hear, so don’t be surprised if I change my mind next year, for a soul evolves and disappears as quickly as it comes and the laughter that filled the air will then be secreted with mud, for wisdom is knowledge, a needle thru a thread and the pattern will be broken and the fence will self-mend as long as the neighbors cut and trim the grass and the losers watch the winners choke and sputter their way through the gutter and slip-slide like butter on burnt toast workhouse rainy days.

The Botox Frankenstein Poetry Series>Sex Before Sunrise

Ahhhhh, well we've come around again to Friday, the eye-popping capper for the week and for me and what a week it's been! So, it's time to put up your feet and slowly ease into an odd little poem of mine and remember as always my dear readers, enjoy!!!

Sex Before Sunrise

Keeps to herself
As she plays in the water
Innocently odd
She looks kind of mod
As if she was my lost child’s last daughter

One, Two, Three Strikes Yer Out At The Old Ballgame And Other Petty Words & Gestures During And After The 2005 World Series

“Sweep out the Astros, sweep ‘em down the street, put ‘em in the dustbin where they look so neat. Go Sox! Go Sox! Go Sox! Pffffffft...” Voice message from my friend Harry this morning in reference to the Chicago White Sox winning The World Series in four games straight.

Okay, okay, so the Chicago White Sox won. Big deal! Yep, I know I rooted for the Houston Astros, but they are a National League team and that’s the side I always root for, no matter what, including the all-star games, which lately seem to be swinging the other way, in that the American League has been winning both the all-star games and World Series for the past several years.

At least my big brother Louie is happy. He's been a Chicago White Sox fan most of his life. Louie deserves to be happy. So is My father Rex; he gets a free breakfast and dinner out of me from the two bets we made over the course of the playoffs & World Series.

Quite honestly, I am happy for the Chicago White Sox, I really hope they are happy as well winning the title after a dry spell of 88 years (1917), when they won their last crown, so says the press, anyway. It’s nice to see the team and its fans happy, except for one little thing; when is the comparison of the Chicago Cubs to the Chicago White Sox good-team/bad-team crap going to stop?

Last night after listening to the final baseball game on the radio and a lot of the justifiable accolades that went with their crown, I heard that same old jib-jab rag-tag bitch-slap crap hurled against the Chicago Cubs by various callers.

You’d swear you were in the Middle East with all this senseless on-going fighting and bickering between the two fan factions!

What encouraged me however, were the radio talk show hosts that “pushed the button” and knocked those callers off the air almost immediately, echoing the sentiments of it being a time for the Chicago White Sox to bask in the glory of a newly bestowed title and NOT a time to bash others, be it the Chicago Cubs or the Houston Astros.

It sure didn’t help that Chicago White Sox team member Carl Everett took a stab at the Chicago Cubs and their fans as well, but I suppose it was alright for him to do so, now that he has a World Series ring on his little finger. I guess you can say anything once you win the big prize, but then again, what does one expect from someone who formerly played for the New York Mets, anyway?

During the week of the World Series, I did a lot of web-surfing, mostly www.craigslist.org, to view, cringe and laugh at all of the too numerous cruel and unusually harsh posts that dissed the Chicago Cubs and praising the Chicago White Sox and vice-versa.

It was extremely disheartening to see this kind of frivolous kind of poke and jab sport to even be up online, but I guess people will go to all extremes just to get their point across.

And then of course there were several incidents of several Chicago White Sox fans physically harming and gesturing negatively to Houston Astros players’ wives during a World Series game. Most notably harmed was Patty Biggio, wife of Houston Astros second baseman Craig Biggio who was slapped in the head.

Other Astros players’ wives were allegedly targets of rude hand gestures. Thankfully security detail caught the man who harmed Biggio’s wife, but surprisingly neither she nor Craig pressed charges against him. Texans are like that, very polite and brought up to mind their manners, no matter the situation, unlike some White Sox fans that will stop at nothing to be outright stupid & rude.

Among some of the remarks I found on the official Houston Astros team website (http://houston.astros.mlb.com) regarding the incident includes: “Sox fans are a bunch of wife beaters… Good riddance S*u*x fans....go home and assault your own wives…”

And then were some sympathetic and encouraging messages (as few and far between as they came), includes: “While Mrs. Biggio may have downplayed it, why does this thing have happen? Oh yes because the majority of Shit-Sox are totally classless bush league unsportsmanlike gloating bastards…When I heard about Biggio's wife I felt totally disgusted and ashamed. This type of crap goes on at The Cell (Cellular Field). I was pushed once myself by some South Side trash. During the Cubs/Sox matches, somebody is always inevitably roughed up by an insane Sux (sic) fan…”

Then of course, there was the suggestion that there wasn’t a single player on the current roster of the Houston Astros that was not a “person of color.” Is that like when the cops find a suspect and call them a “person of interest?” What does it matter so much that a person of color isn’t on a team? Does that mean the team will suffer any less or play terribly if they don’t have that diversity on their team?

No! Of course not!

I personally don’t believe the Chicago White Sox encourage this type of behavior, but one thing is for certain, the organization should probably re-evaluate their rules and heavily discourage nasty Nazi pit-bull fans that will stop at nothing to Hitler-tize their blue-collar hatred over all concerned and teach them how to behave like human beings and not thugs.

If all else fails, ban them from the ballpark permanently.

It would be a great way to start the 2006 Chicago White Sox season.

Overcoming Writer's Block

Staring at a blank screen can be tough and overly difficult especially if you don’t know what to write.

I bet writers who came before us had an even more difficult time composing with pen to ink & idea to typewriter as opposed to now from brain to computer.

And a lot of people ask me, where do you get all of those ideas that you write, create and compose? I do it by the oldest art form in America and that is of course research. Or perhaps I come across a subject that I love, like, disdain or otherwise hob-knob with.

Sometimes my resources come from work, where I spend 40 hours a week, speaking to “the pulse of America.” Most of my ideas come from own rich life, where for some unknown reason I’ve experienced something extremely pleasurable or something terribly painful.

And then I get questions from folks who ask me why I stick my neck out and record my life in public and why don’t I leave it in private like they do? It’s a good thought, but mostly I write what I write, so others won’t have to deal with what I’ve gone through, especially if it’s something horrendous.

Writing is very therapeutic and also cathartic and a lot of people write, for whatever reason they choose to, whether it’s in a personal diary, an online journals, a review, a response, a resignation or similar.

With the advent of the Internet and personal computers becoming more affordable or virtually free if you belong to a Freecycle group, everyone becomes an instant writer. And as a result, we have a lot of writers in the world.

But are they real writers? Do they talk like they write? And how good are they anyway? Can they sell ad-space for a business directory just as well as they stroke the keys on their computer or are they lousy, nit-pickers who make bad attempts to write by fusing words together to look as good as electronic spam?

As a result of the Internet, we’ve been blessed by a glut of really terrible writers, leaving those of us who can write, out in the cold, making those terrible writers seem as if they know what they are doing.

Blogging has made the most ordinary people come alive with great story-telling ability and skills. I’m not saying it’s wrong or bad, it’s just kind of hard on those of us who went to school and learned how to write properly, and who cannot compete in the real world for the real writing jobs just because someone’s writing is a bit savvier than the next person’s.

Nearly one year ago, I had writer’s block and I had major trouble jumpstarting my writing; nothing came. It was as if I had a major drought within my brain. I tried every method possible like listening to music, finding obscure CDs and fusing song titles together; I looked to my old poems to see if I could pull out good phrases and use them in a brand new poem. I even looked through my old news articles to see if I could find some road that I hadn't travelled down before.

The only things I was able to write were maybe song lyrics or bad poems and those was based on relationships that fizzled as quick as an Alka-Seltzer thrown into a glass of water. And that’s how my writing became; fizzled and next to nothing.

