The loneliest numbers

Our world, that wonderful talking box, continues to crumble.

First the Tunnel King permanently "slipped on a bar of soap" and magnificently subtracted yet another integer from that magic number of seven. On the road to Zanzibar that is to be expected. Because even centenarians eventually wear out their welcome onstage awshucksing the crowd, waving the flag while one-lining prewritten material. But that paled in comparison to what happened last night on the irony of all days.

The Man in Black said "don't to worry" one last time and who else but Jack Tripper seriously pratfalls. And the ring of fire burns brightly and loudly. Chrissie, though, is shocked, dropping her Thighmaster to the floor. Where in heaven is Tex, anyway?

Three is company after all.

Remembrance Because of Things Passing By

On Highway 301 South, Edisto Drive, one mile out of Orangeburg just past the rosed gardens, he pointed ahead to the oncoming bend in the road, at the fruit stand owned by Jewel and her oldest son Monte Philips now that her husband Monroe passed. The corrugated structure still looked makeshift despite all these years, a silver revival tent around which a fairly modernized refrigeration system kept the perishable produce fresh as the van sped by. The old place should be only one minute away on the left.

Hong Kong Restaurant, where the Brother Reverend Heywood headed twice a week after his show for his Lobster Cantonese style, shut down almost fifteen years ago when the ungrateful sons of the landlord refused to renew the lease. Flanked by an outdoor pool, the ranch building housing not only the kitchen and dining area but party room and huge pantry for storage, belonged to the Palmetto Motel, part of the small empire of businesses run by the fittingly named Wilson Lee, a roly-poly walking cliche of Mayberry, RFD which also included a slaughterhouse whose roadside billboard advertised "custom killing". Their delusions to convert the banquet room into a fancy nightclub called Bogarts proved too fancy and too rich by way of entertainment for the resident redneck folk unaccustomed to such city extravagances. This fatal error in judgement began what proved to be the dismantling of a business, the ruin of a fortune and the besmirching of a legacy.

And as the van turned into the vacant lot, nothing remained except white gravel. Nothing so much as a grave marker for any to see. All but the memory is gone.

Pak Pui Chi

Too much caffiene from endless cups of joe and way too many packs of Marlboros over the years ate away at his scrawny musculature, shrivelling an already skinny man even skinnier. The effect is positively skeletal. His legendary vanity a mere shell of what once was, when as family jokes go decades ago, a younger Miu Wa caught him in front of the mirror meticulously blow-drying and primping his Vitalised side part, caterwauling, "You are so beautiful...to me, can't you see..." even ornerier than Joe Cocker.

Looking at the scarecrow in front of me now, it is painful to conjure up those images of the Chinese Tony Manero who used strut about Argyle Street sans paintcans as Hip Sing, betting the ponies and clacking the mah jong tiles. Of him playing the swank Playboy Club Keyholder trying to emulate the lothario alongside the notorious black sheep of the family, Uncle Chuck. Or to watch the man scootering about in his Chevy Vega, barely negotiating the old ninety-degree-angled S-turn on Lake Shore Drive en route to Chinatown proper with family crammed in the combustible back.

Sure, every Christmas after waiting tables at Tin Lung every night six days a week, he deemed to herd the brood of his nieces and nephews, all five of us, downtown on the El into Woolworths or Montgomery Ward for our annual pick of model battleships or the latest Barbie (Only one gift per kid, though so as not to spoil our pampered Americanized asses). But that was then.

He is sixty years old, fifteen years younger than his older brother who looks prosperous.

Walterboro, SC

Off Jeffries Boulevard the faded, peeling sign looked unhurried as twin rows of empty lightbulb sockets rimming around the rickshaw font letters sat lazily still, completely out of time. Not long ago an attempt to repaint it produced the circus effect of badly outlined lipstick. Its worn bareness stood out against the electronic debonair of its city-slick cousins like a neglected child left home alone.

The parking lot adjacent the building allowed for willy-nilly angled parking as is countryfolk custom. Loose white gravel crunched beneath our weight, casting ghostly-powdered footprints on the linoleum floor entering our China Garden.

