My annual presentation at Vachel Lindsay Home State Historic Site (Vachel House) every year since the first year the event was hosted has been special to me. Only Christmas (another birthday, wouldn’t you know) is more important to me, and Vachel’s birthday has repaid my focus with far more personal satisfaction. During the early years following the home’s extensive renovation and strengthening to accommodate more visitors, I was a featured reciter during the rest of the year, and though I have not been so blessed in recent years, I have been blessed with invitations to recite at his birthday observances. I was gratified to be invited this year, Vachel’s 130th birthday, and preparation for my 20 minute presentation began November 1.

I timed about ten poems using my office clock with a second hand last Sunday and selected the five I would practice to “perfection” in the days ahead. I have recited — as in from memory; nothing in my hands — 45 Vachel poems. A list is provided at my Vachel Pages web site www.aeroknow.com/arts/lindsaypoet.htm and I’m always ready to be convinced I should memorize and recite more by people who regard them as noteworthy and precious. I have recited the five I selected (and the other 40) at least twice over the years. Once the poem has been memorized and recited once, most of the effort is behind me. Like a tune learned for a piano recital, I like to consider them ready to recite again with as little as about a week’s rehearsal time needed to share given poems at featured presentation events. Of that total, about 25 are “in my pocket,” meaning they are ready to recite if you come up to me in the street and say, “Job; please recite ‘The Proud Farmer’ or “When Gassie Thompson Struck it Rich.” The five I selected for today are:1. The Dream of All the Springfield Writers” 2. Upon Returning to the Open Road” 3.”Nancy Hanks, Mother of Abraham Lincoln” 4. The Santa Fe Trail (A Humoresque) 5. On the Building of Springfield” and my poem/song “Vachel Was a Preacher.”

Every time I have been invited to recite Vachel poems, I’ve prepared a four-page program to give to those who attend. There’s so much I have to SAY about him, let alone poems by him to share, I need to space to say what I want to say. I had 20 minutes allotted to my time at Vachel House today. All presenters did. I wanted to make the most of every minute. That’s why I wrote in “Vachel’s voice” to explain the poems I recited. The only words I would speak during my 20 would be the words of the poems selected.

Arriving at Vachel House with time to sit in the back yard under the tent with cake, coffee and hot cider, to talk with visitors, to promote my recital coming up at 2:30. I also wanted to be sure and be in the audience for Sandra McKenna’s presentation at 12:30. She’s a talented poet in her own right, a known quality in the upper echelon of Illinois poets. It had been too long since hearing her, and she came through as the pro she is as a crafter of fine poetry and as a reader of fine poetry. She included two of Vachel’s, and it was a solid presentation.

Bill Furry followed at 1:30, and read from a book of memories Vachel’s cousin Eudora had written about him  He ended with a beautiful melody he played on his concertina. Nicely done.

Soon after, I saw Dennis Camp long enough to give him my check for my 2010 membership dues in Vachel Lindsay Association.  I couldn’t attend the dinner because I promised to take pictures at the Springfield Classical Guitar Society Concert. Even so, I am a friend of the VLA, and I hope my dues check proved it.

I learned a lesson regarding the need to be sure your guitar is properly tuned before you begin to perform. I was dismayed to find it badly out of tune, and in the rush to  properly tune it, I was disappointed and semi-crushed. It was NOT as in tune as I wanted by the SECONDS were TICKING by, and I feared someone watching my clock for me. DAMN! And I was perspiring so hard, I could barely see out of my right eye. THAT had never happened before, and all this while I was trying to dune the GUITAR! And the TIME WAS TICKING BY! CHEESes! I would have walked away from someone with a guitar in that condition, and I could not dare show fear to the audience which included Tony Leone who came especially to hear me and some other good friends. So I charged ahead, with fingers shaking so much in frustration that I could finger pic accurately maybe THREE frikking percent of the arrangement and the perspiration in my right eye was a heck of a distraction! NERTS! I’m sure some were wondering if I was the same “Job Conger” they had heard about at Facebook.  When it was time to put down my guitar after singing the first two poems, I could not remember the opening line of the Nancy Hanks poem! I wrestled with it and finally went to The Santa Fe Trail which went nicely but not perfectly. DANG! But it easy after that, a cakewalk. I could recite “On the Building of Springfield” with one hand tied behind my back. Same with my poem song that concluded.

