Lessons Learned (or Not)

“Instructions for living a life.   
Pay attention.  Be astonished.  Tell about it."
~Mary Oliver

The other day, I drove a dear friend to San Jose International Airport. She was returning home, to the great state of Texas, after spending 4 days in California doing what us Californians do best:

Drink wine, talk, laugh, drink more California wine.  My friend doesn't drink much and for some

absurd reason, known only to herself, she always comes to Monterey and orders a Blue Hawaii.

Just like a damn tourist.  Only God and the bartender know what's in those.

3 sips later, she snockered.

I tell her, "Sip the grape, not the volcano" but she never listens to me.

We have to practically carry her home from The Wharf.

There's a lesson to be learned I suppose.

Anyway, after I dropped her at the Southwest curbside check-in and we said our good-byes, which are never easy because we both have these humongous heartstrings that pull and twist and tug at the thought of good-bye.

How are y'all at "good-bye's?"  "Good-bye's" aren't my strong-suit.

So in order to lighten things up, as I drove away from my friend, I laid on my horn and scared the shit out of the entire line of passengers, the baggage dude and a traffic controller.

Upon entering the on-ramp to the 101 South, I looked to my right and saw the San Jose Airport Holiday Inn; the very location of all our quarterly trailer park management meetings.

Suddenly, a shitload of memories (and hideous paisley carpet) filled my head and I was quickly taken back to the conference room where I spent many a day during my 7 1/2-year career as a trailer park manager.

Instantly, I'm filled with visions of dudes wearing camouflage caps and denim shirts with embroidered elk, knitting bags made of red and navy bandannas and extra-large folk selling extra-large bars of See's during the potty breaks.

I always sat in the very back row; the seat closest to the door.  So did this Samoan couple from Campbell, who always had matching shirts.  They sat there, not for the "exit benefits", but rather for its convenient location to the snack table.

The snacks were nothing to write home about: individually packaged muffins with fake blueberries, either really ripe or really green bananas and "brown water" with packets of non-dairy powdered creamer.

The meetings went on and on and on. They lingered like a bad head-cold. "Park Safety","Rules and Regulations of the New Year", "Maintenance Budgets".  And thrown in the mix was this head admin dude, who I'll call Roger, who thought he was a stand-up comedian.  There were at least 250 managers there each time, representing trailer parks from King City to Sacramento. Out of the 250, I'd guess 249 took their job seriously.

I just couldn't.

I'd arrive wearing one of my peace shirts and weird skirts, sit in the back like I mentioned, and take out my notebook.  I'd scan the crowd for the perfect person to write about:  Mr. Sanchez who once stopped a drive-through drug deal at space 320 without having to call the poe-leese, Candy whose husband trapped a wild hog with his own bare hands, Mr. and Mrs. Vandy who tried not to discriminate because "it's the law" but they had a problem with "those kind"...

Such a potpourri of characters.

I miss those characters, those meetings, those days.  No joke.

My resume looks a lot like that potpourri of characters.  Actually, more like Campbell's

Alphabet Soup.  From trailer park manager to hotel concierge to nanny and a dozen

other professions in between.

It's incredible that any prospective employer would take me seriously.

But from the trailer park to the front desk to the changing table, there have always been lessons.

Lessons that have taught me, given me, tools for life.

Lessons such as determination, fortitude, patience and humility;  Instructions for living a life.

The Cousin has some lessons to learn. Like many of us, she needs practice and positive reinforcement in order to "get it".  She was very used to, very comfortable with, being the one and only kid in her family's life. That special grandchild.  The princess on the block.

Then along comes Sweet Pea.

Jealousy is a vicious green serpent. It yields its poisonous head at the most unexpected times and can be the source of many regrettable situations.

The parentals try and tell her.  They say, "Give Sweet Pea hugs. Be Gentle. Love your cousin." 

I can see right through it.  I "get" The Cousin's jealousy and I understand her journey; a path that will certainly have some bumpy rocks.