Water-stained wood panelling populated by framed orientalia around the ubiquitous aquarium of pale carp greeted a meek hey. To the left of the glass door, a warped greasy counter concealed an old-fashioned cash register, short stacks of take-out menus and stabbed tickets the only evidence of business. Next to it rested two gumball machines filled with sugared candy. Above these two football schedule posters from ten years ago listing local propietors pronouncing the obligatory allegiance to either Clemson or South Carolina are scotch-taped to the wall. Both walls flanked by rows of red-vinyl booths enclosed a smattering of mismatched Wal-Mart tableclothes covering four-top and long tables; it is a place that has seen better times.

Third uncle Chi and his wife who were watching ChinaStar network news on the satellite hookup in the back while doing sidework step out front, arms open to welcome the all of us back home.

"water passes slowly through flatlands."

Or so it seems racing like a bullet down endless asphalt highway, pitch-black save for flourescent dashes whose hypnotic Morse Code spell is only broken by the staccato mechanical snores of the devil monkey children, outstretched and crucified as if painted by Gericault; their alternate wheezes, snorts and neighs an odd urban Cagian orchestra incongruent to the Grand Ole Opry playing on the front windshield.

All signs pointed to Yoknapatawpha County until dawn when one exit ramp away from Walterboro, other cars in the faster outside lane began their telltale chorus of honks. Immediately we knew. But of course the innocuous slow leak in the front passenger tire my sister hinted at is now a crumpled and flapping flat, so much so as to be unsalvageable. Lucky for us the tire shop happened to be less than two miles down the road and just three blocks around the bend from China Dragon.

The mechanic who prescribed the new Goodyear only required five minutes to install, even rotating the back passenger tire to the front. Inside the run-down shack of an office cooled by dust-caked room air conditioner circa 1970 fake wood-grained model aided by an oscillating electric fan tucked behind a chrome hubcap display, the owner scribbled out the bill while pontificating against the big make as we waited, sweating. Outside it was ninety-four degrees, sunny with about ninety percent humidity.

Just like I left it nearly eleven years ago.

On the road, again

Go, Speed Racer, go.

The last time was so long ago, leaving Dodge high on the saddle, Passport set on high and blackhawked Belfour in the crease flopping around on-the-air. That cannonball run mimicked all the previous ones except now add on Trixie, Pops, Spritle and even Chim Chim. The whole kit and keboodle. Only poor Sparky gets left behind. Back then, the Mach Five cum Protege blazed a blistering pace no slower than ninety hours miles per hour. John E. Law be damned.

Those were the good old days. Set the clock and aim for the Skyway after rush hour down through Indy headed toward Memphis passing by Dollywood into the Land of the Colonel before winding the Blue Mountains on the edge of the Tobacco Road in twelve hours flat, give or take a stopover or two for fuel and the occasional leak.

And all for what? Just to languish the dog days in ultra-slow motion as the breakneck hustle and bustle of the big city readily fades in the rear-view mirror? Tailgating two inches behind a rusted Chevy chugging along ten miles under the speed limit teaches that lesson, you know. No, the real reason to head south is to trow the ubiquitous U.S. Army-issue duffel bags taxidermied with frozen ribeyes, boxes of jumbo shrimp and the occasional striped bass from the Santee compliments of Drunk Uncle Chuck, he who fills the beer glass with two ice cubes before pouring a lukewarm Lowenbrau upon waking up.

Third Uncle Chi deserves a break today long enough to welcome a distracting game of mah jong. Gambling courses through the blood, of course and with his brother the casino boat VIP pocketing a roll, let the tiles clack. Besides food aplenty beckons.

"Here he comes, here comes Speed Racer...he's a demon on wheels."

Rerun (Not Fred Berry)

So it made me laugh. The sheer chutzpah of Dirty Dozen on Ice forced a tear of irony. Rugged G.I. Joe murderer's row cons effeminately figure-eighting background routines while slitting Nazi throat really asphyxiates the funny bone. My stomach hurt to see classic old school being Disneyfied as kitschy hogwash because such clever postmodernism is pure genius. Besides how can anyone weaned on k-rations and snap-to hospital corners not cheerlead the Jim Brown lookalike speedskating the chimneyed grenade gauntlet? GO! GO! GO!

