long before it meant "fair and balanced"

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this is the last thing i intended to write about tonight, because these days i don't dwell on this aspect of my past very much.


but then, when i set out to reorganize my garage today, i didn't count on coming across this old painting behind a bunch of boxes.


notice that i snapped it just as i found it [and click on it if you really wanna appreciate it]--dusty, covered with cobwebs and the detritus of time and neglect--and then imagine, if you will, that at one point in time this neat, graphically-suave little composition (an original "nino," you will note--and there was a time when that meant something) hung in a spotlighted niche of honor in a place that was, for over two years of my life, my second home.

* * * * *

i held any number of part-time jobs in my minor years, but none of 'em changed my life in any meaningful way--none, that is, until, as a hopeful applicant, i walked through the doors of the blue fox inn for the first time.

first thing i noticed was how gorgeous the place was--a newly-opened restaurant in my little east-texas town, and i'd never seen anything like it. situated in a wooded hollow with leaded glass, wood-paneled walls and a menu to die for, it was, to say the least, a far cry from the sizzler steak house i'd started out in.

and then i met and was interviewed by the owner--for the sake of this post [and since it's his name] let's call him beau. a few back-and-forth questions--he didn't give a shit about my experience--and i was the blue fox inn's newest busboy/dishwasher/waiter-hopeful.

and thus, as they say, the die was cast.

i started work a few days later, and, based on my past experience as a worker in a restaurant that had actually earned its keep, quickly realized the following: (1) even if they didn't know what the fuck they were doing, everybody who worked there was fun, and we had a ball--beau had chosen people he liked and we all liked each other; (2) the place was horribly, extravagantly mismanaged--beau was a big-picture guy, and to hell with the details; (3) all the money had gone to the wrong places; while the dining room was stellar, the parking lot was an unpaved mudhole, and the infrastructure was for shit--the a/c didn't work half the time, and the water heater was so inadequate that the dishes mostly came outta the dishwasher as grease-encrusted as they went in; and, (4) the concept was way too fancy for its locale, and it was only a matter of time before the place would fold and i'd be looking for my next job.

but the other thing i quickly realized? at 28, my new boss was the smartest, most charmingly captivating motherfucker i'd ever met in my short, sheltered, unsophisticated life.

see, he was a completely alien creature to my limited experience--i'd never met anybody like him. raised on the east coast as a wealthy, privileged couple's only child, beau had grown up on long island, traveled everywhere, served in vietnam, subsequently made some money in florida construction, and then decided, for whatever dumbass reason, to sink it all into a restaurant venture in my little backwoods corner of east texas.

accompanying him to texas was his wife, marlene [for what it's worth, she put michelle pfeiffer to shame, and was the only female i ever jerked off to in my entire adolescence], and their adorable blonde, blue-eyed toddler, mocha.

he also brought with him to east texas, his parents--and here we have to take a left turn because nino and jonni deserve no less than the full treatment, and i'm gonna hereby give 'em their due.

see, beau was ambitious--the inn wasn't enough; he also determined to open up an intimate (as he described it) "millionaire's club" in the basement space under the restaurant. and he eventually did--he dubbed it "the fox's lair." luxuriantly and ungodly-expensively appointed, it was dominated by an elaborate hammered-copper bar, plushly-upholstered banquettes around the softly-lit perimeter, and a yamaha piano as its centerpiece.

and manning the piano? well, that's the interesting part--see, beau's father was an old-school borsht-belt entertainer, and had agreed to cut his present engagements short in order to help out his son.

i will never forget the day that nino and jonni rolled into our humble parking lot in their cadillac calais coupe, got outta the car and looked disdainfully around at their new surroundings (seriously, go back and watch the pilot episode of green acres in which oliver and lisa hit hooterville for the first time and you'll have some idea what i'm talking about).

