#IWSG (and ROW80) 1ST QUARTER 2015 - POST 2 – HACK JOB

Now that the Christmas trees have been dragged to the curb (or kerb for proper English spellers) and all the fireworks – well, mostly here on Nebraska Avenue, 33605 – are well and truly lit and exploded, although we shall be celebrating the beginning of 2015, well into March, unless that's the sound of AK-47s I hear in the distance, it's time to go back review some of the major craziness that once again, passes for just another day here in da 'hood.

I'm proud to say that THIS year, I didn't contribute to it for a change; at least, not in a way that caused anyone to bleed, or run screaming from the grocery store, although that one would-be mugger doesn't count and he had it coming to him, anyway. Alex still doesn't know what I did to him, and I'll never tell. It had to do with some of my more serious crazy ju-ju that I am able to summon at a whim, in a manner befitting Johnny Storm of Marvel's “Fantastic Four”; a sort of Flash-on, Flash-off thing that dowses itself when I'm no longer in harm's way, or like "woge-ing" if you're a Wesen in NBC's "Grimm". By that time, said wanna-be mugger was two blocks down the road.

courtesy: Grimm Wiki                                               

A fully-woged "Klaustreich", scars and all.

No, this past year just saw everything from the Sharpie Lady to my Fairy Opera Singer Neighbor, who truly cannot help herself. Sharpie Lady has a particular derangement, which lurks just below the surface of a cheerful countenance and it's difficult for me to really tell if she's delusional or just plain cheap. This is partly due to the fact that her English is worse than my Spanish, and she sells things out of her house, that are mostly junk with the most outrageous prices attached to them. Once, she showed me a bag full of children's beads, the kind that have both a male and female end, in different colors. You push them together and make bracelets and necklaces for kids out of these things. I played with them for about 5 minutes once. I was a crappy girl-child and was much more interested in blowing things up with my boy cousins.

These are about the most boring toys on earth, I think.

Anyway, she had these beads mixed in with a lot of junk and costume jewelry that wouldn't have looked good on a 2-dollar whore, which we have plenty of around here, and were probably the source of her collection. The Tampa Police Department have a habit of chasing the prostitutes north on Nebraska Avenue, past, say Hillsborough Avenue, or Fowler, and they'll stay up there for a while, until the local businesses complain, and then, the TPD, will run them south down past MLK, Junior. Boulevard. They'll migrate back down here, for 4 or 6 months. When I lived in the homeless shelter, there were three of us, who used to sit out back in the driveway in lawn chairs and watch the police run stings and take bets on which john would get popped. It was better than tee vee. The only thing better, were the Friday Night Fights in the mens' house. We bet on who would bleed and cry first; I could've taken them down. Good times, good times!

But, I digress. Sharpie Lady wanted like seventy-five dollars for this entire bag of junk and I thought, “No way. No one knows where it's been, and most of it's in a tangled ball of cheap metal, tears and regret. No thanks.” I didn't think all that poetic stuff; I just made that up. I'm trying with middling success here to be a writer and failing, because now, I'm just being self-aware. Gah!

I love Sharpie pens, I just don't think they're for drawing on your face, when sober.

So, on to my neighbor, who is really, well, different. She is beyond sweet and wouldn't hurt anyone, or take advantage of a soul. She herself on the other hand, has been damaged and taken badly advantage of in her much younger life and it harmed her brain and her body. She was brutally gang-raped and beaten horribly, and left for dead. She somehow managed to survive, crawl to a house, where she was given help. She really remembers nothing of her past life and pretty much lives in the here-and-now. She's about 64, and has been taken in and been cared for by Bernardo, our handy-man. He has watched over her for years. When he's off working, she somehow gravitated to me, originally, and she'll just come in the house, unannounced, now and then. She's always welcome.

She fancies herself an Opera singer, but has had no formal training, but she knows I am a professional musician; she hears me practice and she likes that. I make a HUGE fuss over her when she sings: “BRAVA! ENCORE!” and ask for another aria, even if I don't understand it. She's getting her sing out, and expressing herself and that's good. She's one of the several good, harmed souls that lives in this area. But, we all have a certain feyness, or oddity. I think because of my vision and my essential tremor, and now, lack of sensory perception, I “feel” things that may not be there - although, my mother always abjured me to try and keep at least one foot in this world. I've “seen” things in this old house for years, and not out of the corners of my eyes. I've completely lost my sense of smell, which was great this summer, when something or heaven forbid, someone died under the house. The police couldn't find anything, but I am told the smell was horrific. Thank God, I only had to hear about it.