Speaking of "the navy gets the gravy but the army gets the beans", it happened again, feeding the insomnia.

Nonchalantly an empty and overturned helmet washed ashore and aground in sandy beach appears in black and white and the next four hours becomes the longest day deja vued.

Crazy the amount of time wasted on watching the same and old movie over again, no matter how often it reruns on television, but certain flicks fit this modus operandi. It literally triggers something clinical, a Pavlovian response that cements my attention span sometimes just to relive what might be its punctum. Quite a bit to endure especially when one knows each plot verbatim. Such devotion just to see a particular scene or hear a specific line betrays an odd aesthetic character flaw indeed. But why rewatch Cool Hand Luke if not to hear "Ain't no man live can eat fiddy eggs" for the umpteenth time? Or sit patiently through the Natural just the see Redford, down 0-2 in the count, shatter the mythical Wonderboy before batboy Bobby "picks (him) a winner", the Savoy Special to launch the next pitch into rooftop lightstands, creating impromptu fireworks again? Not this gung ho sucker, for sure.

Like Billy Sol Hurok and Big Jim McBob said, "It blowed up real good."

Notes on a pissmire ant

Snatching the pebble in itself represents a continuation of Analects. Include another part to complete the tryptych that features trial by fire or tattooing via scarification. Then the tao of things learned from cultural tourism, gentrified as David Carradine softshoeing combat choreography, completes the tautology.

Thus achieving masterhood, the new series and the next logical step, reenacts manufactured rites of passage as peripatetic spiritualism. The male ideal orientalized as philosopher, glorified as warrior and hybridized as hapa takes literal form as performance through sculptural object. Out of action as it were that plainly caricatures tests of physical prowess and endurance, mental toughness and ingenuity from ancient pedagogical models. The mandarin tradition, though Aristotlean, repeats the same lesson now as the priest leaves no visible traces on the delicate rice paper.

Or has this sacred ritual now become Westernized? Does one accustomed to American excess fall victim to popular culture and devise other modernized, if not mechanized means to circumvent what used to measure strength and character?

Why not construct perhaps convoluted monkey bars that hover above the aformentioned site? Is it enough to contrast the rote educative process typical of the martial arts requiring the student to actually undergo this test discipline of skill?

Caught up... in between

Finally no more winding up the damn propeller every week. Time which skyrocketed itself into a dizzying orbit ran out of gas so that the laws of Newtonian physics can apply enough gravity for reentry. Just a few eyes left to dot and then the madness of the next stage of the next race beckons. But not awhile at least. Besides with a few monkey wrenches in the works behind the scenes, who knows what the final edit will look like?

Not that the mind or the body acclimated yet to the oxygen deprivation. Catching your breath is not an option under such compressed conditions. And when all the leg muscles cramp because sprinting uphill carrying a fifty pound load doubles the strain capacity, the remedy that moment is simply to choke back the tears and press forward. Do or die or something to that effect.

But what is the lesson learned? Be a boy scout and be prepared? Or that maybe reading IS fundamental? A clearer picture hopefully forms within the next thirty-six hours.

Remembering Barry White

The man probably arrived early yesterday. The angels in tribute folded back the satin sheets and heaven cooed in ecstasy.

So take off your brassierre, my dear, my darling I...can't get enough of your love, babe, never, never, ever let you go, and make your toenails curl.

Love remains unlimited.

Plebes on the prowl

Again things hold true to form, even as the new replaces the old. The faces may change but certain patterns still persist rarely deviating from the cliches. No matter what and predictably typical of very bad ensemble acting, the broadly-painted cast consists of the usual suspects as usual. A three-hour tour that began a fortnight ago except this latest sequel strands the skipper and Gilligan "plus the computer geek...the gothic chick...a southern belle, and the rest."

