Farewell, Falwell

I'm not sure I can do better than The Onion on this one.

Don't let the Pearly Gates smack you on the backside as you make your way to warmer, but not necessarily sunnier, climes.

The shooting galleria

Earlier this month--it is hard to believe it's only been a couple of weeks now; it feels like years already--I managed to escape my so-called life and travel to Kansas for a family visit. Given my Dad's death only six weeks prior to my visit, I really felt as though I had to get home soon--for my sake as well as my family's.

It was instantly clear upon arrival that I'd made a wise decision. Despite the freeway pile-up of work I had left behind and the train wreck of meetings I was blowing off, flying out to a warm and sunflowery (in spirit if not yet in landscape) Kansas was a well-chosen journey for my psyche, my soul, and my body.

Upon landing, my Mom and sister and I hit the Zona Rosa shopping center near Kansas City International Airport. We had an early dinner at Montana Grill, one of the Ted Turner-owned chain of steakhouses (that's bison steakhouses, by the way). Then we took a long walk around the very trendy, rather fabulously designed, Southwestern-flavored outdoor center, watching the crowds, window-shopping, and soaking up late afternoon sun.

There were kids, there were teens, there were families, there were bikers, there were singles on the make, and there was us, and it felt good, after a forever-delayed spring in Pennsylvania and a very sad, grievous winter watching my Dad slip away from us, to be able to enjoy ourselves, almost sans souçi, in the warm sunshine. Because of my Dad's ongoing health problems over the last few years, for quite some time it had not been possible to do something as a family this spontaneous, public, and physically demanding. I'm only sorry my Dad wasn't there to enjoy it, because when he was well, this is the sort of the thing he would have enjoyed.

The next day, we were all at home in Lawrence, having a lazy afternoon of TV, chatter, playing with my sister's good-natured but entitled princess of a dog, reading the weekend Kansas City Star and the Lawrence Journal-World, and reminiscing from time to time about my Dad. We have our sadness, but we also have lots of satisfying memories and funny stories to recall. And let it never be said that the Licious clan can't find time to chuckle and giggle in the face of adversity.

When we had been together in March at the time of my Dad's death, we still found moments of humor. As my sister wrote his obituary for the local paper, and attempted to make it more personal, relating his hobbies and interests, she wondered aloud, "Would it be too much to put in here how much he hated the Kennedys?" We abstained, but, really, in Kansas (and most of the country, for that matter), it would have only made my Dad even better liked.

As friends and neighbors of my parents and sister heard the news, they began bringing over plates and piles of food, glorious food--comforting ham and scalloped potato casseroles, fresh fruit, luncheon meat and bread with condiments, pies, salads, and more. After several nights of this, along with a sidetrip to Bigg's Ribs for further sustenance, we suddenly were faced with having to reheat what was left of the Chinese chicken salad casserole or make dinner on our own. I couldn't help but ask my sister, "So . . . is there anyone else you know who can cook . . . and would they take requests?"

Black-humored blasphemy you say? Well, you didn't know my Dad, and you don't know my family. That's just us. And my Dad would have no doubt been in the middle of it, enjoying the laughter, helping us heal the pain with our family's off-brand humor.

If only.

* * *

In the midst of this drowsy, dragonfly idle, suddenly, CNN interrupted their usual Sunday numbing novena of headlines to announce that there had been some sort of shooting at a Kansas City shopping center with a promise of further details as they learned them.

The afternoon wore on and the news was sketchy and convoluted. Was the gunman still alive? Had he been inside the mall or out? Had he left the scene? How many were wounded? How many were dead? And at which shopping center had he been?

We fielded a phone call from my brother in Virginia who was making sure that we had stayed in Lawrence that day and were all safe and sound. We were fine, but with details still filtering through, we started to wonder--had there been a Target at Zona Rosa? There had definitely been a Starbucks, but was it near the Target? Could we have been at the very site of this shooting just the day before?

Eventually, it turned out that the shooting had happened at the Ward Parkway center on the southside of KC. (Zona Rosa is on the far north.) But it wasn't until the following day that we had a clearer sense of what happened and where. At least three dead on the scene and another killed previously at the shooter's home. At least two more wounded. A police officer shot. The shooter killed.

This, of course, had occurred less than two weeks after the shootings at Virginia Tech, the worst mass killing in U.S. history. At least so far. There, 32 had died. At least another 14 were hospitalized with wounds from the murderer's weapons and ammo. Some 170 rounds of ammunition had been expended. The shooter was killed, apparently by his own hand. And an eternal horror show of tales were revealed about the killer and his disconcerting life and times, as well as a neverending litany of vignettes about the lives of those who had died and what they might have become had they not been shot to death in a public building.

It was a similar but smaller scale tale back in Kansas City. It wasn't long before the local stations started broadcasting backstory about the killer, one Mr. David Logsdon, a former Target employee with a history of violence, and, apparently incredibly easy access to firearms. The story took an even odder twist, though, when one channel featured a, to say the least, colorful account by a long-time neighbor that perhaps Logsdon had been involved in Satanic rituals in his backyard. The neighbor had spotted some strange ceremonies, including possibly a wedding, that Logsdon and others had participated in.

But, no, it wasn't Satanic worship. Apparently, area Pagans explained, Logsdon had been a member of one of their covens but had had a falling out with the group several crystal deodorants ago.

Satanic worship. Paganism. Sunday afternoon shoot-em-ups at Starbucks and Target. Yowsah. Whichever travel diarist or tourist guidebook writer first said the Midwest was dull clearly took the bypass when they visited Kansas City.

* * *

Still, it hardly seems the point, whether Mr. Logsdon was an acolyte of the Dark Lord or a devotee of drumming circles under a full moon. Hardly the point at all but--like car wrecks, hold-ups, building demolitions, and internet predators--guaranteed "click tease" fare to get us to watch the evening news. Satanic rituals. Puh-puh-puh-puh-leez.

Oh, I'm not saying I would welcome the First Church of Beelzebub operating a community center next to my home. The noise from the human sacrifices would be terrible, the inverted pentagram topiaries a bit OTT, the constant black clothing a drag on neighborhood morale, not to mention a traffic hazard once we fall back to standard time and the evenings grow longer and darker. And, goodness, the Halloween bakesale would pose an iffy social landmine, wouldn't it? How to peruse the cupcakes and delicately inquire just how much blood of the innocents was used in the recipe without offending one's brooding, prone-to-retribution neighbors?