Then a twist. I knew I had some time left on the 20 minutes allotted and I wanted to make up for my forgetting “Nancy Hanks, Mother of Abraham Lincoln” by reciting “What the Sexton Said.” Sandra McKenna heard me recite it at the Thursday open mic at Ginger Bistro and liked it. I was happy to reprise it for her. Then I recited “The Bronco That Would Not Be Broken” for Ken Sibley who was in the audience. It was his favorite Vachel poem, and I was happy to share it; dedicate it to him.  THEN I was done . . . .

.. . .  but not quite. Ted Keylon and I were discussing my failure with “Nancy Hanks” when the first line of the poem came back to me. I asked if I could recite it to Ted, and a few others who had not already headed out of the parlor if they would like to hear the poem. They all said “yes.” and I shared it flawlessly. For one thing, as I looked around the room and didn’t see anyone approaching me to say something like, “Job, you had your time; it’s time for you to go now.” THAT was key to my success reciting the beautiful poem.

The rest of the afternoon was a breeze. I traded two of my books for other respected poets’ books and I sold two of my books: Bear’ sKin and Minstrel’s Ramble: to Live and Die in Springfield, Illinois. The post recital conversation was superb and I hated to head home.

So the first performance of Vachel Lindsay: The Poet Speaks is history. Future performances will be better. I will talk as Vachel instead of simply writing in character. And I will be darn sure my guitar is properly tuned before I pick it up to sing. Thanks to all attended during the day, particularly during my presentation.

I LIVE by sharing Vachel Lindsay in poetry, song and monologue in a way that I do not live when I am in love or love. It’s the same LIFE that all “performers” crave; nothing different. If you care to help me live, by engaging me for modest financial remuneration, in a presentation, or if you want to invite me over for dinner, visit my Vachel Pages and learn more. Vachel did okay sharing his poetry at dinnertime and after. I will be as happy as he if I can do the same.

Live long.  . . . . and p;roper.

On Saturday, I will see and interact with more good people than most folks engage in a decade of Thanksgivings and Christmases. Here is my clarion call for Honey & Quinine readers 60 miles or closer to Springfield, Illinois to engage some or all of what follows . . .

Starting at 10:30 at Vachel Lindsay State Historic Site, 603 S. Fifth Street on the south side of lyrical downtown Springfield, The Vachel Lindsay Repertory Group will read Vachel poems. Other presenters include Sarah McKenna at 12:30 and Job Conger at 2:30. I will pass out copies of my program printed for this occasion entitled Vachel Lindsay: The Poet Speaks. There will be cake, lemonade, coffee, cider and salted nuts under the tent in the back yard, and lots of interesting people to chat with. I will have copies of my poetry books for sale close to the time of my presentation. This will also be a great time to take a guided tour of the historic home. Before Dr. Vachel Thomas Lincoln purchased and added on to it, the home was designed by the same architect who designed Abraham Lincoln’s home  a few blocks east. Lincoln actually visited the house when the original owner lived there.

Starting at 5:30 at Hoogland Center for the Arts just south of Capital on Sixth Street, Prairie Art Alliance will host a reception for its featured multi-media artist Tiffany Beane, watercolor painter Shirley Caldwell Smith and jewelry artist Pippy Vincent. Three flights up in the third floor board room , the Sangamon Watercolor Society hosts a reception for its artists, among them Gwen Sommer, Janice Hahn and Aneita Gates. The Watercolor Society invites all comers to vote for their favorite painting, and the artist who painted it wins a free Cadillac. Just kidding, but there is a reward in there somewhere for sure.

The two receptions are the best time for visitors who discover paintings worth taking home and for holiday giving to friends, family  and bloggers to meet the artists who created them. Besides the featured artists at Prairie Art Alliance, fully half the wall space shows paintings and art by other member artists. Every artist displaying has been “juried in.” That means a selection board has seen examples of the work submitted for consideration, and have either approved the artist as a contributing member or declined that honor. It’s the best way to ensure competently crafted creations are shared with the public at large. The same applies with Sangamon Wateercolor Society. The receptions conclude at 7:30, just in time for the next major event.

