News Items You Might Have Missed

 

Love Ad First Sight?

Lisa Catalano is looking for love, and she doesn’t mind paying a hefty price.  The Bay Area single girl, 42, just spent a bundle to rent a dozen digital billboards along California’s busy Highway 101 advertising her need to find that evasive butterfly.  “I’m putting myself out there,” she admits.  “You would be shocked to know how much this is costing me.”  Lisa told the New York Post she decided to advertise after several dead-end dating experiences and failed relationships.  “This is not a joke, it’s not some gimmick.  This is a serious, self-funded endeavor,” she insisted.  “I just want to find my husband.”

Catalano’s ad campaign began September 2 and spans the 45 miles between Santa Clara and San Francisco, directing interested parties to her website, MarryLisa.com, where eligible bachelors can apply to be her guy.  Lisa is also taking out ad space atop taxicabs, just in case.  And she’s not the only one.  Eve Tilley-Coulson, a corporate litigation attorney from Los Angeles, previously told the newspaper she’d pay a $5000 referral fee to anyone who helps her find “the one.”  Much like Catalano, Mohamed Ibrahim, a New Jersey man on the prowl, has also purchased billboard space, even including expensive sites like Times Square, seeking his soulmate.

Lisa would prefer a man between the ages of 35 to 45 who aligns with her on religious and political beliefs and leads a health-oriented lifestyle.  “But if he’s monogamous and looks like David Duchovny, everything else is out the window,”

Keep those cards and letters coming in, folks.   

Butt Dial 

You can only imagine what it must be like to be a doctor at a busy emergency room on Saturday night.  The stress level is through the roof as ambulances pull up and EMTs come racing through the corridors with life-or-death patients in the midst of heart attacks or full of bullet holes or skewered on a metal fencepost.  The wild and wooly ER is studio central for cut-off  fingers, drug ODs, geriatric collapses, head-on collisions and asthmatic grannies, but it’s not entirely a no-fun zone.  There are always the lively “extractions.”  The ones involving crowded anuses.

Chicago emergency room doctor Kenji Oyasu has seen it all.  One unidentified patient (for good reason) confessed that he and his girlfriend “got a little carried away and put something up there” and then were unable to retrieve it.  It was a Yankee Candle, and not the mini stocking-stuffer variety.  “I’m talking about the desktop jar, and not just the top but the whole damn thing,” swears Oyasu.  “Now, you can’t just reach up there and pull something like this out because the suction causes a vacuum to pull it back in.”

To get the job done, the doc had to intubate the patient and temporarily paralyze him with anesthesia, then put him on a ventilator as one would do for an operation.  “You give a medication,” says Oyasu, “which relaxes every muscle in the body so you can eventually work it out of there.”  The doctor added that after identifying the object as a candle, he and his staff placed bets on what the scent would be.  “I won the bet with pumpkin spice,” he smiled.  “It was easy.  It was October.” 

According to a study in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine, nearly 4000 people are hospitalized each year with objects in their rectums.  Of these reported cases, the average age was 43 years old.  Nearly 78% of the patients were male.  Over half the foreign bodies were sexual objects, including vibrators, anal beads or other sex toys, but there were also things like a can of deodorant.

A 2022 butthole incident in France might be the most stunning.  A French senior citizen arrived at the hospital one night with a World War I artillery shell lodged in his rectum.  This troubling matter led to the place being partly evacuated due to bomb scare concerns.  You can only imagine how thrilled the ER docs were to pry the thing loose.  They got it out though, after hours of wrangling.  “We didn’t ask how or why,” confessed the lead physician, exploding with laughter.  “Really---we didn’t want to know.” 

Push It To The Limit

The Chinese news outlet Kwong Wah advises that three drunk men, wary of becoming lawbreakers by driving while intoxicated, pushed their car down the highway for 500 meters, approximately the length of 5 1/2 football fields.  One man held the steering wheel from outside the car while the other two pushed from behind.  Chinese authorities were flummoxed.  “What if every citizen did this?” an unnamed safety officer asked.  “We are going to charge them with something as soon as we figure out what.”

Alas, the unfortunate trio fell afoul of the little-known Article 31 of China’s Road Traffic Safety Law, which forbids occupying roads for non-traffic purposes.  The boys thoughtlessly used both traffic lanes, disrupting traffic flow and heightening the risk of collisions, or so said the local Commish.  “They will have fines and suspensions.  We do not want this to become a popular prank activity among young people.  The other drivers were very angry and many missed keeping their important schedules.”

In case you were wondering, there is no Guinness World Record for pushing a car in traffic, but the Chinese men’s feat pales in comparison to that of Aleksandar Chekorev and Aleksandar Smilkov, who pushed a car 59.07 miles in 24 hours, which is the Guinness World Record.  There is no mention as to whether they were drunk or sober at the outset.

Don't Cry For Me, Argentina

Bored with tired American casketry?  Miffed at ballooning prices?  Want to put a little pizzazz into the funeral of your choice?  Take a look at what those merry men of coffin-building in Ghana are up to.  In lovely Accra, you can find caskets resembling a giant pink fish, a beautiful peacock or an airplane painted with the national flag, and that’s just for starters.  These are merely a few of the endless variety of fantasy bone boxes (known as abebuos) you can find in this African funland.

The coffins, common among the Ga people of Accra, are becoming a widespread phenomenon, offering a colorful alternative to the usual fare.  When a local family loses a loved one, they gather at a carpentry workshop to decide how to properly honor their relative.  A fishmonger might be remembered in the form of a fish he sold, right down to the exact type.  Prominent in the displays are lion-shaped coffins, which are reserved for chiefs, as the animal is a symbol of power.  In Labadi, a suburb of Accra, royal families are tied to their emblem, the rooster, a design reserved only for their lineage.  The right to a particular casket is never arbitrary, it reflects identity, occupation and status.

Each coffin takes about two weeks to complete.  The cost, which starts around $700, varies depending on the type of wood and the complexity of the design.  Nicolas Ablorh Annan, a coffin-maker from Accra, says that while the practice of burying loved ones in fantasy coffins started among the Ga people, it has expanded across Ghana.  Some caskets never hold bodies at all, destined instead for museums abroad.  Annan said that international interest is growing, with many foreign clients ordering coffins primarily for exhibition as art pieces.

At funerals, the presence of a fantasy coffin transforms everything.  Mourners burdened with grief find themselves captivated by the craftmanship, the vivid colors, the detailed shapes, the boundless imagination.  Laughter blends with tears and is softened by creativity.  “People forget for a moment what’s inside; they admire the coffin and the atmosphere shifts,” says Eric Kpakpo Adotey, a carpenter who specializes in the fancy boxes.