But have you seen how the average televangelist dresses? Have you ever tried to maneuver a temple parking lot on a Saturday? Can you imagine the challenge you might face trying to sell your home if it was located next to the prayer center of a fatwah-friendly mullah with a perpetually aggrieved following? And don't even get me started on the Scientologists. No way would I welcome an accidental encounter with the likes of Tom Cruise, Kirsty Alley, or John Travolta in my borough after midnight. Jesus (so to speak).

Secular humanist (but, oddly, neither atheist nor agnostic) I am of the mind that no religious group presents itself publicly in the best light or with the least weird spectacle. So to me worrying over whether the killer was an aficionado of the Grand Poobah of Pestilence and Plague is moot. Seemingly even less important is the great Pagan v. Satan debate. Claiming a fresh-from-the-kill mass murderer as formerly one of your own might not be the smoothest PR move. Does anyone at this moment really need a lesson in the characteristics and distinctions of Earth-centered religion when one of your former participants has just gone Target-practicing at a local shopping mall? Just let everyone think he's a Satanist, for (heavy irony) God's sake. Then let the Satanists take the bum rap and keep on keepin' on with your Pagan thang.

The whole Satan/Pagan deal is nothing more than a fiery red herring, of course. It only serves to distract our attention from the fact that with widespread handgun and assault weapon ownership in this country, coupled with a certain tendency to resort to hysterical, often violent, means to solve emotional disturbances or perceived slights, the reality is that you can't go to a university, the post office, a hospital, a fast-food restaurant, a chain coffeehouse, a department store, NASA, a shopping center, CNN headquarters, an Amish schoolhouse, or, well, you name it, without fear of being the victim of a spree killer's "I Don't like Mondays" foul disposition and studied aim.

Now say what you will about guns not killing people, that people kill people, the fact remains that making guns--specifically, easily-purchased-by-the-distraught-or-insane, high-powered, multiple-round shooting kind of guns--readily available, you are more likely to hear of 30-some people having their lives violently cut short through said firepower rather than, say, because of an out-of-control archery set, nunchaku run amok, or extreme bitch-slapping.

Propaganda campaigns featuring Charlton Heston aside, guns do in fact kill people. Granted, they aren't liable to go off without a little encouragement in the form of clip-loading and trigger-pulling, but in and of themselves, guns do streamline the process of severing arteries, splintering skulls, lacerating vital organs, and taking lives.

Of course, due to our wildly famous, high-concept war on terrorism, not to mention our own adventures in homeland-focused big hate in Oklahoma City and New York, we've learned that all sorts of materiel can be turned successfully into weapons of mass destruction. Chlorine. Fertilizer. Panel vans. Airplanes. To name but four.

What's a government to do--outlaw Clorox in the gallon-sized jug? Arrest all swarthy pool boys? Padlock the gates of Agway? Require all electricians, drycleaners, and plumbers to haul their wares in see-through Miatas? Ban all fast-moving objects with internal combustion engines? Then only the MagLev, Conestoga wagons, and Detroit-designed cars will be approved forms of mass conveyence in our brave new world.

Well, of course not. How silly. Fertilizer, chlorine, panel vans, and 747s do have other uses, after all. Plan all we want, but no matter what we do, how we cope, how many precautions we take, as long as people want to kill, there will always be a new weapon of choice.

But what other purpose does a gun--specifically a handgun or assault weapon--have other than to kill or wound, especially human beings? Very few of us get our fresh deli meats and rotisserie chickens while positioned in a deer blind during hunting season, but instead at Safeway, Giant, Weis, or Wegman's. Some of us even don't eat meat at all. I for one refuse to believe that the holes in Swiss cheese can only be achieved through careful deployment of firearms in the dairy section. Therefore, that leaves only one metaphorical tin can on the fence railing remaining for target practice with a gun--us. And I can assure you that that tin can wasn't orginally labeled "asparagus" with the rest of the label now blown off from excellent marksmanship.

So, again, other than the yen for fresh venison from time to time or to shoo away a bear from a picnic, what else do we use guns for other than to kill people? In self-defense or on the offense, whether we're "law-abiding" or just mean or crazy, killing each other seems to be the main purpose of a certain type of firearms in our fully loaded, number-one-with-a-bullet culture.

With that idea more or less established, you have to start wondering about how many accidental and on-purpose shootings per year are we willing to tolerate before we agree that the situation needs to change? Whether we need more or less gun control (and I hope by now you're thinking more, although I'm not advocating a total ban on guns--it's unrealistic, and, besides, if people want to hunt, let 'em hunt), improved mental health services, a more economically even playing field, anger management classes, or just a couple of years in finishing school to teach us some manners, it seems imperative that something in our way of life needs desperately to change.

And if the Virginia Tech massacre didn't bring that home, what exactly would?

Oh la la

Maybe it's the fact that we're fresh from an exciting and newsworthy election, pitting the debonair (if shriekingly right-wing) Nicolas Sarkozy against the chic (if vague and litigious) Ségolène Royal in battle for the French presidency.

Perhaps it's the recent conclusion of the Eurovision Song Contest (even if it was won this go-round by Serbia, not exactly a French-speaking nation) and a rush of stars-in-my-eyes memories of the Serge Gainsbourg-penned, France Gall-sung, "Poupée de cire, poupée de son." (Editor's note: I'm assuming--in fact, I'm hoping and praying--that France Gall was a much better singer than the clip indicates. She sings this ditty like an over-Red Bullied, playground-grande-fatigue-suffering, and tone-deaf child. Admittedly, the cover by Dubstar, featuring French musical warhorse Sacha Distel, sounds better to contemporary ears.)

Or maybe it's the fact that when I was in Baltimore in early April, I had a "French martini" (chambourd, cranberry juice, Stoli raz--yum!) at this little Mediterranean boîte, Casbar on Charles Street, and have never quite recovered. Mind you, not so much from the kick-in-the-head hangover but, instead, from the I-need-an-AA-meeting-stat! sensation I get whenever I think about that drink and crave another round. With the tab preferably being picked up by Olivier Minne.

Comme si, comme ça, qué será será. I may be in through the out door of Hollywood rehab centers because of that martini, but my semi-obsession with all things French keeps on keeping me high.

