I leave in Chicago Now (poem)

I leave in Chicago now
Everyone must leave
Leave and let leave, I say
The dead leave no more, they stay
As leaves accumulate on the grass on their graves
They cannot leave, they stay
In the solitary sanitary cemetery, but

All you need is love
Love is all you need
Love is all there is
Is that all?
Don your love glove, Gov.
I’m loving it, while I leave.
You are the girl, Shirl
I am the boy, Roy
Glad to have our gender roles straight now.
Have a whirl with that girl
Don’t toy with that boy.
Or with Leroy Tolstoy.

Do you love to leave?
As long as I’m leaving
I can leave.
I need to leave.
Turn over a new leaf.
Throw out the whole damn book.
Turn over that old leaf, and the gold leaf
While you loaf.

Before you’re old you need some gold
As the cards of life you hold
And do not fold
Cause
Before they made you they broke the mold.

Waddle I do now?

(A riff on Hamlet's soliloquy)

To eat or not to eat,  fat is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to supper
The Blings and cookies of outrageous Fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of gravity
and by dieting end them.  To diet, to sleep...
No more, and by starving, end them.  To diet, to sleep,
And by a sensible reducing plan we end
The Stomach ache, and the thousand problems
That excess Flesh is heir to?  Tis a consummation
Devoutly to wished, to diet and push thyself resolutely from the table.

To sleep? Perchance to Dream.... of pizza and fried chicken, Aye there's the rub
For in that sleep of hunger, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off those pesky pounds
Must Give us pause. 

There's the respect that makes calamity of so short life:
For our knees

and feet must bear the whips and scorns of getting up and down
And makes us top heavy and unbalanced.

 For who would bear the quips and scorns of skinny folk,
The Pancreatic wrongs, and the smell of garlic and fried food
the pangs of despised love of food, the scale's delay,
The insolence of French people, and the Spurns
That patient dieting of the unsympathetic takes,
when he himself might make his stomach quiet
With half a package of chocolate chip cookies?

Who would the Farkel family bear,
To grunt and sweat under all this excess food
But that the dread of something worse than bad breath
That temporary country from which our travelers so oft return
Muzzles the will power
And makes us rather bear those pounds we have,
And make us fight over the arm rests with other fat people flying coach.

And our unavoidable flights on United or American
Are sicklied o'er with the pale cast of characters
Lightly losing their lunch in paper bags.


Thus excess baggage does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution always begins tomorrow
And enterprises of great bitch and ferment
With this regard just flop over and die
And lose the name of action.

Soft you now, the plumpish Ophelia, Nymph.
Do you have a cookie? 
I'm famished.

Yesterday Once More (parody)

Excuse me, but the Carpenters are one group that diabetics should scrupulously avoid. Karen, may she rest in peace, had a lovely voice but as with all artists she had her highs and lows.  She died at the age of 32 in 1983.    What was worse was that my freshman year roommate at college LOVED the Carpenters.  I could not see why.  While he was very good at science and math, his taste in the arts was questionable.   Considering that when he was done with his studies he would watch hours of television on his tiny TV set should have been a strong clue.

"Yesterday What For?"

When I was young
I'd listen to the gangsta rap
Waitin' for my favorite songs
When they played I'd rap along
It made me drool.

Those were such sappy times
And not so long ago
How I wondered where they'd gone
But they're back again
Just like a long lost friend
All the crap I loved so well.

Every Oof oof squeak squeak
Every splutter and zip
Still shines
Every oozing and belch
That they're startin' to talk
And whine

When they get to the part
Where she's bustin his balls
It can really make me laugh
Just like before
It's yesterday you whore.

Lookin' back on how it was
In years gone by
And all the times that I’ve been  had
Makes me get so very mad
Not much has changed.

It was songs of love that
Were really about sex
And I'd memorize each word
Violent and brief
With a maximum of grief
As they beat the years away.

Every crash tingle pop
Every chwang prangle boom
Still shines
Every Thuk thuk squeak
That they're startin' to speak
So fine.

All my best memories
Come back clearly to me
Neighbors scream to turn it down.
And I just frown
Just like before
It's yesterday what for.

Screen Screen (a parody)

 "Screen, Screen"

A pointed parody of "Green Green" by the New Christy Minstrels (1965).

Screen, Screen, there’s a Screen, they say
On the far side of the bar
Screen, Screen, I'm goin’ away
To where I can watch my fill 

I told my mama on the day I was born
Don't you cry when you see I'm gone
You know damn well you got a TV set too,
You just got to keep it on

And I sing
Screen, Screen, there’s a Screen, they say
On the far side of the bar
Screen, Screen, I'm goin’ away
I’ve got  lots of time to kill.

