Bob Deakin Short Stories

Tag sales are a tedious event for the homeowner but without the shoppers, it doesn’t work. Most tag salers make a stop a couple times a year but some are professionals known as “taggers” for their years of dedication to the craft.

One glowing example is Tony “Tony the Tagger” Corso of Canton, CT. He earned his nickname by virtue of decades as a familiar face at tag sales and for being featured on both Good Morning America and Hoarders.

Corso comes off as a know-it-all talking about all things, and as cocky as a football player in a night club he explains his strategy for every sale he approaches.

“First thing I do at every sale is back my truck up the driveway. Right away they start showing me around and the prices drop like dollar bills at the strip club.”

Even those that don’t know him quickly notice the tall man in denim strolling arrogantly through the throngs of shoppers with his trademark fedora tilted slightly to the left.

He’s been attending sales throughout the Connecticut-Massachusetts-New York area since Nixon was president and is known for his penchant for late 19^th Century furniture and golden-age Hollywood memorabilia. He not only longs for artifacts but genuinely believes he is entitled to them. Whether it’s an oak cabinet Thomas Edison might have owned or a poster of Betty Grable, Tony the Tagger is determined to call it his own.

He says one of the most memorable tag sales was held by a legend of stage, screen and television. Employing a dramatic pause and taunting this reporter with his good fortune, he elaborated with the tale of rubbing elbows with a star before divulging her name.

“Valerie Harper,” he said, slowly and deliberately, leaning forward in his chair with a wry grin, as if announcing the name of the first lady. He went on to detail the day spent at the star’s home examining items for sale and the cozy conversation he struck up with her. He claims he spent several hours at the swanky estate and ended up rubbing a little more than elbows with the married actress.

Tony "the Tagger" recounts a romantic rendezvous. Photo by Bob Deakin

It all began, he says, with a few innocent questions about her Victorian-era armoire, which led to a personal tour of her movie memorabilia collection from the 40s and before he knew it, they’d locked eyes, both leaning over a vintage cocktail table from the 50s when their hands touched for the first time.

“You can’t put a price tag on what I walked away with that day,” Corso says, smiling, leaning back in his chair and clasping his hands behind his head.

Asked if he was alleging to have slept with Ms. Harper – made famous by her role as next-door neighbor ‘Rhoda’ on the Mary Tyler Moore Show – Corso asked with a wink, “Who said anything about sleeping?”

While Corso is well-known amongst tag sale hosts it doesn’t always equate to admiration.

“He’s a jerk,” says Helen Fink, owner of a palatial estate in Greenwich, CT, worthy of Bruce Wayne and his ward. “He walks in like he owns the place and makes low-ball offers on authentic hand-made pieces from the 1800s like they’re cheap TVs. He’s married and spends more time hitting on me and the shoppers like he’s at a strip club.”

Complimented for the coincidental strip club analogy she doesn’t bite on an offer for further comment.

“My next door neighbor, Jean, hosts estate sales for homeowners every summer and this guy’s been showing up for years,” says Carol Showalter of Norwalk, CT. “He’s so full of himself he even gave himself a nick-name; ‘T-Tag.’ Jean refers to him as ‘D-Bag.’”

Told of what the estate sale hosts said of him Corso doesn’t even blink, choosing instead to explain the difference between an authentic Universal Studios poster and a fake. Asked what motivates him to continue his week-to-week performance attending sales year after year he conceitedly repeats a quote by baseball great, Joe DiMaggio.

“There is always some kid who may be seeing me for the first or last time and I owe him my best.”

Confronted with the fact that very few children go to tag sales and even fewer show up to see him, he downplays his role as a local celebrity.

“Ah, I’m just a simple man with simple tastes,” he states, again with a wink and a grin. “Who can resist a 19^th Century gem or an authentic framed Casablanca promo? I also can’t help it if the ladies can’t resist a tall, confident, handsome man in a fedora.”

Perhaps they can’t, but when it comes time to get rid of an old relic, a warm body with a wallet often seems irresistible.

Tony who?

Mrs. Showalter was later asked if any of Jean’s clients, by coincidence, were TV stars in the 1970s and said no, then looked up, curiously.