Then I remembered a book my second vocals teacher recommended to me called The Writer’s Block by Jason Rekulak. Inside, it has close to 786 ideas to get the ball rolling. And what a steal; it’s only $9.95 and it fits almost anywhere.

I never did enjoy books that told me how to write. I prefer real humans. Yet this book is different. It doesn’t tell you how you should write, rather it makes suggestions or evokes questions for an individual to think about or to cross-examine and apply it to their own situations.

So I began using it their methods and within time, I fixed the problem and my writing has suffered little since. But this writer's block disease still haunts me, so when I get writer’s block, which is early and often, I reach for that book which is stuffed inside my mini Igloo cooler, where I keep all of my computer disks, supplies and snacks.

Blogging has helped me stave off writer’s block, as I attempt to write almost daily. Sometimes I can and sometimes I can’t, but when I can’t there’s always filler and I have plenty of that.

Now that my life has changed for the better, I can write a little bit easier without the big struggle. That makes me very happy!

One other little tip about writing that I remembered learning and use when need be to separate myself from the pack; anyone can write a paragraph. Try and re-write it though.

That my dear readers, is when the adventure really begins!

American Yarnprose>The Onion And Donald Duck

The Onion And Donald Duck

Did you have to pay for the onion?

No! Pay for what?

The onion! Onion!

What onion?

The one here, here in Chicago. No here, right here.

What here?

No one in the city of Chicago charges for them.

Are you nuts? Of course, they charge for them!

No they don’t.

Where can you get them?

Where do you think you can get an onion? Around. You can get one around town.

Where?

I just told you! Are you that brain-dead? An onion is an onion is an onion. Please tell me that you are not brain-dead and you can easily find an onion. Onion! I mean onion!

You don’t have to cry about it!

I am not crying about it, I just want an onion.

Well, I told you where to look. You can get them almost anywhere.

Anywhere?

Are you kidding me? We are talking about the onion.

Yes, I know what we are talking about.

The onion, the beautiful little onion, that makes you laugh and cry all in the same breath! What in god’s name, did you think I was talking about?

Uh, nothing.

What nothing?

Forget it! Forget I ever brought it up with you. Okay?

Okay, that’s fine. By the way, do you like Donald Duck?

Who?

Donald Duck.

Who is that?

Ah, forget it.

How NOT To Stage An Event & Other Tidbits Performers Learn On Gig Night

There’s a lot a performer learns after a gig, mostly what to do and what NOT to do for the next gig and I certainly learned scads of information last night when I performed “Suite For Furby On Slide-Whistle In D-Minor,” at Scone-Fest, held at Pick-A-Cup in Evanston, Illinois, along with my now ex-partner Twitchy.

One of the most important things to do is to NOT hold a weekend event when something major is happening in town like THE WORLD SERIES. Of course baseball like any other sport is unpredictable, but if you see it coming, then for god sakes postpone the event for the following weekend when nothing significant is happening.


If you can’t, then shorten the hours or invite/book the performers for a future date to make up for the lack of audience, which the owner did, rightfully so.

In our case, other than the owner and the man working behind the counter, there were maybe seven (nine if you added myself & Twitchy) people in the place, three at a table playing at a game of Scrabble, a fellow who came in briefly to listen to the folk singer who was onstage when I arrived “early,” according to the proprietor, the man who came to film our performance and someone who I called to come see us perform.

Publicity also helps. The venue did most of the publicity, but I didn’t see much mention of it, other than the venue’s website and a few other websites of some of the performers there.

On my own, I blogged about the act and mentioned the event on my blogpage and I must have sent over 40 emails out to friends and although I had three possible promises, not one of those individuals showed up. The best excuse I had for a cancellation were the people who told me their son was “coming of age” and they wanted to get him “smashed.” I wish my Dad had been so thoughtful and had taken me out to get me sauced on my 21st birthday!

One of the many things I do before a performance is take stock or a survey of every possible instrument/appliance I have, what I will be using and how many duffel bags I will be transporting them in. On occasion, I’ll buy a special toy or instrument and try to get the audience to participate with us.

Saturday night was not the case, however. Then there was the problem of my now ex-partner. He was aggravating and that was an understatement. Not even 10 minutes into the performance as I was blowing hard onto my slide-whistle, he leaned over to me and said, “I can’t do this for a whole hour.”

That made me angry and frustrated, but I kept playing and wondered inside if he was indeed a good fit for this art performance. I answered my own question a few minutes later when he came closer to the where the Furbies were situated and began violently shaking them, in an attempt to get them “talking.”

A few weeks ago I told him to specifically NOT SHAKE THE FURBIES and what did he do? He shook them. Over and over again, much to my dismay, still I played on, not letting onto my anger and frustration inside, with sweat claps pouring down in droves from the top of head, splashing into my eyes, dripping off my nose and over other parts of my face.

About a month between the interim of this performance and the first test run performance at series where we work called “The West Lawn Concerts,” Twitchy informed me that he didn't not like to be told what to do. At that time I felt, as I do now, that even though the idea of playing to Furbies is a good concept, there has to be some structure within the concept of the idea, i.e. performance.

It was some weeks earlier that he asked me how we’d manage to perform for an hour and I told him that we’d get by, which we did. I think my main concern is if he knew that the performance itself was to be for one hour, why didn’t he just speak up then as opposed to going onstage with me on Saturday night and then deciding he couldn’t hack it?

On Saturday afternoon when I phoned him up and told him I had specific instructions for last night’s performance, he agreed to the instructions, but when it came time to act on them, he blew the instructions off, thereby leading me to believe that not only does he not like being told what to do, but can’t follow simple instructions.

There seems to be a real bitterness boiling beneath him that if it’s not very obvious to him, it’s more than obvious to everyone that surrounds him, at least those who are up close and personal.

It gets a little annoying time after time when all of your faults are thrown into your face or you hear the same old cliché crap when I have moved on and he continues to heap it on top of me. The bitterness has to stop somewhere, so why does he keep it up? Perhaps it’s ennui.

Keeping that in mind, I've decided to go SOLO. I think that will work much better. I think Twitchy is a nice guy and all, but he doesn’t seem to have much of a sense of stage presence and might be better suited for managerial skills, but maybe if he could learn to figure out what he is exactly looking for, maybe I’d consider working with him again…in about 20 years.

After the performance, I spoke to a friend who came out to specifically see me. She told me it was “awesome.” I smiled, wiping my brow. There was even a man who had been watching us who asked us for our autographs, so that made me smile a little bit and of course, getting the tee shirt as part of the bargain for us to perform helped too.

Later that evening, after dropping off my friend Harry at the Howard El Station in Chicago, I turned around and headed over to Pete Miller’s in Evanston to catch the middle set of my old vocals teacher, Jackie Allen (Blue Note) and her trio. I had a burger plate in the “jazz listening” section of the club, as I ate a late dinner and watched Jackie. Listening to Jackie (sing live or studio) always calms me down if i'm in a bad mood.

Twitchy phoned me early Sunday at 12:57 a.m. and left me a message which was something to the effect of saying I sounded “a little agitated.” That was putting it mildly.

When I called him back on Sunday evening and told him of my decision regarding his future, we got into an argument, mostly finger-jabbing, but he crossed the line, when he called me a name. Anyone that calls me a name, I automatically tune out. That’s when he caved in and told me that his heart wasn’t into it as much as mine was.

Funny, that was about the only thing he got right this past weekend.

Inside The Secret Diaries Of The Mishegas Master>January 19, 1994

Lately, I've been digging through my older writing, looking for fresh idea approaches from older works of mine. Writers tend to do this at times. A couple of weeks ago, I came across some of my older diaries, which are both in book and cassette recordings form, that I kept while living in the state of Indiana from November, 1993 to August, 1994.

