A Proper Education

Time: 1965
Place: Chattanooga, TN

I was in the third grade and the teacher was teaching us about our country’s connection to England.

“There is an excellent program about England on TV this week,” she said. “I won’t make it a class assignment, but you really should try and see it.”

That night, I told Dad that I wanted to watch the show about England. He looked it up in the TV guide.

“It comes on after your bedtime,” he said. “You don’t need to be staying up that late to learn about England.”

A week later, Dad noticed that there was going to be special about early comedy featuring lots of old black and white shorts. The show included films with W.C. Fields, Harold Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton and others.

“You have to watch this,” Dad said.

“Oh boy,” I said (or something equally enthusiastic). “When does it come on?”

Dad studied the TV guide for the specifics. Back in those days, that’s how you found out what was on TV.

“Well,” Dad said, “it comes on after your bedtime.”

Darn, I thought (or something equally distraught). I won’t be able to watch it.

“Tell you what,” Dad said. “”Go on to bed at your regular time and I’ll come wake you up when it comes on.”

I didn’t bring up the fact that Dad could have done the same thing for me to see the program about England and actually learn some world history. No. Comedy history trumped world history every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

The night came for the comedy special and I went to bed at my regular bedtime. I must have played extra hard after school because I immediately fell into a deep sleep. When Dad came to wake me up to watch W.C., Stan, Oliver, and the rest of the comedy giants, I refused.

“I’m too tired,” I whined. “I’m going to skip it and keep sleeping.”

“Come on,” Dad insisted. “You can’t miss this.”

He dragged me out of bed, marched me down the hallway, and sat me down on the couch in front of the TV. I could barely keep my eyes open and I was grumpy, but I sat there and watched that program. I have to admit, it was great stuff. Of course, it was great stuff. By the first commercial break, I was awake enough to enjoy the show.

Nothing against England, but knowing humor has been much more helpful in my life than knowing about England.

(image from legends revealed)

Are you kidding me?

I'm hoping this will be the first in a series of moments in life when I thought, "are you kidding me?"


I was in a car accident. I was waiting at a red light when a woman turned onto the lane next to me, hit a patch of ice, and since she was speeding, lost control of her car, and slammed into the front of mine. She got a ticket and my car was hauled off to the repair shop, where it say for weeks. The reason my car sat for so long was because the woman's insurance agency kept putting off sending an adjuster over to the repair shop to write up an estimate of the damages. The insurance company even had the nerve to give me shit for using the rental car they provided for such a long ass time when they were causing the delay.

Finally, the insurance company sent out an adjuster and my car was repaired. However, when I got the car back, it kept dying on me. What I didn't know was that leaving my car inactive for such a long period of time caused the battery to die. I took the car back to the dealer that repaired my car and demanded they tell me what was wrong with it. The service department rep had me pop the hood to have a look see. I did and we saw battery acid spewing out of the battery along with reams of smoke.

The rep turned to me and with a straight face said, "I think it's your battery."

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

After we determined that I desperately needed a new battery, the rep told me to drive my car to the service garage.

Again, ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

The service rep and I pushed my car to the garage and they put in a new battery at no charge, so I guess you can say this story had a happy ending.

Crazy for Comic Books

Time: 2005
Place: Atlanta, GA

I was at a small comic book shop. At the time, there were only two people in the store: the guy behind the counter and me. The guy behind the counter needs a name, so I’ll call him Greg. As I was checking out the new titles on the stands, Greg got a phone call. The call went on forever and I found myself half listening to Greg’s side of the conversation.

“Yeah, I think that’s when the Atom Smasher came back,” Greg said. “They can’t bring back Kobra because Black Adam ripped his heart out. They said it was a character Stan Lee never used, but it was a hoax. They were lying. Yes, lying. Yes, Stan Lee knew. He was in on it.”

Eventually, I found some comic books I wanted to buy and brought them to the register.

“I gotta go,” Greg said. “I have a customer.”

Greg hung up and started ringing up my books.

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” I said, “but that was some heavy conversation you were having.”

“Yeah, that guy calls all the time, usually when there’s about eight people lined up at the register,” Greg said. “The guy is crazy.”

“Well, he certainly seems to know his comic book history,” I said. “I didn’t know half the stuff you were telling him.”

