|
|
|
Return to the home page
|
|
|
Injured on the Fourth of July
Erik Deckers
Laughing Stalk Syndicate
Copyright 2006
Dear Doctor Taylor:
I'm writing this letter to give you a better explanation of today's chain of events at my family's Fourth of July celebration which resulted in my appearance at your fine hospital. The anesthetic hasn't quite worn off, but the neck brace and bandages around my head are uncomfortable enough to keep me awake to write this.
When I came in, I recall you asking what happened, and that I kept mumbling "Ray, Ray." But you said that didn't explain my broken nose, possible concussion, powder burns on my butt, and certain. . . male injuries.
The day started, as you would expect, with the phrase "Hey y'all, watch this!" This was from my cousin, Ray, who had been drinking since 7:00 pm. The day before.
At Ray's shout, I turned just in time to see him fire off a textbook golf shot with his Big Bertha driver and a croquet ball.
Until that very moment, I had believed there was nothing funnier than a guy getting hit in the privates with a croquet ball. But as I writhed in agony on the ground, I could think of a lot of things that were much funnier, including wrapping a golf club around my cousin's skinny neck.
As I chased Ray around the yard, I managed to step on -- you guessed it -- the very same croquet ball. The ball rolled out from under my foot, and I managed to land nose first into his kid's wading pool.
You have to understand that Ray is what you medical types call "a complete moron." So it follows that his kids are too. Why else would his eight-year-old hellspawn, Little Ray Ray, think this was a great time to play Water Balloon Catapult with me as Target Alpha?
I'm afraid I lost my cool, and was swearing a blue streak when I emerged from the water, blood gushing down my front. Given everyone's reaction, you would think they had ever heard language like this. But I know from personal experience that Ray has used worse language on many occasions, including church. However, I somehow managed to out cuss him, which shocked Aunt Evelyn so badly, she went into cardiac arrest.
She's recovering nicely, two doors down.
I've never had a broken nose, but Ray told me the blood flow and irregular shape "looked about right," so he reset it. I collapsed into one of the deck chairs, praying I'd make it through the night.
It's about this time that Little Ray Ray started to fire off Roman candles. However, lacking a bottle -- Ray only serves beer in cans because "it's safer" -- Little Ray Ray used a tube from his mother's vacuum cleaner as the launch pad. After a few shouts of "fire in the hole," I took the tube away from him before we were all hit by tube shrapnel.
So I guess it's my fault that Little Ray Ray decided to jam a Roman candle into the ground, tape a string of firecrackers to it, and light them both.
"Sheer genius!" proclaimed Ray, calling the creation the Big Momma. (When you've set the bar as low as he has, anything looks smart.)
What happened next I've pieced together from the paramedics, family members, and the beautiful light that told me it wasn't my time yet.
The Roman candle fired from its makeshift launch pad, ricocheted off a low-hanging branch, and then floated lazily toward me in a sort of psychedelic slow motion. It was like being in The Matrix.
I leapt out of my chair, took two steps, and stepped on -- you guessed it -- my old nemesis, the croquet ball. I landed head first on the deck, which caused my possible concussion. The Big Momma landed right on my butt and the firecrackers began to explode, which caused my powder burns.
Hopefully this helps you better understand the cause of my injuries and why I mumbled "Ray" as my explanation for it all. Now I'd better close this letter, because I just spotted my moronic cousin walking this way, carrying a huge bouquet of flowers.
(Doctor's note: Unidentified male, known only as Ray, was found in a patient's room with two black eyes, a broken nose, and a bouquet of flowers inserted in what can only be described as an "excruciatingly painful and embarrassing manner." Patient Ray was heard to mumble "Erik, Erik" as he was rushed to the ER. No further details are available at this time.)
=====
Erik Deckers
(published week of July 7th, 2006)
- Return to the top of the page
- Return to the home page
|
|
|
One Day I'll Be a Man of Whole Words
Erik Deckers
Laughing Stalk Syndicate
Copyright 2006
I want to be a man of letters.
Being a man of letters is a distinction of prestige and learning. It conveys the image of the book-filled study, picture of one's self with historic and notable figures, and one's own letterhead.
To be a man of letters, one must have achieved a certain level of fame and notoriety with the written word. Plus, one must refer to himself in the third person.
I figure that with my very small level of fame and notoriety, I'm at best a man of grunts and vague gestures.
And before you ask, no, a woman cannot be a man of letters. She is a woman of letters. Both are equally cool. Also, there is no such thing as a "person of letters." Don't subject the title to political correctness.
I was recently having coffee with fellow humor writer Dick Wolfsie (man of pictographs). He told me a story about how he met humor patriarch Art Buchwald when he (Dick) was in college. He finagled an invitation to Art's office to share some of his own work, and showed up with an armload of columns.
Unfortunately, another meeting interrupted Dick's, so he had to leave after just a few short minutes. Before Dick left, however, Art called, "Hey kid, wait a minute!" and threw Dick his football jersey. Sorry, that's the Mean Joe Greene Coke commercial from the 1970s.