But what gives? There's so much going on in the outer world, as well as my inner world, that I feel I should write about (grief, politics, religion, gardening, origami) and yet the most I can focus on at the moment are Etienne Daho's plus grands succès, Mylène Farmer's provocative, expletive-fueled hits, and, mais oui, Moroccan hip-hop in the comely form of Ahmad (or Ahmed, depending on where you read) Soltan.

Coca-Cola and surfing on the beach at Casablanca. It's jihad with all the trimmings, innit?

I blame it all on Radio France Internationale. I am a frequent listener via the internet to RFI Musique and at work am often mentioning it to others as an interesting "station" to tune into during the day. Naturally, given my rather odd sensibilities--très Vidal Sassoon with un peu smidge of Gore Vidal, I suspect--they ignore my suggestion.

Most of the music is not in English (nor is it solely in French--you're likely to hear Spanish, Italian, Russian, German, Arabic, and songs in other languages--shocking, I realize, to we monolingual United Staters), so there is no distraction from hearing lyrics in my native language while trying to do my work. In fact, it is a nearly all-music channel, so there is little "text" in any language to distract.

Nonetheless, the music tends to be upbeat and often poppy, often with a worldbeat flava, so there is the distraction of catchy tunes wafting from my computer speakers into my rather cluttered mind. And the distraction can sometimes begat more distraction, leaving me wanting to know more about the song, the artist, the meaning of the lyrics, and where to find the music for sale or available for (legal) download.

This quest for physical representation of the hit in my collection has led me to some intensive web-searching gymnastics over the years--and I do mean years, as the right song may stay in my head for that long and, with some luck and carefully chose search terms, will gradually reveal itself line by line, note by note.

* * *

A case in point.

Sometime before I left San Antonio in 2004 (perhaps in 2002 or 2003), I kept hearing this lush, aural soundscape in heavy rotation on RFI Musique. Try as I might, I could not grasp a lyrical line to hang onto. When I do, I generally then take the lyric, slap quotation marks around it, and Google it, nine times out of ten coming up with an artist, a title, or at least a lead that eventually places me at the scene of the song.

But this tune--all swirling strings and dub effects (men chanting, a woman sighing sensually)--gave me nothing to work with. Other than the realization that what I was trying to identify was a tasty slice of French electronica. And the French create electronica almost like we crank out American idols. So I had some work ahead of me.

I web-surfed but, honestly, how do you create search terms for a sound? Especially when you're not versed in such a language (I mean music, not French necessarily) or even sure what you're listening to?

Eventually, in fall 2005, I posted a description of the song to a French music group in Yahoo, hoping that someone would identify it for me. My description went like so:

This is a very lush, electronic tune, awash with strings (very 1950s and dreamlike) with a dubbed, breathy, orgasmic female vocal, backed by a vocoderized and dubbed male voice speaking certain phrases. What are those phrases? Well, my French isn't good enough to identify any lyrics unfortunately, but this "song" is more like a musical soundscape, not a traditional verse-chorus sing-a-long song. It's very ethereal and trancelike, and I'm sure it's some DJ hit, rather than a well-known singer/artist.

I didn't receive a response to my query, but I was closer to an answer than I knew, which I only realized earlier this year.

One morning, I was driving to work and popped in a new CD I purchased over the internet--the Belgian group Hooverphonic's No More Sweet Music. (Editor's note: Hooverphonic is one of my favorite groups, but this CD hasn't so far been released in America. Thus a little more debt for me with Amazon dot pick-yer-internet-country-domain-abbreviation.) It's an odd little collection this one, consisting of two discs, one entitled "No More Sweet Music," the other, "More Sweet Music." Each disc features the same songs but in often radically re-recorded versions. These are not boring ol' DJ remixes but variations, interpretations. One version of the song may be more electronic and beat-heavy; the other may be more ballad-like. But the styles are mixed on both CDs, so you don't end up with one designed for your glowstick pleasure and the other for your chillout session. Instead, each interpretation makes you appreciate the song and listen to it more closely.

Anyway, after listening to the "More Sweet Music" disc the previous day, the following morning, after I ran out of range of XPN, I inserted "No More Sweet Music" into the player. And on Route 15 somewhere south of York Springs, all was revealed: The opening, swirling strings from the mystery soundscape began emanating from my car's speakers.

Well, almost all was revealed. Not quite Eureka! it would turn out. While the strings were the same, nothing else in Hooverphonic's version sounded like the song I remembered hearing on RFI Musique. Perhaps the version I had heard on the radio was a remix of the Hooverphonic tune?

I didn't have the time to surf the web at work--nor, of course, would I ever do this for personal business, I can assure you. So I had to wait until I arrived home later that evening. I checked the Hooverphonic website, but no, this tune, entitled, in fact, "No More Sweet Music," had not been released as a single. No single probably equals no remix, I figured. Hmmm. So. What now?

I checked the liner notes. Hooverphonic's "No More Sweet Music" featured a sample of a tune called "Lujon" by Henry Mancini. And so apparently did this mystery song.

So don't bore us, get to the chorus--after a while, I wound up in Wikipedia in an article on sampling in music, then found a link to a list of songs sampled by artist, and voilà! I discovered that "Lujon" had been sampled by Sergio Mendes and Erykah Badu in their hit, "That Heat," and by French DJ Dimitri from Paris in his song, "Souvenir de Paris."

It took some further surfing to find a free mp3 on the web to reconfirm that this was indeed the mystery tune. (Editor's note: I'd point you to it, but I can no longer find it.) It took still further surfing to figure out on which Dimitri from Paris disc I could find a recording of this song. And that search wasn't as easy as it sounds as I could only locate one recording, a Japanese pressing of Dimitri's Sacrebleu album, that featured the song as a listed bonus track. (Other discs may or may not have the tune as a hidden bonus track.)

So electronic, check. Strings in a 1950s' style, check. Lush, check. DJ hit, check. Male voices? Actually dubbed male and female voices speaking phrases you might here on a Paris street. The erotic, female moaning? Actually, a dubbed female voice chanting "Paris" (Pah-ree) over and over again, both quickly and slowly.

Not bad for four to five years' work. But this is the sort of search gymnastics I'm willing to contort myself through in the name of (pop) art--mine or, in this case, someone else's.

Bend me, shape me, give me a higher credit line, please.