“Oh yeah, he’s very well versed in arcane comic book history,” Greg said, “But when I said he was crazy, I meant that literally. He really is insane. He’s in an asylum and his keepers let him read comic books. He likes to call the shop and discuss characters who were killed off thirty years ago.”

I couldn’t think of a response to that tidbit of information, so I just mumbled wow whaddaya know about that, paid for my comics, and left the shop.

More June 2009 sketches

More sketches from June travels. There is one in the middle that comes with a story, the one of the man sleeping at LGA. I was at the airport waiting for my flight and sketching the other waiting passengers when I realized that the man sitting next to me was looking over my shoulder. Now one big rule for me when I do sketches and is to try and make sure that no one else notices. But this guy caught me. He asked to see the sketch I was working on and I let him see it. We discussed sketching versus taking photos (his preferred method) and I said that the sketches were only impressions and were not meant to be accurate. Then the guy said to me, "Hey, you missed his lapel pin." I thought about repeating that the sketches aren't photos and accuracy is not important, but instead, I drew in a small square on the sleeping man's lapel just to make the guy go away.

June 2009 Sketches

Some sketches done while traveling in June. The last sketch, the one of Robert Redford, has a story that goes with it. I went to New York for Promax, which is a convention for people in broadcast media who do promotions and marketing. Every year, Promax gets one big name person to come speak. This year it was Robert Redford. Instead of giving a speech, Redford was on stage with an interviewer and they had a "conversation." During the conversation, Redford mentioned that he had been an artist before he became an actor. I didn't know this. When it came time for questions from the audience, a woman asked Redford if he still did artwork. He said that did some but his main artistic expression was sketching people when he traveled. He said this minutes after I did the sketch of him. Did I feel a special bond with Mr. Redford? Not really, but it's nice to know that he and I share a creative outlet.

Never leave home without one

I'm leaving for New York City tomorrow. I will be gone for most of the week. I made sure this time to remember to pack a cat.

So's Your Mother

Time: 1969
Place: Chattanooga, TN

He came from New York City. He was our neighbors’ cousin and he stayed with them for two weeks. I will call him Phil in honor of Phillip Roth.

Phil was 16. He had an overbearing personality and a thick New York accent. Under most circumstances, he would have been annoying, but we neighborhood kids had never met anyone like him before. He fascinated us. It was like having a platypus show up and do tricks.

One day Phil went on a tear about how he’d had sex with all the Jewish mothers in our neighborhood. His description of how he came to know each of our mothers in a biblical way followed the same basic pattern. He’d stopped by one of our houses and found only the mother home alone. The mother forced him to come inside and soon she was naked and demanding sex. Or she was already naked. He would describe our mothers’ bodies in the grossest terms possible. He gave each mother a particular defect. Mrs. Blumberg was fat with lots of loose flesh. Mrs. Greenberg had foul body odor. My mother’s breath was so bad, Phil almost passed out. In every story, he would start screwing the mother, but then something would happen that forced him to leave in a hurry. Our favorite was when a mother would fart so loud and smell so awful, Phil gagged and ran for his live.

I was 12 at the time and had never heard anything so dirty. We didn’t for a moment believe his stories were true nor do I think Phil expected us to believe him. After a few stories, we realized that he only had three basic plots that he used for all the mothers. The stories were entertainment. Instead of being offended, we started to demand that he repeat stories or include a mother he missed.

“What about Mrs. Alpert? Did you visit her?”

“Oh right, Mrs. Alpert,” Phil replied. “Yes, I was walking by her house when she flung open the door and there she was, stark naked, her tits hanging down pass her bellybutton, and her vagina covered with so much hair I thought she was had a raccoon in her crotch. ‘Phil,’ she called, ‘Could you please come here.’”

Everybody laughed and rolled their eyes. I didn’t laugh. When someone tells me a story or a joke of any kind, I try to visualize it. I didn’t want to visualize Phil’s stories, but I couldn’t help myself. I kept seeing our Jewish mothers prancing around naked and farting. It was the first time I thought of female naked flesh and was not excited in any way. It was just odd and wrong.

Phil’s two week visit ended and I never saw him again, but from time to time, I still see the naked mothers and they’re still dancing and they’re still farting.