Many good people will depart the receptions to attend the first Springfield Classical Guitar concert of the new season, starting at 8,  featuring the Hanser-McClellan Guitar Duo at First Presbyterian Church at the corner of Captal at 7th, just more than a block’s stroll from the receptions.  The Duo performed during the first SCGS season more than 10 years ago, again in 2005, and if I had a nickel for everytime I’ve urged the Society to bring them back, I’d be driving a Lexus today. Their CDs ” La Vida Breve” and “Jango” are two of the most listened to recordings in my collection. They are as slick and cool as musically inclined cucumbers on stage, but off-stage they are as convivial autographing programs and recordings as anyone who has graced our city with beautiful music. This is the only SCGS concert slated for the “09″ part of the 2009/2010 season, and I can tell you the sound of two sparkling classical gutars played with exceptional precision and vitaility will echo warmly in your ears until the next concert in early 2010.

This may be the most exquisite confluence of artistic elan to grace this city since the sun was in the seventh house and Jupiter alligned with Mars. But don’t take my word f’rit. Come out and savor the sweetness Saturday.

Live long . . . . . and proper.

To Know One
By Job Conger

I will never understand how your friend’s baby shower
Went to pieces over coconut cake.
I will never understand how my nephew got sick
After digging up clams at the lake.
But I do understand your arm linked to mine
And a future that I teasure so.
With your hand holding mine, I share something divine.
That’s all I need to know.

I will never understand how man walked on the moon
And the orbits of Venus and Mars.
I will never understand how opposites find each other
Trading lies in screams in sound-blasting loud bars.
But I do understand your lips touching mine
Sweet as wine when the music is low.
And your smile warms my heart; tells me we’ll never part.
That’s all I need to know.

I will never understand most of what new days bring
Though today is a dream coming true.
I will never understand how the clouds went away
The day Fate introduced me to you.
But I do understand your breast in my mouth
And the silence of warm afterglow.
Your embrace brings the love that I can’t live without.
That’s all I need to know.

– written June 6, 2000
======================================
The original title was “To No One,” which I re-titled “Tune o’ One,” when I published it in my book Bear’ sKin. I wrote the poem for no one in particular and later added a melody to it. It drew some kind words for someone who meant alot to me at the time but didn’t know it. The point of the poem, I suppose, is that you don’t have to know how to sail if you intend to create a painting of the owl and the pussycat.  Sometimes you can simply imagine, or remember. . . . and that’s all you need to know.

Live long . . . . . and proper.
 

It’s been close to three years since the group formerly known as Poets & Writers Literary Forum of Springfield welcomed all comers to an evening of poetry at a local restaurant. On Thursday, many members of the formerly-known-as group reborn as Springfield Poets and Writers aaaaaaaaand members of Women Writers Group invite all so inclined to join them for their Open Mic Fall Gathering, starting at 6:30 pm at Ginger Asian Bistro, 3100 W. White Oaks Dr. on Springfield, Illinois’ southwest side. The Bistro is the building formerly occupied by Maverick Family Steak House a short trek across the parking lot from Barnes & Noble Booksellers.  Bring original work to read. Signup begins at 6:30. Food purchase is not required, but is encouraged. There will be a cash bar and door prizes. Local authors are invited to bring books they have written to offer for sale at this event.
        There will also be a book give away. Bring a book you no longer want either wrapped or bagged, to be given away in a book swap drawing.
       Please respond to stienstra.anita@gmail.com or call 391-4467 or 414-3204 if you would like to participate. The event is open to the public, but an RSVP is required. 
       This should be a nifty gathering of good people with shared appreciations. I will share some of my poems and hope you will too.
     

        Live long . . . . . . and proper.

Here’s the official news release from the Illinois Historic Prservation agency:

SPRINGFIELD – The 130^th birthday of poet, author and artist Vachel Lindsay will be celebrated Saturday, November 7 with a special event at his Springfield home that is free and open to the public.

The Vachel Lindsay Birthday observance will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, November 7 at the Vachel Lindsay Home State Historic Site, 603 S. Fifth Street.  The Vachel Lindsay Repertory Group will perform at 10:30 a.m.  Poet Walter Lipe will present a reading at 11:30 a.m., and poet and writer Sandra Kuizin McKenna will perform at 12:30 p.m.  Bill Furry and Guests will perform poetry, memories and music from Vachel Lindsay’s life and times starting at 1:30 p.m., and Job Conger will offer poetry readings and songs at 2:30 p.m.
Artist in Residence James Hawker will be at the Lindsay Home that day to chat with visitors about his photographic exhibit “Kafka’s Resort” which will remain on display in the home through early December.
Staff and volunteers will be in the rooms to share the history of the home.  Birthday cake, warm spiced cider and coffee will be served inside a heated tent in the back garden of the home, which will also feature children’s activities.  The event is co-sponsored by The Vachel Lindsay Association.