* * *

Oh, I have other examples. There are a couple of tunes I remember hearing on shortwave radio from Europe in the mid- to late '70s--via the "DX Jukebox" program on the English service of Radio Netherlands, transmissions from the German service of Deutsche Welle, or heavily jammed broadcasts from the Russian service of Radio Free Europe. ("'On Broadvey,'" as the DJ used to say in those Cold War-era commercials on U.S. TV.) I'm still trying to track these down.

A soul-gospel shout-out with the chorus, "You + Me = Love, I believe!" You can't even imagine how badly a search engine accepts plus and equal signs.

A very Munich-in-the-disco-era tune, featurng a cooing female voice singing "Fly, fly, butterfly" over again, with a man's voice coming in after the female voice intoning "butterfly" in a breathy but masculine refrain. And, no, folks, it's not "Fly, Fly Butterfly" by Arabesque or "Fly, Robin, Fly" by Silver Convention. Been there, done that already.

A bilingual French-English tune from the late seventies with the chorus, "Do you speak French? Do you want to speak French? Well, parlez-vous, français!" The song features a male voice speaking words in one language, with two or more female voices responding with the translation in the alternate language. Example:

Man: "Taxi."
Women: "Taxi!"

Non, mon frere, it's not the Luxembourg entry for 1978's Eurovision Song Contest, "Parlez-vous français" by Spanish girl group Baccara. I'm way ahead of you here, both in trying to identify these tunes as well as in the realization of the enormous mounds of steaming, craptastic knowledge I have in my head about totally useful pop cultural moments.

Further, I realize I should be spending my time more wisely. I should be writing. I should be vacuuming and doing dishes. I should be caring for the infirmed in a field hospital in Gabon. I should be single-handedly stopping global warming. I should be figuring out what I want to be when/if I grow up. I should be trying to make that blasted origami lion I've now ripped to pieces twice, thick-fingered Vulgarian am I. I should be praying that at least a few of my wildflower, sunflower, herb, and tomato seeds germinate in this lifetime.

But instead, thirty years on, I find myself trying to recreate in my CD and mp3 collection an exact aural replica of the 208 Radio Luxembourg playlist circa 1977.

As well as the RFI Musique playlist circa 2007 it would seem.

Oh la la, indeed.

Pardon my French

As my mother Vivien Leigh noted recently, everyone in our family is so unused to all things high falutin' that when something classy our way comes, my siblings, my parents, and I are practically beside ourselves over the chic-i-ness of the experience. Put us on a first-class flight, and we'll take advantage of every offer of a free drink, food item, or warm washcloth. Let us ride business class on AirTran, which now seems to be the only way my brother wants to fly, and we'll go rhapsodic over the satellite radio offerings. And we were to go to a spa--a legitimate one, not something untoward in San Antonio that *some people I know* insist on calling a spa--we'll take the massage, the manicure, the pedicure, and the facial, thank you. With extra cucumbers--for snacking!

Much to our shame and despite a certain amount of boot-strappiness about us, we're all a bit like the Clampetts from The Beverly Hillbillies. You half-expect us to ask at dinner for the fancy pot-passers from the billi-yard room, to check to see if the ce-ment pond is open and whether our critters can join us in a swim, and in our best Elly Mae voice to bid fare-thee-well to our fuss-budgety neighbors with the expression, "This has been a Filmways Presentation!"

A recent case in my point: My job took me traveling again, this time to Philadelphia. Philly not exclusive and chi-chi enough for you? Ah, but you haven't had the luxury of wining, dining, and sleeping on the tab of a major international publishing conglomerate, have you? Which I have now done--and least the sleeping with part (figuratively speaking), as I arrived too late for the dinner and instead just enjoyed the accommodations and the cuisine at the hotel.

And quel hotel! I was put up (with or otherwise) at the Sofitel Philadelphia, which apparently is one of a French-owned chain of luxury (at least to me) hotels, with locations throughout the world. Think sort of a rather high-end Hilton minus the whoring heiress constantly in the glossy mags. Philadelphia Sofi, as I now like to call her, is a looker, a rather large boutique-y hotel near Rittenhouse Square, blooming out of a 1950s international-style office tower on the site of the old Stock Exchange. Much better than it sounds, trust me.

I probably won't do justice to a description of the hotel, nor will the photo I found on their website of the interior of one of their rooms. You get the idea, though, but imagine double the wood paneling, triple the French blue accents on the drapes and wall coverings, and quadruple the free (they are free, aren't they?) samples of posh-sounding toilette items by Roger et Gallet--which for all I know could be the French equivalent of Equate or Suave. The manufacturer of said toiletries was a person/company/brand named Jean-Marie Farina. It might as well be Jean-Marie Buckwheat.

Lifelong resident of Possum Trot that I am, though, I had to check the price of one night at the Sofi, and it was . . . somewhat unimpressive. A mere $220 a night, which, yes, I've got my nerve, is a lot of money, especially when I'm not paying. However, I was really expecting the room to be more in the $300 to $500 downtown range, not a piddly $200 in the outer suburbs. This doesn't mean I think less of the hotel. It's more that I'm impressed by what $200 will get you in Center City--in terms of accommodations, I mean, not the call girl selection in the hotel bar.

Not that there were any, as far as I could tell, but until I knew the price of the room, I was thinking, man, if I were a call girl, I would totally ply my trade in this hotel! Just proves my point that I don't know how to act when I'm around nice people. You can take the boy out of the Days Inn, but you can't take the Days Inn out of the boy. 'Cause once I learned the price, I just figured anyone who would pay $200 bucks for a hotel room probably isn't going to pay the same amount or more to go, well, around the world. And I'm not talking from Philly to Paris and back again.

Nonetheless, it does go to show you what a little more frivolity and free-wheeling with cash and credit can buy you. I figure it's like wine: Once you graduate from the $8 and under, cherubically labeled, preciously named wines (Turning Leaf? How about Turning Slowly Toward the Toilet to Vomit instead?), and move into the $10 and $20 or above bottles, you definitely get a finer octane of beverage.

Just a little tip for you.

Another little tip for you is not to mistake the French-style toilet for a bidet. An extra $50 to $100 bucks a night doesn't get you that kind of luxury.

* * *

But let's get to my favorite part of the stay at Le Sofitel--the fact that on the hotel cable system, they offered "TV5Monde--Etats-Unis," i.e., French TV Network 5--World, the U.S. edition. With a little encouragement, I would have skipped the presentation I had to make the following day, just to stay in the room to watch "TV Cinq," as now I'm going to insist on calling it.