Oh, how she tries to please the grown-ups.

She tries to do the right thing, but sometimes the devil just gets the best of her.

"Love Hugs"

And after she's done with "the lovin",  she always has this look.  I kid you not, it's a look of total satisfaction. And I'm beside myself in thought. 

"Was I like this with my poor little brother?" 

I know the answer. 

My bro is 2 years younger than me and of course growing up in a household of "traditional gender roles" I was the sweet, innocent, little girl. Therefore, 

I definitely didn't start anything in the area of trouble. 

I'd taunt, tease and torment my brother until he couldn't take it anymore and he'd haul off and hit me. 

I'd then go running down the hallway, crying to mommy and he'd get sent to his room.  

The Cousin gets put on a "time-out".  At least her mom uses this method.  I tried once, but the truth is, 

I have this kinda look on my face that tells The Cousin, 

"No need to take the nanny too seriously." 

Satisfaction Cheer

We all know that lessons don't always come easy.

I particularly like the ones in which you receive the learning right then and there and you don't have to do it wrong, over and over again, for the next 10 years.

The cutest thing of it is, Sweet Pea adores her.  And she's so forgiving, even after a choke-hold.

Sweet Pea in her "I Love My Forest Friends" onesy with way too many snaps for the nanny.

"Thank God she's not eating my puzzle."

In fact, Sweet Pea is totally oblivious to The Cousin's jealousy.  She's astonished with life and lives it to the fullest, with very few cares in the world.  No huge lessons for her to learn these days. Well, except don't eat the toaster plug.  No barricade too strong to stop her.  No book that can't be torn to shreds.

She's one happy camper and all her needs are being met.

All kids should have that, ya know... All their needs met.

It's a beautiful thing.
~tpg

Enjoying the Little (and Big) Things & Blah, Blah, Blah

Even trailer park girls get the blues.  Mine hit me from behind early this week;

Originating from a variety of sources and resulting in the ever-hated, most-dreaded, writers’ block. 
I did what any normal whack job would do.  I posted a plea to my Facebook friends, asking for blog topics in time of such crisis, hoping to get the rev back in my engine.  I got 2 responses.  Which is depressing if you think about the number of peeps on my precious friends list..

“Earth day...overpopulation...reflection on global warming, lack of employment opportunities and as Angela says so pointedly, "blah, blah, blah...."

“Living life to the fullest with the one you love. Enjoying the millions of little things that make it clear why we love each other.”

Aww to both you cutie-pies and thank-you!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am ever so grateful to Cynthia and Carolyn for their responses.
Hell, I’m just happy as a tick on a hound that they even read my plea, but I needed a bigger hunk of meat this morning. Something juicy.  Something I could sink my bicuspids into and chew on for a while.  Then, I turned on the mainstream news…

Vice President Joe Biden spoke at length in defense of President Obama’s foreign policy on Thursday. Referring to a famous quote by Theodore Roosevelt,

“Speak softly, but carry a big stick”

Biden said, “I promise you, the president has a big stick.”

Hey, now! TMI Joe. TMI.  My only question, burning outta control like a fire flare-up on a bunch of pre-fabs is, “How the hell do you know that, Joe?”

Yesterday, Dorothy, the check-out girl at Trader’s Joe’s, responding to my debit card requiring a second slide through because it didn’t work the first time, and my pressing concern that my hard earned cash might be deducted twice,

Spouted, “It has to connect to work.”

“Ain’t that the truth, Dorothy!!” I blurted out as the entire 5:00 pm checkout line burst into laughter.  Oooh, you could just see their imaginations swirling around the display of stacked four-to-a-box artichokes and winding through shelf after shelf of 85% Cacao dark chocolate bars.

It’s true that it does have to connect to work, but does it really have to be humongous to be satisfying and effective?