You know there ain't nobody in the whole wide world
Gonna tell me that watchin’s a crime
You know I'm just a TV- lovin’, waddlin’ man
And baby you’re just blockin’ my view.

And I sing
Screen, Screen, there’s a Screen, they say
On the dash board of my car
Screen, Screen, I'm drivin’ away
To where I can watch my fill

And now I don't care when the sun goes down
 Or where I rest my weary eyes
Watchin’ Green Screen Valley or Rocky the Toad
And in between they advertise

.

And I sing
Screen, Screen, it's  a screen, they say
In the pocket of my jeans
Screen, Screen, I'm watchin’ away
When I’m not playin’ Angry Birds

One more time

Screen, Screen, it's a screen, they say
In the pocket of my jeans
Screen, Screen, I'm watchin’ away
When I’m not playin’ Angry Birds

Atlanta, Fanta, and the CDC

Taking another swig of Coca Cola
I feel somewhat menaced by Ebola
And while bays open on the Enola Gay
One wonders how consanguinities in civil unions play.

And while sucking on an orange Fanta

I’m glad I don’t live anywhere near Atlanta
Or Fort Detrick issuing deadly Anthrax
Concealed in envelopes labeled snacks

Drinking bottled water is now my credo

 

Having read of toxic waters in Toledo
Meanwhile Chinese send us milk with melamine
And recommend a recipe by Paula Deen.

Tis best not to open one’s mouth
Whether going in or going south
And dietary caution won’t get you far
Cause what you eat is what you are.

But in my life there is so much was
That my body has turned to fuzz.
Or because clearly it is what it is
My life has turned to so much fizz.

As the War on Women Wore On

As the war on women wore on, it wore on me and I swore.  I, a moron and more a moron than a Moroff, that venerable if venereal Russian noble family, who made war on women and occasionally dogs too.  Where were the generals in the war on women?  Where were the troops?  Sworn as we were to lay those women low, or perhaps get those women laid.  And would we be paid, us the staid, fighting women, and putting up with women while we put other women  down.  Women:  can’t live with them and can’t live without em I say.  

But wait I have more on the women who waged war on morons and on. How had the war started?  This war on women?  And who had started it?  A woman?  A man?  

Diplomacy had failed.

  The ultimatum had been transmitted and all over America you could hear the clatter of heels and implements of war.  Women?  What good were they?  Edison’s own wife he exclaimed with disgust in his diary saying she “couldn’t invent worth a damn”.    With no more brains than God gave a bag of hair most of them.  And now this nasty war, sitting in trenches looking across the bleak and bomb blasted landscape with a storm of screaming shells, humorless women, and barbed wire.  Some babe had casually shot the arch Duke and set the whole world off.  Then the French got involved, and the Spanish Inquisition.   The Duke had said something disparaging about her coffee so she plugged him.  She’d had enough certainly of these pigdog males and their imperious ways. Go wash out your own dirty underwear guys, the ladies had had enough.  Put your toilet seat down or we’ll put YOU down guys.  What’s wrong your hands? Do they become but useless appendages whenever it comes to disposing of the products of your foul openings and exits?  Garbage in, Garbage out.  The food was rotten even before you ate it.    I say fling open those portals and let it free.  But once you free

it, don't just let it be!   Can’t you flush?  Are you so enamored of anything that had so intimate an association with your inner workings that you can’t bear to bid it  good bye?  Yes there will be war and from now on you will have to flush your own damned toilet. 

But it’ gonna take a lotta love to get us through the night.  Another truckload of love I think is in order, several tons.  Forklifts of love on pallets lifted off of trucks.    

You claimed that all you said was “Let’s make peace tonight” but I thought you said “Let’s get a piece tonight”.   I was singing “I got you babe” and you were singing “You got me babe”.  It was a very emotional day to say the least.   Maybe it was just hormones, like guys, you don’t have hormones too?  Let us sort out the dialogue between your head and your heart, between your hypothalamus and your epididymus.    Make peace between the platypus and the hippopotamus.  What the duck, give it a try why don’tcha? 