Not that this is necessarily a negative situation so much as a self-fulfilling prophecy gone awry. It is like slowly stripping away very aged wallpaper: just when you think the layer removed will reveal bare wall, inevitably what appears is only another and more obstinate layer. That pretty much describes the slow process of discovery to nurture, grow and coax creative approaches to heretofore worn ground. Old habits die hard so the trick is to open eyes, flooding the mental plain until fertile soil is drowned.

Which is why the way things go appropriately stammers any group into slack-jawed acquiesence. Love it or hate it, mesmerized or bored to nap, thought ballons do suddenly materialize.

Chivalry Lost

Funny the things recalled offhand when being told of something cataclysmic. How words spoken conjured up the Holy Grail, of Sir Robin storming the rampart to kill temptation is appropriately Pythonesque. Our gallant hero fighting onward in the name of all that is good -his chin firm, his progress steady, his arm strong. But waging battle deep into the wanton heart, the lascivious desire, the righteous sword of virtue does weaken. For the dragon to be slain is perfumed and partly clothed, moaning an ecstatic tongue. Eventually the pleasures of flesh swarm and overwhelm him and he falters. Who would think so valiant and true an individual could fall prey?

But of course he succumbs, constantly flirting with and tempting the fates as he does. Frailty of moral being is often susceptible to carnal lust especially when left alone to its own devices. Distance prevents accidents of intimacy. So much for the protection of forged armor.

Notes on Imitation of Life

Imitation of Life is an installation that dissects the popular racist schoolchildren rhyme, “Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these” photographically and textually to comment on racial stereotyping. Based loosely on the Douglas Sirk melodrama of the same name, this work consists of two sets of twelve black and white photographs depicting mimicked exoticized Asian facial characteristics through sexual innuendo and accompanying text, framed excerpts in print researched from anthropological textbooks about taboo Asian cuisine, divided into four groups. Each group features the same Caucasian adult male, female, and young male child reenacting a single section of the rhyme. The textual passages are reedited to approximate a “fortune cookie saying” grammatical style associated with how Asians are perceived to speak. Viewed as a whole, these sections resemble the syntactical structure that forms a sort of “visual sentence” in conjunction with the actual food text. A similarly framed mirror and blank sheet of paper positioned on the opposite wall faces the main body of this piece.

What this work intends to project is a flux of language as visual information depicting pictorial image versus text per se as typographical element to reinforce prejudiced notions of perception. To see without hearing the rhyme refers to learning by rote, sometimes an oral tradition alluding to repeating gestures passed on from generation to culture to generation. This notion relates to how the food text centers on perceptions of how printed information becomes the accepted norm as a single version of the truth or represented truisms. Showing scientifically, or medically, supported statements to validate Asian cooking and eating habits within this work questions the whole idea of what is taboo food and consequently who determines what are the systems of standards used to judge acceptable from unacceptable. To perpetuate a negative stereotype is a guerrilla tactic to compare the equal absurdity in the racism of these particular images and text.

Superstitious

Today a younger Jamie Lee Curtis avoids the shower, fearful to repeat the cinematic precedent inflicted by Hitchcockian neurosis. Or does she? Funny how the apple (or peach in this case) falls close to the tree. Some like it hermaphrodite hot as it were but enough so that dyslexia inverts the thirty first into yet another series of neverending sequels. Does evil abound as a hockey mask? What about those lucky charms? Silly rabbit, magic tricks are for kids, you know. But Donald Pleasance no longer blinded after his great escape chases after Jason mistakingly instead. So what else can triskaidekophobics dread?

"Mister Sandman, bring me a dream...make him the best that I've ever seen.." And make sure he wears a horseshoe especially.

Meat Country, baby

Carnivores delight, because first to the table and last to leave aptly describes the gluttony of meat ingested over an open flame. Seasoned and barbequed, roasted and pulled, how delectable the multitudinous smells of swine slowly cooked, a succulent red apple stuffed in its mouth. Indeed the other white meat if you will culturally suits those who suck the tendon and cartilage clean off the bone. Life, after all, is a bowl of pork chops.

Or the flowing juices of two half-pound patties of ground beef grilled "one-one thousand, two-one thousand, flip" for that charred though tartar texture. Fear not the sight of raw, red blood for it puts hair on the chest and does the soul comfort.