The Vachel Lindsay Home State Historic Site, administered by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (www.Illinois-History.gov), is the birthplace and longtime residence of poet, author and artist Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, 1879 – 1931.  It is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for free public tours.

A brief biography of Vachel Lindsay

Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, a major American poet, was born November 10, 1879 at 603 S. Fifth Street in Springfield to Dr. Vachel Thomas Lindsay and Catharine FrazeeLindsay.  He graduated from Springfield High School and studied at Hiram College in Ohio, the Chicago Art Institute and the New York School of Art.

Lindsay made three famous walking tours of the United States in 1906, 1908 and 1912, covering more than 2,800 miles.  On these journeys, Lindsay traded poems for food and shelter, earning him the title of “The Prairie Troubadour.”

Lindsay was catapulted to fame with the 1913 publication of his poem, “General William Booth Enters Into Heaven.”  Two years later his poem, “The Wedding of the Rose and the Lotus,” calling for tolerance between Western and Eastern cultures, was printed by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior and sent to both houses of Congress in connection with the opening of the Panama Canal.  His “Congo” and “Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight” are well-known by generations of readers.

Lindsay lectured at many universities, including Oxford, Cambridge and the University of Illinois.  He performed his poetry in every state in the nation at the time.   Lindsay was named Poet-in-Residence of Gulf Park College in Gulf Port, Mississippi in 1923, and of the City of Spokane, Washington in 1924.  In 1925 he married Elizabeth Conner of Spokane.  Lindsay, his wife and two children returned to his Springfield home in 1929, where he died on December 5, 1931 in the bedroom directly above the room where he was born.

Lindsay called himself a “Rhymer-Designer,” and created drawings to accompany his poems.  He was a leading voice in the American “New Poetry” movement, with a total published work of some 20 volumes of poetry and prose.  Lindsay and other major poets and artists of his day championed a new language to express new subjects, such as civil liberties, civic excellence, and humanitarian and aesthetic values.  He wrote poems of vehement protest against spiritual and environmental blight.

Lindsay’s Springfield home was his creative center, and he returned there many times during his career.  He cited his hometown and state more than 500 times in his publications.  “The things most worth while are one’s own hearth and neighborhood,” sid Lindsay.

In recent years, Lindsay’s works increasingly are enjoying a renaissance of international interest.  His prophecies of individual and global concerns are striking an even more responsive chord now than they did when written 90 years ago.  Lindsay also enjoyed the respect of his colleagues.  Sinclair Lewis called Lindsay “one of our great poets, a power and a glory in the land.”  Author, poet and Illinois native Carl Sandburg said, “I rate (his poems) among the supremely great American poems.”

__________

I will distribute a program that describes the poems I will be reciting and explains my one-person show Vachel Lindsay: the Poet Speaks. Some of Vachel’s poems I will sing, along with one of my own about him, accompanied by my folk guitar.. The rest, including “The Santa Fe Trail,” will be recited. To make the most of the auspicious day, I will be at the home most of the day, not to recite but to enjoy and learn from the others who will be presenting. I hope you will arrive early as well. If you tell me you read about this day at Honey & Quinine after I complete my presentation, I will give you your choice of one of my books of poetry. Come enjoy, have some birthday cake and cider, and I wager you will be glad you did.

Live long . . . . . and proper.

Before Jim Houston’s fab classical music show began on UIS this morning came the unhappy news that the USA has changed its mind regarding Israel continuing to build settlements in territory where it should not be on the West Bank. If I had been Ron Reagan, I’d have said, “Now DARN it, Izzyreel, there you go AGAIN! I wanted to wretch, and I wasn’t even out of bed yet. WHY do I bring this up here at Honey and Quinine? Why do I dare to convince you, the H&Q reader, that in the spirit of the season, as Bill Clinton might say, that you “have a dog in this haunt?” I am dismayed because Israel and peace on the West Bank are the fulcrum of our future. And for the President, who, as a candidate for the office,  I esteemed so much a year ago is turning a long-needed infusion of backbone  into a new policy that called upon Israel to honor the promises it had made for the peace — if you care to call the current situation “peace” since the incursion into Gaza during #43’s years of indifference and ineptitude — into a circus of sleaze, a pathetic billboard display of the cheapness of the American ethic. This is the same kind of surrender to the ooze of contempt to ethics and truth that politicians since time immemorial have excreted with almost no consequence. The hope for peace based upon the strength of the United States of America’s desire to exert its calling Israel OUT for insisting on building on the West Bank is shattered as cavalierly as treaties to American Indians in the 19th century.