Why I'm like that, willing to fob off professional responsibilities for weird TV, I don't rightly know, but on trips out of the country--or even just across the country--I find beaucoup amounts of enjoyment in watching local TV. When I went to Russia in 1985, I got hooked on these glitzy Communist-era variety shows (the glitter! the glamour! the awful 5-year-plan-gone-bad hair dye!) on whatever the TV network was called then (GosTeeVee Raz perhaps?).

Later on that same trip, when I was in Sweden, I marveled at how the evening's TV programming was introduced by a woman sitting in an armchair with a sidetable and a lamp, relating to the audience what the night's offerings would be. Like something off the Dumont network in the early '50s--or perhaps for an artier comparison you would accept a reference to the TV hostess in François Truffaut's film adaptation of Farenheit 451. I'm half-surprised the Swedish TV presenter didn't refer to every audience member as "cousin" or show film on the evening news of my trying to make my way around Stockholm, commenting "Look at him run! Like a scared rabbit!" (Editor's note: You really gotta see the film. And, still, the pay-off on the joke won't be that good.)

When I went to England in 1993, I spent an entire (and lovely, rainless) afternoon indoors watching Alfred Hitchcock's film adaptation of Rebecca on BBC 1, 2, or 4 (no, must have been 1 or 4 because I'm sure the sheep dog trials were on 2) just because it seemed like the thing to do in England on a lovely afternoon.

I've watched soaps in Australia and England, Top 40 music shows in Germany, 'tween and teen programs in Mexico, gay TV networks (pre-Logo) in San Francisco, weird (and homoerotic) weightlifting programs on public access in New York, and more Can-Con in Canada than I care to admit (and god knows, there's a lot of it).

However, my night with TV Cinq is going to rank right up there with the best/worst of them, all because of one TV show, a little something called possibly Fort Boyard (Boyardee?) or Les Petits Princes or maybe something else entirely different. It was kind of hard to tell.

It was also difficult to tell what the program was actually about, even though it was subtitled in English. Some thing's just don't translate well, I guess. But it went kind of like this: Children 12 and under were encouraged to run around a fort perched on a remote rock off of France's western coast (Fort Boyard). The children were then dared to do reality-TV-styled stunts--walk a plank from a tall parapet and jump maybe? try to avoid getting eaten by tigers who've suddenly been released into a pen the children were just in?--in order to earn money (francs? euros?) for some sort of charity, maybe something to do with sick children. One of the sick children was present, and alors, even the infirmed in France look gorgeous and stylish! The child was small and was probably no more than 8 years old, but she had this fantastic asymmetrical bob with a crinkly fringe over her right eye. It was like some sort of 1920s space age 'do, the kind someone in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World might have worn.

Or it's possible that the contestants were trying to earn money for two little people that seemed to accompany the children everywhere--and by little people, I don't mean peasants, I mean dwarves, although they could have been "les petits princes" for all I know. Very confusing. And yet even the little people looked stunning!

It gets worse or better, depending on your perspective: One of the hosts, a sylph-like woman named, I'm sure, Sylvie or Veronique or Chantal--something charmingly and quintessentially Gallic--wore no make-up and her cornsilk blonde hair was held in a simple ponytail. Her clothes were attractive but unimpressive--a flowered, sleeveless top, casual slacks. And yet Sophie looked fantastic.

More to my liking was Olivier (and this really was his name), the hunkiest 40-something rent boy on French TV (or so I would imagine). Black muscle tee, with the muscles to go along with the shirt, a handsome face and friendly smile, tight black trousers, and a great rapport with the kiddies. What is so not to love about this guy?

In Britain, the joke is that every male presenter on BBC Children's TV (BBC 3, I believe) is a big raving showtune-loving gal at heart. And, of course, they are. But on French TV, well, you just hope and pray that the male TV hosts know all the words to Gigi, is all I can say.

Sadly, my local cable provider's idea of international TV is Univision and BBC America, all well and good but not as expansive as I had in mind. They pretty much scoffed when I wrote to suggest that they should consider adding Deutsche Welle TV to their offerings because it has excellent international news and business reports.

Thus, I'm fairly convinced they won't take seriously my suggestion to add any French TV channels 'cause I think the hosts are, well, haute.

Now I can sleep at night

At last! The word we've all been waiting for! Larry Birkhead is the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby, Dannielynn! Perhaps now CNN and the Fox News Channel can return to their regularly scheduled programming and more pressing matters--like who next will Britney Spears hook up with in rehab? Inquiring minds . . . .

For the record, I can't pretend to be above it all; I was slightly interested in the outcome of this episode of As the DNA Sample Turns, much in the way that I can't ever seem to turn away from an episode of Maury entitled, "I've Slept with So Many Men, I Don't Know Who My Baby's Daddy Is," or more/less explicitly, have to watch the news anytime there's a pile-up on the Harrisburg-area Capital Beltway, as I'm always curious to see what bodies they pull from the wreckage--and, more importantly, what they are wearing.

All along, my wager was on ol' Hello Larry. Of all the major actors in this Greek tragedy (and let's face it, there was a Cecil B. Demented chorus of thousands who could belt out in unison that they had slept with Anna Nicole and thus could claim possible fatherhood of lil' DL), he actually seemed interested in the child, not just the money or the publicity. A radical approach to celebrity fatherhood in this day and age.

All told, Larry was the cutest of the suitors we knew about, so under American popular cultural law, he should win the award for Best Gamete in a Supporting Role. I do still find it difficult to believe he could actually participate in a procreative, not just recreative, act that might result in parentage, however. The blond highlights in his hair concern me, as does that voice. It could be the David Beckham factor at work here: Looks like Tarzan, talks like Jane, yet, nonetheless, only swinging one way in the jungle. Being that Hairy Larry is a celebrity photographer, though, I suspect, ultimately, it's as the sage of our time Cheryl Crow once sang: "This ain't no disco, this ain't no country club either. This is L.A." The phrase "Larry's gone Hollywood" may explain the hair at least.

Still, what a disappointing denouement. I was so hoping for a surprise twist in the script, one especially in the form of Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband, Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt, being revealed as the Baby Daddy. Imagine the Zsa Zsa-rific, extreme slapping action and terrorist orange-level of drama it would bring to the courtroom. I would have also accepted the frozen semen of the late oil billionaire J. Howard Marshall in the understudy/under the ground role of DL's father.