Anyway, I digress once again; my Fairy Opera Princess showed up one day in my “computer lab” here in my house, recently to ask about ghosts. I was trying to type a string of code, that was being particularly stubborn, and then I looked at her, and. . . bear in mind, she's a tiny gnome of a woman; I myself am only 5' 4” tall, and she is probably 4' 7”. She has long, brown hair, streaked with some gray, as she is 64 years old. She was wearing some white dress, with a filmy, transparent, gauzy sheath over it, that was trimmed, like a feather boa. She had on a flamboyant hat with many colorful flowers, interwoven into the brim – she has many, many hats that she spiffs up this way and adds flowers and spangles and tinsel to, to brighten them up – and she was, of course, holding a fairy wand that she had made, a shiny metal, sparkly wand, that she had glued a pink, puffy ball to the end of it. Because, naturally, all Fairy Princesses should have Fairy Wands. I have one, too, but it's a different kind of Fairy Wand. It keeps me from falling into the street and on uneven sidewalk.

courtesy: fanpop.com

I don't remember if my Fairy Princess had wings; I don't believe she did. But, she did have a beautiful hat. She always, always has hats!

I looked at her for a moment very seriously and I totally Scoobied this and asked, “Are they the shouting kind, or the whispering kind?” She kind of chewed the inside of one cheek for a minute, thought and said, “The whispering kind, but there has been shouting. . . and that was the neighbor upstairs.” We both rolled our eyes, because we both knew who she meant. She does have some grasp on reality. I said, “Well, for the whispering kind, they tend to hang out more near the windows. What I would suggest is putting a dish with some table salt, if you don't have Sea or Kosher, down on the floor, by each window. Not a lot, just a little. That should do it. If that DOESN'T work, try putting dishes of water down by the windows. But, give the salt a try, and try it for a few days, okay?”

I was looking directly at her and she at me, as I said this. I took it as seriously as she asked it. She nodded her head, and said she would try it, and off she went. Sometimes, what people really want is just validation, that their existence has some kind of meaning to someone outside of themselves. She knows she has problems, she knows her man sometimes loses patience with her, but by and large, Bernardo is kind, kind, kind to her and she will come over sometime, just for a hug. Really, it's that simple. Anyway, her whispering ghosts have left for the nonce. They may return and bring friends, around here, who knows?

I have been carted out of here a few times in an ambulance (twice, I don't even remember; this was during my psychotic break of the famous “Let's Celebrate Mental Illness Month of March 2012”, of which there will be NO encores!) and twice for essential tremor-related heart things (prior to diagnosis and treatment) and she has come out and “sung me off” every time. Embarrassing, until you remember, that the EMT, Police and the Fire Department are all cheering her on. So, you have to love it, and her. Thankfully, since I began treatment in June of 2013, I am healthier and stronger every day. It just took 10 years of self-medicating, then searching, discarding, running up blind alleys, dealing with complete shits and morons before finally finding the very right doctors who completely understand what I'm about and it turns out, I'm not all that unique.

Anyway, there is a kind of mania that exists around here; witness the dude who thought his Hogwart's Cloak of Invisibility would keep the SWAT team from finding him two blocks south of me, a few months back. That wasn't a really special day around here. No more so than the drunk that James at Family Dollar and I played some kind of nightmare Tag (I'm it! Run!) with in the Parking Lot as the drunken fool first lunged for James than myself, as we attempted to keep him busy until the TPD arrived. It takes a special kinda drunk and stupid to run after a partially-sighted woman, with a cane and miss her every time he lunges at her. James and I had a good laugh over that. Another dumbass. Or maybe, he was the same dumbass who got tagged by the SWAT team a few days later, who knows. It's hard to keep up with the stupid around here, sometimes.