Seems the gentlemen think so or at least they’ve been conditioned to think so; that bigger is better and bigger is more powerful. And some powerful men think they can control women.  Now I’m not professing to know the length and circumference of Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger’s stick, but Pope Benedict XVI and his cronies are sure flexing "theirs" with the American nuns.  Seems these boys just had to form a committee and decide that American nuns “promote radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith."  They concluded that the sisters had contradicted church teaching on homosexuality and on male-only priesthood in public statements that "disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church's authentic teachers of faith and morals." 

YOWZA! Hail to the mighty Bishops, the authentic teachers and hail to their big sticks!  Seems their quiet, sneaky little investigation has been going on for 3 fucking years and what have they come up with?
The sisters aren’t submissively toeing the line to their standards and liking.

While the sisters have been quiet to respond, a former nun has a big stick of her own.

Mary Johnson served for 20 years in Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. She calls the Vatican’s harsh new rules for American sisters “disrespectful” and an “insult.”

 “The main complaint is that sisters are thinking for themselves. No one says it in those words, but that’s the bottom line:

You’re thinking for yourself and we don’t like that.”

Fitting, that exactly two years ago today, in 2010, a memo, written by Steven Mulvain, a Foreign Office civil servant was passed around.  One of Steve’s suggestions was that Pope Benedict endorse his own brand of condemns for his “stick” and the sticks of all men everywhere…
It's not a bad idea actually, although that might not only go against "church doctrine" but it might actually help curb the world's over-population crisis. Hmmm...

http://youtu.be/f8JaLsFiYI4

In case you missed the nutty nun news…

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Vatican-attempts-to-silence-group-of-liberal-thinking-US-nuns-148235185.html

Let’s face it.  Men have been carrying big sticks since the beginning of time.

And of late, the news is still on fire with stories that back this theory regarding boys and their rods…

Ashley Judd’s “puffy, not pleasing enough to men, kind of face”

“Ashley Judd’s Puffy Face Explained” was a breaking headline in the tabloids on the recent rewind. Respectable news outlets such as HuffPo and MSNBC even joined in to debate if Botox was to blame for her "chubby" face.

The news sparked a viral frenzy speculating how much “work she got done” along with warnings that she “better watch out” because her husband is likely “looking for his second wife.” 

Some reporters called her a “pig” and a “cow”, labeling her as fat because of the fact that she was now a size 6/8. (How many of us girls know or have known a dude like that?)

The most troubling fact of all is that mostly women initially broadcast the conversation about Ashley’s face.  But as Ashley writes in her now infamous rebuttal, “That women are joining in the ongoing disassembling of my appearance is salient. Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate.”

How about Julia Louis Dreyfus once being told that her “curly hair wasn’t fuckable?”  

Now I know a woman didn’t say that!http://jezebel.com/5904193/a-producer-once-tried-to-help-julia-louis+dreyfus-by-telling-her-curly-hair-wasnt-fuckable?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

It’s an election year and I think women are being placed in the media spotlight to benefit the two gentlemen running for the highest office in the land. (The one man who has a big stick and the other one who has a big dog in a crate on top of his car.)

Trailer Park Manager; It’s Not a Man’s Job

Three men applied for the management position at the park when I put forth my application.
Tommy in space 6, Eliseo from space 27 and Rafael in 10.

All three collectively agreed, ‘It’s a man’s job.’

Tommy had plenty of “plumin experince” and was “always home” because he was “waitin to get a settlement of boo coo bucks” from the company that had fired him.

Eliseo was bilingual, which was a plus, but had been just caught and cited for having a rabbit breeding business behind his unit days prior to him submitting his application for the manager position.
And Rafael…Oh, Rafael.

Well, for starters, he usually had tequila on his breath early, as he headed out to work. His position?
Long-term substitute second grade teacher in a neighboring community. 

I got the job; clearly a known fact.  Maybe I’m the one with a big stick.  Or maybe guys are just knuckleheads who just think with "theirs."  Obama brought the term back recently when referring to the Secret Service team caught with their pants down. 