“You know,” she remembered, “everybody always tells Jean she looks just like the next-door neighbor on the Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

Originally published on Greg Van Antwerp’s Video Martyr blog in October 2011

Copyright 2011

The Office Gallery and Art Studio. That name, and I don’t want to type it again until I have to, makes an excellent phrase for a typing class exercise. It took me about eight takes to get it right with no errors. I type fast and careless and that’s not a very forgiving title for folks like me.

It seems a good setting for a studio/gallery, although a bit off the beaten trail of downtown Orlando, Florida. It’s only a couple blocks from Lake Eola, which makes it charming in the afternoon, and not-so-charming at night. The interior looks like a studio, with doors off the corridors providing entrances into diverse little worlds of artistic creation. The décor is sparse yet there always looks as though something is going on when you walk in.

There’s got to be a better name than The Office Gallery and Art Studio, however. How about the Off-Disney Playhouse? Let’s throw that one by Mr. Eisner. I’m sorry, that would be Robert Iger, new CEO since 2005.

The Office Gallery and Art Studio is surrounded by large buildings owned or formerly owned by large banks, legendary local developers and a courthouse, how about the 800-Pound Gorilla Gallery? It has a certain ring.

It is a studio, and it is a gallery, and it is on E. Robinson St., so how about the East Gallery Robinson? That could be abbreviated to E.G. Robinson and be mistaken for a landmark celebrating late film legend Edward G. Robinson for added publicity and mystery.

Let’s pigeon-hole all of the artists who work here and call it the Art Deco Shadow, in honor of the Courthouse design and it’s looming presence, even though it’s built to the north and will never be able to throw a shadow on this building unless there’s a real big fire on the other side.

Try this one out: The Citric Acid Think Tank. It’s Orlando, so the citric reference works. Citric Acid is an ingredient used in lots of foods that Floridians eat, and Acid, on its own, was a performance-enhancing substance used by artists way back when, and some claim even in modern times, adding a bit of romantic art history to the discussion. Also, the phrase Think Tank could be confused with Washington “think tanks,” adding to the merriment and the publicity.

How about the Orange City Workshop? No. That would be confused with Orange City, Florida, the Volusia County town that’s just far enough away from the Atlantic Coast to piss you off as you head for the beach.

Using the word Orange in the title is impossible, unfortunately. It’s too obvious and too out-of-date. Anyway, the days of smelling oranges near downtown Orlando ended around the time Epcot was being built. Hmm. How coincidental. How did that happen?

Sun City Studios sounds nice but one might expect to see Elvis and Johnny Cash. Additionally, Orlando is “The City Beautiful,” not “The Sun City,” which is El Paso, Texas’s nick name.

With major delays in Orlando’s Downtown redevelopment in the past few years, a subsequent flood of available space in the Orlando area, and the recent economic crisis, no one’s really sure what the future holds for The Office Gallery and Art Studio, so for now let’ just keep calling it The Office Gallery and Art Studio.

Never mind.

Copyright 2010

There she stood, long hair dangling in the warm breeze as she writhed like a snake, to the pleasure of the small group gathered to watch. All the people came to stop and stare, including me. But it wasn’t her belly I was staring at, it was the bells on her bottom.

“Did you hear the music?” Did you see her body sing that song?” the wise man next to me asked.

“I was too busy watching the bells on her bottom,” I replied, feeling foolish and narrow-minded.

I was struck at how the bells on her bottom were the perfect accompaniment to the tabla and other Middle-Eastern instruments. Her veil echoed the winds while her belly played the bass.

A man with a curiously intelligent beard then sidled up to me and asked, “Do you know the meaning of the music?”

“No, I don’t,” I said, pensively, feeling ignorant and shallow. “I was too busy watching the bells on her bottom.”

Her hands and arms were floating in the sound waves of the main theme, while her hair changed directions with every measure.

“Do you know why it is that she is performing this dance?” another man asked me, conspicuously awaiting my reply with raised brow.

“I was really taken with those bells on her bottom,” I replied, sheepishly and embarrassed.

I couldn’t get my mind off the way her hips played a frantic rhythm, uninterrupted and even. Everything on her moved in concert, but I couldn’t get my mind off those bells on her bottom.