What actually happened is that Art grabbed one of Dick's columns and wrote on it, "Wolfsie, stay out of my racket—Art Buchwald." The memory of those few fleeting moments has stayed with Dick ever since.
Recently, when Dick learned that his hero was dying of kidney failure, he wrote a column about this meeting, and sent a couple copies to Art.
A few weeks later, Dick was surprised to receive the columns back, both with clever messages on them. One said "Anyone who writes a column about me can't be all bad." The other, "Thanks for the column. Now I can die happy."
Art also included a typed note on his own letterhead that said "To Dick Wolfsie: I'm glad you went straight. I figured you'd be sticking up 7-11s.—Art Buchwald."
When Dick told me this story, I had two thoughts. First, "Wow, Art Buchwald has his own letterhead!" Second, "I can't believe Big-Time Columnist Dick Wolfsie made me buy my own coffee." Then I remembered I showed up early and bought it before he got there, so I can't really complain.
After my own meeting with Dick, which I had also finagled an invitation to, I began thinking about what it means to be a man of letters.
For one thing, it means you get your own letterhead, because you're a respected institution. A veritable literary force who should no longer burden himself with the mundanity of retyping his return address at the top of every letter, note, and missive he fires off. No, a true man of letters pays someone else to print that return address up there for him.
Another perk of being a man of letters is that he has the privilege, nay the responsibility, of writing humorous, pithy notes to politicians, VIPs, and fellow writers. Every note he writes is expected to be funny just by virtue of the sender. People wonder if they have somehow offended the man of letters if has not rewarded them with a joke or two in a hand-scribbled note.
Unfortunately, most of us writers haven't earned that reputation. We still have to put ;-) in our emails to show when we've made a joke, and even then, the other person still won't get it.
Meanwhile, someone like Art Buchwald can type out a clever 16-word note and its rumblings are felt throughout the humor world. Let's face it, Dick's story wouldn't be nearly as cool if he had just written "Thanks, that was very kind" on a plain piece of paper.
But most of all, being a man of letters means you're so well-respected that you're still hearing about the impact you've had on other people's lives, even if it was only a very brief encounter 40 years later. It means people come to you for advice, feedback, and just maybe, a small sign of approval from the old master to his eager young apprentice.
If nothing else, stories like this add to Art Buchwald's reputation as our modern-day man of letters, because it reminds us of what a treasure we'll miss one day. I know it certainly made an impression on me, and it leads me to one inescapable conclusion.
I'll bet Art Buchwald bought coffee for his fellow writers.
=====
Erik Deckers
(published week of July 14th, 2006)
- Return to the top of the page
- Return to the home page
|
|
|
G'Day Mate, Bonzer Hat Ye Got There
Erik Deckers
Laughing Stalk Syndicate
Copyright 2006
They're called "cringe moments." Those things that we've done in our past that make us squirm uncomfortably like a Baptist at "Brokeback Mountain" as we remember them. We die a thousand deaths as we recall our past cringe moments and break into a cold sweat at the first sparkle of memory. No one likes to talk about them, but everyone has them, me included.
Big surprise, right? Believe it or not, most of my moments come from saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. It was a lifelong lesson, but I finally learned it.
I now think before I speak.
People who have known me for several years have just fallen out of their chairs in stunned amazement. That just shows why you shouldn't drink at work.
Okay, so I still need a little practice.
This has been a hard lesson for me, because I have always been a "shoot first, aim later" kind of guy, which is why I usually ended up with my foot lodged firmly in my mouth. I would often say the first thing that popped into my head without thinking beyond the next three seconds. If I had, I could have predicted the response I was likely to get: an angry rebuttal, a tearful "why would you say that?!" or a punch in the nose. Or a combination of all three.
But if I had just thought beyond my own need to make a clever statement, I could have avoided years of embarrassment and frantic backpedaling as I tried to remove my size-10 cross-trainers from my back molars.
I finally decided to change my approach after meeting the mother of one of my daughter's friends several years ago. We were standing outside the girls' dance class, and got to chatting about our kids and our own lives.
Now I'm a fairly outgoing person. When I meet someone new, I like to ask a lot of questions about where they're from, their family, and what they do for fun. These kinds of questions are usually safe in the hands of anyone else on Earth. But not me. I managed to make a tasty snack of both feet in less than 10 minutes.
As this woman and I talked, I noticed she had a distinct accent.
"So, are you from Australia?" I asked.
"No, New Zealand." The quickest way to aggravate a New Zealander is to mistake them for Australian.
Later: "What does your husband do?" Turns out she was recently divorced because he had joined a cult and had become something of a jerk about their daughter's custody. So I made a joke about "visiting" her family in New Zealand for a very lo-o-o-o-ong period of time, because there were no extradition treaties with the United States.
You'll never guess where she returned from three weeks earlier, or why a family court judge thought she had gone in the first place.