“A couple of knuckleheads shouldn’t detract from what they do. What these guys were thinking, I don’t know. That’s why they’re not there anymore,” Obama said.

http://rt.com/usa/news/secret-service-prostitute-scandal-075/

Years ago, a group of gal pals and I were returning home from the Arco Arena in Sacramento after a night of women’s basketball.  As usual, I fell asleep on the ride back.  My partner, unannounced to a snoozing me, kept a straight face and proceeded to tell the carload that I was unfortunately born with a single testicle. No joke.
When I woke up, a bunch of sad, sympathetic and perplexed faces were all staring at me.    

She’s a keeper, my partner. 

I’ll let you decide the fiction and the non-fiction of today’s blog.

Blah, blah, blah and live life to the fullest with the one you love ('fo sure!) and God save the American nuns and all that jazz.

~tpg

Ying Yang River…Part Two Country Roads

I met up with a friend from high school that I hadn’t seen in 36 years!

Now that’s ancient, eh?  It amazed both of us how comfortable we felt from the minute we sat down  together at the corner table in the local Peet’s. 

I found her with the trusty help of Google and then some amateur detective work.  Our conversations flowed back and forth like the ebb and flow of the ocean;

both of us taking turns sharing our trials and tribulations of days gone by since those hellish times of high school.

It was a tad intimidating when, in sharing about our various professions over the years, she humbly listed a litany of jobs that included “City Planner” “ Executive Director of The Girl Scouts of America” and as for her husband,

she just said, “He’s in oil.”

I found an opening and threw in my 7 years as a trailer park manager and she about choked on her double cappuccino.  Then she bubbled with curiosity and I’m sure she was thinking, “Ok, she’s got a B.A and an M.A. and she chose to manage a trailer park; probably aspires to pass Go, collect her 200.00 dollars and eventually get let into the pearly writer’s gates of Heaven one day.” 

Nice goals.  Successful life.

The park life isn’t a bad life.  It wasn’t then and it isn’t now and I’d probably do it all over again for a juicy stipend and a year’s supply of Hendrick’s Gin. 

This picture totally brings back memories; a captured flashback of well lived years.

You know there’s something about drinking a beer and wearing slippers outside that makes a girl appreciate the finer things on God’s green earth.

Madness takes its toll.  Please have exact change.  

~Author Unknown

I accepted the invitation for tea at Julie’s a few days after our first meeting in my unit.  You know curiosity has been my demise on a fairly regular basis my entire damn life.

When I walked into her trailer; a 1970’s box with wood paneling and burnt orange shag carpet, it felt like a cross between Twilight Zone and Little House On The Prairie.

She appeared to have put on her “Sunday bests” for my visit and giddy, oh was she giddy, over the fact that I had come for tea.

She scrubbed the Formica as she put water in the kettle.

“ Oh! Thank you for visiting…I'm so happy…do you like tea… if you don’t like tea, I can make you something, but I don’t have something else, but I have a ying yang river of tea…Oh! Thank you for coming…let’s have tea and talk… do you like sugar cuz I have sugar…let’s see…where did I put that…”

I noticed a stack about 10 inches thick of albums and I commented on her good taste in music.  Sometimes I’m clueless to the repercussions of saying things like, “Oh, wow…Carole King, John Denver, Simon and Garfunkel, Nancy Sinatra…we have a lot in common.”

F!@*king clueless.  “A lot in common” to a girl like Julie means we're instant BFF’s until Hell freezes over.  Next, she’ll probably get out a sewing needle and want to prick our index fingers so we can be blood sisters.

“Oh! What do you want to listen to?…I feel the earth move under my feet.  I feel the sky tumbling down…I feel my heart start trembling whenever you're around...I love Carole King…I know all the words. I bet you do too…Do you want to hear Carole King or I have The Beatles too…I like The Beatles but my sister….she was always so mean to me …and she likes The Beatles but I like John Denver…”

The next thing I knew we were singing, in unison, at the top of our lungs….