“Did you notice those bells on her bottom?” a young child asked, innocently.

“What bells are you speaking of?” I replied, feeling deaf, blind and immature.

Copyright 2010

The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was originally relased in 1967.

As we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the release of The Beatles seminal Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, I was compelled to finish the review that I never completed. I was a few months short of my second birthday when the album was released, but it had a profound effect on me.

Thanks to older brothers and sisters, the album was played over and over again as I learned the basics of life and an early appreciation of music. I didn’t yet know how to write or reason, but I’m confident that the countless comments that I heard at the time about the Beatles, the songs and the album were deposited into my subconscious memory for later withdrawal.

What I do remember vividly are some of the dreams I had about the imagery from the album; most notably John Lennon’s glasses from the cover photos, Ringo’s drum break in “A Little Help From My Friends” and the recurring nightmare I had about “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds.”

My older sister’s name is Chris, known around the house as “Chrissy” as a kid, and I had this very scary dream, set at night in our back yard, that she was in the sky, with shiny things around her, hence, Chrissy in the Sky With Diamonds. It wasn’t a good dream. She was kind of stuck up in the clouds with Lennon and his glasses on while the rest of us were on the ground kind of staring up at her with other weird images popping up all around.

Lennon’s voice in that song really bothered me. It was as if he put Chrissy up there and was taunting us about it. There was no psychological reason for the dream. I loved my sister as I did everybody in the family and I didn’t want her to be up there with that weirdo. The dream didn’t go much farther than that, but it came back to me a few more times until the song was forever etched in my mind as “Chrissy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

I replay the image of that dream every time I hear the song (which has only been a thousand times or so) and to this day it’s one of the few Beatles songs that I don’t like. The CD version of the album sounds like crap compared to my mint condition vinyl LP, but the one thing I like is that I can skip to the next song with the click of a remote control, as opposed to walking to the turntable and lifting the tone-arm and moving it to “Getting Better,” which has always had a double meaning to me, as a result.

Here’s how my review of the album would have read if I was able to put those thoughts and images together as a very mature one year-old.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

The first song on this unique new album, the title track, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” really blew my mind, which isn’t saying much for a one year-old. The song is dominated by brass with some really groovy guitar licks by George Harrison woven in between. The song clomps along in a steady march and climaxes with a very impressive ascending vocal harmony at the end. The crowd applause is a nice touch, too. Very unusual for a rock band to begin an album with an overture.

What’s really cool is how the first song leads into the second; “A Little Help From My Friends.” I don’t know who these friends are that the Beatles speak of but they must have quite an influence on them. Ringo Starr shows a fine baritone voice that we’ve not heard before and he adds a great, albeit, simple drum break early that gives the song a moment of reflection that works to perfection.

“Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” is the third track and it’s quite the step back into the mellow introspective. John Lennon does the vocal and sounds almost creepy, singing in a voice we’ve never heard from him. The song is hauntingly breathtaking and soothing while disturbing at the same time. We aren’t told who Lucy is, why she’s in the sky or where diamonds come in to play but it’s the Beatles, so it must be cool. It’s almost as if the title of the song is an allegorical word play on something that the Beatles are not informing us about.

I don’t know if I’m more frightened by the way John sings this song or the way he looks in that satin green, 19th Century military uniform on the album photos. He also now sports these round, wire-rimmed glasses that make him look really way out. It almost looks as if he’s doing drugs or something, but this is the Beatles, and we all know these fine Englishmen don’t dabble in that stuff.

“Getting Better” is next and that’s right. The album gets immediately better with this song. It is a breath of fresh air following the emotional roller coaster that is the first three songs.

I’ve got to admit it’s getting better
A little better all the time
I have to admit it’s getting better
It’s getting better, since you’ve been mine

Whoever it is that Lennon and McCartney are referring to, she must be quite a girl. I always figured since the Beatles are so famous, they must have girls throwing themselves at them everywhere they go. I’m sure we will find out one of these days very soon who this special someone is who has had such a positive effect.

Emotions aside, Paul McCartney drives this song with his bass guitar while he and Lennon team up for a brilliant lead vocal duo throughout. It is odd to hear a bass guitar lead a song but McCartney’s Rickenbacker 4001 Bass does just that. Harrison’s halting cadence on the guitar adds the perfect touch of an optimistic march forward.