But, I myself am either STILL prone to the madness that prevails at the corner of Dumbass Boulevard and Batshit Insane Avenue, or my own brand of insanity has HARMONIZED with it. I hate split ends; hate 'em with a passion. I used to have a really good hairdresser that I could walk to, but she left over a year ago, and I have just kind of put up with the mess on my head, courtesy of lots of mousse, #8 super strength hair spray and clips. My hair grows pretty fast, and after the last round of medications and when I had my marathon stay in the hospital in 2010, I had completely whacked it off, so that it was very short. It had grown out again, and then I found this hair-stylist, who was very good. I could take 3 buses to “Fantastic Sam's” but that's such a pain in the ass for just a haircut. I tried the haircutter's across the street from my psychiatrist's office, but the Hondurans there, practically pulled every hair in my head out and I didn't like the way they cut my hair. It fell in steps and I thought it was horrible. 

courtesy: bajiroo.com                

Okay, so it didn't look THIS bad, but is was pretty awful; at least to me. Then, there were those darned split ends to consider. . . 

So, I took the desperate measure of consulting the innerwebz; a life-hack or a DIY. Being the careful sort that I am, when it comes to my hair, I grabbed the first thing that came up, when I Googled “cutting your own hair, DIY” and hastily skimmed the contents. I didn't have an “elastic band”, whatever that is, so I took some twine and doubled it over a few times, and made a knot in it, so I had a loop. I “dampened” my hair, per instructions, under my bathroom sink, but my head didn't really fit, so I kinda combed and brushed all the water through my hair, and then put the twine on it, and looked in the mirror. I looked like some kind of hellish gnome, gone wrong; red hat, rather than green, or a conehead, only minus the flesh.

Another quick skim of the DIY page: “sharp, barber shears, or scissors”. Rummage in junk drawer and find “scissors” part of that description, only “blunt-ended”, like for kids' paper scissors and Dollar-Store. Okay! Good to go.

There was something something about cutting “into” the mass, or lump of hair you had on the other side of the twine, but this was clearly not working. I think the correct term would be “sawing” and after 30 minutes of this, with the twin slipping and becoming uneven and sore wrists, I had one of the shittiest mullets that was ever seen in 1986. Unfortunately, this is 2014. The short part kind of ended somewhere around where my skull ended and where my vertebrae began and I was thinking of rummaging around in that junk drawer to see if maybe there was an ax in there somewhere , so that I could separate the two, but I decided to wait a few days. Three days later, I hacked off the longer 4 inches so that it doesn't look quite so mullet-y, and it will grow out, but I fear there is a gouge somewhere back there amongst all the curls. That's fine, because I do have curly hair and it hides a lot of sins; usually the venal kind. I'm afraid this is a mortal sin, but I still have my go-to mousse, #8 Suave Industrial Strength Hair Spray and Hair Clips in Black for those concerts that are coming up. Thank God my hair grows fast. Around here? I fit in; I look just like everyone else and that is fine with me! Happy New Year's!

My Goals this quarter and for this year are to stay sane and try to write more, just to get my writing "chops" back in shape. I fear I am in for a tough year, not for me physically, but emotionally, and I must stay creative and stay engaged to stay strong. Now, I sound like Lance Armstrong; ick. But you know what I mean. I am also coming up on 100k views of this here blog, which will be a milestone. I turn 60 at the end of 2015, which is another milestone, and I am going to begin planning my traveling itinerary for the next two years. It's time for me to put some mileage on these feet. 

#A-TO-Z CHALLENGE – LETTER "E" – BOB ELLIOT AND RAY GOULDING, “BOB AND RAY”

BOB ELLIOTT AND RAY GOULDING

BOB & RAY

Bob Elliott (born 1923) and Ray Goulding (1922-1990) were an American comedy team, whose career spanned five decades. In a career that saw a successful transition from radio to television, their comedy was derived from the media in which they performed. They would conduct radio or television interviews, with off-the-wall dialogue, that would be presented in a deadpan (deadpan, adjective. 1. marked by or accomplished with a careful pretense of seriousness or calm detachment; impassive or expressionless: deadpan humor.) style as though it were a serious broadcast.

"Matinee with Bob and Ray" sounded better than "Matinob with Ray and Bob," according to Ray Goulding. Just a taste of the odd-ball and off-the-wall comedy the pair would perfect.