”Almost heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River…Life is old there, older than the trees, younger than the mountains blowing like a breeze… Country Roads, take me home…”

When you know every damn song, on every damn 33 album someone still owns in 2011, then you actually do have something in common with that person. 

I spent the next hour sipping stale Lipton and belting out every song of my teenage past; wondering if this woman across from me, who was singing recklessly and sipping tea like a Slurpee, wasn’t just a wee bit saner than me.

Julie and my friendship grew as friendships often do…but I wasn’t exactly prepared for the rate of speed.

The phone calls from her increased from 1-2 a day, to about 10 a day in less than a month.

Once I opened my front door to find a gift of tea bags wrapped in tissue paper and a bow, with a note on Strawberry Shortcake stationery that looked like a 10 year old wrote it…

Dear Valerie,

I know how much you like tea and I have extra so I want to give it to you.

Have a nice day.

Love,

Julie

One day I was making my rounds and saw her peeking out her blinds.  Seeing me, she swung open her front door and came running out into the street before I could hide behind a nearby double-wide…

“Hi! Whatcha doing?”

“Oh, just doing some things around the park.  I need to get back and wash my car while it’s sunny.”  I kept on moving, as I wished her a great day.

By the time I finished my rounds, she was down at my trailer with a hose, bucket, soap, a large sponge and 2 towels.

“I love washing cars!  When Grandma Cooley’s car needed washing she’d call me and I’d come running faster than the ying yang river…I’d be at her house in no time and I’d wash her car and I’d dry it and she’d be so happy she’d tell me it looked great except usually I forgot to dry all of the hood and she’d show me and then I’d do it…no problem…”

Sometimes I’d pick up when she phoned.  Sometimes I’d let the machine get it.

What seemed to be a harmless initial gesture of making copies for her, was taking a sharp veer south.
I actually was finding myself feeling like the lead character in some horror film where the heroine slips deeper and deeper into a weird entrapment abyss that demands a super hero to rescue her sorry ass.

Most of you would have changed your number by now or let her down gently, but not me, friends. 

No.  Me, the Mother Teresa of the trailer park, in a spontaneous moment of insanity, offers to take her to Costco.

People unravel privately it’s true, but some folks unravel in public.

When I picked Julie up, she was again dressed for a church function. 

She showed me her list, her pocketbook and her keys to her unit. 

Why the keys, you ask? 

How the hell should I know!   Why the offer to go to Costco is a more intelligent question!

When inside Costco, it became quickly evident that she didn’t get out much.

She frantically pushed the cart ahead of me, which put me into a full-on sprint to catch up with her.  She filled her cart with these items and these items only: a new broom, a new mop, a giant-size bottle of Clorox, Ajax, Comet, economy-size bottle of hand sanitizer, laundry soap, and Lysol wipes.

I thought we’d head to the produce and cheese sections, two of my favorites,

but she informed me she was done, ready to go, and made a beeline

for the check out stand.

In line, the unraveling began.  She frantically fumbled through her purse searching for her wallet and I was literally sweating directly above my upper lip. 

In her ‘special’ way, Julie was drawing quite the audience, and I was mentally guestimating the cost of her f!@*ing  Martha Stewart cart…

“It’s here somewhere…and I have coupons too…lots of coupons that I cut out…don’t worry...it’s here…I put it inside the envelope so I wouldn’t lose it…you shouldn’t lose things and I don’t…”

When she finally found the envelope, I breathed a monstrous sigh of relief, as I’m sure the newly formed line did also. 

Julie was sweating.  I was sweating.  We drove back to the park in complete silence.

When I pulled up to her unit, I helped her unload.  My compassion meter was off the charts as I almost tripped over her heavy heart and embarrassment.  A simple “Are you okay?” would have been sufficient, but instead I say,

“Hey…do you like pancakes?”

She perked up.  “I love pancakes and lots of maple syrup …or strawberry…I like strawberry syrup too…” she exclaimed like a second grader.  She was a glow.