Some of my older diary entries ended up becoming short prose poems which I read aloud at various coffee clutches in Indiana and elsewhere in the United States several years later. Today, dear readers, I'd like to present to you one of these entries...

Personal Diary Entry, January 19, 1994, 9:01 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Attica, Indiana, USA

I’m afraid to call her. Left a message for her to call me, but I think it’s all too much and the gameball is snapped, thrown and whammo! The player has missed the field goal three times, but does he give up?

Well, no! Of course not!

But he’s disappointed and angry and wonders if he’ll ever make it count?

The determination is there. It has been all along, but the fear and savvy that goes with it, hand-in-hand and you have to hang tough or at least that is what the coach tells you.

But you keep mulling it over in your mind. Do I take another gamble? What if I do it and I get the same results?

The prize is definitely tremendous, but is it worth the loneliness of not knowing anything or knowing at least something that may never come to past?

The answer is of course, yes! I will rock again. I will shake again and I will get that field goal.

The Botox Frankenstein Poetry Series>Angel Meditation Poem

Well we've come to Friday, the capper for the week and time for a nice and easy meditative poem to ease down with and remember as always my dear readers, enjoy!!!

Angel Meditation Poem

E nu rah e nu rah e nu rah zay
E nu rah e nu rah e nu rah zay

Oh great angel of mercy why does thy eyes
Cast down upon me
Oh great angel of mercy why does thy eyes
Cast down upon me

E nu rah e nu rah e nu rah zay
E nu rah e nu rah e nu rah zay

Oh great angel of death sits silent
In the black peppered sky
Oh great angel of death sits silent
In the black peppered sky

E nu rah e nu rah e nu rah zay
E nu rah e nu rah e nu rah zay

I choose to trust life
To starve
To reap the harvest
Thou has given onto thee

I choose to trust life
To starve
To reap the harvest
Thou has given onto thee

E

Oh thou-ist angel of death what do your eyes blind
In the shadow of life
Oh thou-ist angel of death what do your eyes blind
In the shadow of life

For in the shadows we choose our fears
The fear of our nations upon deaf ears
The soul of silence steady as she flies
The rape of our terror battered as she lies

Nu

For it is said that when the angel first appears
The strain within our brain slowly disappears
For it is said that when the angel first appears
The strain within our brain slowly disappears

The chosen one fells itself when selling out his name
The homeless snail crawls through the window
Asking if was to blame
The flesh upon flight, the smile into flame

Rah

For behold! And the word it is true
The words we taste beyond you
For behold! And the word it is true
The words we taste beyond you

For it is so written, for it is so shallow
The death car awaits, inside the froth sealed inside the gallows
For it is felt like a bullet in the brain
The death upon life feels no pain
But the burden of whence it first came

Zay

And so it lives on the blindness of truth
The touch of my breath upon the pane of glass
The words cannot hold
The swindle that masks itself
Like a rubber ball
Foundation is phallic
Arrested beneath bone beside wall

Suite For Furby On Slide-Whistle In D Minor: How The Concept Came About

It’s been a long time since I’ve performed functionally, either as a duo, trio, quartet or group performance, but that changed this past summer. I hooked up with a friend and co-worker of mine, Twitchy and together we’ve done a few performances together, primarily it’s been him backing me up on a few poems and the like.

At my workplace, a series of performances were held entitled “West Lawn Concerts,” and although they weren’t concerts per say, it was individuals like me coming out to perform.

I performed a few times, but it was mostly to an uneducated and close-minded group of office workers who are more than likely used to hearing conventional music and poetry performances.

I got the feeling that I wasn’t appreciated and yes, I realize this does sound like a “feel-sorry for me” ploy, but, no it was absolutely true. The only way to gage an audience was to “listen” to their eyes and face movements, which half the time seemed like a big question mark over their heads.

I never really like performing in this sort of venue to begin with, but I did it as a favor to the two hosts that were running the show. Even after I said I would not perform again, one of the hosts would constantly pressure me into performing when she couldn’t find anyone else to perform.

I gave her a plethora of names and told her to go ask them. She did and nearly 99 percent of those individuals were on the same playing level with me; they saw no reason to perform whatsoever either because of lack of self confidence or just no desire to perform in front of fellow co-workers.

There were a few individuals, however, that did appease the audience; Danceman Daryl for example played nothing but Beatles, Bob Dylan & Elvis Costello cover tunes, playing out his heart and soul. He was enthusiastic, yet as green as a newborn baby, in that his stage presence was anything but seasoned.

He enjoyed the amounts of applause and positive response he received, but when it came right down to it, he didn’t realize that the audience was using him for their own benefit, which was of course the boring old mantra; “I’m here, I work hard, entertain me!” They didn’t seem to care one bit, oh no! Sure they requested cover tunes and the like, but they wanted to be entertained whole-heartedly. I’m not sure Daryl realized it or not, but he ended up “retiring” from performing for audiences after taking part in this venue. Strange, huh?

It was late in August when I did my last performance for the series, but it took a lot of convincing for me to do it. I already hated my audience for not being sincere about their tastes and open-mindedness of art, performance, music & poetry.

So, I decided on performing something else. Something maddening. Something different. Something they never had ever seen in their lifetime and probably would never see again if they chose to, only because close-mindedness is often catching. It often leads to apathy, a common disease among human beings these days.

I hatched an idea with Twitchy to perform for my Furbies, while ignoring the crowd. The idea/concept seemed simple enough; we laughed about it one night and then put the wheels into motion. We passed the word among other co-workers we knew who understood what we were doing that we were going to perform.

The day of the performance I brought to work the essentials; four Furbies and instruments that included bugle, African thumb piano, harmonica a few other assorted musical gadgets, as well as the main instruments, the slide-whistle.

We made prior arrangements with the hostess of the series to “interrupt” her performance of a Simon & Garfunkel tune on flute, as Twitchy just walked up to her in the middle of her performance and started to ring a school bell, while I opened up a duffel bag that contained the instruments and a mini-cooler which housed the Furbies.

I unloaded the bags and placed the Furbies on a plastic table. I took the instruments out and placed them on the ground, three for him, three for me. Twitchy kept ringing the bell until I instructed him to stop.

Then I held up several placards instead of speaking. I let a member of the audience speak for us, mainly reading the words aloud. I watched the audience slightly as I reached for my slide-whistle and began to blow. Both Twitchy and I blew on our slide-whistles, him more traditional, while I played more in avant-garde like.

After what seemed like several minutes, I picked up my rusted & bent bugle and began to blow, while Twitchy picked up the harmonica and blew out a few notes. The audience from when I looked up from time to time had grown exceedingly larger or perhaps I was imagining it all, but when I did look up slightly, it was only to acknowledge Twitchy or the Furbies.

Then we switched over to African thumb piano (me) and pair of claves (Twitchy). The Furbies were still talking for the most part, although it looked as if two “had died,” so Twitchy picked them up and smashed them down on the table furiously to get them moving again; they did to some degree.

After that, we switched back to slide-whistle for the final few minutes. Twitchy eventually stopped and then I followed suit. I then held out the placard that read “The End.” We bowed I think and we got a “polite response,” mostly by people trying to figure out what we just did.

This Saturday, October 22, from 8:30-9:30pm we’ll be doing the same piece, only this time, a whole hour! Can’t wait to test out the new instruments and other noisemakers I’m bringing with me. We’re performing under the name Tribal Screen Hens, at "Sconefest," a celebration of the scone biscuit. It’s being held at Pick-A-Cup, 1813 Dempster St, in Evanston. The event itself is free, so feel to crash the performance and join in!

