I'm About To Go Around The Bend

Sunday, August 16th, at ten something in the morning, I'm off! If you don't know where I'm off to, read the couple of posts below. I leave you in the very capable hands of Cap'n Ergo Jinglebollocks for a week.

I'm off to make a wake!

Doc

Ledbetter's Junkyard

I'd like to think that, as a kid, you had some wonderful place to play. I had several. I played in the crick out back. I climbed the hills and wandered the cornfields. I met people in the trailer park down the road. I hung around the bridge that crossed the crick at the end of our property and that was a popular meeting place, as well as a grand starting point for our hi jinx. We were country kids and we had to make our own fun. A lot of it involved crayfish hunting, swimming, fishing, eating unripe field corn, and whatnot, but a lot of it revolved around the local junkyard.

This was a young man's dream. Fill several hillsides with abandoned cars and trucks and let them run amok. We were always raiding it for it's treasures, forgotten tapes, cigarettes, speakers and radios, furniture, clothing, knives, stickers, jewelry, and mementos. You know, the kind of stuff that would only be worth something to a kid. I found several pairs of womens underwear, and while I found this to be very educational, I didn't keep any. I did have a large collection of antennas though.

I had a pack of buddies that I ran with. They all lived a stone's throw away from me, and we got together on a regular basis, just to entertain ourselves, and spread our brand of chaos just a little bit farther than one kid could do on his own. It was a good time.

Most of the time, Mr. Ledbetter didn't know we were there. That was part of the fun. It made it more interesting. Mr. Ledbetter also owned a dog, and that made it very interesting. Every story you have ever heard about the attitude and general demeanor of a junkyard dog is absolutely true. This bitch would have eaten it's own mother if it saw her trying to sneak out with a 1976 Chevy Impala rear view mirror. But then again, I don't know why she would. She drove a Ford.

But I digress. A trip to Ledbetter's was always a learning experience. You can learn a lot about a person just by going through their car. (Hell, just ask a cop.) We found diary's, a receipt for a headstone, live ammo, a calender from where they spent their vacation, homework they had flunked, love letters, condoms still in the package, dirty magazines, some kid's retainer, shopping lists, a reminder to call their bail bondsman, money, family photos, blood, a hat that said "I'm with Stupid", albums, traffic tickets, concert tickets, jewelry that we gave to our girlfriends without ever telling them where we had gotten it, books, value-meal toys, and underwear. Lots and lots of underwear. It was unusual to find a vehicle that did not contain some article of undergarment. Why people always left their underwear in a car they were going to junk, I'll never know. I guess they just couldn't think of a better way to dispose of it. Some underwear it was obvious why it had been left. The person peeled it off right after the auto accident that had convinced them that it was time to junk the car.

Now there are certain rules one needs to abide by when engaging in the act of junkyard rummaging. First, break off an antenna. This will be your "poking" stick. You use it to move things out of the way that you don't want to touch, and trust me, there will be a lot you don't want to touch. It is light, flexible, and strong and it is very useful in fending off the dog while you are climbing the fence with your new found treasures. Second, don't go by yourself. You need someone to act as lookout while you rummage. If you go it alone, every twig snap and creak of a rusty hinge will scare the crap out of you because you will be convinced it is Mr. Ledbetter out to get you, or even worse, Mr. Ledbetter's dog.

You must be careful who you choose for your accomplice. You want someone with keen hearing and eyesight, reasonably strong to help with stuck hoods and trunks, won't squeal on you if caught, and should something go wrong, cannot run as fast as you, so the dog has something to entertain her while you shoot over the fence. You will want to take a bag of some kind, preferably a backpack that is waterproof and you don't mind getting dirty. It is easier to run with a backpack, and it is a comfort to know that the oil from the parts you swiped isn't going to be running down your back, leaving you with an embarrassing and hard to explain stain. Third, wear dark or camouflaged clothing. You are trying to be sneaky, but no amount of sneaky can conceal a bright orange T-shirt among twelve acres of rust. Four, wear boots that you can run in. This place is carpeted with broken glass and sharp rusty metal. Five, don't eat any food you find. If a half-crazed junkyard rat won't eat it, it is safe to assume that it isn't going to do you any good either. Six, always check the ashtray, under the front seat, the glovebox, and trunk. The best stuff is always there. Seven, don't ever, under any circumstances, tell them I sent you.