“I’ll pick you up in the morning around 9:00 and we can head over to IHOP!” I said.

You know what people? 

I hate IHOP!

…to be continued

~tpg

http://youtu.be/MWzeInQaUk4

John Denver  Country Roads

Ying Yang River... Part One

Last Chance Mercantile is this cool second-hand, perhaps fourth-hand store next to the dump in Marina, CA.  I am a thrift store whore from way back and consider it quite nifty to be thrifty.  

Besides, you can really do a make-over on a mobile with the treasures you find, especially on the free paint aisle or the outdoor open-air area which includes rock/ lumber/furniture/crap.

Anyway, I found myself there yesterday, buying scraps of high-quality Astro Turf remnants from some athletic field or miniature golf course I suppose. Hey, do putt putt golf courses still exist in 2011?             I was a little golfer girl queen when I was a kid; kicked my bro’s ass at our town’s course which also included the popular skating rink (where I learned my cool backwards moves), the bowling alley and a run down motel. (Where I’ve never stayed, btw) So, I dig synthetic grass.  Sweeping the stuff is quite therapeutic and takes me back to 29B, which then unleashes all these silly and dangerous thoughts that were born in that pre-fab province that will always be home. 

 

So, let’s allow me to take you there!  It’s either that or go ballistic about capital punishment and you probably don’t want me to go there.

This little ditty is part one of three; I suppose a trilogy of the most personal kind…

Might we not say to the confused voices that sometimes arise from the depths of our being:

“Ladies, be so kind as to speak only four at a time?” 

~Madame Swetchine

In a little less than 2 months, I became so involved with the woman in space 17 at the trailer park that my drinking increased by 50 percent.

It took a significant length of time for me to figure out, what most of you would have figured out in a half second; that I was about to get in way over my pretty little head.

Perhaps I should have paid closer attention on that day she called my home for the first time in the 7 years I resided at and managed the park.  When she phoned that day, she was seeking help in the advertising of her new cleaning service.  

(To be read as fast as you can without taking a breath)

“Hello, this is Julie in space 17.” she began at a rapid, manic voice that hit me like a verbal locomotive.   “Sorry to bother you... so sorry to bother you... but I am going to clean for everyone... I know these are hard times so, I wouldn’t charge anything, hardly anything... Maybe oh, I don’t know... maybe two dollars an hour... I just really want to do it because I really want to help people... I have Comet... lots of Comet and I have paper towels and I have all the cleaning supplies so I just want to know about these flyers and where I could put them and maybe you need some cleaning done and I know you are the manager and everything so you probably already have someone… someone who cleans your house but maybe I could help someone I really want to help someone.”

Me too, Julie, pathetic as it is.

That’s exactly how our friendship began; the first interaction I had ever had with a woman who evidently had lived in the trailer park for two decades, whose mother mailed her rent each month from out of the area; a woman who, in that moment, I couldn’t tell you what she even looked like.  

When she paused to inhale, I heard myself saying, “Two dollars an hour would be selling yourself short.” 

 

You see, compadres, I wear this f*@#ing bleeding heart liberal hat with a fat stamp on my forehead that says, “ I can help you, fix it, fix you, give you my heart, soul, cash and favorite pair of Doc Martens. Let me save the world and you too.  Oh, and guaranteed, I’ll put myself last.” 

When I finally got a word in “edge-wise” somehow I had invited her down to look over her flier, offered to make 34 copies and place them in each resident’s mailbox.  I even offered complimentary, standard-size envelopes!

She arrived at my door just minutes later.

She had a nervous way about her; couldn’t stop fidgeting, combing her pixie hair, which she repeatedly tucked then untucked behind her ears.   She wore boots from ‘the day’; perfectly shined and a lavender polyester sweatsuit with an appliqué of two kittens and a ball of yarn.  Her attire and style threw me as to her age, but I guessed 48, which later I found I was only off  by 3 years.

