Despite
the incredible wealth of serious literary content in this column, the main
things everybody wanted to talk about last week were Siobhan’s impending
haircut and Jennie Hollis’ new chicken.
Why do women get so excited about hair activities? They write with advice, they send suggestions
replete with photos and they insist on immediate
pictures of the final result. All of
this supports our long-held suspicion that Girls Are Weird. At any rate, The Great Shearing is taking
place at this very moment, photographic evidence to follow.
It’s
a lot easier to understand people’s curiosity about chickens, they being the
interesting characters that they are.
Did you know that chickens, in one form or another, have been around for
eight thousand years? Well, it’s true. Chickens, called Red Junglefowl, were
domesticated in Southern China around 6000 BC and they’ve been around ever
since, despite a plethora of diseases, ample predators and Colonel Sanders. What would we do without them? There’d be no eggs, for one thing. There’d be no Chicken McNuggets. It’s unimaginable.
As
for Jennie’s chicken—whose name is Higgs, by the way—he’s settling in nicely,
although there may be cause for some concern.
The other day, Jennie’s husband, Hal, noticed his binoculars were
missing and started searching the house for them, eventually discovering Higgs
using them on the roof to spy on a neighbor tanning nude. This probably would have been okay but the
neighbor didn’t notice until Hal had wrested his binoculars back from
Higgs. Nobody minds a leering chicken
but a leering engineer is another matter entirely.
There
is also the matter of the recent telephone bill the Hollis’ received the other
day. There were an awful lot of calls to
1-800-NAUGHTY and Hal swears it wasn’t him.
Jennie and Hal are in the process of chicken-proofing their home but
these birds are known for their cleverness and there could be problems down the
road. We’ll certainly keep you posted.
Siobhan Meets The
Rolfer
Siobhan
is a pretty brave person as long as you don’t make her hike down narrow trails
in the Grand Canyon or sit in the passenger seat while Bill is driving, but she
had a touch of trepidation about visiting her friendly neighborhood rolfer so I
went with her. The rolfer, a very nice
woman named Carol Short, was located in the tiny town of Newberry, just west of
Gainesville. When I made the
appointment, she tried to give me directions but I pooh-poohed it figuring
Newberry was so small you could find anybody in five minutes, just give me a
street address. Did you ever notice how
some buildings aren’t really ON the street on which they are listed? Or there is no address on the actual
building? Or the person you are looking
for is the only one who doesn’t have a
shingle on the sign? I’m not
absolutely positive, but I think rolfer Carol might be in the government’s
Witness Protection Program she’s so hard to find. Somehow, we still made it on time. When we got inside, we had to navigate a
small maze to locate Carol’s room, which was locked. We are happy to report, however, that there
was actually no trapdoor leading to an alligator pit.
If
you’ve never been to a rolfer, it may be because they have fearful reputations
for dispensing pain. For the most part,
this is undeserved. I, myself, had ten
sessions with a rolfer thirty-five years ago and I escaped with a minimum of
pain—although I won’t deny that the instant relocation of a deviated septum
might have smarted a bit.
Carol
Short was pretty gentle with Siobhan.
She decided that the subtle beginnings of her frozen shoulder problem emanated
from a plane accident over thirty years ago in which young pilot Siobhan
crashed her little plane into an inland waterway in North Carolina. This seems like a bit of a stretch to us, but
what the hell. The hour-and-a-half
session brought about a modicum of improvement so she’s going back next week,
fearlessly and without me. Again, we
will keep you posted on all this so we can better assess whether Carol might be
suitable for all your rolfing needs.
Spacing Out
You’ll
probably remember that we’re spending a good bit of this month entertaining
Siobhan’s German visitor, Kristina Maier, dolphin lover and space aficionado. So naturally we had to go down to see the Kennedy
Space Center last weekend, not a place where either of us have spent much time. We were thrilled to discover the trip barely
took three hours, less than an hour from the Orlando airport. Parking and entry were simple, unlike many
other Orlando-environs tourist meccas.
The
first thing we did once inside was to experience the simulated shuttle
launch. Siobhan, who does not like
amusement park rides, was a little reluctant to participate but we shamed her
into it. It was close, though. Just before you enter and strap down, the
little guide recites a litany of reasons you might not want to enjoy this
wonderful experience. Then she asks
those who might want to withdraw to raise their hands. Kristina and I immediately swiveled to
Siobhan, who had a silly look on her face but kept her hand down.
Once
you are in your seat and secured, the capsule angles up—though not to the
degree of the actual shuttle—and there is a hell of a lot of shaking and
general discomfort, not to mention a decent sprinkling of “Ohmigawd”s,
including a loud one from Kristina. I
looked over to make sure Siobhan was not cheating (she closes her eyes
sometimes), but she was good. There were
no lives lost in this adventure and, as far as I could tell, not much vomiting
even, which puts the ride on a more respectable level than others experienced.
