Category Archives: Autobiography,memoirs and confessions

Rubber bands

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I used to shoot flies out of mid air. I still can sometimes. And when I ran the mail and shipping center at the US Borax headquarters down on Wilshire the USPS used to wrap letters in these rubber bands that were so strong they’d leave big welts if misused in rubber band fights. Painful as hell, perfect. So of course we had rubber band fights, and me, being the best shot of the bunch after years of training, was always being surprised by the other guys. We were in a cellar and I was back in one of the aisles between these big rows of ten foot high shelves and suddenly it went pitch black and I heard the thwack of rubber bands all around me. It was the freakiest thing, all these rubber band going all around me out of the pitch dark. Then the ambushers started giggling, giving away their position, and I pulled a few rubber bands out of my pocket and shot three or four. All three of my unseen attackers yelped in pain that was the end of that surreal rubber band fight. It lasted maybe thirty seconds. Miraculously I didn’t have a scratch. They each had big welts on their flanks, where it stung the most. It was perfect shooting. And man, that was a useful life skill. That thirty second rubbe4 band firefight has managed to stay vividly in my seizure ravaged memory for thirty some years.

On the other hand, one time I foolishly pulled one if those rubbers bands back too close to my face during a rubber band fight to get a better aim and the damn thing broke and nailed me in the eye with such force that my pupil was unable to dilate for several months. Ha. I lost that rubber band fight. I took a chance that it would repair itself so I wouldn’t have to explain to anybody how I’d damaged my eye. I hurt myself all the time back then anyway, I did a lot of heavy physical work and shit happens. Eventually the pupil paralysis subsided. Lesson learned, though, those rubber bands were potentially very dangerous (indeed, the USPS stopped using them). So I kept them away from my face. They’d still break on occasion, but they’d only hurt my hand. Hurt like hell, too, but it wasn’t dangerous. I’m sure this makes all kinds of sense to 21st century minds.

But there’s more. Back about 1980 I was working alone in the files in the old fallout shelter in the basement of the Litton Industries corporate headquarters in Beverly Hills when, bored, I took to shooting large paperclips attached to big rubber bands across the room. It made perfect sense, as the paper clip gave greater velocity and distance if done right. These were analog times, and we were easily amused back then. Anyway, I’d probably shot off a few dozen and started experimenting with different techniques with mixed results (I can’t remember what those results were.) Then I pulled one back really far, I mean way far, let it snap, and the rubber band went flying but the pointy end of the paper clip (turns out there is one) had driven itself into my thumb at the knuckle and emerged at the tip. The rest of the paperclip sat atop my thumb at some ludicrous angle. I stared at it, stunned, then pulled it back through as that seemed the logical thing to do. A considerable amount of blood was dispensed. Worse yet I had to go up to the secretary to the president of Litton Corp and say I was going to need a little medical attention. I lied about what happened, she knew I was lying, but her maternal instincts took over immediately, she spoke to her boss, and I was put in his limousine and given a ride to a medical center in a Beverly Hills hospital and cleaned up and bandaged, and then driven home. I have no idea what lies I told to them to explain how it happened, though I doubt they believed any of them. I told Fyl the truth. She just rolled her eyes. I was a drummer. She wasn’t sleeping with me for my grace and intelligence.

Anyway, another life lesson learned: Never shoot paper clips with rubber bands with your thumb exposed. Alas, you can’t even get rubber bands like that anymore. Apparently people were hurting themselves with them. Imagine that.

Solar flare

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Epilepsy been a little stirred up, sort of an unsettling feeling. It happens sometimes. A flu can do it. H1N1 had me off for weeks. covid a couple days. Had no idea what’s been setting this off. Then just now I see a long article in the San Francisco Chronicle about the health effects of solar flares. The nervous system is affected, and those of us with neurological conditions are especially sensitive to it. Epilepsy, which is basically just a nervous system prone to shorting out, must be especially sensitive, the very air around us being swept by electro-magnetic energy and passing through my flesh and bone to set my neurons on edge. Groovy. Suddenly I’m science fiction.

So I took an extra pill.

Eclipse

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I was up till 5 am last night, well, this morning, doing a bunch of stuff. As I’m finishing up Fyl shuffles into the living room. A science fiction/astronomy/outer space nut, she was getting up early, way early, for the eclipse. I gave her a kiss and went to bed. I’m retired and figured I could sleep in past noon. I figured wrong. At 9:30 am she comes in and announces the eclipse is beginning! Not here, but somewhere out in the Pacific. She left the bedroom door open. Daylight spilled in. I could hear the Weather Channel people chattering excitably. I pulled the blanket over my head. Nodded off. At 10 am she comes in again and announces the eclipse has begun. It’s over Mexico, she said. I could hear the Weather Channel people even more excited. I pulled the blanket further up over my head and nodded off again. Woken up by the light being switched on. It was 10:30 am. You’ll miss the eclipse she said. I really didn’t care. I just turned 67, who knows how many eclipses I’ve seen. They were exciting when I was a kid. A little less exciting in middle age, now just a thing the moon and sun does that is utterly irrelevant to my life as a senior citizen.  I didn’t say that, though. Instead I sleepily got up, put on two mismatched socks, struggled with my pants, misbuttoned my shirt and went into the kitchen to make coffee. Cut up some fruit. Joined her out on the couch. Look, she said, those three hundred people in Arkansas just got married during the eclipse. There was a crowd of people on the screen, some in wedding dresses and nice suits. Isn’t that romantic? I agreed it was, though I thought that waking up early to watch the eclipse on TV with my wife was even more romantic. I stifled a sleepy yawn, took a couple sips of coffee and oohed and awwed on cue. She kissed me on the cheek. Thus do marriages last forty four years.