I noticed she rocked back and forth and spoke in pitches, ranging from high screeches to descending, low mumbles and the conversation took more roads than are in the entire state of California.                  Within 3 minutes, I had learned about her 7^th grade teacher, her love for ponies except Brut; the one who bucked her off when she was 10, her Grandma Cooley, who had hair as long as the Ying Yang River, and of course, her new cleaning business.

All this before I had a chance to offer her a seat in our 12’x12’ living room; which felt like 6’x6’ box 

at that point.

I made us both a cup of tea.

  

She seemed most oddly honored and excitedly uncomfortable, as if she were in a palace and I, the queen.

I took her ad, hand-written on a torn piece of lined binder paper, to our back office where I began making the copies. Her presence seemed to follow me down the hallway.

When I returned with her copies,

“Oh, you are so nice! You are such a nice friend! I am so sorry there is a rip in the paper... So sorry... I didn’t mean to rip it… Maybe I was in a hurry while I was writing… Grandma Cooley used to always say, “Slow down… Take your time… haste makes waste.” And she was right…haste does make waste… She was always right and then she died… She died and left me and she died and I was the only person in the house and I cried “Wake up! Grandma!”” Wake up!”  but she didn’t wake up and I didn’t know what to do and I was all alone and I called 911…that’s when the ambulance came... and I cried and cried even though she was with Jesus.” 

She paused to rest from the word marathon she just ran.

In some weird, dysfunctional way, I thought this was all “good for me.”

Maybe this person sitting in my living room, with the perfectly combed hair and the spit-shined boots, had entered my life for a reason.  

Girls like me look for reasons in life; underlying meanings sent via people, places or experiences.       Those that teach lessons, help us blossom, grow, become dynamic park managers or American saints. 

Girls like me probably just need more therapy.

Before she left, a departure nothing short of over-the-top, she smothered me with gratitude and before I could see it coming, she wrapped herself around me on my front porch and with a hug that smelled of moldy camping gear, she sang (Yes, sang, as in musical), “Good-bye my new friend…thank you my friend, the manager!”

There was pep in her step as she headed down the street to her trailer.

I closed the door, still somewhat clueless as to what was to come. 

The smell of mold on my collar remained.

It was early, but I tossed the English Breakfast and poured myself a stiff one.

To be continued…

~tpg

“What the Fresh Hell Can This Be?

I'm happy to just blog in a sea of random abandonment this morning; hoping to just float around with ease and keep my head above water. 
You see, when you lose a guy who made you laugh as often as he pissed you off, it’s rough.    A guy who, with his sharp tongue and undeniable wit, left you wondering if he wasn't in fact the male reincarnate of Dorothy Parker.  
Sometimes only a bumper sticker on a truck can truly sum up the man...

Wife And Dog Lost

Reward For Dog

I’m hoping to simply blog with abandon and maybe someone in charge, out there in blog cyber galaxy, will raise an eyebrow and place me at the Top Ten on the Blog Blacklist!  The term “blacklist” got me thinking of all our compound words in the English language that include ‘black’ and of course, the negative conations that go along with many of them:

Blackwater

n. - Any of several human or animal diseases characterized by dark urine resulting from rapid breakdown of red blood cells

Blackmail

n. - Extortion of money by threats to divulge discrediting information

Blackball

n. - The act of excluding someone by a negative vote or veto

Blackout

n. - Partial or total loss of memory (Certainly nothing positive, especially if alcohol is involved)

Blacklist

n. - A list of people who are out of favor

I’m thinking of switching it up, but keeping the current meaning: whiteout, whitelist, whiteball, whitemail, whitewater. (Oh, damn, already been used in Arkansas)

There’s a annual list of Hollywood’s most liked, unproduced screenplays (I'm hoping to make that list as well) called appropriately, Hollywood’s Black List.  Many outstanding, cool films are recognized and awarded from this list.  Of course, the dark side is the word in the description: “unproduced.”