Good luck, and keep an eye out for the dog.

Doc
P.S.- Don't miss out on the caption contest. See below.

Thank You Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol once said that everyone is famous for fifteen minutes, and I believe that this is true. I've had mine, and if you haven't had yours yet, it is only a matter of time. There is always the chance you will gain national fame by being the sole witness to some weird or catastrophic event and have your face and words broadcast on every news network on the dial or web. Or perhaps you post the clip that takes Youtube by storm and winds up on every ones cell phone for the next six months. You are chatted about next to every water cooler in the world. I assure you, your turn is next.

I was fortunate. My fifteen minutes came early in my life, so I can pretty much coast from here on in. Don't get me wrong. Those fifteen minutes were magical, and I can understand why some people devote the rest of their lives to keep those minutes alive. They work and slave to find the spotlight, and are willing to step on anyone, just so long as the sound of applause and the murmur of the crowd never fades. There is no drug that can compete with the rush of fans and admirers. The sensation of being loved en masse is a tough act to follow. I'm sure that it's only competitor is a position of power, and they just don't seem to be handing those out, or at least not to the right people.

So what was my fifteen minutes about you might ask? About three days really.

I have a natural born gift you see. I am a ham. I love to laugh, but even more, I love to make others laugh too. More than anything, I want to see milk shoot out of your nose at some goofy thing I have done or said. This has been a life-long affliction and has prevented me from being any kind of real success. So be it, or at least, as long as Flannery can stand it. God love her, she does have a great sense of humor.

My fifteen minutes came along in the eleventh grade. I joined the theatre department and performed in two plays that year. The first was an English sex comedy called "Meanwhile Back on the Couch". How they got this past the school board I'll never know. I played Albert, one of the patients of the main character, the psychiatrist, and stole the show. Mind you, half the play I was in my underwear, running about, and I was the only player willing to do this, but it didn't hurt at all that I was dating the director. I was also was the only one who had any carpentry experience and knew how to build the set, but trying to lay the director doesn't hurt. It was a small smash in my area. (Then and now, I have a very limited area.)

The production that followed it was to be my coup de grace, my crowning achievement, and like most things, I just fell into it. The play was "The Phantom of the Opera". Mr. Weber was doing very well with it on Broadway at the time and Mrs. Moore, the head of the theatre department, felt that perhaps a little coat-tail riding would be in order. We purchased the rights to do the play for a very modest fee, as the copy we had bought was by two unknowns who I'm sure were glad to see their little whelp off their desk and out turning a buck. I'm certain that the two authors had sired their little play on a long weekend coke binge. Yes, it was that bad. But to rectify the fact that our script was a good candidate for outhouse paper, we chucked the last act and swiped Mr. Weber's, as well as his music, which we played during scene changes.



I tried out for the part of the police inspector. I felt it held the greatest potential for laughs and I was prepared to give it my best Peter Sellars impression. I didn't try out for any of the main parts as several of my friends in theatre were seniors, and it just seemed natural that they would have their pick of them. The part of Christine was given to a crush of mine, and when the directors asked her to come in and read few more lines they asked me to read with her, almost as an afterthought. It was the scene where she pulls the mask off the phantom and sees him for the first time. I should have read the lines like I was reading the newspaper aloud, but no, I hammed it up. I couldn't help myself. So they made me the phantom. I was as surprised as the rest of the troupe.

I guess none of them had yet mastered their maniacal laughter, while I had mine nailed in the eighth grade. Hey, if you can't make time with the girls, and you don't play any sports, it was always good to have that maniacal laugh and some Peter Lorre/Marty Feldman wild eyes to fall back on so the jocks didn't kick the crap out of you. Just simple high school survival tactics. Guys don't mess with a guy like that.


Anyway, I get the part of the phantom. I have the smallest part and the fewest lines. Hell, I don't even show up until the second act. It was good that I had so few lines. Then, as now, I have a terrible memory when it comes to remembering something exactly. I can always remember the gist, but word for word is hard.


