I hitchhiked from Pompano to the Coral Ridge Cinema to meet my friend Tony and see Alice’s Restaurant. Tony gave me some Seconal; I think I took 4 or 5. We watched the movie and afterwards Tony was going to hitchhike home south. I had to go north, but didn’t want to thumb so I went across the street to the mall to take the bus, but I didn’t have any money left.
I started panhandling, a task Tony taught me, and was immediately presented a dollar bill by an old lady. Wow! Why not keep going?
I kept asking for money and people kept giving it to me. Next thing I knew THE COPS were talking to me and I was in the back of THE COP CAR being driven north.
“What were you doing there?” asked one of THE COPS.
Oh I went to the movies.
“What did you see?”
Alice’s restaurant.
“Are you a draft card burner?”
I’m only 16. I don’t have a draft card yet.
I must have given them my address because we were pulling up at my house. No one was home. I got away with it!
I saw THE COPS pulling out as I went in the front door. And then I saw MY DAD pulling in, saw them having a conversation.
Shit!
He started beating on me as soon as he came in. Threw me into the shower so I had no place to run. Fortunately Seconal has anesthetic properties so I didn’t feel a thing. I remember laughing through the whole beating.
“You can get anything you want…”
Note to National Security Personnel and Stasi Agents: This column is at best a reinterpretation of a childhood memory and is not meant to advocate the use of illegal or illicit chemical substances, smarting off to duly appointed law enforcement authorities, or to vote for anyone not approved by the Trilateral Commission.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Sunday, December 9, 2007
The Christmas Pageant
I attended the First Baptist Church Christmas Pageant last night. I had been before and wouldn’t have gone again except my sister Gerri asked me and my sister Nancy was going too. We bought the tickets months ago. It wound up being Gerri, Nancy and her husband Joe, Dorine – Gerri’s friend, and Mike and Leslie – Gerri’s friends and neighbors.
Very heterosexual, until you throw me into the mix. I bring out the homo in everyone. Come on…I had gotten a pedicure the day before with French tips and Dorine and I were grabbing at Gerri’s Clinique lipstick before we left the house. My father would be proud to know I drew the line at putting glitter on.
This is the 24th season of the pageant and it’s a big deal in Ft. Lauderdale. The first half of the pageant is usually Christmas carols and the second half is a passion play (not the Jethro Tull kind either). Last time I went the first half was very Gay 90’s in costume and staging. I was happy to see that they had brought it up to date with a kind of rock-a-billy opening. Note to self: I must get a poodle skirt. Would it be too much to wear it out to Ramrod on New Year’s Eve?
In the midst of my musings about the happy members of the congregation building a concentration camp for the likes of me I noticed something happening on stage. They had inter-racial couples doing the dance numbers. Wow! I knew it was an integrated congregation, but this surprised me. I guess they’re not Bob Jones Baptists. Another couple hundred years and they may have men dancing with men.
Anyway, back to the Christ child and the second half of the pageant. The narrator is Simon Peter, but the star of the show is J.C. He starts out as a baby as you probably know and they had a little baby on stage, not to mention shepherds, camels, donkeys, sheep, three kings, their retinues, and about 100 other people dressed in robes. There’s a scene where Joseph (the bible guy, not my brother-in-law) holds baby Jesus up (à la Lion King) and Gerri starts bawling. I think Dorine was bawling too.
Fast forward to the Hosanna scene. J.C. is working the crowd and riding a donkey, and walking through the congregation. My big chance! But my eyesight is not as good as it used to be. I turn to Dorine, “What color are his eyes?” I get the answer I was hoping for. “Blue, I think,” says Dorine, oblivious to my obsession with blue-eyed Jesus, Max Von Sydow, and Mel Gibson.
Speaking of Mel Gibson, they really bloodied Jesus up this year at the pageant. Nancy’s sitting on my right and now she’s crying. She told me later it was because the pageant was so beautiful, but I know it was because she saw Jesus suffering. They’ve got good hearts, my sisters.
Very heterosexual, until you throw me into the mix. I bring out the homo in everyone. Come on…I had gotten a pedicure the day before with French tips and Dorine and I were grabbing at Gerri’s Clinique lipstick before we left the house. My father would be proud to know I drew the line at putting glitter on.
This is the 24th season of the pageant and it’s a big deal in Ft. Lauderdale. The first half of the pageant is usually Christmas carols and the second half is a passion play (not the Jethro Tull kind either). Last time I went the first half was very Gay 90’s in costume and staging. I was happy to see that they had brought it up to date with a kind of rock-a-billy opening. Note to self: I must get a poodle skirt. Would it be too much to wear it out to Ramrod on New Year’s Eve?
In the midst of my musings about the happy members of the congregation building a concentration camp for the likes of me I noticed something happening on stage. They had inter-racial couples doing the dance numbers. Wow! I knew it was an integrated congregation, but this surprised me. I guess they’re not Bob Jones Baptists. Another couple hundred years and they may have men dancing with men.
Anyway, back to the Christ child and the second half of the pageant. The narrator is Simon Peter, but the star of the show is J.C. He starts out as a baby as you probably know and they had a little baby on stage, not to mention shepherds, camels, donkeys, sheep, three kings, their retinues, and about 100 other people dressed in robes. There’s a scene where Joseph (the bible guy, not my brother-in-law) holds baby Jesus up (à la Lion King) and Gerri starts bawling. I think Dorine was bawling too.
Fast forward to the Hosanna scene. J.C. is working the crowd and riding a donkey, and walking through the congregation. My big chance! But my eyesight is not as good as it used to be. I turn to Dorine, “What color are his eyes?” I get the answer I was hoping for. “Blue, I think,” says Dorine, oblivious to my obsession with blue-eyed Jesus, Max Von Sydow, and Mel Gibson.
Speaking of Mel Gibson, they really bloodied Jesus up this year at the pageant. Nancy’s sitting on my right and now she’s crying. She told me later it was because the pageant was so beautiful, but I know it was because she saw Jesus suffering. They’ve got good hearts, my sisters.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
The Difference Between Poetry and Prose
Poetry:
I like it when
A cold day
Makes my dick
Hang lower than my balls.
Prose:
I like it when a cold day makes my dick hang lower than my balls.
Blue-eyed Jesus 2
Blue-eyed Jesus be on your way
Brown-eyed Jesus too.
Don’t need no boss man in my life.
Don’t need no boss man you.
Don’t need no teacher telling me
What to do today
I’m old enough to run my life
And live it my own way.
Don’t need no smart guy Brookings man
Thoughts in disarray
Another college liberal
To tell me what to say.
Don’t need no Falwell preacher man
Showing me the way
To pay for mama’s corporate church
To tell me how to pray.
Just leave me off your fix-it list
Leave me on the brink
Don’t need your damn authority
To tell me how to think.
Brown-eyed Jesus too.
Don’t need no boss man in my life.
Don’t need no boss man you.
Don’t need no teacher telling me
What to do today
I’m old enough to run my life
And live it my own way.
Don’t need no smart guy Brookings man
Thoughts in disarray
Another college liberal
To tell me what to say.
Don’t need no Falwell preacher man
Showing me the way
To pay for mama’s corporate church
To tell me how to pray.
Just leave me off your fix-it list
Leave me on the brink
Don’t need your damn authority
To tell me how to think.
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