Unfortunately for Larry, though, being the father of Dannielynn also means owning up to the fact that you had unprotected sex with Anna Nicole Smith. Good golly. There are petri dishes with fewer spores growing in them. There are grease traps in low-rated, Health Department-inspected hotdog stands with less gunk. There are collapsed Pennsylvania mines with lower levels of noxious fumes and fewer chances of a cave-in from overuse. You get the idea.

If I were Larry, I'd proudly proclaim my fatherhood, but I'd also be producing deposit slips for the First National Sperm Bank of the Bahamas as a way to prove my excellent physical health to future mates.

Probably too late for him to prove excellent mental health, though.

Death and taxes

* * *

Death

Obviously, I've been abnormally quiet lately, not having posted since March 20th and only posting twice during March. Although most of Blogtucky's regulars know the story, let me explain.

After nearly 83 years of life, including 1 marriage of 54 years, 4 children, 3 wars, some 30 years in the Marine Corps, 6 years living with Alzheimer's, and numerous other life achievements and events, my father passed away on Wednesday, March 14th, 2007.

Gratefully, I was home at the time, just having made it to Kansas the previous evening. Not that my being there changed anything or stopped his passing. Maybe it added a little comfort to his final hours. I'd at least like to think so. Still, I'm glad I was there for him, for my family, and for me.

Initially, after he died, a weird sort of adrenaline kicked in. In addition to making an excessive amount of origami flowers, I started thinking through a play-by-play of my emotions and reactions to this (at least for me and my family) cataclysmic event. I thought I would post word of my travels to and from Kansas (surprisingly and gratefully seamless for a change), my family's reactions and emotions, as well as my own. I'd talk about the many friends and neighbors who came to visit with my family and let you know about the food they brought and the kind words and thoughts they shared. I would consider telling about the lovely cards, notes, flowers, gifts, and prayers my coworkers and friends shared with me before and after. And, of course, I would also pay tribute to my Dad.

But, soon after the adrenaline rush subsided, I realized that it just may be too personal and too raw right now for me to tell you all that, especially in an open forum like this blog. Blog's are a funny thing, anyway. How much is too much to reveal? And who cares besides me what my thoughts are on any given topic, especially one as sad as my father's passing?

Nonetheless, talking openly about my Dad's death might do me some good. Despite being more of a feeling person (I skew toward being an INFJ on the Myers-Briggs), reacting to situations more with emotion than logic, I have learned to play things closer to the vest over the years. And, let's face it, our culture encourages this, the valuing of thought and logic over emotion and feeling, even in the most intimate of situations and relationships. In the immortal words of one old boyfriend after a painful break-up (underscored by his taking me to see The Virgin Suicides as a parting gift/shot and not really getting why this might be upsetting), "You know, you really should keep some of those thoughts to yourself."

And I'm nothing if not good at taking life lessons from a walking, talking sphincter.

Still, even writing this post is incredibly difficult. It just makes my father's death all the more real, as if I have to admit it, acknowledge it, as a fact. And, yet, I feel the way I'm expressing my emotions and sadness herein is with as flat an affect as I can muster. I'm saying I'm sad, rather than illustrating that I'm sad. Why is that?

A clue may be gleaned from the words of my friend the Gladman, who said to me the other day, "The thing is you've had this major life event happen to you. You know it's significant. You know nothing's going to be as it was. But, in the meantime, you have to figure out what it means and how to deal with it."

Yes, exactly.

Over the last few weeks, I've felt upset and broken-hearted over my Dad's death, but probably more than anything I have just felt numb and in shock, stunned by his very quick passing and having so soon to return to a "normal life." It seems too soon to go back to business as usual, and so I haven't really. Up until the last couple of days, I've purposefully avoided social events, at least the ones I had the option to avoid. And up until Thursday, to give the appearance of mourning dress, I also have avoided wearing bright-colored clothing, a style (perhaps regrettably) I sometimes favor. I certainly haven't felt like writing or taking pleasure from other pastimes or interests.

The other overriding feelings for me of late are anger and impatience. I don't think I'm so much angry over the fact that my Dad died "too soon"--he lived a good life, even with Alzheimer's, one of the cruelest diseases known to us. But I could be kidding myself. Who doesn't die too soon? You always want more time with someone, more time to say the important things, but also more time just to be with them and appreciate them for who they are. It certainly does feel as though he died too soon for me and my family. So maybe I'm just fooling myself into believing that I don't feel anger toward the world over my Dad's death.

I suspect this anger and impatience may come from another place, though, one best expressed by my friend EcoGal, who sagely said to me upon my return to work, "You think all this was ridiculous and unimportant before you left, just you wait." So true. Because while I haven't felt like returning to my usual interests and activities, I have had to go back to work. Attend meetings, supervise, talk, direct, innovate, present, act, show up, produce, and all the rest. It's hard coming back to an environment I felt somewhat indifferent to and more than a little irritated by before my Dad's death. Now it seems intolerable. I feel like I could jump out of my skin at any minute, quit on the spot, turn on a dime, and walk away, never to return.

Not practical, perhaps, but there you have it, my fantasy way of dealing with the loss and the pain.

While I pride myself on not bringing everyone down with me as I make my way through the murky sewer tunnel of grief, it's hard to return to my ol' jokey, we'll-sing-in-the-sunshine self. Writing and humor certainly are ways for me to deal with my emotional conflict and anxieties. And writing and humor, too, may be a way for me to keep expressing the "Dad" in me. My father was nothing if not funny, not to mention highly opinionated, often at the same time. And, golly, lookit, so am I.

Thanks for that, Dad. And thanks for so much more that you gave me over the years. I wouldn't have it any other way.

* * *

Taxes

The other ridiculous and pointless thing I've come home to is tax-filing season.

It's that time again in the U.S., and given recent events, I find I'm behind in getting mine prepped for mid-April's deadline. So, as a result, I spent Good Friday at home, making some progress, finishing my federal and state taxes. Now all I have to do is a recheck, then I can e-file, and wait for the $45 refund from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (woo hoo!) and the $110 payout to the federal government (boo hoo!) to be deposited/withdrawn from/to my bank account.

I've never been one of those no-government know-nothings that seem to have taken hold of our federal social policy over the last couple of decades. I'm probably one of the few people in America that wouldn't object to slightly higher taxes, if it meant that those funds went for a stronger social safety net for all citizens and a serious investment in mass transit over highways. But given that any national discretionary income seems to be going toward a war effort that practically no one supports (except some politicos in Washington and the blood-in-the-water research-and-development and real estate firms in the D.C. area that feed off of them), maybe it's less a case of mo' money for the feds than better spending and management of the income already received.

