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First Fans
Today is Homeless Day presented by
the American Realtors’ Association.
The first 2,000 fans get a hot meal
and a shower. A team of valets in
red windbreakers look after shopping carts
while the guests stream in and take their seats.Saint Narragansett sings our national anthem
wrapped in a gingham blanket against the night’s chill,
fabric bags from Trader Joe’s with all she has to her
name hanging from the back of her wheelchair.
The ballpark’s crowd roars at the high notes and
her cap fills as it’s passed around the dugouts.Behind the box seats Penobscot Joe sells incense
by the stick or the rubber-band-wrapped dozen
at a stand with a handwritten cardboard sign:
A hungry traveler seeking only to get home
Open your heart and no fair offer will be turned down.
Brisk business with patchouli and sandalwood. -
Canine Sensitivity
The thing to remember about dogs’ ability to show up at the door to welcome you every time is, as I’ve observed on the days I work from home, they have a high false positive rate. So, when Sparky is poised to greet you, tail wagging and prancing with excitement, before you even put your key in the lock, remember that he also got in position to greet the mailman on his daily route, your neighbor when she got home early, and the local drunkard who paused for a moment at your stoop to catch his breath before continuing his ascent up the street.
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A Modest Call to Action
A serious limitation is arising in the enforceability of the gender pay gap. The increasing availability of gender reassignment surgery offers women access to full pay with a reasonably short return on investment.
If we consider the median case: a personal income of $30,240, from 2015 statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau. Assuming a woman makes 80% of an equivalent man, that translates into an annual loss of $6,000. The Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery offers a complete female-to-male surgery for roughly $125,000. That cost would be recouped in under 21 years–less than half the average career. Looking higher up the pay scale, a woman in a white collar job making $100,000 would see wage gains to repay the cost of the surgery in only five years.
Given that sexual reassignment surgery is a relatively new procedure, it seems entirely plausible the cost may fall with new technologies and increased prevalence as acceptance of transgendered people increases. So, these ROI time horizons may get even shorter.
Economics has clearly shown people to act in rational, profit-maximizing ways. And technology time and time again has disrupted societies and upended business practices. If we don’t act quickly to address the gender pay gap, we may find ourselves in a society with only one gender.
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Consummation
On the South Rim Trail, about a mile before Hermit’s Rest, we passed a small tombstone surrounded by desert poppy. Its inscription read:
she always flirted with danger,
until one day danger put out
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Click, Click, Veuve
His word processing app is full screen across the desktop and his flute is empty. And so is his story. He’s got to get at least one paragraph written before he will permit himself a refill.
Inspiration strikes: he remembers that woman who thanked him for not man-spreading in the back of the shared taxi. He removes his feet from the desk, plants them on the floor, and sits up straight. Hands to the keyboard. He gets five sentences down; they are a bit workman-like but there will always be time go back and add poetry later. He has the germ of it now.
Satisfied, he walks down the hallway to the kitchen. As he opens the refrigerator door, he envisions the future. It is opening night for the story’s film treatment. He’s standing outside the cinema as the press corps takes their photographs and yell their questions. To his left is the actress who plays the taxi woman. This actress is young, pretty–the it-girl of the moment. He turns to her: “I can’t believe you got my character so wrong. Where was her vulnerability? You projected way too much confidence.” She is stunned. Before she can reply, he climbs into the waiting limo and unwraps the white, silk scarf around his tuxedo jacket.
Back in his kitchen, he pauses before he extracts the bottle from the fridge and shakes his head. “I have to demand a say in casting in the film contract,” he says aloud. He pours himself another glass of champagne and puts the bottle back on the shelf.
Sprawled now on the love seat next to his desk, he opens Tinder and looks for someone to celebrate his future success with tonight.
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Reference Section
Excerpt from the Devil’s New Collegiate Dictionary
social contract (n) – an unwritten compact that if you do grand enough things for a country, your face will eventually appear on its currency.