Great phrasing and contradictory messages abound including Can’t get no worse, as well as pictures of their past (I used to be cruel to my woman) that are perhaps better left unsaid. Best song on the album, hands down.

“Fixing a Hole” really sent me for a loop with that somber harmonium at the beginning. I was also wondering what kind of hole needs fixing. Anyway, very nice and powerful vocal by McCartney with a great distorted guitar break by Harrison midway through. Love the rising falsettos that close out the song. McCartney’s energy builds and builds, getting seemingly desperate about a seemingly banal subject.

Seems like he was spooked by the hole where the rain gets in. Stops my mind from wondering? He seems to have been caught in a moment of heightened imagination. The Beatles seem to have a lot of those type of moments these days. Well, they’re getting older and maybe they’re starting to experiment with different ways of thinking, or something. I heard that Lennon’s been hanging around with Mick Jagger, and I hear that guy hangs with the extra groovy people.

“She’s Leaving Home” is quite the departure in emotions once again, which seems to define this album. Beautifully Victorian in its style, the string quartet provides the perfect backdrop to this sad story of a young girl leaving home and leaving her parents heartbroken.

McCartney’s vocal tells a third-person story so easy to visualize, buttressed by Lennon’s answer to each of his statements in the verses, placed so cleverly in the distant background. McCartney’s falsetto soars ever more toward the climatic and terribly sad conclusion, matched by Lennon’s Bye, Bye voice of his conscience. The story doesn’t have a happy ending, and I feel as if I’ve lost someone forever, although I will never let it happen again.

“Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!” is the last song on Side A.

What the hell is going on here?

A raucous calliope and thumping drums set the tone in this peculiar tune which I may never figure out. I’m not even sure the lyrics on the recording match those on the back cover of the album.

Messrs. K and H assure the public
Their production will be second to none
And of course Henry The Horse dances the waltz!

These guys are getting really weird. It’s bad enough that those words make no sense but I can swear Lennon is singing And of course Henry The Horse and Fuzzy The Whale!

Still makes no sense but I’m glad it’s the last song on the first side because I can push the stop button on my turntable to end it and turn the album over.

“With You, Without You” opens side B. We don’t get many George Harrison songs on Beatles albums and I wonder why we go this one. Sitars look really groovy and it’s fun to watch somebody play it but, like yodeling, I don’t want to hear it.

I’m sorry George. I loved “If I Needed Someone” on the Rubber Soul album and I hope to hear more beautiful songs like that in the future. This is probably just a phase George is going through with this Indian music and probably the last we hear of that stuff on a Beatles album.

“When I’m Sixty-Four” is next and now we’re floating back to Earth. This song is steeped in the classic Al Jolson style of crooning in the 1920s and if I didn’t know better, I might even say it was written by McCartney by himself, even though the credit is Lennon-McCartney. You don’t suppose these guys just bill every song as a co-write do you? Maybe Lennon added the line Doing the garden, digging the weeds. The way he’s been acting lately, it almost seems like he’s been digging weed, although this is the Beatles, and we know these fine Englishmen don’t dabble in that stuff. Certainly not McCartney.

“Lovely Rita” follows that and man, where is this album going? I can’t imagine McCartney being attracted to the local meter maid when we see film clips of a thousand women chasing the Beatles down the street. This song is very bland in lyric and melody although the vocal harmonies are great. That said, where does this fit on this album? Am I missing something?

“Good Morning, Good Morning” follows Rita and we’re going down hill Daddy-O. I would have to be on drugs to enjoy this song, and I’m sure that’s not the message that the Beatles are sending because we know these guys don’t do that stuff; although my suspicions are growing about Lennon. Maybe those friends he’s been hanging out with are having some strange influence on him. Probably just a phase, like Harrison and the Indian music.

“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)”

Finally a good song. It seems like a week ago I was excited about how this album was getting better all the time, when I was starting to think that it can’t get no worse.

This song takes off like one of those rockets they’re sending into orbit nowadays. A one, two, three, four count off from McCartney and the Beatles are rocking like the Yardbirds on their best day. This reprise of the title track moves quick and is over before you know it, but not before you forget it. Harrison plays some mean distorted guitar with Ringo pushing the song along with a frantic pace, which ends with the first note of the last song on the album.