Confessions of a non-cat person

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I never was a cat person. I could’ve lived my life without a cat. My wife loved cats, though, and soon we had a cat. I put my foot down at one. Then I put my foot down at two. Then three. They stopped at three, though I don’t think my foot had anything to do with it. Anyway, she had three cats. I had two litter boxes. That was the man’s job, she said. Seemed logical to me, so sure. You sleep with a guy you can get him to agree to just about anything.

Anyway cats died, were replaced by other cats. Finally, about a decade ago and thirty years or so after the first cat I put my foot down about showed up, the sixth died. We were catless. We’re too old for another cat, I said. Or maybe I said too handicapped. Whatever. And I never want to change a litter box again, I added. That was really putting my foot down, and was true. I really never ever wanted to clean out another litter box. She agreed. If she hadn’t we’d have our seventh, eighth and ninth cats. I put the cat boxes in the garbage can before she could change her mind.

I never missed having a cat on the house. Not even for a minute. I loved being catless. No litter boxes to clean out. It was heaven. I liked cats though. I’d pet the cat or cats when we went to our friends’ places. I’d listen to their endless cat stories. Look at their kitty pictures.

At some point, though, I stopped being a cat person. Well, I never really was a cat person, but I was cat tolerant. And I’m still cat tolerant, just less so. I don’t mind if their cat doesn’t come up to me to get petted. I’m fine if the cat doesn’t acknowledge my existence. I hate when the cat crawls into my lap.

I’m thoroughly enjoying not being a cat person. I’m loving living in a catless household. If I never had to pet a cat again I’d be fine with that. But more than anything there is the knowledge that I’ll never have to smell fresh cat shit again. That alone is heaven.

Time to clean the fish tank, though.

Ancient office technology and those who used it

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About a decade ago I found a locked file cabinet at work that someone still had a key for. It must not have been opened since the nineties and was a veritable time capsule. Among a huge supply of stationery supplies no one ever uses anymore—letterhead, typewriter ribbons, colored pencils, white out, a huge variety of post it notes in all sorts of hues—was an electric pencil sharpener. It must have been at least thirty years old. I’d forgotten how large they could be, this one must have nine inches long and five wide, five high and weighed about three pounds, a big solid device. An appliance, really, almost the size and weight of a toaster, if you remember toasters. I put it on my desk where it mystified the twenty somethings. I put some of the colored pencils alongside and after showing them how to use it and they’d try it as I explained how high tech it once was. You’d stick a dull pencil in here—even the concept of a dulled pencil was unknown to them—the machine whirred and they’d pull out the pencil. Look at the beautifully sharpened point, I said. It was too, just lovely, the sharpener performed its task perfectly. I couldn’t help but be impressed with the transformation from dull to a perfect point. They not so much. Those were analog days, I said. I could see the pity in their eyes, and they left me alone with my memories.

Retired guy stuff

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Just bought a new Sink Swivel Nozzle Adapter Kitchen Aerator Tap Chrome Sprayer, which I could swear is just another Sink Water Faucet Tip Swivel Nozzle Adapter Kitchen Aerator Tap Chrome Connector but with either more or less words, I lost count, like the Sink Water Faucet Tip Swivel Nozzle Adapter Kitchen Aerator Tap Chrome Connector I just busted applying too much torque with the wrench while trying to stop it dripping. It’s wasting water, she said, like she even knows how to say Sink Water Faucet Tip Swivel Nozzle Adapter Kitchen Aerator Tap Chrome Connector, let alone Sink Swivel Nozzle Adapter Kitchen Aerator Tap Chrome Sprayer. What do wives know about man stuff anyway?

Anyway, I bought a new thing for the faucet.