Just think; Saturday night is our first real gig. We perform in another three weeks at Phyllis’ Musical Inn in Chicago on November 10 at 9:30pm for the Flabby Hoffman Show.

Boy, oh boy! I can’t wait until Twitchy & I hit Las Vegas!

American Yarnprose>I Like To Touch And Smell Myself

I Like To Touch And Smell Myself

I like to touch and smell myself, it’s somewhat buttery, but it has a taste of its own. My hair is looking civil again. I was told not to tell you otherwise you’d kill me and otherwise I was feelin’ fine, just chillin’.

Yeah, you know where I’ll be all day.

Wait a minute! I’m in the seatbelt, how ‘bout you?

It was amazing! Yes, it was amazing that even I was taking a shower. I learned to take time for myself, listening to other people and not taking notes. I have learned to freshen myself, smell myself, touch myself, take out my notebook, and write the first word that comes to my mind, as I like to write, you know.

Nevertheless, even now and again, I say, Oooh, that man!

Darkness doesn’t scare me and he couldn’t even look in my face, he was nervous all of the time, but hey! It’s none of his business, you know and he walked past me three times when I was taking a shower.

But now, it’s like I’m on my way, so whatchoo talkin’ about?

It’s a bad habit, it’s like playing tricks, but I like to freshen myself, smell myself and touch myself, it makes me feel good all over, you know?

Non-Issue Issue: A New Low For Harassment And Other Poltical Agendas

I disdain being politically correct. Still, there others in this world that play both sides of the fence, while trying to maintain their innocence, in some cases naïveté. I don’t like to gripe too much, but tonight for a change I will and for good cause, so read on.

Take a situation at my workplace recently that occurred between myself and a co-worker, who claims to LOVE animals, claims that they (my co-worker) are so sensitive to varying remarks about them and so on and so forth. It went to a level in the workplace where it should have not gone to: that of being called into my supervisor’s office and being told that I was “being documented” for making insensitive remarks to them about about dead mice.

I was told that my co-worker wanted to be reassigned a seat elsewhere twice within the building, so they “wouldn’t be hurt again.” I didn’t have a choice in the matter and said I would resolve the problem by not speaking to them ever again.

Yet, I wasn’t allowed to do that and was forced against my will to “shake hands” with that person. I have kept my vow, however and chosen not to speak or associate myself with them ever again.

Now, let me tell you dear readers, where I work, there is in no way, shape or form related to any sort of animals and yet, under the rules and regulations of the company it gets treated as “harassment.” I have often wondered what constitutes “harassment,” even in this day and age when stuff like this happens. And since this is a non-issue issue that has nothing to do with work or anything else, why did it happen?

This co-worker & I have had previous conversations about the roaming mice in my apartment this past winter and I even took into consideration their ideas on how to set-up traps, using glue traps by suggestion was one of them and that didn’t work, because all the mice did was bite their legs & tails off of their bodies just so they could escape.

It was also suggested to me that I grab the mice “by their tails” and carry them “to safety,” to which I remember saying; “What do you expect me to do, sit around all day and wait for them?”

I also used to give this co-worker various articles regarding animal stories, both positive and negative, for balancing purposes. Those articles were accepted with no problems or remarks.

This co-worker of mine claims to be sensitive, especially in light of animals and does things like support causes like PETA (People (For The) Ethical Treatment (of) Animals), cat & dog shelters, spaying & neutering cats & dogs and in the past handed me literature that “portrayed” cruelty toward animals and even sent emails to me of “cute and cuddly” photos of animals.

Usually, I deleted the emails and threw away the literature, because I know it’s mostly propaganda. As far as PETA goes, it was reported this morning on CBS Newsradio 780 in Chicago that PETA will be demonstrating in front of the Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey Circus on November 2 in Rosemont at the Rosemont Horizon (a suburb northwest of Chicago).

Nothing new there, however it was mentioned that PETA will be offering “gift cards” to the first 100 people to who show up to demonstrate. Handing out gift cards? I always thought if people who fought hard and rallied for their causes didn’t need incentives to demonstrate. That’s a new low for PETA and probably a sign of the times, that no one really cares about them anymore. Apathy is catching.

But back to the matter at hand; my accuser it turns out eats meat! The animal lover eats meat! Talk about being hypocritical! How dare they complain about my remark when they are eating the very flesh and blood they love!

Then there’s the issue of supporting spaying and neutering pets. What’s up with that? How would all those who call themselves animal lovers like it if they had their genitals cut off or tubes tied?

Maybe it’s not such a bad idea. It would definitely cut down on some of the excess world population and then there would one less cause to complain about. Let’s start first with animal lovers.

Those who say they are sticking up for the animals are wrong, absolutely wrong, for what they don’t tell you is their own motivations, their own hidden agendas and for that for simple reason, those agendas remain hidden, for if they were exposed, they’d be scoffed at and ridiculed for the same reasons those of us who eat meat and offer our opinions up during a conversation.

At what point does a conversation about someone's opinion get turned into a one-sided issue and the other person acts as if they were offended, but wasn't thinking about the possibilities against those that they spoke with? The same could be said for myself too, but this isn't about rights or wrongs here; no it's something deeper, which of course are those hidden agendas inside seemingly innocent conversations that we take so much for granted.

Though the incident has passed and they tried to apologize to me, I never accepted it. It’s a sad day indeed when words get twisted around and defined as harassment for personal agendas.

It’s sickening.

Why I Hope The White Sox Lose The World Series

“I became a Sox fan for one simple reason. It was bat day and I received a bat. I thought it was the coolest thing ever…” my eldest brother Louie reminiscing on how he discovered the Chicago White Sox at age 4/5.

By now the world knows; the Chicago White Sox have won the baseball pennant for the American League. Big fat hairy deal! But of course to south-siders in Chicago, it’s a huge deal.

Whatever was supposed to happen during the playoffs this year didn’t happen; last year’s world championship team the Boston Red Sox were eliminated almost immediately by the Chicago White Sox; the New York Yankees fell like a house of cards to the Los Angeles Angels; granted it was a given to the St. Louis Cardinals who easily swept past the San Diego Padres, but the Houston Astros eliminating the Atlanta Braves? That’s maddening!

Of course, the trouble with living on the north side of Chicago, northern suburbs, rather, is that one can get pigeonholed for being a Chicago Cubs fan, which I am no longer. I gave up on them when they kept letting themselves as a team, lose constantly and terribly, even if they managed to get into the playoffs, which they’ve done a number of times, but never end up anywhere.

The Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox fans have always pitted themselves against each other and I guarantee it 100 percent; whether the Sox win or lose, fans will hold it against each other’s throats…I know at least my big brother Louie will against me.

So my philosophy is simple; I like any team that can beat the Chicago Cubs and the same holds true for the Chicago White Sox. Yep, I was rooting for the Boston Red Sox; they were truly a great team last year and I have no clue as to what transpired this year in the playoffs, other than that they lost big time.

And yes, I rooted for the New York Yankees to beat the Los Angeles Angels so they could face the Chicago White Sox and pummel them righteously. Of course that didn’t happen. And I rooted for the Los Angeles Angels to cream the Chicago White Sox and sadly, that didn’t transpire either.

Just because the Chicago White Sox made a playoff berth, doesn’t mean they will go all of the way and win. The last time they made it into the World Series was when Dwight D. Eisenhower was nearly finished with his presidency, that being the year of 1959. Ironically, there was a Mayor Daley in office then, as there is now.


But the Chicago White Sox still have some overwhelming oddities to get past, such as the great baseball scandal of 1919, that put them in the history books for life (check out www.1919blacksox.com) , two years after they won the baseball championship for the last time in 1917. The Black Sox scandal of 1919 consisted of eight players from the Chicago White Sox (later appropriately nicknamed The Black Sox) who were accused of throwing the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds.