It leaves us winded, but poised for a song with meaning and, more importantly; a song from John Lennon.

“A Day In The Life” is a tour de force emotional roller coaster that epitomizes and completes the album we thought we were getting when it started.

Lennon brings back his “Lucy” voice, sounding unusually winded and disappointed, not like we’ve heard from a Beatle before. He tells the sad story of a lucky man who made the grade yet blew his mind out in a car because he hadn’t noticed that the lights had changed. A crowd of people stood and stared. They’d seen his face before although they weren’t sure if he was from the House of Lords.

Lots of imagery here. Perhaps Lennon is speaking metaphorically and cynically of McCartney’s rise to the forefront of the band, which seems to have happened in the past year. If that is his point, he speaks as though his band mate has died, artistically, losing touch with reality and succumbing to his exploding ego.

We can’t tell what’s going on behind the scenes with the Beatles but Lennon has developed a very introspective and brutally honest way of expressing himself in his songs. If you ask me, strange as it may seem, he’s talking about himself.

The song does an about face when the melody changes abruptly and McCartney chimes in with Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head. Very interesting interlude from the guy this song may be about. I’m just getting confused with all of that when they do a brilliant drop back into the original melody.

Lennon picks back up with the vocal spouting off about 4,000 “small” holes at the Royal Albert Hall, which, coincidentally, seats about 4,000. I don’t think John is going to be invited to Tea with the Queen any time soon.

The song concludes with Lennon’s line, I’d love to turn you on, followed by an orchestral hyper-climax that ends with all hands on the piano for the final note, which rings on in a terrifying manner for what seems like eternity. I think I’ll hide under the covers now.

There is this developing tavern tale with Beatles weirdos that Paul is dead. There are countless “clues” on the album giving credence to the story such as Paul standing with his back to the camera on the back album cover and the lyric, He blew his mind out in a car. There is also a message divulged when playing backwards the recent single, “Strawberry Fields Forever,” which conveys I Buried Paul at the end of the track. Incidentally, that song and “Penny Lane,” the B-side, would have fit much better on this album than any number of the other tracks that made it.

It’s actually a clever ploy on the part of the Beatles marketing bandwagon but I have to ask myself, why would they need more publicity? Also, who is the guy they found to replace him who writes songs, sings, plays incredible bass, guitar and keyboards? I guess it must be those guys from Phil Spector’s “Wrecking Crew.”

The next thing you know, they’re going to be circulating stories that it wasn’t Lee Harvey Oswald who killed Kennedy.

“Sgt. Pepper” is undeniably original, at times scary and sometimes too weird for listening pleasure. I think the guys are spending a little too much time with their friends, although I’m sure they have lots more friends now that they’re The Beatles. Nonetheless, I’m sure there are plenty of great albums to come, and I bet Lennon starts hanging around with the right people again. I heard he has this really nice new girlfriend who’s from Japan.

I bet she straightens his life right out and the band is together for the next 20 years.

Copyright 2009

Frankie suffering for his art.

“Can’t you knock first?” shouted Frankie, the red-faced artist, angrily, raising his pallet so that only his eyes were visible.

He was standing in a small, poorly-lit room, with various objects carefully sprawled about the floor while staring at his painting of a pirate. Included were everything from an ashtray and industrial adhesives to nude photos, bottles and buckets. This was a scheduled visit by the students from Stetson University to see his latest work in progress, but Frankie was not quite ready to show it off.

Everett Thomas, the art teacher leading the students, apologized as the students filed in and quickly viewed the display before leaving. He then had a brief, tense chat with Frankie before heading out with the students. Frankie agreed to come and speak to the group a few minutes later and offer insight into his current work.

The students made their way to another room and sat to discuss the show. Energy was high and they were bouncing in their seats to make comments.

“It was an unconventional display of art of course, but aren’t they all,” Mr. Thomas began. “Did you notice how important it was for the artist, right there, during our tour, to re-position the bucket in such a carefully chosen location? A true artist is never satisfied with random placement of his subjects.”