American Woman (parody)

I hear this song ALL the time in stores. It must be almost 50 years old by now so I wish they would give it a rest.   It's got a catchy beat but it is like chinese water torture in my brain.  I may not be a woman and I am grateful that horny rock stars from Canada will not be coming down here and bothering our womenfolk, but I am an American so I am mildly annoyed.  So I wrote new words to the song and titled it "Canadian Woman".   here goes:

Canadian women gonna mess your mind
Canadian women, she gonna mess your mind
Mm, Canadian women gonna mess your mind
Mm, Canadian women gonna mess your mind
Say c
Say a
Say n
Say a
Say d
i
Say a
n, mm
Canadian women gonna mess your mind
Aye, Canadian women gonna mess your mind
Eh?  Canadian women gonna mess your mind

Uh! Eh! Aye! Again!
Uh! Eh! Aye! Again!
Uh! Eh! Aye! Again!

Canadian women, you are such a pain
Canadian women the way you say “again”
Don't come a-hangin' around my door
I don't wanna see your face no more
I got more important things to do
Than spend my time playin hockey with you
Now women, I said get the puck away
Canadian women, listen what I say

Canadian women, get away from me
Canadian women, mama, let me be
Don't come a-knockin' around my door
Don't wanna see your shadow no more
Northern lights can hypnotize
Sparkle someone else's eyes
Now women, I said get away
Canadian women, listen what I say, hey

Canadian women, said get away
Canadian women, listen what I say
Don't come a-hangin' around my door
Don't wanna see your face no more
I don't need your Zamboni machines
I don't need your kings and queens,  
Northern lights can hypnotize
Sparkle someone else's eyes
Now women, get away from me
Canadian women, mama, let me be

Go, gotta get away, gotta get away
Now go go go
I'm gonna leave you, women
Gonna leave you, women
Bye-bye
Toronto
Bye-bye
Montreal
You're no good for me
I'm no good for you
Gonna look you right in the eye
Tell you what I'm gonna do
You know I’m going south
You know I'm gonna go
You know I'm going south
You know I'm gonna go, women
I'm gonna leave ya, women
Goodbye, Canadian women...

Requiem for Frosty the Snowman

(A poem in free verse)

Where are the snow women? The snow children?
Here truly, the children are fathers of the men.

But wait!

Those snow men look a little forlorn out there.
I salute thee, Frosty, for being so sanguine about your inevitable demise.
Out, out, brief candle!
The snowman is a tale told by an idiot to a madman, both shivering.
In the end all is slush!

And then, what will be left of you?
Some bits of coal, a carrot, a corncob pipe, a soggy hat and scarf and maybe some old tree twigs.
Your mind will be the first to go, of course.
And cool heads will prevail,
But only to the next thaw.
But even if it stays cold the wind will suck the life out of you.
So, as your head sinks below your shoulders, keep smiling!
Even as you fwump for the last time.

Parody: Deep in the Heart of Taxes

Parody:  I have to do my Taxes

The stars at night are big and bright
But I have to do my Taxes
My accountant's fee is way too high
So I have to do my Taxes
The IRS is in the room
So I have to do my Taxes
Send my love to the Feds and gov
Cause I have to pay my Taxes

The coyotes wail but I can't fail
to go and pay my Taxes
The rabbits rush and hop about
They don't have to pay my Taxes
The cowboys cry, "Ki yippee yi!"
When they saw how much I pay in Taxes
The dogies bawl and bawl and bawl
But I have to do my Taxes


Accountants fight all through the night
But I have to do my Taxes
The amount I pay is wide and high
And I have to do my Taxes.

Parody: Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be turkeys

Parody: Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be turkeys

Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be turkeys
Don't let them gobble their food and drive in old trucks
Make 'em be chickens or pheasants or ducks
Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be turkeys
They'll never stay home and they're always alone
Even when they're in a flock

Turkeys ain't easy to love and they're harder to hold
And they'd rather give you a giblet than diamonds or gold.
Trussed up and basted and lying there wasted
For them each night begins a new day
And if you don't beat them, and nobody eats them
They'll probably just fly away

Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be turkeys
Don't let them gobble their food and drive in old trucks
Make 'em be chickens or pheasants or ducks
Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be turkeys
They'll never stay home and they're always alone
Even when they're in a flock.

A turkey loves dusty old barnyards and clear mountain mornings
Cranberry sauce, and stuffing, with plenty of gravy,
Them that don't know him won't taste him and them that do
Sometimes won't know how to chew him
He's not wrong he just tastes different and his pride won't let him
Do things to make you think he's right

Mama don't let your babies grow up to be turkeys
Don't let them gobble gobble and drive in old trucks
Make 'em be chickens or pheasants or ducks
Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be turkeys
They'll never stay home and they're always alone
Even with they're in a flock.