Much a similar argument could be made toward the way I handle my personal finances. Some cases in point in the form of a couple of big reveals from this year's resignation to taxation without decent representation:

• I made slightly more charitable contributions this year than last, but it still seems like an awfully pathetic amount. I can do better.
• I made slightly more income this year than last (a whopping $70). Which, again, seems like an awfully pathetic amount. And, again, I can do better.
• I really have to get a better handle on my retirement accounts, not to mention my spending, but you know, laugh today, cry tomorrow, we're all going to die someday (see above), and whose life is it anyway? So I suspect it's going to be bidness as per usual with the Raplicious family accounts ("Party of one? There's ample seating in the debtor's prison, sir") over the next year. Or ten.

Ah, but what is this letter from the West Shore Tax Bureau that has been hanging around my desk for the last month or so?

Apparently, in Pennsylvania, we have an additional tax "opportunity," if you will, and that is the local, school district tax, which is something I have to admit to being fairly unfamiliar with and ignorant of until this year. Oops.

The year 2006 was my first full year of living in the Keystone State, and thus the first year that 1 percent (and please pay attention to this number, as it's about to rock my world) was subtracted from my pay for local school district taxes. When I lived in Maryland a full 5 percent (or more) was subtracted from my Pennsylvania-garnered pay to fund the Free (?) State's coffers. While Pennsylvania state income tax is currently around 3.07 percent--an incredible bargain compared to Maryland's--things get more complicated in the Commonwealth because of the addition of local school district taxes, which run the gamut from under 1 percent to, I dunno, maybe 3 or more percent, depending on your township/school district/municipality/whatever. And there's a whole 'nuther layer of complication if you live or work in Philadelphia and environs, but we just won't go there until we have to, girlfriend.

It's all relative, I guess. I mean, in Texas I didn't pay an income tax at all, but I was often brusquely shook down for various and sundry--for example, state park entrance fees, which were in the $30+ range for a carload of folks. I'd like to be able to confirm this--it may indeed cost more--but when you go to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Division website and try to search for entrance fees, well, interestingly enough, the information appears to be top secret. Homeland Security dontcha know.

In Pennsylvania, my experience so far tells me that state parks and game lands are free. So, all things considered, I can live with the local school district tax.

However, a problem arises with the fact that I don't happen to live in the local school district where I work. And because of this geographical reality, my employer apparently is only required by the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue (or so I'm figuring) to collect taxes of 1 percent for "out of county" (and thus out of local school district) residents.

All well and good, except that the school district in which I reside charges a local tax of 1.7 percent, not 1 percent.

Thus I find myself a week or so before tax-filiing day needing to pay an additional 0.7 percent or $300 to $400 to meet my tax burden.

Cripes. Talk about tax-and-spend socialism smacking you in the face with a dead Soviet-style communist fish of reality. Ugh. And it's not even Lent anymore. (Is it? Easter traditions--something else I can proclaim to be ignorant of, for good or for ill.)

I can both meet the deadline and pay the burden, although plans for that new home stereo system--oh, and groceries--just got set back by a couple of months. Hey-ho.

Still, bitter misanthrope that I am, I can't help but feel that this is a part of a plot by my employer to impel all worker bees to live within five to ten miles of the company hive. (And just one part of the plot, mind you. Oh, I have other examples, believe you me . . . .)

After all, the local tax rate where I work is the same as where I live. Why not charge me the full amount instead of having to cough up bitter cash during tax season? Who knows? Maybe I'd even get a refund! If you can pay 5 percent to Maryland, why can't you manage an additional 0.7 percent for my Cumberland County school district?

Because, my somewhat suspect reasoning goes, my employer hates the fact that I'm not willing to drink the corporate Kool-Aid, to take a ride on the tail of the comet Hale-Bopp, to get Sirius, to run my dedication up the Mount Carmel flagpole and see whether I salute it appropriately. Instead, it holds it against me that I am not the Borg and I am unwilling to assimilate into the institutional ethos.

Or it could just be an accounting nightmare to deal with--hundreds and thousands of potential school districts and so many employees--not to mention a subtle imperative to get me to save more and often throughout the year. But where's the sturm-und-drang in that approach? Personally, I've never seen a tree of logic and rationality that couldn't be felled by a strong ax of drama under any circumstances.

And INFJ that I am, I couldn't have it any other way.

More-igami

Since the last posting on my nascent origami fetish seemed to go over rather well, I thought I'd tempt/torment you with more of my "oeuvre." Plus, given recent events in my life, I'm in no mood to write, especially anything too frivolous, which, given the almost-exclusively silly nature of previous postings, obviously poses a severe communication challenge for me.

OK, so writing about the ancient Japanese art of paperfolding still seems pretty frivolous in retrospect, I'll grant you that. But I can only adapt my blog (and real-life?) persona so much and talking about my origami jones should at least help me avoid my usual goofy, slipping-on-a-banana-peel-in-a-rainstorm style of humor for a little while.

One hopes.

As you can see, I managed to finish the yellow daylilies, in fact did so while on a recent visit to my parents' home in Kansas. I had started these over Christmas and had planned to finish them on my next visit out Midwest in April. But because of a severe downturn in my father's health, I had to travel in a hurry to the Sunflower State. So to better channel my crisis-based adrenaline rush and to make me feel as though I was doing something, anything, to help during my family's time of need (even if it was something solely to distract me long enough to leave off jumping on everyone's last nerve, including my own), I finished the orange daylilies before I left Pennsylvania and completed the yellow ones within a few days after arrival.

Not much of a contribution during troubled times, you might say, and I would agree, but we do what we can. For the record, the origami frenzy accompanied other tasks, such as making phone calls, greeting visitors, asking questions, running errands, comforting others, and doing all the other things one needs to do at times like these.

I'm pleased to say that the yellow daylilies look attractive in the blue cobalt vase, and I feel fairly confident that the arrangement will look even more appealing when the orange ones arrive to accompany the yellow. (And, yes, I know, the stems need to be trimmed, as the flowers are too tall for the vase. All in good time.) My family, who encourages my new hobby (and who tolerates my questionable timing for whimsy), seemed happy with the result as well. Maybe I couldn't help the situation in Kansas, but I'd like to think I offered a little color (and maybe some needed distraction) in the midst of a stark, gray reality.