Excerpt from the Devil’s Scrabble Dictionary
Whatever random letters you have left, that smorgasbord of consonants, just play them. Tell the others I said it’s cool.
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Smell is the Sense Most Associated with Memory
I felt disgusted when my dog rubbed the piece of salami that my wife gave him all over his bed, but then I remembered bacon candles and decided we haven’t evolved that far apart.
Still, I washed his blanket that night.
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Living Well is the Best Revenge
Those damn kids. When the first arrived, the cat was patient, then gradually disappointed. Now, with three in the house, she’s despairing. There is that brief age when she can tower above them on the floor, their heads flopping and eyes unfocused, but soon enough they’re chasing her around the house. Or eating the food out of her bowl. It has been months since she’s been cradled in the swamped parents’ arms.
Her first protest is toppling the kids’ photos with swishes of her tail; this provokes only brief tuts before they return to try to bribe the middle one to eat stuffed cabbage dinner. Desperate for attention, one night she vandalizes the LAY-Z-BOY. Chastised after spending the rainy next night locked outside, she takes a different approach and settles in for the long game; in 17 years the youngest goes to college. Smaller portions, more walking, cutting out the catnip: any lifestyle change to outlast them and be there when she can reclaim her throne atop those shoulders.
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Rhyme Demonstration 1
Her Match profile bragged she was part of the deep state
But at dinner she proved herself only a cheapskate. -
The P.A. is Speaking
“S.F. police, please report to Montgomery Station. There is a Sleeper on the platform. Repeat, there is a showing of Woody Allen’s early, madcap comedy ‘Sleeper’ happening on the platform. Al, I think you’d enjoy it.”
I hear this as I walk down the steps to the platform, passing underneath an ad for a food delivery startup. I am already twenty minutes late. There’s a train at the other end of the platform that I will not make, so I don’t bother hurrying. But it doesn’t pull away. As I get closer, there’s a crowd facing the center of the station. In fact, the operator is getting out of the front car, closing the train doors behind her, and joins the throng.
So much for my ten o’clock stand-up meeting.
As the credits roll 80 minutes later, one business man standing in front of me turns to another. “I hear they’re playing ‘Bananas’ next week.”
“Oh, the bit with the snake bite is hilarious.” He pulls out his smart phone. “Siri, clear my calendar next Wednesday morning.”
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Personizer
noun | per-so-ni-zer
A bisexual philanderer. -
Nana Told You
You don’t use
WORDS like that.
You’ll often use
words LIKE that.
You must express yourself, use
words like THAT. -
Noise Complaint
“Chilly evening, isn’t it?”
“Yes, winter’s finally arrived.”
“I almost lost an ear to frostbite walking from where I parked.”
“Is it a ’90s party?”
“Did my track suit give it away?”
He’s waiting at the front door to get into the party. The police officer is waiting to serve the noise complaint.
“That and the playlist. It’s pretty loud.”
“I guess.” He glances down at his Reeboks. “How about I promise to let the DJ know when I get in and you can get back to the warmth of your patrol car?”
“Sorry, I have to get the owner’s name for the report.”
“Oh, I can tell you that! It’s D_____ T____.”
She smiles at him and shakes her head. “Nice try.”
He rings the door bell again. Turning back to the officer, he rolls his eyes and bobs his head inexactly to the music.
“Maybe if the music wasn’t so loud, they could hear you and let you in.”
“Fair point.” A few cars pass.
“Do you know their phone number?”
“No, but there’s an Instagram hashtag for this party; we could take a selfie and see if someone notices.”
“Why not?”
He pulls his phone out and steps beside the officer. “Smile!” He reviews the snapshots. “Let’s see: #ssf90jams and #busted.”
“#turnitdown?”
“Added. And some Mayfair filter. Voilà, it’s posted.” He places the phone back in his pocket. “What are you doing after your shift?”
“Sleeping.”
“Why not swing back by the party?”
“I’m more of an ’80s lady.”
“Like Devo?”
“Guns N’ Roses.”