“It was amazing,” Tiffany interjected, her hands on her knees in glee. “That was such a compelling statement. I don’t know where to start. I’ve never had a work of art hit me like that before.”

“I see a man of the sea in horrible pain,” offered Seth, frantically attempting to explain Frankie’s use of color, texture and ‘found treasures.’ “His ability to emote an emotion is incomparable.”

Other students followed in praising the artist’s work, complimenting everything from the pirate hat in the painting to the mop in the bucket on the floor.

Twenty minutes later, Frankie finally arrived to talk to the students and answer questions.

“What was the message you were trying to send with this phenomenal work?” Mr. Thomas said, kicking off the questioning.

“I must start by apologizing to you all about this project,” Frankie said, his face painted with extreme disappointment. “I’ve been up for three days drinking beer, sniffing glue, looking at porn and trying to fix this goddamn leak in the ceiling.”

Copyright 2009

The straw hat weirdo. Drawing by John Coutinho

Last month, Adam, one of the artists an off-Disney studio in Orlando, Florida, after a long night at the easel realized only too late, when he was home, that he had left his iPod in the kitchen of the studio.

“If somebody finds it they’ll hold it for me,” he assured himself as he lay his head on the pillow for the night, comforted by the camaraderie of his fellow artists.

He returned to the studio in the morning and was absolutely steaming when he found his iPod stomped to a million pieces on the kitchen floor.

“Who the hell did this?” he asked, in deep angst, in no particular direction.

“It was a skinny guy with a straw hat, torn overalls and worn-out floppy shoes,” said Seth, another artist, stepping into the kitchen to counsel Adam. “I’ve seen him before. Real weirdo.”

Last Tuesday, Juan, another artist at the studio, had just completed a sculpture of LAX Airport, cut from a single piece of teak wood. It was a commissioned work and took him nearly ten weeks to complete, and was the darling of the local art scene. The sculpture sat on display in the studio gallery for all to see, awaiting shipment to the West Coast.

That afternoon at the studio, Keisha, after bidding farewell to her tap dancing students, looked up into the security monitor at her desk and couldn’t believe her eyes. There was a skinny guy wearing a straw hat, torn overalls and worn-out floppy shoes, swinging an ax at Juan’s sculpture, which was on fire. Something told her this wasn’t right and she got up to investigate.

By the time she got to the gallery he had put down the ax and was hurrying out. The sculpture was chopped in hundreds of pieces, all of them burning. The heat and smoke set off the alarm and the police and fire departments were on their way.

“He was very skinny, with a straw hat, torn overalls and worn-out floppy shoes,” Keisha said to the officer, who introduced himself as Dan Short of the Orange County P.D.

“Did you notice anything strange about his behavior?” Officer Dan asked.

“He was very weird,” she said. “When I asked, he said he was here to fix the plumbing but he wasn’t dressed like a plumber, and it didn’t look like a plumber’s ax that he was wielding.”

“That is weird,” Officer Dan responded.

Nothing more came of it until this morning when Amy brought in a brand new espresso machine for her fellow artists and proudly set it up on the kitchen counter. By noon it had been inexplicably ripped from the wall, thrashed around the room and tossed out the two-story window and splattered on the sidewalk.

Tears flooded down her cheeks when she walked into the kitchen and discovered the vile act.

“What? Who! Why?” she screamed, and was soon comforted by friends, all staring at the carnage in disbelief.

“It was the skinny guy with the straw hat, torn overalls and worn-out floppy shoes,” Seth divulged, as everyone stared at their feet in search of an answer. “I don’t know where he comes from but he’s a real weirdo.”

Just then everyone looked up, shocked to see Seth adorned in a straw hat, torn overalls and worn-out floppy shoes.

“What a weirdo!” Amy screamed at him in horror.

Copyright 2010

Nothing like a good cardboard box to make the world a better place.

Whenever I’m feeling down or losing sight of my soul, a couple minutes inside a nice big cardboard box always sets me right. It’s like when I was a kid and dad brought home something big and new, there might be a wonderful cardboard home for me to get away from it all.

Just something about the privacy, the comfort in knowing no one could know what I was doing. Or more importantly, what I was thinking.