Not to say that I’m ever planning to leave this Earth, but departing in a large Red Sox bat might ease the pain.  Hank Williams fans might take to a wooden Indian casket, while Jimmy Buffet devotees would likely prefer a multi-colored parrot.  For Randall Roffe, a Heineken beer bottle would hit the spot.    Chuck LeMasters would have a little dog, of course, and Will Thacker a scary cobra. Mark Chiappini would look dashing in in a spiffy canoe and Glenn Terry would be at home inside Porky Pig.  There’s no end to the possibilities.  How about you, Mr. President?  Maybe a nice waste-removal vehicle or a wood chipper?  Don’t cry for me, Argentina, I’m on my way in an orange Lamborghini with a gator-head hood ornament, bellowing all the way.

He’s B-a-a-a-a-ck!

Late on the night of November 15, 1966, two young couples, the Scarberrys and the Mallettes, were driving down a road east of Point Pleasant, West Virginia when they saw what Steve Mallette described to the Point Pleasant Register as “a man with wings.”  The strange creature had glowing red eyes and stood almost seven feet tall with a wingspan of 10 feet, the quartet swore.  In a perfectly sensible move, Roger Scarberry turned his 1957 Chevy in the opposite direction and floored it.

Didn’t work.  The gang soon saw the thing again, right ahead of them.  This time, it rose straight up in the air before chasing our heroes down the main highway leading back into town.  “We were going between 100 and 105 mph down the straightaway and that thing was just gliding back and forth over the back end of the car,” said Linda Scarberry.

When the frazzled four reported their sighting, they  learned they weren’t the first to see the phenomenon.  Meg Douglas, a folklife specialist at the Library of Congress says she first heard stories of a “Mothman” as a child.  “My roots are in West Virginia and people there always had stories like this.”  Then too, the couples had been driving on a road in the notorious “TNT area,” a sprawling former military installation officially known as the West Virginia Ordnance Works, where high-grade explosives were made and stored during World War II.  Today, dozens of igloo-like bunkers are nestled into acres of overgrown woods where murky ponds once connected the facilities.  “The area is really creepy, especially at night,” says Steve Ward, a local historian.

After the original sighting, several more reports of the Mothman piled into the newspaper, which reported “The whole town descended on the location where the creature was reported, toting guns and ready to hunt it down.  They didn’t find it.”  Maybe not, but the reaction sparked a legend.  Eventually, the Mothman sightings spread out from Point Pleasant to other places in West Virginia and even adjacent states.  But sightings stopped in 1967 after the Silver Bridge collapsed, killing upwards of 40 people.  Citizens near the sight claimed they had seen the Mothman standing on the bridge the day before, possibly an omen of the disaster.  Author John Keel even wrote a book called The Mothman Prophesies.

Point Pleasant embraced the Mothman as a hero, despite the tragedy.  “He tried to tell us!” was the typical reaction.  Now the critter is a different kind of hero.  There is a very profitable monster celebration each year in the little town which brings in scores of tourists to the Mothman Museum and over to the downtown statue of the creature for photographs.  At the 2025 Mothman Festival in late September, attendees walked the streets in costume beneath giant inflatables of their hero.  The vibe was friendly and uplifting.  “West Virginia is just beautiful,” exulted visitor Eric Johnson of Chicago.  “And the Mothman is to die for.”

Eyes on the skies, me hearties!  The Mothman is out there, riding the wind.

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com    

Legends Of The Fall

Autumn brings Floridians relief from the siege of Summer, the stuffy mornings and boiling afternoons and sleepless nights for any poor wretch without air-conditioning.  The leaves fall with the temperatures, bright yellow school buses dot the landscape again, football is in the air and the mosquitos fly south for the Winter.  The stores, never to dally, are decorated with spider-webs, candy corn piled high in the trick-or-treat aisles, Trump masks and tiaras for little princesses.

In Mexico, they’re gearing up for gigantic Dia de los Muertos parades, celebrating the dead.  In Austin, Texas, Dave Moriarty is decorating for his annual Not Dead Yet! party, celebrating the living.  In Munich, they’re shipping in extra tables for Oktoberfest and in Albuquerque extra balloons for the annual International Balloon Fiesta.  If we’ve got a choice, we’re going to Moriarty’s place even though the price of passage is an ascent up several flights of stairs, a hardship which cleverly discourages overattendance and premature drinking.

It’s Autumn.  The skies are clear and the air is fresh.  Take a whiff on me.

The Ig Nobel Prizes  

Autumn brings with it many rewards…the air cools, the humidity abates, the leaves start to change color in Chicopee, Massachusetts and the mighty Ig Nobel Prize winners are announced.  You never heard of the INPs but they’ve been around since 1991, presented to “first, make people laugh, and then make them think.”  Marc Abrahams, editor of Annals of Improbable Research and co-sponsor of the Ig Nobel Awards says “the prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative and spur people’s interest in science, medicine and technology.”  Each winner receives a 10 trillion dollar Zimbabwean bill, a hand-drawn image of a stomach and a wet wipe, not to mention increased visibility and media attention for their research.  The winners for 2025 have just been determined by a panel…the envelope, please!

Aviation: Francisco Sanchez, Mariana Melcon, Carmi Korine and Barry Pinshow “for studying whether ingesting alcohol can impair bats’ ability to fly and echolocate.”

Biology: Tomoki Kojima and company “for their experiments to learn whether cows painted with zebra striping can avoid being bitten by flies.” 

Chemistry: Rotem Naftalovich, Daniel Naftalovich and Frank Greenway “for experiments to test whether eating Teflon is a good way to increase food volume and hence satiety without increasing calorie content.”

Engineering Design: Vikash Kumar and Sarthak Mittal “for analyzing from an engineering design perspective how foul-smelling shoes affect the good experience of using a shoe-rack.”

Literature: William B. Bean “for persistently recording and analyzing the rate of growth of one of his fingernails over a period of 35 years.”

Nutrition: Daniele Dendi and company “for studying the extent to which a certain kind of lizard chooses to eat certain kinds of pizza.”

Peace: Fritz Renner and group “for showing that drinking alcohol sometimes improves a person’s ability to speak in a foreign language.”

Pediatrics: Julie Mennella and Gary Beauchamp “for studying what a nursing baby experiences when the baby’s mother eats garlic.”

Physics: Giacomo Bartolucci and company “for discoveries about the physics of pasta sauce, especially the phase transition than can lead to clumping, which can be a cause of unpleasantness.”

Psychology: Marcin Zajenskowski and Gilles Gignac “for investigating what happens when you tell narcissists that they are intelligent.”

Altogether a distinguished but rather sedate crew, unlike Mayor Arturas Zuokas of Vilnius, Lithuania, who once won the Peace Prize for demonstrating his solution to the problem of illegally parked luxury cars.  He ran over them with an armored tank.

The 2000 Ig Nobel Prize in Physics went to Andre Geim and Michael Berry for levitating a frog with magnets.  Geim followed up a decade later winning a Nobel Prize for graphene research, making him the only person to have won both the Ig Nobel and the Nobel prizes.