So Pepe, you may ask, the USA shat on their promises; why can’t Israel, in cunning complicity with the gutless heirs of Washington and Jefferson, do the same with their promises?

Because it is in the world’s interest to maintain the integrity and hope that Barack Obama brought to the table with his election and which in large part, whose hope and promise to do things differently on the diplomatic front, won him the Nobel Prize for Peace. Honoring our new policy to hold Israel accountable, to remove the LARGEST impediment to peace in that region, now reeks of the stench of backroom politics. Israel’s increasing presence in what could and should be a Palestinian state is as portentous as Mexico’s equally disturbing annexation of the United States of America via illegal squatting. These are people who I described in an early poem as the kind who smile, shake your hand, and urinate on your shoes. The world of peace does not need this antic from Israel. As long as there is this kind of brazen intrasigence, there will be no peace. Until the USA stops showing our friends, our enemies, our emissaries from heaven that our word means nothing, how can our country escape accountability for the inconsistent whimsy of our ethics?

Until the US diplomatic corps rescinds its new folly with the change in the policy re continued Israeli encroachment on the West Bank, there will be no peace. Yes, Palestine’s word is ofen broken as well. The world is being tormented to annihilation by forces who have no integrity. That’s why the US reversal is so unfortunate. We seemed to be STANDING for something that could bring peace. Not any more. I’m not suggesting our reversal should open the door for unproductive flagellation by Palestine radicals. We are as good as our word. What the hell is wrong with our keeping it?

Live long . . . . . . and proper.

When I picked up a copy of Illinois Times as I entered the Route 66 Diner across from The Granite Guy for breakfast Saturday morning, I was saddened to realize no one had taken a copy from the entryway display rack since Friday about 2 pm. HOW, you may asq, did I know this? I based my conclusion on the wrinkled cover of the annual Best of Springfield issue. Clearly it had seen some rain, the kind likely to blow into the small “lobby” of the diner during a significant downpour in heavy wind . . . and a heavy downpour in significant wind. It stopped raining hard Friday afternoon about 2 pm. If anyone had picked up an IT after it stopped raining, the one on top would have almost certainly been the one picked up. Hence the deduction of no pick up action for the past 19 hours.

The cover was long since dried, and I must say the issue is the best I’ve seen since I began picking them up decades ago and since I began contributing to the annual classic about seven years ago. I recently came across an entry in my 2006 private journal that in that year, I contributed 24 vignettes about “Best of” winners. This year I contributed two: Best Resale Shop and Best Blog. I was happy to net those two because for the first time in a year, I was given no assignments from the respected business publication I’ve contributed to every consecutive month. And I was paid 50% more than the going rate for “Best of” write-ups, thanks to the generosity of the esteemed editor.

The first time I was given “Best of” assignments, editor Pete Sherman and a hardy crew of five or six met for coffee at Andiamo where we volunteered for specific categories. Ever since, there’s been less social interaction. I’ve been asked what categories I’d like to cover in the past, and I’ve usually netted what appealed. This year, the editor said in a five minute meeting from behind his office desk, in esssence, “Here’s what’s left.”

I was given about a week to produce them by deadline, and as always, it was great fun. In the past, I’ve visited most winners with my camera and tape recorder, but this was “reportage-lite.” I could do both by phone and they would take care of pictures. I began making phone calls three days before the pieces were due. Before that I visited each business’s web sites (total time 30 minutes) and hand-written some questions and points of interest. The owner of The Kids Closet wasn’t in the store when I called first, but I could call the next day when she would be in. I called from work and set a time in the afternoon when I’d be home to interview her. That part was a breeze. The breeze quit Wednesday morning when I realized I had not pressed the bleeping record button on the tape machine. So I called her back Wednesday morning. Between what I remembered she had explained and my reprising most of the original questions, writing the 150 words was easy.