I built the set. Not because I am a woodworking genius, but I was the only one who could drive a straight nail and I also had all the tools and materials. I did get to see our leading lady topless once as I dashed backstage to grab the hammer to fix a sagging piece of canvas. When I got back to center stage I just smiled and gave the hammer to someone and told them I was too busy thinking about nailing something else to do any real construction.


"The Phantom of the Opera" was the most expensive production that the school had ever put on, with the final tab running several thousand dollars over budget. It was also the greatest financial success they had ever had as well. The play ran for two nights. The first night was a packed house. Every seat was sold, all of them. The second night they sold "standing room only" tickets, and they sold those out too. Imagine paying $15 to stand and watch a two hour high school play. I can't picture it, but there it was. A sea of people waiting for our little show.


We gave 'em hell, and they felt like they got a bargain.



My finest moment came at the end of the play of course. I release the sweet smelling and well endowed Christine to her lover, the Viscount, and send them off to the bliss that is new found love, which is funny because the guy who played the Viscount was as romantic as a pay toilet. They leave the stage and I am left alone in the glare of the spotlight. I turn to the audience and throw my arms up to heaven and cry out "Christine" in much the same way that Mel Gibson cries out "Freedom" in Braveheart. Their wasn't a dry eye in the house. The sound of the mob coming to kill me gets louder and I sit down on my throne. I pull my cloak over myself, as if to hide. The first of the mob to arrive is the head of the ballet who pulls back the cloak to reveal only my mask, which she holds up and it becomes the focus of a rapidly shrinking spotlight.Fini.

What the audience doesn't know is that the throne is rigged so that the back swings out and I sneak off stage left and am watching from the wings. I watched grown men cry as they gave a standing ovation. I watched women who had enjoyed years of being happily married turn to their mate and wonder how they could have ever settled for what'shisname. There was no curtain call, but the crowd just howled for twenty minutes in the dark. As they left the cast was there to greet them. It was the only time in my life anyone wanted my autograph, other than to sign a check.

The play ran Friday and Saturday night. On Monday, I was the talk of the school. Even the school slut started talking to me and asked me if I would wear her Whitesnake pin. I assured her I would. The cool kids started to say hello in the hallways. The hot chicks still giggled as I passed, but it was a kinder giggle than before. The football team would nod "hey" when I walked by instead of the icy stare that I usually got. The Principal even took me aside to ask me how I disappeared from the throne at the end. But most importantly, I passed Geometry. Just, mind you, but I passed. My teacher had a soft spot for actors and she knew I was spending all of my free time working on the play, so she would give me credit for the little cartoons that I would draw at the bottom of my tests, just enough to get me a D. To tell the truth, I had a soft spot for her too.

So, there you have it. That was my fifteen minutes. For three brief days I could inspire envy, moistened panties, and enjoyed the respect of my fellow man. And when a really rotten day finds it's way to me, I like to think that somewhere, out there, is an eighteen year old kid who still has the playbill I signed who thinks to himself "Someday, I'm going to make it, just like he did."

Doc

Do Not Invite Me to Your Parties...

If for no other reason than this: I sing and dance like Joe Cocker. I do. It was only at 11:53, Oct. 17th, 2007 that I made this discovery, but I can quickly see why I have rarely ever been invited to a second party thrown by the same person. Granted, the right music has to be playing, such as "Pink Cadillac" by either Bruce Springsteen or Aretha Franklin, "Detroit is Burning" by John Lee Hooker, or anything by The Refreshments, B.B. King, Tom T. Hall, or AC/DC; but sometimes, much like Tina Turner, "any old music will do."

I was cruising Youtube and came across this clip of Joe Cocker at Woodstock and it was as if the veil had been lifted from my eyes. It was like watching a home movie that I am in, but never remembering when it was shot, where it was, and who all these people are. I'm not sure, but I think Mr. Cocker's recollection of this show might be a little vague as well. Just a guess 'though.



Yep. That's me, right down to the air guitar. I could never sport those sideburns, but I've found enough change in the sofa to buy a tie-dyed T-shirt, and with any luck, my hairline will start to receed any day now. Hell, I could go as Joe Cocker for Halloween. I've got all of his moves down and didn't even know it.



Doc

P.S. The Author is available for birthdays, square dances, bar and bat mitvas, and even the opening of new malls, off ramps, and bridges. Contact us early as some dates have already been reserved.