The Adventures of Mentalman

Mentalman:  thinks faster than a speeding bullet
More powerful than a Cray computer
Able to retrieve obscure facts by scratching his head, 

(Crowd of Onlookers, one of them Italian):

"Look what's up with this guy?
He's a weird
He's insane
It's MENTALMAN"

Yes it's MENTALMAN strange visitor from another planet
who came to Earth with thoughts and abilities far beyond those of the average Joe or Joanne.

MENTALMAN, who can teach a graduate course in macroeconomics, 
Bend logic in his bare hands...
And who, disguised as Clark Kent, Ph.D., 
Absent Minded Professor for a local community college
fights a never ending battle for logic, mathematics, and
and the intellectual way.

And now another exciting episode in the Adventures of MENTALMAN!!!




 

She Wore Black Velcro

Black Velcro

She wore Black Velcro
Blacker than Velcro was the night
Everything stuck to her real tight
From the start

She wore Black Velcro
Blacker than Velcro were her eyes
She wore Velcro underwear on her thighs
Love was ours

I was stuck on her real tight
Getting her hooks in me that night
Man but that velcro held me tight
But when she left, the ripping sound was deafening

Black Velcro
But in my heart there'll always be
Something gripping me tenaciously
Through the years

And I still can hear Black Velcro
Ripping through my tears

She wore Black Velcro
But in my heart there'll always be
Precious and warm, a memory
Through the years

And I still can hear Black Velcro
Ripping through my tears

Parody: I've Got You Babe (Sonny and Cher)

Note:  I wrote this parody to express my consternation at the reelection of Barack Obama, not that Romney was so great either, but then at least he wasn't Obama.  

YOU GOT ME BABE 



[HER:] They say we're young and have no clue
But for every vote they got, darlin’ we got two
[HIM:] Well I do know this state is blue  'Cause they got me, and baby they got you 
[HIM:] Oh Bama! 
[BOTH:] You got me babe You got me babe 
[HER:] They say Obama can pay the rent, Before it's earned, our money's all been spent 
[HIM:] I guess that's so, he’s been smoking pot,  But at least I'm sure of all the things he’s not 
[HIM:] Why? 
[BOTH:] You got me babe You got me babe 
[HIM:] I got Arabs in the spring I got you to use your thing 
[HER:] And when I'm sad, Barack’s a clown, And if I get scared, he’s always around 
[HER:] So they say this blame game’s gone on too long
'Cause I don't care, with Obama I can't go wrong 
[HIM:] Then put your little hand in his,  There ain't no hill or mountain we can't climb 
[HIM:] Why?
[BOTH:] You got me babe You got me babe 
[HIM:] I got to call you on my Obamaphone
[HER:] With the Dems in power you’re not alone 
[HER:] I got him to soak the rich
[HIM:] I got stamps to feed my bitch
[HIM:] I got him to kiss goodnight 
[HER:] I got him to hold me tight 
[HIM:]  He’s got your money, He won't let go 
[HER:] He gives it back to you, you love him so
[HIM:]  Why?
[BOTH:] You got me babe
You got me babe
You got me babe
You got me babe
You got me babe

Parody: Our House by Crosby Stills and Nash

I'll light the fire, you place the flowers
In the urn that you emptied today
Staring at the fire for hours and hours
While I watch you burn your dead pets
All night long for me, only for me

Come to me now, and rest your head
For just five minutes, everything is cooked
Such a smoky room, the windows are all greasy
Lit By the cop spotlight through them
Fiery gems for you, only for you

La la….la.


Our mouse, is a very, very, very happy mouse
The two cats run over by a car, life used to be so hard
Now everything is easy, cause they’re gone.
Our house, is a very, very, very fine house
With two cops in a car, life used to be so hard
Now everyone's arrested, 'cause you cooked


Next time…
I’ll do the arson, while you steal the flowers
From the cemetery that we visited today.