I know my brothers and sisters and parents couldn’t read my mind, but it felt like they could if they could see me and hear me. Not if I was in a big comfy cardboard box though.

The box always took me to all these places I wanted to go. The acoustics were such that the music sounded cozy, the words from the vocalist’s mouth making more sense in my big cardboard home.

It protected me too. Even if I brought it to the dreaded basement and hopped inside; I was alright. And back in the 60′s and 70′s, cardboard boxes lasted for a long time – built from the wood of freshly fallen rainforests.

I long for the comfort of that big cardboard box again. Just a few moments, maybe just a song or two. A hop back in that big box might just do me a world of good, and some good for the world.

Just as long as no one can see me inside, or know what I’m thinking.

Copyright 2010

Very important couple Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon.

In a closely contested vote this week, the Senate approved the dissolution of the relationship of celebrity couple Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. The couple credits the liberal majority in Washington for the ability to officially end their unofficial two-decade relationship.

“Our work here is done,” stated a satisfied Robbins on the steps of Capitol Hill following the pre-Christmas vote, the Senate’s last act before the Holiday recess. “We had a great ride and feel we have changed the world in ways we never imagined.”

“We didn’t accomplish everything we set out to do but this does not end the story of our pursuit of freedom for all peoples,” Sarandon declared in a prepared statement. “We will merely be taking different roads toward the same ultimate destination.”

The couple paid homage to several groups for years of support in their efforts to help the plight of the common man in his fight for justice and fair treatment in the face of opposition from “oddball factions” such as heterosexuals, the middle class and military veterans.

“This great nation would not be what it is today without the heroic efforts of people like William Shakespeare, Madonna and Oprah Winfrey, and we wish to thank them, our fans and the Academy for all they have done to further our causes,” Robbins shouted, provoking a long ovation from a sympathetic crowd of reporters from most major news sources. He did not specify which nation to which he was referring but the ovation continued nonetheless, with camera flashes popping like fireworks at a Disneyland celebration.

Sarandon and Robbins each made a point to celebrate the tireless efforts and funding of various government programs that benefit drug addicts, repeat criminal offenders, illegal immigrants and global warming, which may never have existed without the guile of the liberal media and the entertainment industry.

Sarandon laughed at a hypothetical question posed by an NBC reporter – playing devil’s advocate – asking if such programs wasted valuable taxpayer dollars to benefit those who didn’t need, want or deserve Federal assistance.

“I think your presence here this evening is the best answer I can give to that question,” Sarandon giggled as she stepped off the podium before planting a long kiss on the mouth of Rosie O’Donnell.

Sarandon and Robbins added that they will continue to provide assistance and support for the two children they bore during their time in office as a celebrity couple. 

Copyright 2010

“I got it. Let’s get outa’ here!” Mark shouted to Josh, who stomped on the gas pedal and sped into the night, leaving a cloud of dust and a shower of rocks in his rear-view mirror.

“Did you try it?” Josh asked, his veins bulging with excitement.

“No. This guy’s solid,” Mark said with one white-knuckled hand on the door and the other on the tiny white package he just picked up. “He wouldn’t burn us. We gotta pay the extra twenty bucks a bag but it’s worth it.”

The two young men continued on their path toward downtown Orlando, the ’68 Camaro shifting in the breeze and roaring through the night. Eddie Money blared through the speakers as the adrenaline rushed through their bodies. They couldn’t wait to deliver their package to the Big Man and receive their reward.

“Hey,” Josh said with a wink, looking at the package, “let’s take a little sample for ourselves.”

“No way man. The Big Man will know,” Mark replied. “Don’t worry dude. He’ll hook us up with a care package.”

“What’s he gonna do with all that stuff?” Josh asked.

“He said he’s gotta deal with all these wacko artists tonight and needs it to get by. He can’t do anything without the stuff.”

At just that point Josh came screeching around the corner, past the Bank of America Building and into a dark alley.

The two men sat silently staring straight ahead.

There he was: The Big Man. The light in the parking lot cast a shadow over him that covered the entire car as Mark and Josh sat shivering in their seats. He approached slowly then suddenly thrust his hand into the driver’s window as Josh cringed.