The scandal made headlines across America and even as the eight men were acquitted of criminal charges, all eight men including; “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Claude "Lefty" Williams; infielders Buck Weaver, Arnold "Chick" Gandil, Fred McMullin, and Charles "Swede" Risberg, plus outfielder Oscar "Happy" Felsch were subsequently banned from professional baseball for life.

Is it any coincidence that the White Sox’s current team logo is black, almost as if to celebrate a part of history that brought them down decades earlier? Is it also coincidental that from that same Cincinnati Reds organization years later, came baseball great Pete Rose, who was also accused of betting on games, but never criminally charged, yet was found guilty from tax evasion and banned from professional baseball for life.

So now my hope lies with is the National League. I am praying hard that the St. Louis Cardinals will overcome their being behind two games and beat back the Houston Astros and then pummel the Chicago White Sox in four straight games.

Maybe the Pope can get a message out to God’s Angels and tell HIM to fix things up properly between the Houston Astros and the St. Louis Cardinals (that’s the Pope’s favorite team, FYI), so that the St. Louis Cardinals can win triumphantly over the Houston Astros and then pummel the Chicago White Sox.

That’s my hope, anyway.

American Yarnprose>Truly Perplexed

Truly Perplexed

I walked home from the club, dazed and confused, more perplexed than ever because I wasn’t given the chance to play.

Damn all those bastards who got in my way.

Night after night.

Making up excuses of one sort or another, that somehow, they were sorry.

But in a selfish way.

And they couldn’t help themselves, what with all of their drinking and smoking.

Shit!

It was their fault to begin with.

That’s what strayed them off into a deep and insignificant lifestyle.

But why was I part of this living nightmare?

Hell!

I bet I could find much better scenes than these, but there was a rather unique attraction to this one.

It cried.

It begged.

It screamed for attention.

Problem was, I never got to perform.

I always had to watch everyone else make fools of themselves.

Had to top one another selfishly and that was sad.

Purely sad.

A Friday night ritual gone awry.

I sipped my tea and read my book, but inside my head, I played a lonesome six notes, over and over again in different patterns, till the sun came up.

Man!

I was truly perplexed.

Yom Kippur Website Hack Attack!

“Hacker: Person skilled at programming also used to describe someone who cracks computer systems…” Jen Starks

I took the day off this past week on Yom Kipper, but I couldn’t help thinking that something might happen, just as it did 32 years ago in Israel that resulted in the three-week aptly titled Yom Kippur War. I don’t claim to know much about hacking into computer files or websites, but I have often seen the results of very frightening attempts by others that have done it.

So sure enough, I went to my favorite Jewish chat-room website (www.jewishstreet.com) and lo & behold, the front page had been hacked, probably sometime in the morning by a group of hackers who call themselves “Te@m-Evil Moroccan Arab Hackerz” with the following message: “Break Into Israel machine. HACKED BY Team-evil MoROCcAn ARAb Hackers. Fr0m The Darkside ===> [Team-Evil Moroccan Hackerz]. We are: G0rillazz ; X-BLooD-X ;Peur2rien; EVIL-slAyers FUCK ISRAeL; JUST FOR HATE ; No cO.il ===> Special Greetz t0: Eno7 ; Greetz t0; Adrallica , Nazi , by0nd.cr3w, THE_GHOST, Spy_Pc And for all Moroccan Hackerz <====x.blood.x@gmail.com & l8oo8l@gmail.com ===>BE Pround To Be MORCCAIN © Te@m-Evil Copyright 2005…”

And it got me to thinking about who these hackers were, so I decided to research them online to see what their history was, if any. Hackers are kind of like graffiti artists/taggers, leaving their trademark behind thinking they won’t be caught.

This is kind of similar to animals, in that animals will also mark out their territories traits and will know instictively how to return to that particular place without being caught. Hackers also get a huge thrill as if they’ve accomplished something major…kind of like pyro-maniacs, who get their rocks off from starting fires.

I’ve met a few graffiti artists in a previous timetable during my summer as a journalism instructor at Cabrini Green in Chicago and mostly I was told they do it for art’s sake, but for these hackers, they are doing it for their cause, which just happens to be anti-USA & anti-Israel, which is seems to be a popular trend.

Electronically, these type of terrorists are probably a greater threat and risk to the Internet than previously thought. But back to the Te@m-Evil Moroccan Arab Hackerz; I wanted to find out just how long they had been around and wondered were else they had struck and it looks as if their earliest webpage strike was on November 27, 2004, to a guitar manufacturer’s website, that didn’t have a hint of ethnicity on their page. The response was tremendous by users, mostly the complaints of stupidity.

Then later I found along the way, they were leaving crazy, cryptic and mindless messages in other guitar-maker webpage guest-books, like: “Our Msg (message) iS for USA & ISRAEL are TERRORISTS, people in Iraq & Palestine are dying everyday, children are losing their parents, losing their lifes (lives), what's going on?! Move on people! Move on and do something, your turn we'll come, are you still keeping it quite (quiet)?” and “Attack reason: For the people of Iraq an Palestine and no PORN site LOVE ISLAM.” This in harmless guitar-maker’s guest-books!

So, I had to wonder like the rest of the world; is there some sort of major attack offensive coming down the pike for American guitar companies from the likes of foreign outfits? Is there is nothing better than a good American-made guitar? I mean, it’s a little odd to be leaving cryptic messages there, when one would think that they would set their sights on actual targets like government agencies and newspapers.

Upon further research, I found that Te@m-Evil did leave their mark on various music label & newspaper websites, among them; the since defunct website www.wegotguns.com, AKA music label, Hard:Drive, founded in 1991 by Stephan Groth (www.apoptygmaberzerk.de), which was noted much earlier this year in January by www.side-line.com an Internet music magazine that the hackers “probably think that the site (www.wegotguns.com) is really about guns,” when in reality of course it wasn’t.

Also in January, the website www.rantburg.com, a foreign news digest website was hacked into with a similar message. In March, it was noted on the blogpage, Letter from Venezuela (http:// thejollycorner.blogspot.com) that El Nacional, a Venezuelan newspaper web site had been hacked into.

In May, the website www.voiceacrossamerica.com/bowlersparadise was hacked into and still, Te@m-Evil's trademark work is up on the page for clear viewing as well as the usual message: “Fr0m The Darkside===>[Team-Evil Moroccan Hackerz] ===>we are: G0rillazz ; X-BLooD-X ; 3rbil ; Peur2rien ;EVIL-slAyers ===>Team anti-USA ===>anti-Terrorisme ====> anti-Israel ====> Our Msg (message) iS for USA & ISRAEL are TERRORISTS, FUCK You & Fuck Your Politic ===> Greetz t0: Adrallica , THE_GHOST, Spy, Pc And for all Moroccan Hackerz -====> x.blood.x@gmail.com & 3rbil@hackermail.com & l8oo8l@gmail.com ===>BE Pround (Proud) To Be MORCCAIN © Te@m-Evil Copyright 2005.”

Other websites of ethnicity, gender and general topics have also been hacked into by Te@m-Evil, most notably, Islamic, Persian, Hispanic, Korean, gay porn, Japanese, Jewish, Israeli and sports, as well as websites sponsored by different countries like France, Italy and Great Britain, all with similar messages left behind.

Why would Te@m-Evil be dumb enough to leave traceable email addresses behind? And why does Te@m-Evil, even bother copyrighting their material when they fail to realize that it is evidence that can be used against them if or when they are caught? And do they want to be caught?

Yet still, the burning question remains: Could these strikes on little-known and seminally-known websites be target practice/test runs for the real thing? Could it be that these small skirmish strikes are nothing more than Te@m-Evil, leaving their territorial marks, while gearing up for the real McCoy sometime in the not-so-distant future?