and in retrospect, what a comedown it must've been for them: nino--a rakish, charming maurice chevalier-style entertainer who favored pastel golf ensembles complete with color-coordinated suede gucci loafers--had apparently enjoyed great success in the northeast, in vegas, and then in southern florida. and then there was jonni--impeccably elegant and beautiful even in her late fifties--who had been, in her day (and as i was often reminded), the first model to have ever graced the cover of vogue twice.

problem was, they were total fish outta water in backwoods east texas: the club opened, and nino launched into what was apparently his usual shtick--i.e., music for jews--to little initial acclaim.

two things stand out from my time attending the downstairs room: (1) the night early on when some rich redneck requested floyd cramer's last date, nino had no idea who or what the fuck the guy was talking about and i knew we were in trouble; and (2) the fact that, thanks to nino, i quickly came to know every word to every song in fiddler on the roof long before i even knew there was a musical by that name.

bottom line? while nino initially didn't draw a wide following in tyler, he shortly and sure-as-shit sucked in every rich, sophisticated jew in town with his act, plus more than a few worldly non-jewish tylerites.

and it wasn't just his act that drew 'em in--nino was a talented man in many disciplines, not the least of which was visual art, of which there are many extant examples on the east coast and elsewhere (including the logo he created for his son's new enterprise that you see above), and of which he sold more than a few during his short stay in tyler.

problem was, there weren't enough jews in tyler downstairs--or discriminating diners upstairs-- to sustain beau's grand enterprise.

business dwindled to a trickle in the restaurant--by that time i was a waiter, and jonni served as the maitre d' [she and i had many intimate, interesting conversations during those long, slow evenings when there was no business; it wasn't until much later that beau told me she'd repeatedly urged him to fire me because she found me so callow and unsophisticated--which, of course, i was].

finally, the day came--as we all knew it would--when the whole operation had to close; there just wasn't enough money to pay the bills anymore. and most everybody went and found new jobs.

but then beau went into the final liquidation meeting with his creditors, and somehow, against all odds, pulled this new idea outta his ass. and even to this day, i don't know how he pulled it off, but whatever--instead of walking outta that meeting with nothing but his dick in his hand, he came out reinvented, with not only a new beginning, but with new fucking money.

actually, that's a lie; with the gift of hindsight, i know exactly how he did it. and i'll tell you next time--not only because it's pretty interesting, but because what he did set the course for the next several years of my life.

this one always makes my therapists salivate

a little foreword:

i've had a fair amount of therapy (and more than a few therapists) in my life, starting at about 17 when it finally dawned on folks that i might be a troubled youth (damn shame, since that was at least six years past the point at which such intervention might've proved useful), and my approach to the process has evolved over the years.

at first, i was terrified--by the time i sat down across the table from my first therapist, i had pretty much stifled all my pain into a tiny little pandora's box which i really had no interest in opening for him or anybody else (and by then, of course, there was the additional pressure of hiding the fact that i was a goddam faggot), so we didn't get very far in the year we saw each other.

in time, however, i came to realize just how valuable a therapist can be--hell, you can tell those fuckers damn near anything, and not only are they paid to listen to you, they're obligated to (a) sit there with a fixed dispassionate expression on their faces, (b) nod and take it all in like it's normal, and finally and most importantly (c) keep all the shit you've spewed out to themselves.

and what a freeing realization that was.  hell, i suddenly had a safe, captive audience for all my deepest, darkest shit--and, boy, did i take advantage of it.

of course, me being me, i always felt the need to give as good as i got, which meant making my shit as interesting as possible--i got very good at figuring out what they wanted to hear and delivering same.

and i could always tell how successful one of my stories was by the resultant scribble rate--i.e., the more feverishly they scratched away at their legal pad as i talked, the better i knew the act was selling.

the following, for whatever it's worth, is my all-time bestseller--and (also, for whatever it's worth) every goddam word of it is true.

if after all this build-up you're expecting something big and dramatic, you'll be disappointed, because on the face of it, it was a little thing.

but then, my dad was a subtle master of the little things.