Smoosh

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There were perks to being a jazz columnist. Free records, no cover charges, and awesome seats at the Hollywood Bowl were nice. And having lovely women in tight sweaters say Hi! and smooshing their boobs against me in a bear hug as they planted big smooches on my cheek and/or lips was always sort of disconcertingly pleasant. I say disconcerting because I could never tell if I knew the ladies or not. You see I’m epileptic, and epilepsy comes and goes in severity, sometimes it’s mellow and other times it roars in like a violent summer storm. Thus my epilepsy flared up suddenly in 2006 and had severely impaired my facial recognition skills, indeed had done so literally overnight. In fact, it had done so so suddenly that I couldn’t recognize many people at first, even close friends and siblings, people I’d known for years and saw every day could look like complete strangers and those I did recognize immediately looked different. People who were acquaintances I couldn’t recognize at all. So you could come up and give me a big smile and squeezy hug and a big wet smooch and unless I knew you really well it was likely I wouldn’t have a clue who you were. Such things happened in the oddest places. I remember once in the lobby of the ABC building where I worked a leggy knockout in a miniskirt and skintight top yelled Hi Brick! and gave me a full body boob smooshing hug with the big smooch on the cheek in front of the big lunchtime crowd. I’d learned to not look surprised by then and we chatted for a minute. She was on her way to some meeting or broadcast or something, she said, and was late already, and as her frantic manager or agent or whoever finally got her into the elevator and the doors slid shut behind her and those long, lovely legs, I wondered who she was. I really had no idea, not the slightest. I mean, I’m sure I did know who she was, we’d obviously met, met long enough to rate a smoosh and a smooch, I just couldn’t recognize her. The people all around me in that ABC lobby who’d seen that smoosh had no idea who I was either. Just somebody, obviously. Nobodies never got full body boob smooshing hugs with big smooches, not from leggy miniskirted dolls to die for. Only the somebodies got those. So all the nobodies in the lobby pretended not to wonder who I was, as one does, and I pretended such smooshes and smooches were a normal thing, just part of whatever job it was I must be doing. That’s show biz. Once packed safely into the elevator for the ride up to my floor I figured the incident was already forgotten. As we ascended an attractive woman next to me whom I didn’t know looked at me and grinned, pulling a Kleenex from her purse. Now Brick, she said, that won’t do at all, and she reached up to wipe the cherry red lipstick from my cheek.

Death of a sofa

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For a crippled old geezer I got a lotta life yet. Just pushed the much loved old sofa up and over the railing on the sundeck after a couple tries (I really do miss my fully functioning leg at such moments) where it landed with a perfect precision I’ll claim was planned. Hoped for precision would be more accurate. Lucky even more so. I then dropped eight large size garbage bags full of the various spring cleaning detritus one accumulates over decades over the railing where they fell with precision accuracy exactly onto the couch which would cause it to slide on its own down to the sidewalk. Very clever. That part I actually did plan, and that part did not work. So the crippled old geezer manhandled the old sofa and garbage down the steps to the sidewalk, put everything in the bins just right, left the sofa clearly visible behind the bins and just abursting with testosterone pride hauled his 66 year old ass up the two flights of stairs and planned to take a shower before setting off the smoke alarms. At some point tomorrow Large Item Pick Up will come by manhandle the sofa one last time, the poor thing, feeding it into the maw of a furniture eating machine with a disturbing crunch. We made love on that couch. Now this.

Colonoscopy

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Not to change the subject, but I only have one more colonoscopy to go. Been getting them every ten years since 40, and they always schedule the next one when you’re done with the last. Scheduling nurse says OK, you’re booked for your 70th, and that’ll be it, she said. That’ll be it? They don’t book any past 70, she said. That’s how you know you’re getting near the end of the road.

That last one was the year, way back in 2017, that a very attractive nurse came into my waiting room, smiled, scanned the charts, checked my pulse, stuff like that. I remember thinking I just hope she’s not my colonoscopy nurse. It’s not my best side. She wasn’t. She was the colonoscopy doctor. You have a very healthy colon, she said. I have no idea if I blushed, as my ass was anesthetized.

Podiatrist

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Went to the podiatrist yesterday to look at my shattered ankle and see how it’s progressing. Well, it turns out, it’s not crunching like a mouthful of potato chips, which is good, she said, and the swelling is way down, it’s a lovely human color and doesn’t feel hot. Plus it hurts a whole lot less—does this hurt? does this?—in fact it doesn’t hurt at all unless I’m standing on it awhile. So I can walk on it a bit. I’ll be getting some kind of aircraft carrier sized shoes as my feet and ankles are deformed. All my other birth defects are on one side of my body—which means probably a single gene gave me the hole in my brain on the right and the bum skeleton from my skull to my ankle on the left. But I have these beautifully matching fucked up ankles and feet (“acquired deformities”), indeed my right foot is more deformed now than the left. Some sort of heterochronical fuck up. (Never mind, I just wanted to say heterochronical.) Anyway, I had this pretty podiatrist playing with my (clean and scrubbed) bare feet, twisting them, poking them, tickling them, pinching my toes, and it didn’t occur to me that I’d had a pretty doctor fondling my feet until a little while ago. So that’s another fetish I don’t have. Apparently I don’t have any. I’m totally normal. Creative types are supposed to be riddled with fetishes, kinks and obsessions. I don’t even get turned on by pretty podiatrists fondling my feet. I’m just an excruciatingly normal guy, perhaps a little more excitable than most men my age, but nothing worth writing Freud about. Even the name of my injured foot condition—non-syphilitic charcots—is normal. There was a time when real writers got syphilitic charcots. Tolstoy, Baudelaire, even that greatest epileptic writer of all, Dostoevsky, all had syphilis and probably syphilitic charcots. Not me. I get a pat on my huge naked foot from my pretty podiatrist. It looks great. Keep it up!

Sigh….