Welcome to electronic fear.

The Botox Frankenstein Poetry Series>From A Fish-Eye Lens

Well we've come to Friday, the easy capper for me this week, considering Yom Kippur and all. I keep finding early poems of mine, some written nearly 20 years ago, so dear readers, again I'm treating you all to early glimpses of my life, when life was deliciously experimental then as it is now! And yes, of course, always, always, enjoy!!!

From A Fish-Eye Lens

I’m a refugee
From an army camp
That abandoned years ago
I seek out
Anybody who tells me
Where the hell I belong
I’ve been travelling
On the road
For quite sometime now
The memories like the blood
Remain as fresh as the air
But the tracks always lead to nowhere
A ghost
Haunts my memory
About a battle
That had taken place
I can’t remember names
Only colors, blotches
And the tiny faces
Screaming late into
The night
Suffering,
Senseless,
Soaring,
Slaughters
Scary, it was
Streaming blood
From punctured children
Searching for their families
Cut down for no reason
Stemmed from anger and confusion
Me now
Talking from a phone
In an institution, locked up
From a nightmare, I cannot overcome
Scary, it is still
Never to know the meaning of tranquility
Forever,
Screaming out the tiny faces

Everett Baltimore, Master Detective: The Case Of The Missing Callback™

I've written a lot of words in my day, from feature stories to music compositions to film scripts. While going through my writing archives recently, I found a long-ago old play script I had written for one of the many jobs I've held over the years, which for one reason or another was neither produced or pursued. I've shown it to a few friends, but never the general public until today. So my dear readers, may I present to you in its entirety, Everett Baltimore, Master Detective: The Case Of The Missing Callback™ and as always, enjoy!

Everett Baltimore, Master Detective: The Case Of The Missing Callback™

Written/Produced

by TheMishegasMaster

© 2002

The Players:
Everett Baltimore narrator/voice of Al Capone
Fast Fingers Wallace & Hal Menschenet
Estella Canella AKA The Easy Caller
Harry Borders & Dishmore Tzadskegress AKA The Difficult Caller

Act I-Scene 1 (Music Up & Over)

Looking into the office of PI Everett Baltimore, a former reporter, turned private detective, we see him sitting at a long table, talking to himself. On the table are two piles of papers, Baltimore has been sifting through haphazardly when without warning, a tall man with a hat bursts into his office with a puzzled, yet worrisome look on his face…

EB: Hmm, now let’s see, where was I, oh yeah, now I remember…

HB: Good-day sir, I don’t mean to intrude, but if didn’t speak to someone I would burst!

EB: Well, go on man, what is it? What is it?

HB: I’ve misplaced my callback.

EB: You’ve what!

HB: I’ve misplaced my callback.

(Everett paces around the room for a few seconds and thinks aloud. He looks at the stranger with contempt momentarily, but then realizes the significance of it)

EB: And what do you expect to me to do about it? I don’t know who you are. For all I know, you could be a decoy sent by Fast Fingers Wallace. After all, he has been trying for years to snuff me out; you know what I’m saying?

HB: I’m no decoy, Mister Baltimore, I made my own decision to come here and seek you out.

EB: In fact, now that we’re talking about missing callbacks, let me tell you about the time I solved a simple “finders-keepers losers-weepers” callback case. Got a few minutes? Care for a cup of Joe, Mister, ummm?

HB: Harry Borders, Mister Baltimore, Harry Borders.

EB: Yes, care for one?

(Act I fades)

Act II-Scene 2 (Music Up & Over)

Cut to a bustling office full of young and energetic editors and reporters, yelling at each other, while cranking out articles on clunky typewriters, close to an 11 am deadline. A younger Baltimore is seen coming through the office in a gray hat and tan trench coat with a black briefcase and reporter’s notebook in left hand, walking quickly to the desk of editor Hal Menschenet, whom by many is regarded as the fastest editor/writer this side of the Mississippi.

EB: Hey Menschenit, when are you planning to run my expose’ on companies that fail to abide by the rules of Nostradamus, next century?

HM: Listen, dog, I don’t have time to speak to you now…

EB: Listen, Menschenet, you’ve been promising me and promising me for months on end to run it. What is the hold-up? Too many pay-offs padding your pockets from special interests groups not to publish it?

HM: Listen punk, I have a good notion to cut you a pink slip and send you on your merry way, you know what I’m saying?

EB: No, I don’t know what you’re saying. Care to explain it to me? That’s all you ever say whenever I approach you. What’s a matter, Menschenet, getting too big for your britches? Getting too soft on crime? Getting too palsy-walsy with the cops and politicos in this town?

HM: You know, what Baltimore? Sit down and let me tell you a little story. My job is one of great importance and I don’t take anything too lightly. In fact, you’re not the first man to stick a gun in my ribs and pull the trigger and you sure won’t be the last…

EB: What does that have to do with anything? What have you been smoking? Too much TV?

HM: Dog, listen up. Long before I ever came to this crappy little outfit, I was a rewrite man for people like Hecht, McCormick and Lake. I was doing the grunt-work, while they took all the credit. There’s nothing new about that, it’s been goin’ on for years, long before you and I were born and it’ll go on long after we pass through this dirty bird world. But unlike you, you’ve been given opportunities galore, while me, I’ve had to work my way up form the Bowery to Frisco to the tough joints in Attica, Leavenworth, Statesville and Sing-Sing. Guys like you are a dime-a-dozen, Baltimore, but I like you, that’s why I hired you because I know you can get the job done in a matter of minutes…

EB: This isn’t Dragnet…

HM: Anyway, long before I ever got to where I sit, I was a young, naïve kid fresh out of the service and eager to learn all that life had to offer, so I took the first job I could score and I ended up as a lieutenant to Scarface, that’s right, dog you heard me right, Al Capone. Capone had entire towns in his pockets, prostitutes on every corner, crooked coppers in every precinct, all the booze you could ever want to drink, a hideaway every five miles and mistresses, boy lemme tell you…

(Act II fades)

Act III-Scene 3

We see a young Hal busily working the phones for Capone. From time to time, he shows signs of frustration and cusses a little. In the background, we hear a gruff voice, presumably that of Capone.

HB: Dang, Al. I will never get the gist of this routine. These hoods are just too slick for me, even on a phone call, I just cannot do it. I’m giving up…

AC: Lissen dog, I didn’t get to be where I am today, as ruler of the crime world with that attitude. I got to where I am by taking my lumps over and over until I learned from my mistakes and then surged forward. I expect you to do the same. Now, lissen kid, it’s not all that hard to do. All you do is call someone up, ask them a few questions about their business and move ahead. That’s all there is to it. It’s that simple. I don’t call you “Fast Fingers Wallace for nothing, my friend. You’re my best man on the job. That’s why I hired you to begin with, because I know you can get the job done in a matter of seconds. You’ve never let me down, dog and I don’t expect you to let me down now. You know what happens to those who fail me, don’t you, Wallace? I take out my violin and play them a little tune. Here, maybe I can help you out…

(Act 3 fades)

Scene IV-Act 4

(We listen in as Fast Fingers Wallace makes his first phone call.)

AC: Now kid, you remember everything I told you, right? I’ll be monitoring you to make sure you get everything right.

HM: Yes, Al

(Fast Fingers dials the phone and waits for the line to pick up. He has a slightly worried look on his face as he waits)

EC: Hello, G & C? Can I help you?

HM: Hello madam, my name is Hal and I am calling to offer you a free listing in the Uptown Enquirer’s second annual business registry. It’s a listing of all the local businesses in the area, similar to the Yellow pages. Are you interested?