**Editor's Note** In no way do we here at SZ,tcob endorce "getting stoned." This is a highly immoral and harmful act. Trust us. If you find that you are being assaulted by your friends and neighbors with small chunks of limestone, quartz, fieldspar, marble, sandstone, flint, or even lava rocks, there has been a poor choice or some bad judgement in your recent past. Look into that and stay off the drugs. **Editor's Note**

Reasons I Will Never Work In Espionage

As a kid I thought it would be great to be a spy. I'd seen all the Bond movies and this seemed like an ideal career path. At the time, I felt like I had all of the qualifications- I was dashing, could swap witty banter with enemies, and I was a much better shot than any of the bozos who were firing at Bond.

As an adult, I've given this some reflection, and boy oh boy would I suck at this job now. Not only has the job market changed considerably (e.g. international villains with bizarre henchmen to zealots with bombs) but I've changed too.

It has been years since I was dashing. My witty banter anymore starts and ends at "F*ck You Buddy!", and it has been so long since I've practiced I'm not sure I could shoot anything farther away than my own foot. I don't run very fast. I don't have a good enough memory to recall how to disarm bombs or remember complex codes. I count myself lucky if I remember what day of the week it is.

I'm slow, I'm clumsy, and I couldn't intimidate anyone. I look as threatening as a cardboard box full of kittens. If I was required to "lean on someone for information", I would be forced to make them listen to hours and hours of my children whining and crying until they told me what I wanted to know.

I hate to fly. Hate it with a screaming passion. It takes large amounts of alcohol to get me on a plane, and a few "nerve pills" if you've got them.

I only speak one language, and even that one not very well. I can ask for a steak and a bottle of wine, as well as the bathroom, in Spanish. I also know the German word for zipper.


I hate to drive. I'm not very good with a standard transmission and you know none of those exotic cars are automatic. I drive like an old lady looking for an address, and this would be no help at all in case a car chase broke out.

I suck at keeping secrets. A couple of martinis in me and I'll draw our troop deployment plans on a cocktail napkin for the North Korean Ambassador. I don't even want to get onto the subject of torture. There would never be any need to torture me, just buy me some beer and set a decent plate of nachos in front of me, I'll tell you anything you want to know, and if I don't know what you want, hell, I'll make something up, as long as the cold ones flow and the nachos hold out.

I am a terrible liar. I don't lie for crap. Ask Flannery, she'll tell you I can't keep a straight face for twenty seconds. For example: Flannery: I noticed you got $40 out of the bank today. What did you buy? Doc: (Thinking to myself "Don't say comic books and beer! Don't say comic books and beer!!) Taco Bell. Flannery: You bought $40 worth of tacos? Doc: Yeah, can we talk about this later, I've got to go to the bathroom. See, you wouldn't buy it and neither would she.

I could never seduce a woman, no matter how sexy, for my country. Flannery made this very, very clear even before we got married. Don't get me wrong, I love my country with all my heart, but at night it isn't my country I look forward to snuggling with and have to bed down next to.

There are other reasons I would never make it in the spy game. I'm a heavy sleeper, so I'm easy to sneak up on. I tend to talk in my sleep. On long trips, I'm the guy who has to pee every five minutes. I'm a homebody. My hearing isn't that great. I get sick really easy and I have a weak stomach, a bad back, and a bad heart.

But I hear that the C.I.A. is advertising in all the major papers looking for new recruits. Lord, I hope that don't get a bunch of guys like me.

Doc

A New Career: Holy Warrior Against Kipple

"Acting on orders from above..."

Doc

Can You Skin Grizz?

Some days I just want to chuck it all, buy a mule, and become a mountian man like Jeremiah Johnson. Robert Redford made this film in 1972 and as a kid I thought that this might be a good profession for me, as I'm fond of the great outdoors and being alone doesn't bother me. At the time it seemed like a much more viable career path than big game hunter, cowboy, explorer, or novelist. I'm a pretty fair shot. I cook a mean rabbit, and the trappings of city life don't hold much appeal for me, but I don't know how to skin a grizz, and that might be a problem.

This clip is the funniest of the whole movie. If you haven't seen the film, I highly recommend it.

Enjoy!



Doc