* * * * *

somewhere around 1965 or so, the troublemaking white-trash brown family finally moved outta the house to our left--and god, what a relief that was

maybe someday i'll tell the story about how my dad--a mud engineer for an oil company with access to all sorts of toxic chemicals--came home one night with a tight smile and a little brown vial of god-only-knows-what, flushed it down the toilet and never said a word as to why, even when shortly thereafter the entire line of sewer-choking willow trees the browns had planted between their property and ours suddenly, mysteriously and simultaneously died--but i digress

and into their place moved the muellers--a fun family if ever there was one.

see, mr. mueller--"jerry" to everybody, but i always called him mr. mueller--was a dj for the top rock 'n roll station in houston at the time [and i'll tell a story about that at some point in the future]. but jerry's job was only one of two things that made him so captivatingly interesting to the kids in the neighborhood.

the other thing? jerry's hobby--he was an HO car nut.

how can i explain HO cars to the uninitiated? they were these little miniturized slot-cars that raced around a track--it was our dinosaur-age version of video games, only they were real.

and mr. mueller had this incredible track, built to scale--complete with artificial hills and banked curves--on this huge sheet of plywood he could electrically raise and lower onto the pool table in his garage.

all of us kids would line up for our turn at the controls--little hand-held gadgets with thumb-controlled throttles--and race mr. mueller's cars [a corvette sting-ray and a shelby cobra, as i recall] around and around that track, hour after hour. and, lemme tell ya, it took finesse--too slow around any particular curve and you lost; even a hair too much juice and your car jumped the slot and you wiped out.

soon enough, however, we all learned the vagaries of not only the track but each of the cars, and kids started bringing in their own cars, bought fresh from the hobby shop and tricked-out and weighted so as to gain every last advantage--and the game changed.

that's when i decided i had to have my own car, and i picked out the body i craved--a lipstick-red oldsmobile toronado--and i imagined exactly how i'd weight the rear end of the chassis so it'd stick to the track like no other car in the running.

but first, i had to come up with the money to pay for it, which required the first long-term saving and planning i'd ever done in my short life.

and by god, i did it--i saved my allowance, denied myself all the little treats i normally enjoyed, and i waited--and waited, and waited--until finally i had enough.

on the long-awaited saturday--and because he happened to be off the rig that weekend--i asked my dad if he'd drive me to the mall so i could get my car. we went to the hobby shop, i pointed to the box i'd lusted after for so long, the clerk pulled it outta the display case and placed it on the counter, and i dug into my pocket and started counting out my dollars, quarters, pennies, dimes and nickels.

and, holy shit, somehow i came up short.

i don't remember how short--all i remember is being flabbergasted at how i'd managed to be off after calculating for all those months exactly how much i'd need and how long it would take me to get it.

and i remember looking up blankly at the clerk, and saying, "i'm sorry, i don't have enough money."

and then my dad saying, "it's ok, i'll make up the difference."

and he did--the transaction was completed, my little car was bagged, stapled and placed into my happy little hand, and we left the store.

and as we drove home in complete and utter silence, i knew something was wrong--whenever he gave you the silent treatment, there was always something wrong.

when we pulled into the driveway, i reached for the handle to open the door, but he stopped me with one cold word: "mike."

i froze, turned to look at him and he fixed me with that look, and said, "smart boy.  you figured if you dragged me all the way over there and came up short, i'd make up the difference. and you figured right--you got me.  enjoy your little toy."

and then he got outta the car, walked into the house and ignored me the rest of the weekend.

and that's my red toronado story.