Much of the fun at the Ig Nobels comes from those merry men of Physics.  In 2002, Arned Leike of Munich won the Physics honor by using the mathematical law of exponential decay to explain the behavior of beer foam.  In 2009, the Physics prize was shared by three American researchers for their analytical explanation of why pregnant women are not constantly tipping over.  The winner of the Physics prize in 2017 was Marc-Antoine Fardin, who used fluid dynamics to answer the eternal question “Can a cat be both a solid and a liquid?”  In 2019, the winners were a team of researchers who sought an explanation for the long-sought poser, why do wombats make cube-shaped poop?

Ig Nobel enthusiasts are already agog about next year’s possibilities, particularly relating to the William Thacker Group’s studies involving the incredible ability of the long-tailed weasel (Mustela frenata) to evolve into the American President.  Get your seats early.

Persephone, before the blight

The Fact Is….

1. According to a study in the Journal of Aging Research, people who were born during the Autumn months are more likely to live to 100 than others, which is cheery news for Bill Killeen.  The study found that 30% of U.S. centenarians born between 1880 and 1895 arrived during Autumn.

2. Autumn began, according to Greek mythology, when poor Persephone was abducted by the evil Hades, who needed a Queen of the Underworld.  Severely pissed off, Persephone’s mother Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest, caused all the crops on Earth to die until her daughter was allowed to return.  When the very unpopular Hades conceded and released the girl, Spring began.

3. The massive Fall migration of birds takes place as many avians travel thousands of miles to reach warmer climates for the Winter.  The Arctic Tern holds the distance record, flying about 49,000 miles round-trip each year.  That’s exactly twice the distance it takes the rest of us to travel around the world along the equator.

4. Each Fall, approximately 45 million people attend NCAA Division 1 college football games.  Another 20 million attend professional games, a colossal total of 65 million people in attendance at these events.  Though figures are sketchy, a rough extrapolation suggests NFL beer sales at all games approaches $200 million a year.  That’s enough to buy 652,465 sets of rear tires for a Dodge Demon.

Halloween Ball reveler

Looking For A Hero (a twice-told tale)

The First Halloween Masquerade Ball in Gainesville was held on the University of Florida campus in 1970 and everybody went.  It was a monster success, with loud local rock bands, cheap drugs and the libertine inclinations of the times.  Costumes were optional and minimal.  Laws were broken.  Streakers raced through the streets and carefully-coiffed transvestites strutted their stuff.  Rumors of colorful sex acts in forbidden places ran rampant.  Before Las Vegas ever thought of the slogan, the HMB flouted it: “What happens at the Halloween Masquerade Ball stays at the Halloween Masquerade Ball.”  In one fashion or another, the Ball rambled on for 22 years, but not always at the University of Florida, where the terrified gatekeepers bumped it off campus.  Sissies, every one of them!

Incredibly, I missed one of the balls in the early seventies, but I have an excuse note from my mother.  Just before we closed the Circus at 10, a lovely young thing named Pam Dubois came in with a couple of friends.  Miss D. had been a roommate of Pamme Brewer whom I’d met earlier in the Murphy Area dorm where Pamme resided.  We talked casually for a few minutes while the store employees and Pam’s friends emigrated to the parking lot, eventually walking down the three steps to the exit.  Then, in Fellini-esque fashion, Pam put her back to the door, slammed it shut and kissed me like there was no tomorrow.  Now, despite all those sordid tales you’ve heard about head shop ribaldry, this was not an everyday occurrence.  My first thought was gee, I’m going to miss the Halloween Ball.  My second thought was who the hell cares?

Discussing philosophy in the aftermath of sex, as all of us do, it didn’t take long to realize that Miss Pam Dubois was somewhat disillusioned with the world, looking for something to hold onto and reinforce her beliefs…perhaps an idealist like herself.  She’d been around for the Charlatan days, saw an editor who’d challenged the UF deans, exposed nefarious university censoring of the student newspaper, beat them in court and changed the rules.  “After all that, do you still consider yourself an idealist?” she wanted to know.  And that’s when I was reminded once again that honesty is not always the best policy.

“Surely not a purist,” I started, recalling the punishment meted out over time by the opposition, which included a lawsuit eventually garnishing automobiles and real estate on Newberry Road now worth millions.  I held the same beliefs, worked for the same goals, “but I learned the hard way that you have to choose your fights and play to your strengths.”  As Dirty Harry once said and I believe, “A man has to know his limitations.”

This, alas, was not what Pam Dubois wanted to hear.  She reflected on the words for a few minutes, then got up, dressed and delivered one last gentle kiss before disappearing through the doorway.  The next time I saw her, she had a girlfriend.

It’s not the worst thing, of course, to sacrifice the favors of a fine lady for forthrightness and honesty.  We live and love again.  But gee, I felt terrible letting down the whole gender.

The Four Trees (egon schiele)

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com      

Whatever Happened To Whatshisname?

“Where have you gone Michael Hatcherson, the nation lifts its weary eyes to you?”

With a piddling 219 days to go before the arrival of May 2’s spectacular Grand Finale in Gainesville, it’s time to get serious about locating unaware guests, lost souls floating around in Skagway, Sheboygan or Chinguetti, who have no idea what they’re about to miss.  You can help.  Yes, you, the guy standing there with the hookah and the dazed expression.  Almost everyone in town has someone lost to the ages who they’d like to see again, share a joint with, try to collect on that old loan.  If everyone reached out to just one person, cajoled but a single soul, took in a barely identifiable old pal for the weekend, what a wonderful world it would be.  If you get stuck in your search, maybe Sharon Bauer, detective to the stars, will help you.  Sharon has an impeccable track record, having located Amelia Earhart’s lost sex toys, the Ark of the Covenant and the Great Bell of Dhammazedi.  And she’s not busy on Tuesdays, so give her a call…tell her Groucho sent you.

The Great Garcia

We Almost Never See Ya….Michael O’Hara Garcia!

Although rumors abound of a fifth career as Grand Poobah of the Florida Olive Council with a hidden lair near Daytona, nobody really knows what happened to this old Gainesville scalawag/entrepreneur.  MOG was around in Charlatan days and accompanied Bill to Manhattan for the original inventory purchase for the Subterranean Circus, for which he later devised the devilishly clever Diabolical Bonker.  The Bonker was a deadly spinoff of a Viet Cong trail trap, which Garcia had seen while serving with the U.S. Army in Vietnam.  After criminals had come up through the floor and robbed the store one vile and sullen night, Michael gathered up implements of destruction which would discourage such future shenanigans.