The owner of the super Springfield Moms was also unavailable, but I left a message on her voice mail asking her to call me at work Tuesday. When she did, I was informed she was sitting on a beach in Florida, and we had another fab chat despite some wind noise over the mouthpiece. When she turned out of the wind, all was fine. The “Best of” vignette about Springfield Moms was the first completed on deadline morning. She even sent me a thank you note for my effort. It was the first time she’d been interviewed sitting on a beach in Florida.

Writing “Best of” “shorts” allows a friendlier approach than typical for other Illinois Times articles I’ve produced over the years. I cannot explain the reason for my interest in talking to the business owners or personalities, because NOTHING is official until the issue is distributed, the circumstance is similar to encountering Santa Claus in your living room. Even though “He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, and filled all the stockings and turned with a jerk. . . . .” you know why he came, you know his name, and you’re always glad. (What is the name of that jerk, he always comes with, anyway?)

When I called The Kids Closet Wednesday morning to re-interview the gracious owner, I was told she would arrive at noon. I explained I had lost the earlier interview, and that I would call back at 12:15 so she’d have some time to catch up with her staff re how the day was going, and I did. In the meantime, I played every tape I was likely to have touched in the past 21 hours, looking for that interview, all for naught. When I spoke with her, I explained I had not punched the record button (the only logical excuse) and that I would rather call back, risk being thought an idiot for my error but GET THE BEST INFORMATION I COULD than trying to improvise using only what I remembered from the first go round and what I discovered at her web site. She understood completely and the conversation was a walk in the park.

Total writing timeTotal time for the interviews: 35 minutes, including the re-interview. Why so long for two 150 word “shorts?” It’s important to establish friendly rapport first and transition to “brass tacks,” the focus of each encounter.

Total time expended Wednesday writing both interviews including searching for the “lost tape” and e-mailing the text to Illinois Times: five hours. What can I say? Most of the staff writers at IT could have written them in half the time. Maybe that’s why no one at IT will consider me for full-time employment. I’m too deliberate with my assembly of the articles. The full-timers and talented proof readers and editor are probably more deliberate, but they “deliberate” at 78 RPM and I do it at 33 and a third. What can I say? I’m a frikkin’ POET/journalist and worse, a folksinger. No wonder I can’t find a full-time employer!

The two vignettes appeared in this week’s edition virtually unchanged from what I submitted October 14. The check arrived today. There will be rotisserie chicken from Schnuck’s for dinner Monday, thanks to Illinois Times and the two fine citizens I was privileged to interview not long ago.

I made deadline as I always do. Thanks as always to the fine folks at the best weekly newspaper in the tri-state area for the work. And thanks to you, the home viewer, for reading about it.

Live long . . . . . and proper.

If you’re just joining us, you’re reading Honey & Quinine  where I’m sharing a lingorant. If you’re not just joining us, crows north of the equator sing “Melancholy Baby” in the key of  C-sharp and crows south of the equator sing it counter-clockwise; rootabagas are the national fruit of Blamarka, and Jerry Smoke is frading catuka on Thursdays at 9pm.  I say this because you might appreciate the difference in the status of what I’m saying to people who are just joining us (polite talk for me, myself and I) and those who are not.  It should come as no surprise to those likely to be reading these words that in broadcast radio, there IS no difference in the content of what’s distributed. The host of the show is at — MARK this second —  is the same host that was hosting a second before you tuned in.  Darn sad isn’t it, that radio show hosts don’t need a meaningless “qualifying pretext” to tell every listener the same message, which, for example, might be simply . . . .

“You’re reading Honey & Quinine, a blog written by Job Conger and brought to you by the fine people at WordPress. “

When I’m listening to my favorite character assassin on WTAX radio, I like to hope that when he tells those who have “just tuned in” his name, he also intends to remind ME of his name as well. Hey, Rash Palooka, don’t I matter too?

The second chapter of a book seldom begins “If you’ve just picked up this book, the protagonist Ben Dair had arrived at the tennis court  and was growing impatient waiting for his doubles partner Don Ethat to arrive.  This was revealed in the final sentence of Chapter One,  and reprising the point was a waste of ink. The context of the new chapter’s circumstance would be  revealed in the story as it would advance through Chapter Two. There is no need for a re-statement intended for those who enjoy beginning a book at the start of the second chapter.