EC: Why certainly, I am, Hal. What do I need to furnish you with?

HM: Well, first, I see that you are located at 5632 North Broadway in Cicero, the zip code is 60439 and that you have 4 people employed there. The president of the company is Estella Canella and the name of the company is God & Country Inc.

EC: That is correct Hal.

HM: And you manufacture religious shines and Halloween lanterns.

EC: Right again, Hal. Is there anything else you need to know?

HM: No, madam, this is all I need. You have yourself a great day, okay?

EC: Why thank you Hal. You do the same. Good-bye. (Phone clicks down).

AC: What a great job kid! Nice smooth voice, full of confidence, not a word of question or doubt in your throat, I like that.

HM: Thanks chief.

(Hal makes his second call)

DT: Yes?

HM: Hello sir, my name is Hal and I am calling to offer you a free listing in the Uptown Enquirer’s second annual business registry. It is a listing of all the local businesses in the area, similar to the Yellow pages. Are you interested?

DT: We don’t want any…

HM: Sir, this does not cost you a dime, it is a free listing, and it is a good way to get to know your neighbors…

DT: And what if I don’t want to get to know my neighbors?

HM: Well sir, try to look at from another viewpoint, for one moment, please…

DT: Who are you that you should be telling me what to think? I don’t even know who you are. How did you get this telephone number? This is the end of this conversation. (Click).

(Thinking, Hal gets back on the phone and redials the number.)

DT: A Tisket A Tasket, We Make Burial Caskets. Can I help you?

HM: Hello sir…

DT: Oh it’s you again!

HM: Sir, I think we were disconnected…

DT: No, I hung up on you, stupid! What do you want? Don’t you get it? I am not interested at all! I don’t want any bills coming to me, I already have enough debts from the depression, can’t afford any more…

HM: Sir, all I want to do is update a free listing for you. If anything should come from this listing are more customers, which means more clients and more profitability. That is all I am really trying to do sir, is to help you to help yourself.

DT: Hmmm. That’s something I never thought of. And you’re positive this won’t cost me anything and I won’t be billed later?

HM: No, sir. Not now, not ever.

DT: (sighing) Hhhhhhh, all right what do you need to know?

HM: The name of your business is A Tisket A Tasket Wood & Bronze Caskets Co. that is on 1313 Manson Dr. in Berwyn and the zip code is 60247.

DT: Uh-huh.

There are 10 people employed there and you make caskets, tommy guns and mustard.

DT: We’ve upped the employee total since the depression, Hal. We’re up to 25 now and no longer produce mustard. Too costly. Now we make catsup.

HM: Oh, okay. I see, sir. You are still the president of the company and Jack Armstrong is the operations manager.

DT: That’s right. Anything else, Hal? I really need to get a move-on. It’s our busy season you know.

HM: No sir. I want to just thank you for taking my phone call and just have a great day!

(Click)

AC: That was phenomenal Hal. You were assertive and thought on your feet, not many people do that these days. You are one a kind, my friend. By the end of the call, you had him eating out of the palm of your hand like a trained parakeet. Good work!

(Fade back to Everett Baltimore’s office)

EB: And that’s my story Mr. Borders. Any questions?

HB: Uh, yeah. I didn’t say callback, Mister Baltimore, I said crawl back, Mister Baltimore. This is a stick-up! Don’t make a move and hand over yer wallet…

(Music Up & over-cast comes together for accolades)

The Day Of Atonement: Yom Kippur, 5766

“The Day Of Atonement, it is for me…” Jakie Rabinowitz (Al Jolson), The Jazz Singer, Lux Radio Theater, June 2, 1947

“Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the most sacred of the Jewish holidays. It is regarded as the "Sabbath of Sabbaths." By Yom Kippur the 40 days of repentance that begins with the first of Elul have passed. On Rosh Hashanah the God Almighty has judged most of mankind and has recorded his judgment in the Book of Life. But he has given a 10 day reprieve. On Yom Kippur these 10 days of reprieve ends and the Book of Life is closed and sealed. Those who have repented for their sins are granted a good and happy New Year…."

From the website www.theholidayspot.com/ yomkippur/

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement for Jewish people all over the world, me included and also the one day of the year that I reflect most often on the past 12 months, has begun. Primarily, it begins when the sun sets wherever the person lives and then, in accordance to Jewish law, we fast as a way of cleansing our souls.

Most people go to shul on Yom Kippur, but I won’t be, at least not this year, no I will be most likely spending the day reflecting and then later spending time at an undisclosed bridge-over-water location within the suburbs getting rid of all my negatives from this past year.

The only traditional ritual that I have been observing for years is what I’ve been doing most every night since Rosh Hashanah and that is of course listening to a CD copy of the Lux Radio Theater radio play version of the first talking picture entitled: The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, broadcast on June 2, 1947.

I haven’t always fasted; that’s pretty hard on the body and really like starving and I know for certain that if I don’t eat by a certain time that I will begin feeling it, first within my eyes and then everywhere else. This year however, I will continue to intake water, so I won’t dehydrate myself.

If there was ever a year to be full of negatives, this would be one of these years; mostly a lot of it came with change and the situations didn’t always work themselves out and if anything, they usually came to a head and the negatives did their best to hurt and destroy me, both physically and mentally, but I beat them back!

As I did on Rosh Hashanah, I’m going to list my negatives, as a way to flush them finally out of my head and into the virtual forever burning kashrut ocean of fire: Peggy Lowe; Sarah Armstrong; extra weight; Aandraya da Silva, Joe & Serena; Americredit; Capital One; Nazis; haters; Uncle Louie; Uncle Jesse; The Russian Hit-Squad; Angelina Ballerina; The Texas Gruesome Twosome Boys (AKA CrabApple & Puddle Paddle); Lester Nesmith; wisdom teeth; 18 dead mice; animal lovers; Raziel; Lonesome Larry, Nudnik Nancy; Charles Joseph; telemarketers; Jake Aronov; Lexie Bloor; Crazy Mary & her white service dog; Phil Zurawski; Wendy Ku and all the other hopeless and wasteful idiots that have crossed my path either in person or online, good riddance!!!

As I wrote last week: “I have taken all such negatives looked at them solidly and squarely in the face one final time, kissed them goodbye and have tossed them into a virtual slow-burning fire and will watch each and every one of those negatives burn into a fine powdery ash and evaporate into the atmosphere forever.”

As I stated earlier, tomorrow I will perform a symbolic gesture of their departure and then move ahead. Ha-shem would want me to. And frankly, so do I!

For those of you who are partaking in Yom Kippur tonight and all day tomorrow through sunset, I wish you all a safe and easy fast and once again, have a sweet, safe and prosperous New Year!

Moviestar, Footslip And There You Are>Act 1

"They're gonna put me in the movies/They're gonna make a big star out of me/ We'll make a film about a man that's sad and lonely/ And all I gotta do is act naturally"-Act Naturally, Buck Owens

About a year or so ago, after I moved out of the swamp (soggy basement studio) and into my new apartment and a little more than three weeks after I performed at the fourth annual sound poetry festival in Portland, Oregon, I made an accidental discovery that forever changed my life.

One night while I was going through the myriad of publications I collected both from the festival and within my brief passage through the city, I happened upon the name of a website within one of the publications. Instead of typing in the website http://www.cragslist.com/, I accidentally typed in the website http://www.craigslist.com/ and stumbled on an entirely new world of fun and excitement!

As I’ve found, http://www.craigslist.com/ became for me, what it has become for most people; a wonderful Internet bulletin board full of every imaginable listings category known to mankind and then some! In the beginning I mostly utilized http://www.craigslist.com/ for acting jobs, poetry publication listings, artist listings and events, giveaways (free), barter & exchange deals and dating purposes. Some of these panned out mighty fine, while others turned out as dismal as a dreary rainy weekend. For this first part, I’ll focus on my first acting role.

