On Books I've Read, Talking Animals, and my Thanksgiving Donnybrook:

"What they need to do is crack some heads..."



w/ my Grandma:


I don’t like to go more than a week without a post--that’s just not blogging! But the holiday threw me off schedule, and the weather here in New York’s been so freaking great that I couldn’t waste these balmy days in front of computer. So this post won’t be much more than a check-in with my readers and and an attempt to get back in the swing of things.

Sooo,...lets see. Well, first of all, I finished On the Road by Jack Kerouack; and I have to say at no point did Kerouak write, “Today I had a beer. Tomorrow,..I’ll have another beer.” So I don’t where you got that line Rules! He also failed to mention a three-way between Neil Cassady, Alan Ginsberg, and Cassady’s wife; so I don’t know where my buddy Catfish read that.

We don’t write book or movie reviews here at Intermission. That kind of dead writing’s for college students and professors; but I have to say I really liked On the Road. In fairness to Rules, I think I’m a better storyteller than Kerouack; but he’s a far better writer. And way more original. Half my life philosophy--if not the whole damn thing is spelled-out within the pages of On the Road. Only now its 2011, whereas Kerouak’s book was published in 1957.

Course Henry Miller has all the Beats beat in terms of originality, freedom of expression, and prolific accomplishment. And On the Road only occasionally approaches the greatness of Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion. But I like a lot of things Kerouack does in On the Road; particularly his jazz descriptions--both of the musicians and the music itself. And when he talks glowingly of Neal Cassady I can’t help but think of my old buddy Jake. The drunken Denver nights, the manic episodes of crazed genius, the boundless energy.

And of course the love of a great friend.

“You see, man, you get older and troubles pile up. Someday you and me’ll be coming down an alley together at sundown and looking in the cans to see.

“You mean we’ll end up old bums?”

Why not man? Of course we will if we want to, and all that. There’s no harm ending that way. You spend a whole life of non-interference with the wishes of others, including politicians and the rich, and nobody bothers you and you cut along and make it your own way.” I agreed with him. He was reaching his Tao decisions in the simplest direct way. “What’s your road, man?--holyboy road, madman road, rainbow road, guppy road, any road. Its an anywhere road for anybody anyhow. Where body how?...I’ll tell you Sal, straight, no matter where I live, my trunk’s always sticking out from under the bed, I’m ready to leave or get thrown out. I’ve decided to leave everything out of my hands. You’ve seen me try and break my ass to make it and you know it doesn’t matter and we know time--how to slow it up and walk and dig and just old-fashioned spade kicks, what other kicks are there? We know.”

That was Jake and me. In Denver. And New York. I realize now it literally killed him to have to go back to Denver with his tail between his legs. Scrounging through trashcans at dusk as time suddenly closed-in on him.

But I know he got his kicks.

After I finished On the Road, I started The Art of Racing in the Rain. My mom gave it to me last month when I was in Denver. She knows I like the talking-animal genre and that I’m a huge dog-lover; so the book seemed a perfect fit. But within the first few pages I knew it wasn’t for me.

Because the talking-animal genre is only funny when its animals that talk. Baloo in Jungle Book; Donkey in Shrek; Ferdinand in Babe. They’re hilarious ‘cause they’re animals with human qualities. But the dog in The Art of Racing isn’t a dog at all. He’s just a regular person.

“Gestures are all that I have; sometimes they must be grand in nature. And while I occasionally step over the line and into the world of the melodramatic, it is what I must do in order to communicate clearly and effectively. In order to make myself understood without question. I have no words I can rely on because, much to my dismay, my tongue was designed long and flat and loose, and therefore is a horribly ineffective tool for pushing food around my mouth while chewing, and even less effective tool for making clever and complicated polysyllabic sounds that can be linked together to form sentences...”

Polysyllabic? Melodramatic? Horribly ineffective? What dog talks like that? Stupid book. It’ll probably sell 10 million copies, but I chucked it within a hundred pages--and only read that far cause my mom gave it to me.

The Art of Racing in the Rain is written by Garth Stein. Based on the characters, as well as the little author description in back, I’d say he’s gay; but that’s just a guess. I don’t give a shit one way or another since I know a lot of very cool gay people. I only bring it up cause it ties into the only exciting part of my Thanksgiving weekend.

The holiday dinner was down in Atlantic City, which is kind of Detroit on the Atlantic Ocean. Real bad with no hope. But I’ve got relatives down there, so that’s where we met.

These are relatives I don’t see often. Due to the lack of familiarity--as well as the fact that most of my relatives are Jewish (and as such, don’t drink adequate amounts of alcohol), I had to bring a flask of my own. And it was a good thing I did since--as expected, when I got to the hotel there was no bar. Just a lot of overweight people noshing on cookies and other B-list, sugary treats.

“Anyone got any chocolate?” I asked.

“Sure,” my Aunt said as she dug into a plastic bag and handed me a bite-sized Three Musketeers. I accepted out of politeness, but didn’t bother to unwrap it.

“I thought you said you wanted chocolate?” she asked a short time later when she noticed it had gone untouched.

“That’s candy,” I told her with a dismissive wave of my hand, though I don’t think she got the distinction.