In literature and cinema, re-establishment of the present characters and circumstance  is useful following flashbacks, but serve no purpose in radio, don’t you think?

Stating who I am only to people who have just encountered me is silly, though an occasional reminder to everyone can be useful, especially if the story or the point rambles on and on and on. . . .. If  you’re reading me for. . . and on and on . . . the first time, who I am will become obvious. If you’re reading the 805th of my 805 postings here at H&Q I am the same person as Rash Palooka is Rash Palooka. When you arrived makes no difference. And stating

You’re listening to Rash Palooka on the Rash Palooka Show.

works for everyone.

Write long . . . . . and properly.

Probably the best change to come to Channel 55 Fox TV programming with the new season has been the disappearance of  the Jim Belushi show at midnight weekdays, a/k/a The World According to Jim. The writing was solid and the cast was excellent; I just thought Robert Young did a better job with “Father Knows Best” of several decades ago. Belushi was a stereotype, and every episode I watched seemed like another romp with “been there” and “done that.” Robert Young was a stereotype to be sure, but his stereotype didn’t make too much noise chugging pitchers at the local pizza tavern, or go to Bears games with painted faces. The commutation of “The World” came at a price: the positioning of TMZ at midnight:30 when my all-time fave comedy show previously aired for two consecutive episodes.

Some nights, TMZ appeals to me. Everyone involved is easy to like, and what I call the crew’s “commando papparazi” style is entertaining. What’s more, it keeps me in touch with names and personalities that are mostly total unknowns to me. I know I should know about them. Why? Because TMZ wants to share their street encounters with what I’m confident is an aware, younger audience.  I am NOT a younger audience, but I like to know what’s going on. I consider myself a total happening dud — make that DUDE. Even so,  Fox kicking back Scrubs to 1:25 for the first half hour totally bummed me. With a regular work schedule — half a bleeping day at a time though it is — I’m committed to arriving rested and alert. Last night, after an exceptional dinner, I found a way to do that.

It might have been the onions.  For the first time in months, I came home with a bag of onions, the yellowy kind that come in the fishnet bags.  I’m sure they have a name, but I’m no culinary technician. I know what I like. I like them so much, and was so glad to have some in the house that I cut two of them into medium-size chunks that would separate and sautee to perfection on medium heat with half a stick of Imperial margarine. I had two large pre-cooked sausages that I added to the pan during the last five minutes, and feasted directly from the pan. The reasonably healthy duo was accompanied by Carlo Rossi Burgundy, which I consider the perfect wine with sausage and onions.

At least I had concluded that by the time I was into the second glass. After finishing the tasty repast, I read some aviation history as I endured a background Nova program about a society that walks on hands and legs. It was so grim, I even turned the volume down, but kept the picture so I’d know when the program was over and I could turn up the volume.  I didn’t last long enough in conscious mode to notice when the program changed.

The meal had been the first in about a week without peanut butter, cheese puffs or crunchy cheese curls on the plate, pan or in a bag, and the richness of it all, augmented by the best wine in the world for sausage and onions, sent me to Nap City before 8 pm. There I remained until, touched by God’s own alarm clock, I awakened and thoroughly enjoyed Charlie Rose at 10 p on the frikkin’ DOT! 

Then I lurched into the office and worked on processing digital photos in a new filing system I’ve created on the computer that’s not connected to the Internet. There was not a touch of wine in my head; it was clear as a bell and I was alert with a restored, positive attitude. I was productive and reasonably content until about 1:20. When I noticed the time, I shut things down in the office and returned to the livingroom to watch Scrubs for the first time in more than a month. Both were exquisitely funny as always.  Less than a minute after the second one concluded, I had quaffed the third of my second glass of wine remaining from dinner and was in the sack with lights out listening to George Norey. I was sawing logs less than two minutes after that.

The only way I can engage a Scrubs routine is by nodding off by 8 and awakening in time for Charlie Rose or at least by 1:20. Getting serious about such a revision means I won’t be abot to watch my PBS faves which usually air between 8 and 11 on WRSP. There are times when I don’t even want wine with dinner. The Luzianne iced tea I’ve been drinking since mid-summer with a touch of sugar and lemon  is working out nicely.  I consider one and two-thirds glasses of Burgundy a “hide from the world” antic and not much of a TV scheduling “means to an end.” I’m going to have to wrestle with what will clearly allow me to watch high comedy from 1:25 to 2:25.