They began their professional careers as radio announcers in Boston with separate radio programs; Elliott was a disk jockey and Goulding a news reader, but they would visit one another's shows while on-air. Their informal badinage was so appealing that the radio station, WHDH would call on them to provide entertainment, when Red Sox baseball games were rained out. The pair would improvise comedy routines throughout the afternoon, and joke around with the studio musicians. They were not yet known as “Bob and Ray”.

Elliott and Goulding's brand of humor caught on, and WHDH gave them their own weekday show in 1946. Matinee with Bob and Ray was originally a 15-minute show, but soon expanded to a ½ hour. When explaining why Bob was billed first, Goulding said it was because “Matinee with Bob and Ray” sounded better than “Matinob with Ray and Bob”, which is just a sample of some of the off-the-wall comments the two uttered over the years. Their trademark sign-off was “This is Ray Goulding reminding you to write if you get work”, and “Bob Elliott reminding you to hang by your thumbs”.

The continued on the air for over 4 decades on NBC, CBS and Mutual networks and on New York City stations WINS, WOR, and WHN. From 1973 to 1976, they were regular afternoon drive hosts on WOR, doing a 4 hour show and in their last incarnation, they were heard on NPR, National Public Radio, ending in 1987.

They served as stand-by on NBC's Monitor, often going on-air at a moment's notice if the program's planned segments developed problems, and thus were heard in a surprising variety of formats and timeslots.

Ray, Audrey Meadows and Bob in a skit on the Bob & Ray Show in 1951.

They made the move easily to television, and in the early 1950s, had their own 15-minute TV series on NBC, called simply Bob & Ray. During the second season, the title changed to Club Embassy and was joined by Cloris Leachman, who replaced series regular, Audrey Meadows who left to join the cast of The Jackie Gleason Show on CBS. The actresses took the roles of Mary Backstayge and Linda Lovely in the Soap Opera parodies, that Bob and Ray were becoming known for, along with the characters that they created:

Bob Elliott's roster of characters included:

• Snappy sportscaster Biff Burns – “This is Biff Burns saying this is Biff Burns saying goodnight!”
• Tex Blaisdell, a drawling cowboy singer, who also did rope tricks on the readio
• Cyril Gore, a Boris Karloff sound-alike who often appeared as a butler or a doorman; his catchphrase was “Follow me down the cor-ree-dor.”
• Peter Gorey, a character similar to Gore with a Peter Lorre-type voice. He would appear as a news reporter reading the same gruesome stories: “Three men were run over by a steamroller today...” each time he appeared.

Any script calling for a child's voice would usually go to Elliott.

"The Handyman," featuring Bob Elliott's "Fred Falvy, Do-It-Yourselfer"

Ray Goulding's characters included:

• Webley Webster, a mumble-mouthed book reviewer and organ player, whose reviews of historical novels and cookbooks were usually dramatized as seafaring melodramas
• Steve Bosco, a sportscaster (who signed off with “This is Steve Bosco rounding third and being thrown out at home,” parodying Joe Nuxhall's signature sign-off of “the old lefthander rounding third and heading home”)
• Charles the Poet, who recited sappy verse (parodying the lugubrious Chicago late-night broadcaster Franklyn MacCormack and to a lesser extent, the Ernie Kovacs character Percy Dovetonsils) but could never get through a whole example of his bathetic work without breaking down in laughter

All female characters; while originally employing a falsetto, Goulding later used the same flat voice for all of his women characters, of which perhaps the best-known was Mary Margaret McGoon) satarizing home-economics expert Mary Margaret McBride), who offered bizarre recipes for such entrees as “ginger ale sale” and “mock turkey.” In 1949, Goulding, as Mary, recorded, “I'd Like to Be aCow in Switzerland”, which soon became a novelty hit and is still played by the likes of Dr. Demento.

Every generation seems to re-discover Bob and Ray. My father introduced me to them when I was about 18 and I avidly watched for their appearances on the Comedy Channel, along with repeats of "Clutch Cargo" and "Supercar" in the late 80s when I still lived in Detroit at the age of 35. They can best be summed up perhaps as zany, an old-fashioned, quaint word, but they were talented and held appeal for several generations. Ray Goulding died in 1990, but Bob is still alive and acts occasionally. He is the father of comedian Chris Elliott and the grandfather of actress/comedian Abby Elliott, who joined the cast of Saturday Night Live for the 2009-2010 season.