 http://www.harbus.org/2011/life-on-the-black-list/

The blacklist begins (1947)

As you probably already know, in October 1947, a number of persons working in the Hollywood film industry were summoned to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which had declared its intention to investigate whether Communist agents and sympathizers had been surreptitiously planting propaganda in US films.  The hearings began with several Hollywood professionals, including Walt Disney and Ronald Reagan, president of the Screen Actors Guild, testifying that the threat of Communists in the film industry was a serious one. (Personally, I think Ronnie, Walt and the others should have been more concerned about homosexual activity in Hollywood not Communism)

The blacklist, of course, was rarely verifiable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist

Whenever there was a knock at her door, Dorothy Parker would yell, “What the fresh hell can this be?”   Since she is one of my all-time 'crushes' and I so adore lingering in her numerous, interviews, poems, shorts and quotes, I had to investigate if she in fact was blacklisted back in the day.  Well, not surprising,    hers was in fact verifiable…

Blacklisted in Hollywood

Parker helped organize the Screenwriters Guild, joined the Communist Party, and took up with equally aroused lefties like Lillian Hellman. She even had an FBI file more than 900 pages long. (Right on, Dorothy!)  She was blacklisted in Hollywood during the McCarthyite ’50s.

In the 1920s, she became a regular member of the Round Table at the Algonquin Hotel; the watering hole of New York writers who relished in three-hour lunches and liked to dazzle each other with their wit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algonquin_Round_Table

But the thing that satisfies me the most about Parker, besides her writing, was her leftward drift. In 1927, she became outraged at the imminent execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, the Boston anarchists. Amongst the 20,000 who protested their innocence were Edna St. Vincent Millay, Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells.  Parker was arrested and fined for her critical maneuvers preceding the execution.

http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/sacvan.html

Would you believe that Dorothy Parker willed her modest $20,000 fortune to Martin Luther King, Jr., though she had never met him, and dedicated her literary rights to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People? Indeed, when she died, family-less, on June 7, 1967, Lillian Hellman saw to it that Parker was cremated with dignity.

But then Lillian forgot to collect Parker’s ashes. (What the hell?) After an erratic series of removals from one business desk to another in New York City, her remains were safely ensconced at the Baltimore headquarters of the NAACP in 1988, 21 years after her death. 

Her entertaining literary remains, however, can be found in The Portable Dorothy Parker.

  http://www.amazon.com/Portable-Dorothy-Parker/dp/0140150749

Dorothy's poems are mainly reflections of her own disappointments and frustrations. She had a sad childhood, losing both parents at an early age. This shadow followed her throughout her life. Her lovers and spouses only seemed to add to her distress. Parker attempted suicide 3 times, eventually took to alcohol, and died alone in a New York hotel, aged 73. The New York Times printed one of its longest ever obituaries as a tribute.

According to an interview with Vanity Fair in 1925, Ms Parker wanted her epitaph to say, EXCUSE THE DUST.

From a Book Review

"It may be that this autobiography is set down in sincerity, frankness and simple effort. It may be, too, that the Statue of Liberty is situated in Lake Ontario.”

I have a plethora of “Dorothy Quotes” that I like to use in the same way I like to blog, babble or drink...with abandon.  Here’s a child-size handful…

"Ducking for apples -- change one letter and it's the story of my life."

“This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.” 

“The cure for boredom is curiosity.
There is no cure for curiosity.” 

“I don't know much about being a millionaire, but I'll bet I'd be darling at it.” 

“Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.” 

“Tell him I was too fucking busy-- or vice versa.”
 

 “I hate writing, I love having written.” 

“I like to have a martini, two at the very most. After three I'm under the table,

after four I'm under my host.”

And of course, “What the fresh hell can this be?” which you’ll hear me yelling from inside my abode if you ever pay me a visit.

I’m thinking of taking a Thelma/Louise type road trip today, 

         except I’ll skip the cliff.  

Enjoy the scenery today!

~tpg