“Of course… Axl Rose is odd duck. Great showman, though.”
Two men walk past with their Staffordshire Bull Terrier on a chain leash.
“OK, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll leave now. If you do get in, tell the hosts that if we get another complaint I’ll come back with the SWAT team and we’ll have a Waco re-enactment. That was the ’90s, right?”
“Whoa. That’s so harsh.”
“I know, I’m kidding. Can you stream music on your phone?”
Twenty minutes later the host comes out to find the two singing along to “November Rain.”
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Boat of Damocles
He longed to experience power and opulence, but made no allowance for the maritime peril that inevitably follows.
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November Daze #2
Lying on the nightstand, her phone starts clamoring. She stirs and presses the button to silence it, but the sound refuses to quit. It echoes throughout the house, diminishing but a fraction each time. It’s like that part of “Shout” by the Isley Brothers where everyone gets into the song and is dancing and twisting and getting a little bit lower now and singing “a little bit softer now” but without the joy. She scrambles through the house. When she gets to the sofa she grabs a decorative pillow and smothers the phone with it but the sound still reverberates. She crumples onto the sofa and turns the pillow on her ear.
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November Daze #1
On the third floor of the Somerset Apartments, he’s chopping apples to make a tart. As he tries to cut through the skin atop a wedge of Honeycrisp, the knife loses its perch and slides just past his finger tips before hitting the cutting board hard. He drops the knife and shakes his hands. He surveys them to see if he’s drawn blood while pacing in a circle around the kitchen. Something catches his eye outside the window. He pauses. Thinking better of it, he turns off the radio news before he resumes chopping.
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Late Evening Walks After The Rain
Crunch.
“Sorry, snail.” -
Interview Schedule
Steve Miller will call you at 2 AM to kick your ass and see if you know what you’re supposed to know. He will ask about the time you and your pals got assigned to work in the back of the class because your parents complained about the slow pace. You were tired of learning that all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares and you were a square but don’t you say that since it won’t scan that well with him.
Madonna will check for culture fit at lunch downtown. Order something mid-priced. Expect that Philip Dick will call when you are on the can; he believes awkwardness does wonders for the quickness of the mind. Don’t worry that Madonna is alone at the table; she knows what’s going on and will nurse a cocktail until you return. Just be honest and before you leave the restroom look over your teeth in the mirror.
John Belushi will call later that day (he is not much of a morning person). Be sure that you review the time last year when you counted down to the sunrise: you started at five—to four—to three two one and then the sun appeared right on your cue. The light spilling over the horizon; the shimmer atop the low ocean waves; the first touch of warmth on that cold morning. He likes detail-oriented people.
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Seductive Reasoning
At a local German restaurant of some repute, I enjoyed a tasty pork hock with braised cabbage. Later that evening I was taken with a violent stomach illness. Between frenzied trips to my bathroom, I concluded: after the hock, therefore because of the hock.
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Gym, Tan, Plunder
Pirate ship off the Jersey Shore
Brown against the double blue of sky and water.
Kids with grease-laden pizza entranced,
strands of skee-ball tickets poking out of pockets.
Their parents are busy buying cotton candy,
as raiding parties plunder booty of six-packs and
fluke and flounder from cabin cruisers
and planes pull beer ads overhead.Pirate ship off the Jersey Shore
Sailing north towards the riches of Manhattan,
past the wrecked amusements of Asbury Park.
Impotent looks from beach cops on ATVs
out checking for sunbathers’ beach passes.
Beach combers’ gazes pulled away magnetically
from the soft beeps of their metal detectors.
The Staten Island ferry takes evasive maneuvers.Pirate ship off the Jersey Shore
Its sails are down for a night of revelry.
Teenagers sitting on the sand oblivious,
sharing some jokes and taking some smokes
as feral cats fight under their cars.
Speakers blaring Bon Jovi are lashed to the masts.
The captain stands on the foredeck with a bottle of rum
tapping his wooden leg to the beat.
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