In my first week alone while surfing http://www.craigslist.com/, I started applying to any or all real acting jobs I could find. Prior to this role, my acting experience wasn’t much. I had played Santa Claus in a suburban mall back in 1986, a few extra roles in graduate student films along the way and most importantly, I played a dead body in my eldest brother Louie's experimental film back in the early 1980s, a few plays and all of my performance and poetry recital work; in other words, I didn’t think I had much experience, but lo & behold; when I wasn’t looking very hard for a role, I caught my first taste of acting, by landing a small role as a Rabbi (Rabbi Sterling) in a film originally titled “Skips Stevens Project,” later changed to “Tough Times.”

The premise of the film centered on the main character Skip Stevens, a TV talk-show host, whose father was well known in the entertainment business during the 1960s & 1970s. Skip had a hard time adjusting around his father and also his own self worth, trying to fit in, when most of the time he didn’t.

Initially, I tried getting the role for my Rabbi, but he insisted I might be a better fit. The director Jason Pittman told me they had a set idea in mind for this Rabbi character; primarily to perform a graveside service for the father of the main character Skip Stevens, a television talk-show host.

Pittman had also told me that he had been working on the production for two years and that the scenes I would be in were the last few to be produced before the editing began. Filming commenced at one in the afternoon, yet I had to be at the director’s apartment by 11am. On Sunday, October 17, I left my apartment early, about 10:15am or so, in order to get there on time and of course, I mangled the directions and ended up getting lost; so I called the director’s apartment and one of the cameramen answered and eventually guided me into down the right streets and soon enough, I pulled up to his place.

Once inside, I met the other members of the cast. Almost everybody was standing around, dressed in black, casually talking, joking, snacking on the finger sandwiches, chewing on the cookies and sipping on the Coca-Cola. I didn’t eat or drink that much on that day, save for perhaps a few chocolate chip cookies and a bottle of water I brought with me.

I went into a separate room inside their apartment and changed into my suit, emerged from the room and then I went into the living room where everyone was hanging out and introduced myself around to the different members of the cast. At about 12:15 pm or so, we paired off in cars. I drove with all three of the cameramen, while the director drove ahead of us and the rest of the cast drove in other cars. We arrived at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago, (a cemetery on the northwestside of Chicago, also known for its civil war dead buried there) a short time later. It was a warm day, I recall, but a little nippy in the shade.

My role was simple; all I had to do was recite a Hebrew prayer for the dead, interspersed with English text, plus shake the hand of the widow and offer my condolences. My costume consisted of a black suit, purple yarmulke, black shoes, blue shirt with a red striped tie (I think) and my glasses. If I had known I was going to have taken this role, I never would have trimmed my long moustache & beard into a short cropped moustache & beard a few weeks prior to taking the role.

I must have done at least 20 takes of that Hebrew text scene until they got what they were looking for. Throughout the scene, they kept calling me “Rabbi” and not my real name, which seemed kind of funny in the moment. The shaking the hand of the widow scene was seemingly less times to perfect, which came out to only 10 takes!

Another oddity that struck me that Sunday while filming my two scenes, was the mere fact that every time I was filmed, we had no interference whatsoever, meaning no car noise/exhausts or engines running or airplanes flying above.

Every other scene that didn’t involve me, though, they had to take and retake over and over, much to the chagrin of the director and the lead cameraman, due to the described conditions of interference. When the director asked aloud why my scenes were perfect and why the other scenes were imperfect, I simply said straight-faced, “Well hey, I’m the Rabbi,” to which the entire cast burst out in laughter!

At approximately 3:30pm, we wrapped up the filming. I caught a ride back with the director’s wife and then changed back into my street clothes. It was about eight more months before I would hear from Pittman, when one day in the mail I received a DVD copy of the film, plus an additional reel of all of my outtakes.

Overall, only 20-30 seconds of my scenes were in the 14-minute film. I was pleased and called the director to thank him. He appreciated my efforts and told me I was a natural on film, and he was surprised when he learned that this was my first film role ever! All my years of small acting roles, performance and reading poetry had at last paid off. And this was only my first role!

Lost In The Paperwork Shuffle, Red Tape & Other Crevices & Crannies: An Occupational Hazard>Act 18

Sometimes in the midst of things, prisoners here on Devil’s Island tend to get lost in the shuffle of paperwork, until the realization of the situation at hand shows that nothing can be done to bring them back because they’ve been executed, commit suicide or otherwise escaped.

Such was the case recently for four prisoners, Hot-Lips Kitty, Silent Sarah, Little Mama & Conventional Chip.

Nobody seemed to notice any of these four prisoners gone until Johnny Vegas started inquiring about it. It seems peculiar that whenever Johnny Vegas inquires about anything, The Most Holy Father & Josie Peppermint will take time out of their busy prison schedule and listen. yet, anyone else that requests the same thing or puts forth questions on varying states of Devil's Island, well, let's just say it will undoubtedly fall on deaf ears.

Conventional Chip on the other hand, tended to stay quiet about things in general, mostly keeping close in contact to Josie Peppermint, The Flat-Footed Floogies, Roy & Floy and Brimstone Bettina.

He spent what seemed like an entire lifetime here on Devil’s Island, just smashing the rocks with his hammer, eating, smoking his prisoner-allotted cigarettes and starving himself most disconcertedly, which explains why he decided to end his life by starvation.

Conventional Chip came to Devil’s Island many moons ago, after committing his only know crime to humanity; an accidental episode of being unconventional to the outside world, which of course landed him a spot in the most feared place in the world and that of course is Devil’s Island.

Not much is known about the demise of Hot-Lips Kitty other than to sadly note that she spoke and sucked lips a little too much, a bit too much for those temporarily in command. The same holds true for Silent Sarah. She didn’t speak at all, so lo and behold; she disappeared forever after.

Little Mama, however saw a most tragic, if not horrible and horrendous fate, indeed. Only hours before The Great Devil’s Island Blackout & Prisoner Escape occurred, while she was cooking a meal inside her prison cell, the switch to turn on the flame accidentally sparked across the prison cell bars, where Little Mama was leaning up against when suddenly without warning, she was electrocuted in a freak accident and burned over 95 percent of her body.

Then of course, there is still the the age old question on the table that remains untouched to this day; where are The Fraternal Goon Twins, Makeshift Mark and Upper Prison Brass? Also, it has been reported that Groggleman is missing in action. Earlier reports seemed to indicate that he was seen by many prisoners after the power was restored, but those sightings have now been proven false.

To refresh your memory, when The Great Devil’s Island Blackout & Prisoner Escape occurred, several authority figures went down with the ship and are now missing and are still presumed dead. No single rumor or shred of evidence has come forward to this day to prove otherwise. It seems very strange that after all this time that no prisoners from Devil’s Island have come forward to offer up any information on what they may or may not know about those missing.

Those that remain in command; The Barnaby Boys, the Tommy-Gun Twosome, The Sorcerer Sisters, The Holy Father, Josie Peppermint, “Groveling Gary” and “Grandma Gretchen,” have never to this day mentioned any search and rescue efforts for those missing. Neither have they mentioned anything regarding search and recovery efforts either.

Those reported missing still seem to remain in a shroud of secrecy. Did they really disappear or are they actually hiding somewhere and don’t want anyone else to know? The mood on Devil’s Island since their disappearance seems to have gone to the wayside, almost party intensity. Prisoners seem more relaxed than ever and talk to each other more frequently.

Suffice to say, since their odd and unusual disappearance, those that are now gone have brought Devil’s Island back to its original state of mind; pure happiness, calm and contentment!