Parody: The Windmills of your Mind

The biscuits of you mind


square, like a box within a box
Like a cube within a cube.
Always ending and beginning,
 On an ever floppy boob
Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnivorous babboon
Like some barbasol that’s burning
On your face just like the moon
Like a duck that goes on quacking
Like it thinks that it’s a loon
And the world is like  McDonalds
Getting Loud and out of tune
Like the dead ends that you find
In the circuits of your mind

Like a funnel that you follow
To a jug of Newman’s own
Down a hollow to a tavern
With artwork that’s on loan
Like white stuff that keeps melting
In a dish of good ice cream
Or the ripples from an insect
You saw swimming in a stream.
Like a duck that won’t stop quacking
With a dumb look on it's face
And the world is like an apple
Its circuitry all in place.
Like the gravy that you find
On the biscuits of your mind

I have a rocket in my pocket
Words that fall down and lie dead
Why did winter go so quickly
Did I spend that much time in bed?
The cops are knocking at the door,
And walking through the muck
Was the sound of distant drumming
Just the quacking of a duck.
Breakfast drying on the table
And a ding without a dong
Half remembered names and faces
And where’d I leave my thong?
When your car would not turn over
And she was eaten by a bear
And the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair
Like a box inside a box
Like a cube within a cube
Never ending so annoying
On an ever spinning wheel
As you wish that you’d go blind
Like the trademark that you find
In the recesses of your mind.


Prisoners hanging in a dungeon
And the fragment of this song
Fulminating psychosis
And your breath is kinda strong

When you were looking for dear Rover
Were you suddenly impressed
By its outline in the pavement
Where a dumptruck it had messed

Like an ill-considered meal
Like the organs of a gorgon
Like a baby at the wheel
Always turning never steering
On an ever spinning wheel
As you are severely taxed and fined
Like the revenue code internal
In the backstreets of your mind.

The biological imperative

What are we? Mere bags of animated meat and bone with a brain on top. I was listening to a song on the radio recently.  The radio is there to console you somehow regarding the inevitable sadness of being a perishable bag of meat.  The radio sings of love.  "We'll be together for a million years" says a popular song.  The guy promises to dry her tears.   Nice little promise for a human primate, most relationships don't last more than five or six.  Imagine having the same old lady for a million years?  You won't live more than say 100 years.  And your best years are already behind you already, as your body runs down and eventually jams to a halt.  It will happen, you fool, and sooner than you think, probably.  

In my case, Valentines Day passed without much thought to love or sex.  I got 99 problems and this ain't one.   There is something fundamentally false and delusional about all this talk of love. Humans are as programmed in their way as a bower bird.   And I guess ultimately love is a matter of finding someone else to do a nasty with for a while.  Then you get tired of doing that and go off to watch TV or something. 

  I do find other humans interesting however.  It keeps me away from thoughts of eternity and those long stretches of existence where one is not where one wants to be and where one is not with people one wants to be with.   I try to live in the moment, I really do,  because all too soon I'll be dead and rotting, and so will you be.  That is what God wants.  You are only on the earth for a while and then time's up.  Long enough to think, hey, this isn't so bad, and then it's February and you are just trying to keep warm and waiting for spring.   All of life is a matter of anticipation.   While at work I'm anticipating the hour, the moment when I'll be able to quit and go home.    In the meantime I am swimming in the ocean of time and monitoring internal and external cues.  Looking forward to my next meal, my next bag of peanuts and my next visit to the toilet.  As long as things keep going in one end and out the other,  with predictable regularity I am okay.  It is when things seem to be making a precipitous exit from both ends that I am troubled but that seldom happens.   Body and soul are held together with duct tape sometimes.  You do what you have to do. 

For example it is dark outside and I really should be asleep, but I'm not asleep and time marches on.  For some reason I can't get all my sleeping done at night and I have to be awake for a while.  After a while the sun will come up.  I keep hoping all this snow will melt off.  It hasn't so far.   If it doesn't it will just get deeper and deeper and settle in on itself, form itself into a glacier and start moving south.  We are living in an interglacial as the scientists call it, and none of us expect to live to see the day when the next ice age starts on its merry way south, sweeping Chicago and New York aside.  

The primates at the zoo are by far the most interesting animals.  I could watch them for hours,  There they sit or lie staring at you so strangely, so persistently and with so much melancholy.  Or they sit on an artificial tree branch with their hairy hand like feet grasping and scratching, eating their own droppings or maybe those of a friend.   The bonobos are higher strung and scream and lope around sometimes. Otherwise just chilling.    A gorilla calmly eats a cardboard box, or some leaves.  Youngsters wrestle one another as kids will do.  They look bored.  They don't give the humans a thought, turn their back to them.  They clearly annoy them.  What am I doing here?    

What would a human exhibit look like at the zoo?   Here is Homo sapiens doing his thing.  There could be an apartment with a plexiglas wall on one side.  A TV set over in the corner, maybe a charcoal grill.  A bookshelf (in my case).  A computer and a refrigerator.  All the kids would have hand held devices and be completely wrapped up in them. Everyone would look bored and would have their backs turned to the crowd looking at them from the other side of the glass.  