The original bonker was usually a heavy section of tree branch with a spike in the center, hidden up in the foliage.  The interloper would come bouncing merrily down the trail, stumble over a trip wire and WHAMMO!—corpse on a stake.  Garcia created his Gainesville masterpiece out of heavy automobile engine parts, then brought it to the store.  The Circus had a very high ceiling, which allowed the bonker to pick up a good bit of momentum on the way down.  The awed shopworkers watched a couple of scary practice runs, which shook the building to its rafters.  “I don’t know,” murmured a nervous Mike (Jagger) Hatcherson.  “Might be a bit of overkill here.”

Nevertheless, at ten o’clock closing time, Hatcherson and a fellow worker set the trap.  Inexperienced in matters of heavy bonking, however, Jagger tripped the wire accidentally and the Kracken was released, thundering down a half second after the two employees had dived to the floor.  When we saw him 50 years later, the psychological scar was still there.

Next day, Jagger and his ally of the previous night walked up to Bill.  Hatcherson, always a mild-mannered reporter loathe to complain, sadly told his boss “Bill, I don’t think I can work here any more.  If we keep the Diabolical Bonker, it’s going to kill somebody and I don’t want it to be me.”  Killeen, already unsure about the weapon, had it dismantled and returned to a highly-miffed Garcia.  “Crime and Punishment!” shouted MOG.  “Whatever happened to Crime and Punishment?”

If you do go searching for Michael O’ Hara Garcia, a word of caution.  It might be wise not to show up unexpectedly.  Somewhere amidst the silent trees of the Fun Coast, the Diabolical Bonker may waken in the darkness, cackle and gird its loins, waiting for its virgin sacrifice.  Like Jagger, you wouldn’t want it to be you.

Left to right, Patty Wheeler, Danny Whiddon, Guy Thibaut, Debra Adelman

Whatever Happened To Peppermint Patty?

When we first saw her with her straight black hair,  luminous green eyes and unbending flirty smile, it was obvious right away that Patricia Wheeler, nee DePhillips, was lovely to look at, delightful to hold.  Not so easy to see, on occasion she was crazy as a doodlebug.  Like that time we walked into Taco Bell, a few blocks from the Circus, and she grabbed her throat, fell to her knees and rasped, “I’m d-i-i-i-e-e-e-ing!” Chairs fell in all directions as terrified diners rushed over to help the stricken woman.  Whereupon, Patty suddenly rose, brushed her hair back and exclaimed, “Oh, I’m feeling so much BETTER now.” 

Patty was married to the inimitable Rick Wheeler, occasional biker, full-time purveyor of illegal substances, but it was obvious it wouldn’t be for long.  I took my place at the head of the line and when the partnership disintegrated I marched into the breach.  Living in PattyWorld was a trip.  She lived next door to and was best friends with Irana Maiolo, a bizarre Brooklynite who was every bit as crazy as Patty.  Irana’s doors were never closed, her place was like a hub airport with fresh doughnuts from Krispy Kreme on the kitchen table by five every morning.  Irana thought nothing of calling a friend at 3 a.m. and announcing, “Hi!  I’m coming right over.”  Five minutes later, her schoolbus-yellow motorcycle would appear in the distance, parts falling off hither and yon.

One of the reasons Patty liked me was that I was a fellow-Catholic, though not practicing very hard.  During pillow talk, she always reminded me that what we were doing was a big sin.  “That’s true,” I agreed, “but that’s why the Church has Confession.”  Patty nagged me to death about wearing my high school senior ring.  I finally gave it to her and a week later she lost it in the Gulf of Mexico while we were playing Disembodied Heads during an LSD trip with Stuart and Leslie Bentler.  She batted her eyes and told me I could get another one.

Ditzy flirt or not, Patricia Wheeler was no dummy.  She nabbed an Engineering degree from UF in jig time and was hired by the U.S. Army, rarely to be seen again.  Expert at playing the little girl, Patty has no doubt conned The Reaper into granting her
a free pass to leave when she gets around to it.  And that won’t be until all the amusement parks are closed, the boys stop chasing and the world runs out of electric yoyos.  Patty, come home, all is forgiven.

Sandee Youngblood with Debbie Brandt

Where Have You Gone, Rod Bottiglier?  The Illegal Parkers Turn Their Bared Bums To You.

Rod used to ride down to Gainesville on his trusty Harley to buy Rush at the Circus.  He was in town so much he finally moved in, bringing along his lovely girlfriend, Sandee Youngblood.  We gave both of them jobs at the store.  Among other valuable traits, Rod was a martial arts expert who could sniff out shoplifters as soon as they walked in.  Small in stature, Rod had The Eye and almost never had to rassle with evildoers, their instincts told them it would be a bad idea.

Bottiglier’s favorite duty was monitoring the parking lot for scofflaws who sneaked into one of our six spaces before heading off to breakfast across the street.  He got a lot of arguments, but most of the lawbreakers complied.  Those who didn’t inevitably regretted their mistake because Rod kept his pockets filled with long, sharp nails, which he would angle into the back of an offender’s tires, smiling his contented grin as the naive fools unsuspectingly drove off into oblivion, somewhere down the road realizing their horrible mistake.

Come back wherever you are, Rod the Biker.  We require talented security personnel in the Heartwood parking lot for the big day.  The nerve of some people---stealing a space at your favorite rock ‘n’ roll emporium and walking across the street to church.

The fearless, fighting Hansen family

Calling All Cars!

We know Rick Hansen, brother of Ted is coming, but how about Marcia Hansen, Ted’s wife?  Danny Levine will be there but what about his old flame Charlotte Yarbrough?  Sheila the Dealer will be there purveying her wares and if we’re lucky, so will that rare bird Chuck LeMasters, but has anybody here seen Bob Sturm lately?

Mick Davis is coming, of course, but will Rose Coward ever appear with ex-hippies again?  It’s not a church day so we’ve got a shot to see Debra Adelman, but where oh where is Debbie Brandt?  Rick Nihlen would drop everything to come, but is he alive and who’s going to tell him?

Where in the world is Brenda “Moon” McClenathan and hippie sweetheart Patti Colvin?  Has anyone tipped off Jim “Waterbedman” Hines or Danny Whiddon or Ira Vernon?  Is Steve Solomon alive and well?  Can Anne White get a library pass?  Will blind Nancy Kay make it through six blocks of rough traffic?  Is Leslie Logan being held in Arizona by cultists?  Is the world’s youngest oldster Arthur Peplow on his way?  Can Greg Barriere bear to leave Massachusetts for a single weekend?  Is sister Wendy taking the Love Boat south?  We’re making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty, who’s nice.

You better watch out.  You better not cry.  You better not pout, I'm telling you why.  Grand Finale is coming to town.  Santa arrives early next year on May 2, 2026 with presents for all.  Bring something for the reindeer.

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com      

Bad Dreams

Where do I go to complain?  Somebody else is obviously getting my share of good dreams while I am left with all their lousy ones.  Is there a Dream Adjustment Bureau available?  I’m getting wary of falling asleep at night.