“How ya’ doin’ mate. Nice ta meet ya. I’m …(insert name of most unlikely friend of yours)”

Copyright 2009

One day, Margie said to her brother, “What’s with the long face, Timmy?”

Timmy sullenly looked up and said, “Our favourite restaurant, A Bottle of Bread, burned down and now I can’t go there to see all of my friends.”

“Well Timmy,” she said, “Sometimes restaurants catch on fire and the brave firemen aren’t able to put the flames out before the restaurant turns black and smells like charcoal.”

“That’s just not fair,” he chirped. “Everyone should have a place to go where they can eat good food and see all of their friends.”

That got Margie thinking. Maybe they could buy their favourite restaurant, fix it up and bring all of their old friends back. They could name it after their two favourite actresses; Hope Lang, who played Mrs. Muir on the TV show, “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir,” and Olive Oil, wife of the strong-armed, spinach-eating sailor. They considered other names for the restaurant as well, including A Loaf of Milk, A Pint ‘O Beef, and The Colon Clogger, but settled on Hope and Olive.

They could make the restaurant look real sassy and hire some very, very people to work there and invite lots of friends with stupid names to come and visit. They could make the place turn groovy with some music and fun shindigs and serve some all-real, all-yummy vittles. Being restaurant owners would also give them the excuse to order cases and cases of nitrous oxide canisters so they could do whip-its and get higher than Richard Pryor.

In any event, they each had some loose ends to tie up before they could make the plunge into their new passion as restaurateurs: Margie worked full-time as a Pinkerton and Timmy had his gig as a shepherd, but they were both determined to make it work. They each had to accept the idea that there were other people who could patrol parking lots and tend to ruminant mammals of the genus Ovis, of the family Bovidae.

What hit them the hardest, however, was that they would each have to retire from their night gig as go-go dancers for The Nut Busters, a happening local band that had built a strong following in the thriving North Hampton music scene.

Success does not come without sacrifice.

“What if we bring in local bands to play so that our customers and friends have fun and keep coming back. The bands get more exposure, bring more friends into our restaurant and make really small amounts of money that they can joke about later if they make it,”said Timmy, with much self gratification.

“I think that’s a very effective marketing ploy,” said Margie, playing the diplomat. “And we can buy meats and produce from local purveyors and pot head organic farmers. We’ll buy beer, wine and liquor from salesmen who have the best deals that particular month. We’ll hire local contractors to fix the place, share laughs with health department inspectors and local politicians, and get somebody else to pay for the whole floggin’ thing”

Their plan was coming together. The only thing they were missing was a third party to act as business manager and run the kitchen: Enter Mae.

Mae was a friend of both Margie and Timmy and had managed A Bottle of Bread during its last tenure when the three of them became friends. She knew all of the best pot head farmers, local purveyors, local politicos and previous customers. She was a no-nonsense gal, fit with a strong work ethic, a demand for excellence and a distaste for lazy douche-bag waiters.

There was something magic in the air. Margie and Timmy just had to get their friend on board for the voyage to grooviness.

The logical thing to do at this point was to invite Mae over to the house to smoke some crack and watch The Wizard of Oz with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon as the sound track. When the movie was over, Margie fired up a blunt, passed it around and popped the question to Mae.

“Say, groovy girl, how’s about you, me and Timmy reopen A Bottle of Bread as our own place and live happily ever after?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Mae responded.

The three erupted with laughter and proceeded to dance around the house before teaming up to make a celebratory rope of homemade sausage links with Timmy, of course, manning the meat grinder.

Things kind of just fell into place after that fateful evening. They got their financing together, fixed the building, got all the permits and inspections, rounded up a hum dinger of a staff, decorated the place real sassy and invited their old friend, Dan Seward, to perform at the opening night gala. He brought down the house that night with his frozen chicken routine.

Margie, Timmy and Mae got off to a flying start with Hope and Olive and kept a steady stream of shiny happy people coming in every day. Their story has since been chronicled in The Boston Globe, among other pubs. Margie and Mae are wheelin’ and dealin’ some of the tastiest vittles you’ve ever seen and Timmy does a mean James Dean in the front of the house.

To clarify, that’s James Dean, the late actor, not Jimmy Dean of sausage fame, which may confuse some readers based upon previous sausage reference.

Copyright 2009