About Me

I am this guy and I'm at my keyboard right now.  Just thought I'd tell you a little bit about me.  I was born towards the middle of the last century in a hospital in America.  The doctor I am told suctioned me out so I could breathe, something I have done ever since,  and I began to cry, which was quite age appropriate.  I had a mother who was right there at the time, and my Dad was there too, helping out. This is what my parents told me, but I don't have any recollection of those events.  I guess some things are so horrible you just block them out.    It was summer when I was born and we lived in a small town of cinder blocks.  Kind of a bleak place actually, but we had a TV set and a record player, and green painted cinder block walls.  There were these people  across the street.  The father drove a bread truck and something bad had happened to them during a war.  But they were okay now.  The mom was a little high strung, and so was their little boy I used to play with.   He liked to urinate outdoors.  He was the only kid on my block that was my age so he was my friend.  Other kids were a few years older so didn't want to have much to do with me.  It was kind of lonely of course. 

Anyway we lived on one side of a cul de sac in a neighborhood near a large city.   We used to find mulberries growing in a ditch next to the neighboring cul de sac through which a creek ran.  We ate them till our teeth were all purple, except for the ones the birds had shit all over.    I had an older brother who was constantly tormenting me and a sister nearer my own age, and an older sister who was enormous.  She was as big as my mom.  I had a very regulated young life.  If my mom wasn't watching me, big sister was.   And of course there was nothing I could do against her, she was as I said, enormous. It wasn't fair.

I watched TV a lot as a kid.  I remember some TV sets just had huge cabinets and tiny little screens without any color.  Then throughout my life the screens have gotten bigger and the cabinets got smaller.  It was a historical trend.  Kind of like telephones, which used to be black with number wheels on them.   When they rang it was a really loud ringing noise.  You couldn't sleep through that.  And you could only get them in black, because that was what the phone company would give you.  All these women would call my Dad at all times of the day or night and my Dad would go off in his car and do stuff for them.  Mom knew all about it but didn't seem to mind.


At the age of 5 I went to school or kindergarten.  I had a teacher who was also enormous.   She kept us entertained during the day and then we got out our little mats and we had to lie on the floor and be quiet for half an hour or so, while I stared at the ceiling wondering about the asbestos tile up there.    She read to us about Indians, but I didn't care for Indians.  They bored me, for some reason.  I found myself bored in school a lot.  And why were they making me do all this with other kids I really didn't like?   Was this what I could expect in life?  Be a good little bored little boy, and sit there like a stone, please. 

Anyway we moved to another town in another state where they didn't have kindergarten so I stayed home all day in my underpants watching TV.  Mostly it seemed people had these problems until someone pulled a gun on someone else and the bad guy would be killed.   They were cowboys and Indians.  The Indians were always trying to put a tomahawk into somebody and rode around in circles whooping it up.  When you said hi to an Indian he said "How:"  He wasn't asking a question apparently.  It was just something they did.  When people died on TV it was I thought a sacrifice of someone's life to tell a story.  Actors would go to studios saying that they wanted to be shot.  And they shot them and died.  Must have been a huge cemetery outside the studio.

And then there was this older dude with a moustache who would tell us how things were.  He seemed to be in charge of it all.  I guess someone had to be in charge.  And he would end up saying "And that's the way it is."   But then you switch channels and after a bufferin ad showing what your innards looked like when there was pain going on, then you saw two other guys who would also tell you what was happening.  They would just say to each other "Good Night, David" "Good Night Chet" and all was okay in the world, sort of because something was always happening and more people were being shot.   For a while I thought the guy with the moustache was in control of things, and what he said went, not only in the US but in the world.  

I went to school.  I used to walk there every day.  It was only a few blocks.  I learned to read.  Some of the kids were amazingly stupid, and these kids ended up being special.  I wasn't special, which was fortunate for me, since my educational future was more likely.  The girl I shared a desk in first grade just stared at me but never said a word to me.  We went out to "recess" and the special kids would be sitting over in the corner throwing bits of gravel at other kids while a river of snot flowed the short distance from nose to mouth. The windows facing the playground had a wire mesh grill that prevented balls from shattering the windows.  

I did okay in grade school but apparently I wasn't exceptional.  We sat in the classroom staring out the window idly while the teacher droned on.  Every hour or two there would be a sonic boom that would wake some of us up and rattle the windows pretty smartly. Any more I don't hear sonic booms.