I used to be like everyone else---some good dreams, some bad, but slowly over time the nifty dreams have skedaddled and left the playing field to the dregs of dreamery.  It started out with me losing my car.  I thought I remembered where I parked it, but it was never there, or anywhere in the vicinity.  I’d try to call my wife or a friend for a ride home, but I could never get my phone to work.  I have had different versions of the same dream at least two dozen times, so it’s getting old.  In real life, I have had my car stolen only once, about 35 years ago, and the cops got it back undamaged in a half hour.  In real life, my phone always works.

Siobhan, the dream expert, says this keeps happening because I secretly feel I have lost my power, but that’s not true.  I never had any power to begin with, although I did accidentally frighten a few people in Mexico with my Evil Eye.  I fear I may have to contact Madame Garbanzo, the Dream Wizard, if this goes on much longer.  I would like to be having dreams about riding through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in my hair or sitting in the Austin Ghetto singing Road to Mingus with John Clay or watching Donald Trump ice-skating on a melting Lake Champlain, but at this stage of the game I would be satisfied with a functioning cell.

Melatonin can cause vivid dreams, mostly when taken in high doses.  Melatonin increases REM sleep, the stage of sleep where dreams occur, and it also releases vasotocin, a hormone linked to dream and memory regulation.  But I take the bare minimum, only 1mg.  Nonetheless, I skipped taking it one night recently and had no bad dreams, perhaps because I barely slept.  A cause for celebration?  Hardly.  When I finally nodded off sometime after six a.m., my phone stopped working again.  As Bob Dylan wonders, how many times must the nightmares fly before I’m allowed to be free?  You know the answer to that one.

Doctor, Doctor, Mr. M. D.---Now Can You Tell Me What’s Ailing Me?

Lauri Quinn Loewenberg, Dream Expert to the Stars, is often highlighted for her engaging and lively approach to dream interpretation.  Lauri is an author and professional dream analyst who has appeared on The Today Show, Dr. Oz and Good Morning America, where she gives real-time interpretations.  Ms. Loewenberg has loads of satisfied customers like journalist Margareta Haggland of Stockholm, who lauds “Having my dreams analyzed by Lauri has changed my life.  Finding out what my dreams are telling me is like a Christmas gift.  My dreams have become tools for me to understand my life and change it for the better.”  Gee.  How can you beat that?  I could stand a little life-changing for the better.  Where do I sign up?

You’re not going to believe this, but Lauri is even willing to take on paying customers like me.  I discovered I could choose a phone session varying from 15-45 minutes to speak to her and have all my questions answered about these troublesome dreams.  A fifteen-minute call costs a mere $45, so how could I go wrong?  I took a look at her calendar and chose an 11:30 option on September 11.  I could hardly wait to start improving my life.

Conversation With A Dream Whisperer

Lauri Loewenberg called at the crack of 11:30, as I knew she would.  If you can’t even manage to call on time, who’s going to pay attention to anything else you have to say?  She had a good telephone voice and a cheerful demeanor and after five minutes you felt like you’d known her for years.  “Tell me the dream,” she said.

I gave her the dream in all of its varying forms, and even added one from the previous night about losing Roxy, our Rottweiler.  We put that one on the shelf for awhile and got down to business on the car dreams.  Lauri asked me a hundred questions, of course, including when the dreams originated, if they were preceded by any cataclysmic events, what things were important to me now, and then to provide a brief review of my life.  I told her 84 years was a lot of ground to cover.  She told me to leave out trips to the mall.

That done, Ms. Loewenberg homed in on my parting with the thoroughbred racing business after 40 years.  She asked me what I liked best about it (the actual races, of course) and why we bailed out.  I told her the closing of Calder Race Course in Miami made profitability impossible for us.  Also, the weight of a hundred calls from trainers with bad news becomes difficult.  A two-year-old stakes contender bucks a shin and misses a $100,000 race.  A good horse races twice and gets a bowed tendon.  Layups get major injuries just running in the field.  Mares in foal abort at nine months.  Foals die of absurd diseases.  Not to mention, we get old and less able to cope.  “So this is a critical loss,” Lauri says.  “Even though it’s now the right thing to do, you’ve lost something that brought a lot of creativity and excitement to your life.”  She moved on to health.

I told her what our lives were like when we met in 1985, what we were doing (a lot) in 2000, 2010, 2020 and now.  Major hikes.  Climbing mountains.  Extensive travel throughout 49 states.  The hikes are shorter now and so are the hills.  Challenges we would have taken on ten years ago are physically impossible now.  “Another major loss,” said Lauri.  “Yes, you’ve adjusted, accepted the present situation and made the best of it, but you no longer have something in your lives that you valued.”

I got the drift.  In addition to everything else, you’re losing friends and family numbers by the truckload; every few days, The Reaper picks off another one.  Octogenaria is a city of unending losses, so persistent they start showing up in dreams.  Could be.

I have never been a big fan of psychiatry because it seems like an exam with no definite answers.  But some people rely on psychiatrists to maintain a stable, happy life, so who am I to say?  To me, dream interpretation is a lot like psychiatry---plenty of questions with a raft of possible answers, none certain.  What Lauri Loewenberg says makes perfect sense, but how can you really know, and even if you do, what can you do about it?

“After your next car dream,” advises Lauri, “sit  down and write about something you gained that same day.  It needn’t be something big, just any small gain.  Make something up if you have to.”  I'm going to do it.  Maybe I gained someone’s trust or made a guy smile or received a flowery compliment.  Everything counts.  Maybe tonight I'll lose a five-spot instead of my car.

All things considered, would I call Lauri again if I had it to do over?  In a New York minute.  She was knowledgeable, funny and helpful.  She made me think.  And she was in no hurry, the call was approaching thirty minutes when I wound it down, twice as much time as I’d paid for with no hint of being rushed.  $45 is cheap for aid to major reflection.  Not to mention, I got a story to tell.  I knew I would, one way or the other.  But I like this story better. 

Out Of The Night, When The Full Moon Is Bright….

….arrives the creative spark of sleep.  Sleep isn’t merely about resting our bodies, it’s about giving our minds the space to explore, discover and create.  When we sleep, we open ourselves up to a world of possibilities, allowing our subconscious to connect ideas, find innovative solutions, jab our imaginations.  Sleep plays a crucial role in our creative process, especially in the REM stage, when our brains are processing information, consolidating memories and connecting different ideas.  This can lead to creative insights and problem-solving abilities that are often impossible to achieve when we’re awake.