After
lunch, we went on our two-hour tour of the Space Center, hosted by Frick and
Frack, our quiet bus-driver and guide-emcee/would-be-comedian. Frack admitted he was a long-time space geek
and mad to have this job, pronouncing on this and that, struggling with his
tiny jokes, but staying just this side of tolerable. Siobhan kept asking him questions he couldn’t
answer, however. She finally moved on to
Frick, who turned out to be much more knowledgeable and a wealth of information. We don’t know how this sat with Frack, but
you've got to get your tidbits of space information where you can find them so we’re
not apologizing.
Our
friends kept telling us that we were SO fortunate to be visiting Kennedy at
this time since it has been 30 years since the tour included a visit to the
VAB, the Vehicle Assembly Building, which turned out to be a supercolossal
ginormous building full of, well, not much.
Frack told us that the VAB would hold three-and-one-half Empire State
Buildings but we don’t think this could be right. The VAB is only 52 stories high and the
Empire State Building is twice that tall.
Okay, the length and width of the Vehicle Assembly Building is
considerably bigger, we’ll give you that, but 3 ½ Empire State Buildings? And even if it is that big, so what? There’s nothing actually IN there. With the Empire State Building, you’ve got
stores and offices and great banks of elevators. And spectacular views from the tower. They’re not letting anybody go up on the roof
of the Vehicle Assembly Building, I can tell you that. And even if they did allow it, I’m not sure
how you’d get up there—52 floors is a lot of stairs. I didn’t see any elevators.
Besides,
if it weren’t for the Empire State Building how could we have had the romantic
ending of An Affair To Remember,
where Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr remeet in the tower. Same for Sleepless
In Seattle, with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.
Who the hell would want to rendezvous at the Vehicle Assembly
Building? It’s inconceivable. I can appreciate big empty buildings as well
as the next man but, all things considered, I’ll take the Empire State
Building.
In
all fairness, however, I must point out that the latter could certainly not
contain the venerable Atlantis Space
Shuttle, currently resting inside the VAB.
You know how you watch those launches and the tiny little space shuttle
is clamped to the side of the much bigger rocket? It looks the size of an ant in
comparison. Let me tell you something,
that Atlantis is one BIG sucker. And they cleverly keep it hidden in a large
alcove of the building so that when you turn the corner it’s “Oooooh, looka THAT!” One of the high points of the tour.
A
second high point would be the Saturn lunar rocket, all 314 feet of it (longer
than a football field), prominently displayed in its very own quarters at the
final stop of the tour. Tour over, we
also enjoyed an IMAX film taken aboard the Space Station. Most of the space films we’ve seen look like
they were shot through a blizzard but this one was exceptionally clear and presented
a terrific account of what it’s like to spend time in such an environment. Not to mention an appreciation for the physical
and mental capabilities of the inhabitants.
All in all, a good time was had by all.
We’d give it four stars. It has a
good beat and you can dance to it.
“Me Golden Idol Is
Tarnished!”
The
above was a comment made by an urchin surveilling the frumpy Philbert Desenex
as he changed to Wonder Wart Hog in a
phone booth. This sort of thing happens
all the time and it must be tough on famous people who always seem to be
shorter or uglier or more pimply than we realized.
Old
friend Mike Garcia, who used to work for Steve Stills, went in to Ahmet Ertegun’s
office one day—he being the founder of Atlantic
Records—and noticed someone vaguely familiar on the couch outside. A couple of hours after he left, he realized
it was Bob Dylan, who was awfully small
in real life.
Our
pal, Court Lewis, had a lady named Stacey Grenrock Woods on his radio program
the other day. Stacey writes a pretty
sophisticated sex column for Esquire
Magazine every month, which is very funny.
The author of the column comes off as extremely clever and aloof and we
have always been big fans. We wrote to
Court to congratulate him on his coup.
He replied, telling us how much different Stacey was than he had
expected—more reserved, less full of herself, just….different.
In
the process of exchanging letters, he brought up the old DC radio personality, The Greaseman, who even we had heard in
years past. The Greaseman was a loud,
boisterous, knoweverything blusterer who ranted and raved unendingly on the
Washington airwaves. Court said he
eventually met the guy at a party and he was a quiet little introvert. We retorted with our Robert Crumb experience,
he being the famous cartoonist, inventor of the Keep On Truckin’ motto, creator of Mr. Natural, hero of the iconic Zap
Comics.
Crumb
came into the Subterranean Circus one day with his girlfriend, Aline. He went right over to the underground comics,
she came to the counter.
“We
were hoping you might recognize us,” Aline said. “We need to cash a $50 check and we don’t
have ID.”
Sure
we recognize you, I told her, and we’ll be happy to cash the check. But do you think you could get Robert to
actually come over here and say a
couple of words? He did and we did. We thought about keeping the famous guy’s
check but hell, it was fifty dollars.
The Last Word
You
are getting your little column late today because of Siobhan’s hair duties and
an important meeting between us and her new drug compounder. Sometimes these things just can’t be helped. If you have any complaints, see the chicken.
That’s
all, folks....