* * * * *

i told this story to my mother many years later, and she said, "i wish you'd thrown that damn car in his face like he deserved."

and i remember looking at her and thinking [but not saying], "yeah--if you couldn't fight that shit at 33, how the fuck was i supposed to do it at nine?"

the basic difference between obama & palin

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[the following is is a paraphrase of a comment made elsewhere--but (a) it makes a point that needs making, and (b) otherwise i ain't got nothin--so it's going in.]

all public criticism of senator obama in this election cycle, regardless of the issue--rev. wright, bill ayers, annenberg, rezko, voting "present" when he shoulda taken a stand, etc.--has pretty much gone like this: (1) point is raised, (2) cries of "racism" are immediately and shrilly directed at whoever dared raise said point, (3) turmoil ensues, (4) after a suitable, politically-correct interval, barack eventually addresses the issue, peppering his wounded response with words like "divisive" (his code-word for "racist"), and (5) that's it--once barack's spoken on the matter, that's supposed to settle it, and any further questioning by anybody indicates nothing more than racism on the part of the questioner.

governor palin, on the other hand? say what you want about her--and i've said a lot--in the last three or so weeks, this ol' gal has taken a merciless beating on every minute aspect of her past by the press and the left, on a scale the likes of which i've never seen in american politics.

and, so unlike obama--and this is what stands out in my mind about her--regardless of what's been thrown at her, she hasn't whined even once about her treatment on the national stage; she evinces fearless toughness in a way the good senator can't even approach.

bottom line: he comes off like a whiny bitch, and the bitch takes it like a man.

and you really wonder why the race is so close?

it happened at ralphs

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this was yesterday--minor incident on its face, but i can't get it outta my mind.

i'm at the grocery store, squatting down and reading a label. i sense a blur of motion to my left, and all of a sudden this little girl of maybe 3 or 4 is all over me, jumping up and down and pounding my back in an exaggerated gesture of affection--you know, like kids do at that age.

she's adorable, big smile on her face, and i smile back, give her a little hug, and just as i'm in the middle of saying, "well, hi there, sweetheart, what's your na--"

another blur of motion in my periphery, and the kid is yanked away from me into the protective grasp of, i assume, her mother, who turns without even a glance in my direction and walks back to her cart, all the while admonishing the child to never, ever talk to strangers. she looks back over the woman's shoulder at me as they turn the corner, but she's not smiling anymore.

welcome to the brave new world, kid.

oh, and one more thing

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today's david's birthday. he was exactly fifty-one weeks older than me back when we were in high school, and he's exactly fifty-one weeks older than me today.

funny how i always remember his birthday and forget mine.

an inside post

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[and one that'll probably bore you silly, so feel free to skip it. but i needed a safe place to put this particular email exchange so i'd have a record of it, and that's what blogs are for, right? or maybe that's just what this blog is for.]

in response to this post, an old friend's email contained the following:

So, I guess that explains to me a little about you because although you came out later, I do not think that you passed your prime. But apparently you did. To me, you were actually in the ripe years. But, for you, you thought of yourself as already on the downhill arc.

I say this now at 40 because I can certainly imagine myself at 25 VERY attracted to me at 40. I doubt you think so. Indeed, I think you would not even give yourself a second look if you at 25 saw yourself in a bar at 40.

Of course if this happened, it would also cause a tear in the space-time continuum and we would all be destroyed.

to which i replied:

ah, life would be so much easier if i was into white guys in their 40s, since so many of 'em seem to be into me these days. but i never was, and never will be. and as far as finding myself attractive--hell, i wouldn't have done me back when i was 19, and i certainly wouldn't now.

i remember though, back around 1991 when i first hit town, more than one guy told me i was at the height of my studliness and i'd better enjoy it while it lasted. i just laughed.

to which he replied:

I don't know how to respond. I guess the only thing I can say is that you have never been able to generate much enthusiasm for an emotional attachment--a relationship. Because that changes everything.

[he completely forgot about v, of course--and how that sadly didn't change everything.]

Your primary basis of reference is who you trick with...and while that has its place, you seem to have no other reference point, no other perspective. And you do not seem to want any other perspective. You were so excited when you first met Roman...his name escapes me for the moment...and to have an actual first love. Whatever happened to that?

[...]