Research suggests that the earliest stage of sleep, known as N1 or hypnagogia, is particularly fertile ground for creative insights.  This dreamy, half-awake state is where we often experience fleeting, imaginative thoughts before drifting off into deeper sleep.  It’s a connection point between our subconscious mind and innovation.  Thomas Edison would nap with metal balls in his hands, and as he drifted off, the balls would fall and wake him, allowing him to capture those creative sparks at the edge of consciousness…one of several dream incubation methods used to harness the creative power of sleep.  Many writers leave a notebook or recording device at bedside to record their dreams upon waking.

Researchers at MIT and Harvard Medical School have developed a device called Dormio, a wearable glove that tracks signs of sleep and can gently guide dream content.  In a 2020 study, they showed that Dormio could effectively guide dreams toward a specific theme.  Is this a great idea, or what?  Instead of losing your car every night, you could stop in at the Moulin Rouge or head for the beignet counter at Cafe du Monde.

Participants in the study were prompted to dream about trees while wearing the Dormio device.  The results showed that those who received these tree prompts were significantly more creative in problem-solving tasks compared to participants who napped without prompting or stayed awake.  “One of the goals of our group is to give people more insight into how their brain works, and also what their cognitive state is and how they may be able to influence it, says Pattie Maes, a professor in MIT’s Media Lab and one of the lead researchers in the study.  Maybe you’ll even write an iconic ditty.

Legendary songwriter Paul McCartney takes minimal credit for inventiveness when it comes to creating his famous song, Yesterday, which came to him in a dream.  He woke up one morning with the melody playing in his head and rushed to a piano to play it before it faded from memory.  “I like the melody a lot, but because I dreamed it I have trouble taking credit for writing it,” he says.

James Cameron, director of Avatar, the highest grossing film of all time, confesses it all started as a dream.  When Cameron was a young man, he had a very vivid dream about a bioluminescent forest filled with glowing trees and strange, beautiful creatures.  The dream stuck with him for years, eventually inspiring the stunning world of Pandora in Avatar.

Maybe Bill shouldn’t give up on his mysterious automobile losses.  Just think, BK’s dream cars could be the victims of hovering UFOs which suck them up into their bellies like so many prairie cows in Kansas.  Bill could secret himself in the trunk of an appetizing auto and, when the vehicle was safely inside the UFO, pop out and get a few shots with his iPhone camera for his new movie, Coneheads II.  Hey, the ETs went along with it for Morons from Outer Space, they’re not so fussy.

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com  

We Need A Hero!

“I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the morning light
He’s gotta be strong, and he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight!”----Steinman & Pitchford

The Avengers are a big deal these days.  Their Endgame movie is the highest grossing film of all time, earning just under $3 billion.  That’s “billion,” with a b.  Spiderman is still big and the new Superman film is raking it in, and we don’t care one whit.  We couldn’t give you the maiden name of anyone in the Avengers, the Web-spinner is a silly kid and there’s no kryptonite left on Earth, so things are too easy for Superman.

Everyone was oohing and aahing about The Black Panther movie a few years ago, so we went to see it, and it was terrible.  Worse even than Freddie Got Fingered (2001), The Last Airbender (2010) and Raise the Titanic (1980).  Superhero movies these days are all about non-stop fighting with monsters or people from outer space like the Black Swan, who destroys universes because he’s bored.  Galactus, Devourer of Worlds, was just a piker compared to this guy who is now being challenged by a team of utllity infielders called The Illuminati.  Who cares?

We older folks need a real hero, a mean old cuss faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.  After all, there are true villains in the world coming after our Medicare and Social Security, running our grape pickers out of town and setting the national guard on poor little Schenectady.  This is a job for bad, bad ElderMan, baddest man in the whole damn assisted living facility…badder than old King Kong and meaner than a junkyard dog.

ElderMan could straighten things out in a hurry, smashing in the White House door and pulling out the President’s tonsils.  Who’s going to stop him---the Secret Service?  They couldn’t even shut down a punk kid from Bethel Park who couldn’t make the rifle team in high school.  After that, he’d rush over to the Veep’s office, make him put on a tutu and spin him around DuPont Circle.  No politician could survive the shame.  Who’s next?  That’s right, the milquetoast Speaker of the House, who is really Caitlyn Jenner in disguise.  ElderMan has a special weapon he uses on fading hypocrites.  He calls it his Stamp of Irrelevancy, which he plunks on enemy foreheads with all his might, sucking every smidge of credibility from his victims.  After that, of course, he’ll have to go home for a Pabst Blue Ribbon to replenish his strength.

Think of all the good a hero like EM could do.  His flock of histoplasmosis-ridden pigeons could be trained to leave a sea of poisonous droppings on the vehicles of Robert Kennedy Jr., Kristi Noem and Tom (the ICEman) Homan.  His Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder Brigade (OCPDB) could eagerly scoop up messy Steve Bannon, tie him to a post and shave all the hair off his body, leaving him a laughingstock for the tough guys he seeks to impress.  Best of all, Elderman’s occasional sidekick, Michael Demiurgos, The Archangel, could be summoned to battle Steven Miller, aka Satan, in a no-holds-barred, loser-leaves-town cage match on ESPN’s family of stations.  One Tombstone Piledriver by The Archangel has been known to break necks and shorten careers and Michael would be such a topheavy favorite Vegas wouldn’t even have it on the books.

It’s a bird!  It’s a plane!  No, you fools---it’s ELDER-man!”  Helen Mirren could be Lois Lane.

Ashrita the Great

Heroes

Etibar Elchiyev of Georgia once balanced 50 spoons on his body by using his secret weapon, his “magnetic skin.”

Ashrita Furman holds the world’s record for balancing a running lawnmower on his chin for over three and one-half minutes, easily outlasting Jay Leno.

Sanath Bandara of Sri Lanka once wore 257 t-shirts at the same time.  Okay, so a few of them were quadruple extra-large.

In 2007, Kevin Shelley broke 46 toilet seats with his head in one minute., although the airport wasn’t very happy about it.

Wim (The Iceman) Hof owns the world record for being submerged in ice, clocking in at nearly two hours.

Japanese gazelle Kenichi Ito set a record for the fastest 100 meter dash on all fours with a spectacular time of 25.71 seconds.  Try that sometime.

Peter the Great, the Russian tsar had a passion for dentistry, often pulling his own teeth or those of his unlucky courtiers.  He kept his fabulous collection of not-so-pearly whites in a box on his mantle.

The Connecticut Leatherman, an eccentric vagabond of the late 1800s, walked a 365-mile circuit through New England every 35 days for roughly 30 years wearing a full-body leather suit.  He rarely spoke, though an observer once heard him whistling the Bohemian Rhapsody.

Unlikely Heroes

The eccentric eighteenth-century American businessman Timothy Dexter, who prefaced his name with “Lord” to impress people, was famous in his day for apparently absurd business ventures which often bore fruit.  Though barely educated or even literate, Dexter called himself “the greatest philosopher in the known world” and even built a statue for his garden to attest to the fact.  The statue was a massive wooden structure which carried the inscription “I am the first in the East, the first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western world.”  In all fairness, Dexter also built 39 other statues of men like George Washington, William Pitt and Napoleon.