Nothing against my other relatives, but I only went down to AC to see my grandmother. She’s 95 now so I whenever she’s close, I take the time to see her. I love my grandma and share a lot of her qualities; but on this visit she kept haranguing me about the flask.

“What’s that?” she asked as I unscrewed the top and took a pull, “alcohol?”

“Yep--you want some?”

My grandmother curled her nose and frowned.

“You’re so much of an alcoholic that you need to bring that?” she asked. 95 years old and she’s still sharp as a tack.

“I don’t think a half-pint of scotch with three football games and Thanksgiving dinner is an alcoholic grandma.”

But she wouldn’t leave it alone. My cousin Mark (from Detroit) was kind enough to ask for a taste so I wouldn’t have to drink alone, yet this still wasn’t good enough for Grandma.

“There he goes again with another shot of that...stuff. Terrible. Terrible!”

Eventually I had to leave to sit at a different table and that’s when the real trouble started.

At this new table were Tango and Cash. Two guys who always come to these parties together, live together, and who are obviously...well, together; though apparently this is a fact that has always gone unacknowledged by the rest of the family. They’re in the closet as the saying goes, which is fine by me. No need for the world to get in their business.

Only like Roy Cohn or Herman Cain, these guys seem to hide their homosexuality or self-hatred behind a veil of ultra-conservatism. They openly espouse their Republican leanings and color every conversation with political overtones. Not that I’ve ever cared--I’m not political. And everything was fine ‘til we somehow got on the topic of Occupy Wall Street.

“What I don’t get is what these people want,” said Cash, who appears to be the pitcher of the pair. “From what I see they’re just homeless trash.”

“You’ve been down there?” I asked, as I neared the bottom of my flask.

“No, but I’ve seen it on TV. And from what I’ve see...”

“Well maybe you should go down there before you draw your conclusions,” I responded.

Cash smiled one of his Newt Gingrich, professorial smiles to Tango.

“Uh oh, I think we’ve got a liberal here,” he said.

“I don’t buy into liberal or conservative. And I can care less about politics Cash. I’ve got no wife, no kids, no house, no car payments. I have no stake in anything. But when you call people ‘homeless trash’ you might want to check yourself. Especially when you admit you haven’t been down there.”

“Okay Lodo, then what do they want?”

“First of all, if you’d been down there, you’d see there is no ‘they,’ since there’s all kinds of different voices down there. Half of ‘em probably are just homeless anarchy types; but then there’s a whole separate section made-up of environmental activists. Then there’s a group of old-school hippies and religious types concerned with social justice issues; and another group of union organizers. There’s a lot of old people concerned about cuts to Medicare and Social Security; and lots of young people concerned about their college debt and lack of job prospects. There’s all kinds of different interests. Its not like the Tea Party that’s just about low taxes and less government.”

“Well they’re gonna have to decide what they stand for soon.”

“Why?”

“What d’ya mean why?” Cash asked.

“I mean why?” I answered. “Why can’t they just say 'we’re not happy, we don’t like things, and we want things to change?' As long as they’re peaceful aren’t they entitled to freedom of speech?”

Here Cash gave another one of his smug, didactic grins for the table.

“Well if you study your history Lodo you’d see that this is how revolutions actually get started. You can’t just let these people huddle and plan and agitate with no purpose or you could have real social upheaval.”

I had to laugh at that.

“No offense Cash, but if enough people identified with the movement to risk social upheaval then that’d serve Democracy wouldn’t it?”

“Not rea...”

“The cops oughta go in there and bust a few heads. That’d put ‘em in their place and end this nonsense,” Tango suddenly interjected as he stroked his closely-cropped red beard.

Now I began to get angry.

“You just said you haven’t been down there Tango. There’s a lot of old people there. And real young one’s too. There’s a whole mixture of people and agendas. You can’t just categorize them as one thing. You wouldn’t like it if someone said gay people were all pedophiles and whatnot just because of that Penn State guy.”

“Why would that bother me?” Tango asked.

“Oh come on,” I said as I addressed both him and Cash, “you and Cash are obviously together. You don’t need to be an investigator to see that.”

All side-talk at the table suddenly stopped. Forks fell on plates. Tango became beet red as his eyes darted from side-to-side; while Cash let out one of his stifled, smug laughs which I now know is a defense mechanism. That was no issue, but then he suddenly and most purposefully knocked over my flask, spilling my last shot of Johnnie Walker Black to the floor and on my best suit, at which point I immediately and instinctually crammed the bite sized Three Musketeers bar I still (for some reason) had into his forehead. That set-off a whole series of events too numerous to mention, except to say that I ultimately found myself eating turkey with my grandma in my hotel room as we watched a re-run of Kung Fu Panda on HBO.

“I didn’t like that flask of yours the moment I saw it.”

“Just leave it alone grandma. ...And pass the sweet potatoes.”






* NOTE: All pics stolen off Google Images except for # 2, # 3, # 7, # 8, # 9, # 10, and # 12. All rights reserved on my pics.

** ADDITIONAL NOTE: Excerpts from On the Road and The Art of Racing in The Rain were used w/out the permission of the Kerouak Estate or Garth Stein. I'm sure all rights are reserved on their stuff.