During our conversation, this woman happened to mention she was finishing her last few rounds of chemotherapy for a brain tumor, and explained this was why she was wearing a hat.
I told my wife later, "It was like watching a slow train wreck. With the way the conversation was going, if she hadn't said anything, I swear I would have asked her why she was wearing a hat." (Luckily I had decided to cut my losses after the visiting New Zealand crack, and just listened instead of speaking, so I was spared that little faux pas.)
This has since become our code for saying something completely stupid. Whenever my wife and I hear someone ask a dumb or insulting question, or more frequently, we ask it ourselves, the other one follows it up with "So why are you wearing that hat?"
Nowadays we don't even ask the question. A simple "nice hat" or "He/she was sure wearing the hat on that one," has become our little verbal shorthand for "Man, that was nearly as moronic as that time I talked to that woman from New Zealand."
So why am I telling you the story of one of my biggest cringe moments? Because I hope you, my reader, can keep your foot out of your mouth and spare yourself the shoe leather buffet that has been my life. I want to help you avoid saying anything overly stupid. It'll just make you look like a complete moron who wears a helmet out in public and still needs their mommy to dress them.
See, I told you I still need a little practice.
=====
Erik Deckers
(published week of July 21st, 2006)
- Return to the top of the page
- Return to the home page
|
|
|
Bad to the T-Bone
Erik Deckers
Laughing Stalk Syndicate
Copyright 2006
I had a combination "Ha, ha, serves you right/wow, that's too bad" moment a few years ago when I heard that Chris Hamill (aka 'Limahl'), former lead singer of '80s British band Kajagoogoo, was working at a London record store. This followed his failed solo singing career that he launched after Kajagoogoo's one big hit, "Too Shy," hit number one in the UK charts.
It seems Limahl suffered from the same disease that most lead singers do: the mistaken belief that their one fluke success is somehow attributable solely to them, and their 15 minutes of fame is more than enough to launch them to international success. Instead, it gives them barely enough juice to clock in at number 98 on "The Top 100 Flops" on the E! Network.
This hubris is what compels people like Al Sharpton, Steve Forbes, and other little known political figures to run vanity campaigns for President of the United States. Of course, it's also what prompts governors of small Southern states like Arkansas to run for President too, so I shouldn't scoff.
I've never been a big fan of celebrity gossip though, but after hearing Limahl's rags-to-obscurity journey, I've become a sucker for a good "Where are they now?" story. So I did some digging into one of my favorite bands from the '70s and '80s, George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers, the blues-rock band best known for their hit, "Bad to the Bone." (Real fans also know all the words to "You Talk Too Much" and "Move It On Over.")
I had heard rumors that George, their eponymous lead singer, was out of music. So I paid a little visit to our neighbors in the Northeast, and made a surprising, if not spurious, discovery.
George Thorogood has quit the music business entirely, and is now the owner/operator of the Bad to the Bone Butcher Shop in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
"I guess you could say meat is in my blood," laughed the former rocker. "My dad was a butcher, and his dad was a butcher. I was getting tired of all the rock and roll B.S., so I decided to pursue something I really loved. I capitalized on some of my former success and opened up my own store."
It wasn't such a dumb move. In 1994, Thorogood opened a small, 2000 square foot butcher shop, and turned it into a 23-store chain that dots the landscape in Delaware, Vermont, and New Hampshire. He now makes more money than he ever saw from a 200-day-a-year touring schedule.
But George remains a showman, no matter what business he's in.
He told me, "One of the things I learned in the music biz is that people love a good show. That's why our meat cutters and packers practice their craft with the same flair and showmanship as those show bartenders you see in the clubs. Kind of like Tom Cruise in that movie 'Cocktail.'"
Of course, it's this same showmanship that may have ended George's playing career for good. He points to the place on his left hand where his pinky used to be.
"I was showing off for a small crowd a few years ago, chopping up some short ribs. I do this trick where I throw the slab up, catch it, and slap it down on the block. At the same time, I'm swinging the cleaver down in this huge overhead arc -- kind of like how (The Who's) Pete Townshend does that windmill thing with he plays -- and I'm supposed to cut the slab right down the center.
"Well, I was a little hung over from the night before -- you wouldn't believe the parties some of these meat men have. And the groupies! Oh my God! -- anyway, I slap down the slab, just as I swing my cleaver, and my pinkie ring catches on a bone, and whack! Now I'm Nine-Fingered George."
I asked George if he missed the life -- the road, the booze, the women.
"Not at all, man. Let me tell you, that s--- gets old after a few years. We eventually got to the point where we'd hit a nice jazz club after a show just to unwind. A little wine and cheese joint where people don't scream your name or hurl their panties at you."
Nowadays, George prefers hanging out with his family and friends at home, instead of partying into the wee hours of the morning. And he says he's happier and more content than he's ever been.
"Just some steaks on the grill and a few beers?" I ask.
"No, I'm a vegetarian."
=====
Erik Deckers
(published week of July 28th, 2006)
- Return to the top of the page
- Return to the home page
|
|