Dexter was born of poor but humble parents in 1747 in Malden, Massachusetts.  He had little schooling and dropped out of school to become a farm laborer at the age of 8.  At 16, he became a tanner’s apprentice and moved to Newburyport.  In 1769, he married a rich widow named Elizabeth Frothingham and bought a mansion with her money.  Dexter set up a shop in the basement, where he sold moosehide trousers, gloves, hides and whale blubber, while Elizabeth opened a shop which sold notions.  You remember notions.

At the end of the Revolutionary War, Dexter purchased large amounts of depreciated Continental currency, virtually worthless at the time, but at war’s end redeemed by the new U.S. government at one percent of face value.  Massachusetts, however, paid its own notes at par.  Lord Dexter’s investment thus netted a sizeable profit with which he promptly built two ships and began an export business to the West Indies and Europe.  Not bad for a grade school dropout.

His rivals, aware of his lack of education tried to bankrupt him, advising him to send bed warmers used in frigid Massachusetts in winter to the tropical West Indies.  They laughed when he sat down to ship, but Dexter found a huge market for the bedwarmers when plantation owners bought them to use as ladles for the molasses industry.  On a roll, he next sent woolen mittens, which Asian merchants scooped up to sell in Siberia.

Okay, his enemies, said.  Let’s see if he can ship coal to Newcastle.  As luck would have it, Dexter shipped during a miner’s strike and the cargo was sold at a premium.  On another occasion, his rivals suggested he ship gloves to the South Sea Islands.  Dexter’s ship arrived there just in time to sell the gloves to Portuguese merchants on their way to China.  Is this beginning to look like the Roadrunner vs. the Coyote, or what?  Lord D. exported Bibles to the East Indies and stray cats to Caribbean islands and again made a profit as Eastern missionaries needed the Good Books and the islands had a rat infestation.  He also hoarded whalebones by mistake but wound up selling them as corset stays.

Through it all, Dexter’s rivals continued to ridicule him, but Timothy D. soon saw the value of cornering the market on goods others deemed worthless.  He didn’t mind acting the fool.  Snubbed by high society, Dexter bought an enormous house in Newburyport from socialite Nathanial Tracy and tried to emulate Tracy’s prominent mansion.  He decorated the place with minarets, a golden eagle on top of the cupola, a mausoleum for himself and all those giant statues.  Dexter also bought an estate in Chester, New Hampshire, where he asked to be called the Earl of Chester.  Children who obliged got a quarter, adults got dinner and drinks.

Despite his lack of education, the Earl took it upon himself to write a book about his life called “A Pickle for the Knowing Ones” that contained 8847 words but no punctuation.  Seeking to please, he followed up with a later edition, at the end of which were a vast array of punctuation marks, inviting readers to “peper and solt it as you please.”

Dexter staged a fake funeral to see for himself how people would react to his death.  About 3000 people showed up to mourn.  When he did not see his wife cry sufficiently, he revealed the hoax and after the ceremony whacked her with his cane.  Concerned about his legacy, Timothy Dexter enlisted the services of Jonathan Plummer, fish merchant and amateur poet to write a remembrance in verse.  Like so:

"Lord Dexter is a man of fame;
Most celebrated is his name;
More precious far than gold that’s pure,
Lord Dexter shines forever more.”

Burma Shave would be proud.

Antiheroes: Snap, Crackle & John Harvey Kellogg

John Harvey was director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan.  Then he invented corn flakes and life changed a bit.  Kellogg became a holistic wellness freak and promoted a bizarre regimen, starting with the Yogurt Enema, which should be performed daily.  Harvey had a special machine that could pump 15 quarts of water into a person’s bowels.  He recommended a daily pint of yogurt, half to be eaten, half to be administered with the enema, which he believed would “wash out” intestinal bacteria.  He also had a large number of vibrating machines, including a wooden vibrating chair that shook violently to “stimulate the bowels.”  Hey, John Harvey---did you ever hear of Metamucil?

John’s fascination with the nether regions knew no bounds.  He was a big foe of masturbation.  Kelloggs’ Corn Flakes were actually invented to deter the practice.  Supposedly, eating bland foods would not incite children’s passions whereas spicy or well-seasoned foods would cause an unhealthy reaction in their sexual organs.  If the Corn Flakes didn’t work, he had other solutions.  For boys, he advocated the tying of hands or putting a cage over their genitals, which was very inconvenient during Little League games.  For girls, he recommended more barbaric surgical interventions or the application of carbolic acid to the clitoris.  Good thing for him Gina Hawkins wasn’t around at the time.

All things considered, we’ll stick with Popeye.

That’s all, folks…

bill.killeen094@gmail.com    

Rise Of The Influencers

Some people will tell you that “Influencers” are a new thing but we had them back at St. Patrick’s grammar school.  Every so often, Gerald McDonald and a few pals would form a chorus line, arms around one another’s necks, and move forward high-stepping and singing “Get out of my way or I’ll kick ya.”  And if you didn’t, they did.  Gerald McDonald was a major influencer in our schoolyard.

Kathleen Carroll, the prettiest girl in the neighborhood, always looked like she’d just stepped out of a commercial for hygienic living.  Clean as a whistle, crisp as a cucumber, smart as a whip and always wearing matching socks, she’d march down the street, draw a hopscotch box on the pavement with a piece of chalk and even the female-dissing boys in the nabe would line up to jump around like fools.  Kathleen Carroll was a major influencer in the neighborhood.

Brother Robert Eugene, a handsome young stud in the Marist Brothers religious gang, was my freshman home room teacher in high school.  Brother Eugene was tough, didn’t like wise guys.  One day, big Victor Nastasia, the fullback on the freshman football team, took issue with Brother R.E. and stood up in an aisle to confront him.  The Marist Mauler slapped him alternately on both sides of his face until Victor was all the way back to the lockers and crying.  Brother Robert Eugene was a major influencer at Central Catholic High School.

Now, we have a different kind of Influencer, defined by Wikipedia as “an individual who builds a grassroots online presence through engaging content such as photos, videos and updates.”  It’s important than an Influencer have no particular talent at anything else, otherwise he or she would be a singer, ballplayer or alligator rassler with influence, but not a pure Influencer.  So where did they come from, where will they go---tell us about it, Cotton Eyed Joe.

The First Influencer

Journalist Taylor Lorenz claims that Julia Allison was the first true Influencer.  In her book “Extremely Online,” Lorenz details how Allison invented the concept of being a content creator a decade before the art caught on.  Allison started her career in 2002 writing a dating column in the Georgetown University student newspaper under her actual name, Julia Baugher and soon attracted the attention of magazines such as Seventeen and Cosmopolitan, which published her articles.  After graduation, she moved to Manhattan, became a columnist for AM New York and auditioned for parts in pilots and reality TV shows.