As the wise broadcaster is wont to say, "Some just as good, none better..." So garcon, garcon...(snapping fingers)...more french fries for this table! And how brilliant is it to use Coke to marinate as well as tenderize otherwise tough short ribs.

Spring cleaning

Come on in, Mister Clean. Polish your shaven bald head shiny as can be and roll up those short tee shirt sleeves. The floors, the doors, even windows ought to gleam a fresh lemon scent. And faster than you can say disinfectant, the whole dirty place is spotless, enough to make Gomer proudly shazam.

Is there a soother calm than the quiet whir of an Electrolux canister vacuum? Or a purer sound than the effervescent fizz of scrubbing bathroom surface foam? Maybe just maybe the fat lady not only sings but mops on her knees sans brush or sponge using good, old-fashioned elbow grease. And not a trace of fine dust remains.

God bless the spic-and-span for doing such a top job.

Reminiscing the Ides of May, 1988

"Don't know why there are clouds up in the sky, stormy weather.."

It happened as if in a blink of an eye. A slight blip, no more than a fraction but significant enough to raise eyebrows. Then the covenant so sacred disintegrated into black.

Looking back, mark your calendar one day before the anniversary of what might have been fifteen years. A funny thing happened on the way to the forum. That afternoon, as Cyndi Lauper and her entourage stood outside across from the tavern at Catalpa and Broadway, the gods protested. And the sky belched, dark clouds shaped like fluffy hearts hurled many lightning bolts and in sympathy, car alarms wailed. Such a gesture in itself would foretell of the state of things to come. True, the heavens finally cooperated, casting bright afternoon sunshine afterwards, but the mechanism to turn the shrew into Cleopatra stabbed poor Mark Anthony in the back eight or nine times. Even Helga presciently counseled caution. Who knew then basking in the stark evening glow with tribesmen yelping a twirling cymballed hankerchief and twenty dollar bills wafting above our heads and Murderer's Row posing in tuxedos that a pair of rose-colored glasses could shatter so easily? Really so who is afraid of Virginia Wolf?

Count the wounded maybe.

On the vagaries of frontrunning

"An ephedra cocktail to perk the blues away, Your Highness?"
"But of course..."

Again king for the day, though sadly as is the modus operandi of any horsehide squad so managed, now or about a month and a half into the new season is when my boys of spring usually push forward and expectedly occupy the driver's seat momentarily. Alas the dog days of summer ahead will see fit to wilt this momentum and the hope sprung eternal from smoke and mirrors inevitably clears. And the cold, dark cellar beckons its dank claim as Lola sings her song.

This is such a cruel, cruel game.

Slaughter rule in effect

Say it ain't so, Joe. The latest score shows the home team down by a huge margin.

Where is the supposedly potent run support? Not once out of their own volition in any situation does the bench remotely clear even when someone charges the mound. Forget about the third base coach who gives the green light, windmilling his right arm only to get bushwhacked from behind. Just count your money and bask in your glory. Typical bad play and typical lack of effort deriving from poor fundamentals, groundless execution and pure indifference. So why jump through the hoops without any reciprocation, petty as it may seem? Nothing rips a team apart faster than bad chemistry.

Go into the stands for a foul ball at your own risk.

"You're so vain..."

Toot your own horn and hear the off-key notes. It is but narcissistic karaoke sung to masturbate wee shortcomings. Those with better-trained and well-practiced lips who know how to tongue the rim do so expertly without breathing in the funk. And that makes the world go around every twenty-four hours uninterrupted by any commercials. Advertising works but just what is being sold depends on the star power of the spokesperson, not the product itself. Just smile those pearly whites, pucker up and wax interminable about your best subject since study hall and/or lunch. A sucker is born every minute who will buy sight unseen.

Behind-the-scenes technicians need not apply. Second, third and even fourth chair is all that can be hoped for. As former Minnesota Viking fullback Leroy Hoard philosophized, "If you need one yard, I'll get you three; if you need five yards, I'll get you three."