In his poem “Springfield Magical” Vachel Lindsay called this the time “when trees and grass and men are wrapped in sleep.” In the same poem, he wrote, “Angels come down with Christmas in their hearts: gentle, whimsical, laughing, heaven-sent, and,  for a day,  fair peace have given me in this the city of my discontent.”

Maybe Sarah Chalk, Zach Braff and the wonderful cast of Scrubs come as angels to me between 1:25 and 2:25.  I know for certain they are whimsical, laughing and heaven-sent and that they give me fair peace. Perhaps like other blessings, including sauteed onions and sausages,  they are not most treasured when savored every day.

As I type these words, I am alert, warm and not hungry. Last night was a gift.

Every day is a gift.

Live long . . . . . . . and proper.

It’s been a week since I took my computer to PC Doctor on Amos to be cleansed of viruses and spyware, and during that week I’ve been asking monself: What good is Norton and AdAware. given the fact I still have an $80 payment due late this week to get my computer back? It took EIGHT MINUTES for my Gateway to finally go dark after shut-down, half an hour before I took it in for the cleansing.  I just got off the phone with the technician who said it took less than 30 seconds when he turned it off as we talked.  I’ve reached a point as I continue to live without a working furnace where the futility of wine as a rewarder (which is not to say “redeemer”) of my fiscal conservatism and angst en extremis has proven an impractical option and not because of cost (about $13 a gallon, good for a week). It’s impractical because it costs me more than money; it costs me time as a conscious, thinking hummin’ bean. It prevents me from engaging life whether I do it by filing articles culled from hundreds of magazines in my array of file cabinets in the basement, working on my feet and hardly noticing the chill, or in semi-fetal posture under two blankets in the big livingroom easychair, watching a baseball game on Fox TV. I value consciousness. Sleep to me is as good as being dead, but less than permanently.

For the record, a friend has offered to fix the furnace, so it’s not like my semi-catatonia some nights in a chlly living room  (especially after challenging times at The Granite Guy) has been tolerated because I can’t have heat.  I just don’t want to pay for the gas my furnace would burn for the benefit. I do have hot water. Otherwise not even The Granite Guy would tolerate my odiferocity. I’m making it through this nutty phase – which will end when I am determined to prevent my water pipes, poorly insulated in the basement, from freezing and bursting by reinstating furnace action — thanks to a new habit I acquired the day after my September 5 birthday celebration.

Some friends came over for dinner, a pot luck thing. I had bought ice cream bars, chocolate shell over vanilla, for dessert. The next evening, I ate another during the Charlie Rose show on PBS. I’ve had one almost every night since. It’s made a big difference in my attitude. 

I’ve lived most of my life with Y E A R S  . . . . . between ice cream bars, fudgesickles and Dreamsickles. Can’t remember the time before the day after my birthday when I ate ice cream on a stick. I like the measured moderation. When I was eating ice cream from a gallon “tub” of Prairie Farms Neapolitan, I sometimes polished off the entire thing in less than a week. Moderation is easier with ice cream bars.  Take ONE out of the box because one will melt uselessly into my lap as I partake from the other. I don’t return to the freezer for a second after the first because one is perfect unto itself: enough of what it is to sate my appetite and enough of a “pat on the soul” to reassure me that all is not going utterly to hell in a handbasket.

On a windowsill are 43 woodice cream bar sticks. They’re as clean as I could get th em with tongue and teeth, but they’re destined for soap and hot water before I’m done. They are such prime wood — nicely bleached, uniform in size and weight — that it seems there is something “constructive” waiting to be discovered, a work of art, to be varnished but not painted, assembled with some Elmer’s white glue. Maybe something more. I’ve always wanted a garage.  Perhaps a guest house or a gazebo behind the back deck.

I’m 43 elements (tomorrow there will be 44) toward something, but I’m going to need many more for anything worthwhile. What is the size of my expectation?

The size of my expectation is greater than the dimension that spans through fall and winter. There will enough on hand in spring for “great expectations.” In the meantime, I will have reason to be of good cheer. To paraphrase a song I love to sing about Kilgarra Mountain,  “Whack fol the dario. There’s ice cream on a stick in the freezer.” 

Live long . . . . . . and proper.