Rebranding herself as Julia Allison in 2005, she started a blog in which she posted details of her daily life and dating, along with pictures of her outfits.  She promoted herself with links to her blog in comments on Gawker stories and on its tip line, then in 2006 attended a Halloween party thrown by its founder and editor Nick Denton, wearing a “condom fairy” costume, a dress made of condom packages.  Gawker ran a harshly critical article about her and refused her requests to take it down.   Allison retaliated with a blog photo of her butt captioned “Dearest Gawker, Kiss my ass.”

Allison carefully crafted her online identity, including staged photos intended to appear candid.  In 2010, she moved to L.A. and co-starred in Miss Advised, a reality show which ran for one season on Bravo.  In 2018, she moved to San Francisco, worked on a book called Experiments in Happiness and became a change activist.  Unfortunately for Julia, when she began her influencing business, no one recognized it as an occupation.  There was no language to talk about what she was doing.  Back then, many people, including some media, resorted to misogyny.  Allison was often villainized and brutalized by journalists, pundits and online trolls who couldn’t imagine the imminent rise of the Kardashians.  “I was born 20 years too soon,” she sighs.

Early Influencers like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian on MySpace, Twitter and Instagram are often cited as pioneers of the Influencer marketing phenomenon, leveraging their celebrity and personal brands to build massive followings, demonstrating the potential for social media to shape consumer behavior.  Allison was the exception which proves the rule “The Early Bird Gets The Worm.”

“But I’m not whining,” she swears.  “It’s happened to plenty of other people.  Look at Emiliano Zapata.  Nobody rocked the mustache like Zapata--- extremely bushy and full and always expertly groomed.  Zapata’s mustache became the symbol of the Mexican revolution for Christ’s sake, but does he get any credit?  No!  I guess I can live with my fifteen seconds of fame.” 

Lyle: "It isn't easy being green."

The Wacky World Of TikTok

If you’re looking for advice from Influencers, there’s a nest of them over on TikTok.  Stephanie Baker, aka Mermaid Serenity will feed you content about her life as a mermaid in Hawaii.  Lyle the Therapy Gecko dispenses all manner and make of life coaching while dressed in a gecko onesie.  Bumble Pree is an avid promoter of adult diapers, Laura Jenkinson creates chin makeup, Sister H will discuss life at the nunnery and Captain Cream (who we sort of like) will show you innumerable ways of using whipped cream for fun and profit.

Creepy Razy is a musical artist bent on creating spooky and eerie ambient music, sometimes with a Halloween theme.  The music is designed to evoke a sense of unease, making it suitable for such things as horror movies, haunted houses and Bill Killeen’s 85th birthday party.

Seniors might enjoy 92-year-old Dolly Broadway, also known as Dolores Paolino of south Philly, who will regale sympathetic oldsters with curse-laden videos of Dolly enjoying alcoholic libations.  Dolores is famous in the City of Brotherly Love as the ultimate nightowl, spending every night out prowling the streets until all hours and indulging in various risky shenanigans while almost never getting arrested.  In her daytime life, she has been a hotdog wrapper at sporting events and an Avon lady for 47 years. 

The most famous influencer on TikTok is Khaby Lame, with 162.1 million followers as of June 29.  Khaby is a Senegalese-Italian fellow known for his humorous reactions to overly complicated “life hack” videos, using his signature facial expressions and simple, relatable solutions.  His silent, often comedic videos have resonated with audiences, leading to a massive following and turning him into a global sensation, even though you never heard of him.

Glenn Terry casts his pearls before swine.

Local Color

You might not at first think of them that way, but there are significant influencers in your very own bailiwick.  Chuck LeMasters, the creator of “Jonestown Chic,” is one of ours.  LeMasters personifies the term grumpy aloofness while keeping an arms-length distance from nosy sycophants, defining what art is not on Facebook, cultivating the best weed in five states and pissing  in the open windows of automobiles belonging to people who procure their pets at any location that is not a rescue.

Glenn Terry, though a latecomer to the local scene is an influencer and avid rabble-rouser.  Terry conceived and executed Gainesville’s annual post-Christmas Flying Pig Parade, a humorous cacophony of marching left-wing fanatics of every stripe banging on pans and promoting their causes while decked out in scandalous costumes.  When the parade is over, Glenn retires to his War Room to plan weekly demonstrations against tyrants, Teslas and Town Hall absentees.  Terry gave lie to the expression “You can’t argue with an empty chair,” when he did just that after Representative Kat Cammack failed to show up for a back-and-forth.

Wild man Will Thacker is an absolute influencer, first from his flying machine which soared over Gainesville when he plied his trade as DJ #1 on Hogtown radio back in the sixties and seventies, then as an animal advocate and snake hunter who travelled the world trying in vain to kill himself.  Once, during a hunt in some Asian backwater, Will’s snakemobile was ambushed by bandits looking for loot in all the wrong places.  Thacker tossed one pissed-off cobra out of the car, routed the villains and went merrily on his way.  One of the chastened thieves freely admitted  “Influencer?  No doubt about it.  I was influenced to take up a new career as an Adidas rep.”

‘Twas Ever Thus.

In Woody Allen’s To Rome With Love, there is a nondescript small man named Leopoldo Pisanello, a middle-class clerk on a visit to Italy who suddenly finds himself the center of media attention for no apparent reason.  Pisanello is stunned at the unexpected fame, hounded by paparazzi, interviewed about the most mundane details of his life.  The public is star-struck, crowding around him, following him everywhere, instantly adopting anything approved by Leopoldo.  He becomes an unwilling influencer, thrust into the sometimes nonsensical nature of celebrity culture.  At first, Pisanello is terrified, but then grows into the role, accepting its accompanying perks and pleasures, but eventually grows weary of the unrelenting storm, avidly searching for a way out.

Then, out of nowhere, the media’s fancy is distracted by a new man.  They flock to him, abandoning Pisanello in the process.  The  once-swooning public no longer cares what Leopoldo eats or wears or thinks.  Amazed at his good fortune, Leonardo bounces down the street to his wife, thrilled to be free.  But not for too long.  Eventually, he pines for his recent glory days, starts glomming onto passers-by to announce to them a few of his favorite things.  Nobody cares.  Pisanello is yesterday’s newspaper, gone with the wind.  Woody’s storyline highlights the wonderful contrast between the man’s previously unremarkable existence and the sudden unexplained phenomenon of his celebrity, only slightly exaggerating the path of the influencers we see in today’s society.

Madeleine L’Engle’s priceless phrase, “Show them a light and they’ll follow it anywhere” has never been truer than it is today, when that beam has to be no stronger than a blinking flashlight.  The masses still avidly await The Second Coming and they’ve obviously lost their patience.

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com