Basically, you have not changed a lot in the 17 years that I've known you. While it is true that I can say that about a lot of people, it's also true that I can't say that about too many people I respect.

So, why not?

If I'm being harsh, you know it's 'cause I love you. If I really wanted to wound, well, now, you would know that too.

to which, just now, i replied:

au contrare, mon frere--i've changed tremendously over the past 17 years. problem is, it's mostly been for the worse--i've magnified my failures and minimized my successes to the point that the idea of sticking my head up outta the ol' foxhole again is pretty much more than i can bear; i anticipate defeat to the point that my world has pretty much shrunk down to what i can see around me. i work and i go home.

his name was rummel, btw. i "loved" him because he was safely unavailable; had he returned my interest in kind, i'd have probably run screaming. the experience--that failure and its associated pain--did pretty much cure me of such foolishness, though, i'll say that for it.

you know me well in many ways, r__, but you've never really understood me. you can't look far enough past the way that you yourself relate to the world and other people to recognize that the way i do it might be irremediably, unfixably different from yours; even as smart as you are and with all the therapy you've had, when it comes to me, you're still, like, "oh, snap out of it." it's a lack of empathy on a level i see (and expect) quite often in the stupid, the unreflective and the lame, but rarely do i come across it in people i respect.

makes us even, i guess.

seventeen years, summed up neatly.

like i have something to say that's different from everybody else's blatherings on the subject

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but has that ever stopped me before? of course not, so let's begin.

1. first, i'm a little surprised that several very bright people have taken my initial assessment of sarah palin as some kind of endorsement. all i ever said was, she is who she is, and always has been, in a way that her opponent can't even begin to approach. i stand by that assessment.

2. and yeah, i said "her opponent," because in case you haven't yet realized this, her opponent is not joe biden [hell, if russia hadn't invaded georgia the week before the light-on-foreign-policy (among other things) democratic nominee had to make his vp pick, mr. blowhard bank-owned senate-foreign-relations-committee-chairman with his bad hair plugs, capped teeth and prior dismissal of the head of the ticket wouldn't have even been in the running]--make no mistake: this race is palin v. obama.

3. the other thing i said back then was, she's not gonna be taken down by scandals, and i stand by that one too. troopergate? so she fires people who cross her--everybody in power does, and nobody gives a rat's ass. she was for pork before she was against it? again, nobody but the liberals cares. she shoots wolves from helicopters? wow, guns and helicopters--sounds manly to me; can you imagine the effete obama nutting up enough to do something like that?

4. and now for the family crap--and this is what really slays me: watching the liberal shitstorm of holier-than-thou condemnation because palin's public family-values stance doesn't jibe with the private train-wreck reality of her actual family life. and understand: these are the same people who ten years ago just as shrilly admonished us that whatever shambles bill clinton made of his private life should be between him and his family, and had absolutely nothing to do with his ability to run the country. fuckin' two-faced hypocritical assholes, all of you!

5. but what really chaps me about this is, the reason this woman's family is a mess is because she did exactly what the liberal feminists who are today so loudly denouncing her fuckin' told her to do: she said, "fuck stay-at-home motherhood--i'm gonna go out and fulfill my professional destiny as a woman and let my kids fend for themselves." and now, big surprise--her son's a drug addict, her daughter's a pregnant slut and she has a troubled marriage.

6. the thing is--and the reason this is not only not gonna hurt her with the electorate, but probably help her--is that her family is pretty much just like every other fucked-up family in america today, and for pretty much the same reasons; hell, the only thing missing is the divorce and remarriages.

7. but what really, really kills me is, all of the foregoing is sideshow stuff, and has absolutely nothing to do with the substance of why this woman is so totally, completely and disastrously wrong for the job she may well be called upon to do.

8. why is it that my countrymen--both left and right--are these days so easily willing to cast the fate of their country into the hands of telegenic, charismatic people whose primary career accomplishment is glib mastery of the teleprompter?

whoever said it was right--we get the government we deserve.

[h/t to april for the above image]