Once the yellow daylilies were completed, I started some "test folds" for another origami project I have had in mind, this one a mobile of African animals for my sister, the Journalist. In her previous job, the Journalist had occasion to travel to South Africa and Zimbabwe and even went on a safari or two while there. Thus, she has a fondness for Africa as well as a long-standing love for animals. Symbolizing the union of both her interests, in my office at work I have two photos, one of a lion and the other of a cheetah, which she took while on safari near Victoria Falls some years ago.

I made a little progress on the project, using special African animal-themed paper to create a zebra and a crocodile, as well as a tree, grasslands, and a really awful sacred ibis from regular origami paper. I also created an elephant and a giraffe, but I haven't had a chance to take photos of those yet. Soon, I promise.

In retrospect, the daylilies were easy, and it may be that I just do better with the larger and less detailed folds of flowers than I do with the intricate, delicate, and tight folds that origami animals necessitate. Time will tell, but using as a guide John Montroll's African Animals in Origami, a book I purchased during the winter when I first envisioned this project, I quickly became aware of my rank amateur status as an origamist. Of the animals and objects folded above, only the tree, the grass, and the ibis come from this book. The crocodile and the zebra (and the subsequently made giraffe and elephant) come from a leaflet featuring animal designs included in the African animal origami paper I bought for this project.

The ibis took a lot of time and energy, and the results, frankly, don't really justify the effort. I attempted the elephant design offered by the African Animals in Origami book, as well as a pink flamingo, but failed at both after repeated attempts.

I can't get too worked up about the failures though, as I've come a long way in a short time, and, frankly, was pushing myself to follow designs that, at this point, are to the limit of or beyond my abilities, at least at this early stage. Most origami books or guides mark the difficulty of paperfolding designs with asterisks or stars(*), with 1 star meaning beginner/easy and 4 indicating advanced/difficult. So far, I've managed to complete designs from various books and sources marked with 1, 2, and 3 stars. The African origami book features almost exclusively 3- and 4-star designs, but even their 2's (the ibis and the pink flamingo, for example) are complex and frustrating. And, frankly, I'm not sure I have the necessary dexterity in my hands and fingers for it.

Look at it like this--the same size sheet of paper is used to make the body of the zebra and the crocodile (but not the heads--these are examples of "two-part" origami designs, the body and the head, which are then glued together) as is used to make the tiny, tiny, and really rather pathetic ibis.

After a couple of days of frustration, I figured out that I needed to retrench and get better at some of the basic designs before tackling the advanced ones. So I took myself to the Borders in beautiful downtown Lawrence, Kansas, and bought a copy of Teach Yourself Origami, also by John Montroll. The book is organized in large part by the type of fold or base you need to learn (squash fold, square base, etc.). Thus, you gain skill and experience in making the folds, while working your way through star level 1, 2, and 3 designs.

While I hate to admit defeat or retreat at anything, ultimately, it was a wise decision to purchase the book and go back to the basics of paperfolding. For example, with a little practice in creating the waterbomb base that was outlined in the Teach Yourself book, I was easily able to finish the body of the elephant I'd been working on for days, a design I had followed from the leaflet included with the special origami paper--a leaflet, I should add, that was written entirely in Japanese.

I'm not sure that the African animals mobile will be completed anytime soon, and there's always the possibility, given my longstanding experience with craft projects, that it won't get finished at all. Nevertheless, with a little perserverance and a lot more practice, there's a strong chance that it will get done eventually, maybe even before all the African animals go extinct.

That or come her birthday, my sister is getting a vase of origami tulips instead.

The flower of my secret pastime

By popular demand, I present you with the initial offerings from the Raplicious Origami Collection.

Since December, I've made a few mentions of my burgeoning origami habit in the digital pages of Blogtucky. It may seem like a new phenomenon, but I've been thinking about picking up the pieces of the folding paper habit for years. In fact, my friend Fouchat gave me a beginner's origami kit for Christmas a few years back. And, finally, in the week leading up to this past Christmas, when I seemed for once in my holiday life to be totally on top of the season, for some strange reason, I decided to break open the kit and start folding my way through the basics.

I even took the paper and instruction booklet with me on my trip home for the holidays, and it came in very handy traveling on the plane and, naturally, while stuck at O'Hare (once again) waiting for the crew, the plane, the plane and the crew, the food, the fuel, the luggage, or whatever the hey-it's-not-our-fault reasoning for the delay the airline was spewing forth that day. Surprisingly, the origami kept me calm and kept me active. I even had some fun leaving little origami surprises around the terminal for my fellow travelers, none of which, thankfully, drew the untoward attention of the FAA or Homeland Security. "Code red! There's an origami box and drinking cup at Gate H-22!"

While in Kansas, though, I got the origami monkey on my back in a big way, and it has not yet let go. I went through all the designs in the beginner's booklet, including the tough lily and the surprisingly easy flower ball. Then I bought a book on Christmas origami and created a few more objects, although with uneven success.

One of the ideas proffered in the Christmas origami book is for the origamist to re-create the twelve days of Christmas through the art of folded paper, geese-a-laying, maids-a-milking, and lords-a-leaping ad infinitum. I briefly entertained the idea of making for every member of my family a full set of origami in homage to the twelve days, and who knows? that may yet happen. But after arriving at a decent swan-a-swimming, I struggled through the calling birds and the French hens and have pretty much decided to scale back the project. If I get one set of all twelve days completed in my lifetime, well, then, joy to the world.

I've had more luck--although not complete success--with origami flowers and have since purchased a book on paper flower designs. I've done well with the tulips and alright by the primroses, but my carnations are, shall we say, petal-fully lacking.

I've battled with the lilies, too, but I decided to create a bouquet of orange and yellow day lilies to go with a bare, cobalt blue vase my mother has in her dining room, and by focusing on a project, I've done so much better. I'm creating a vase of ten lilies, five yellow and five orange. So far, I've made nearly all the flowers (eight of ten, with one or two of the yellows, where I started, in need of a do-over), and now have begun folding leaves and creating stamens/carpels/pistils/whatever, for the internal parts of the flowers.

I've also become a regular at Michael's--perhaps the only man to ever make this claim--buying 18-gauge and 20-gauge flower wire to create stems, along with floral tape to attach the leaves and flowers to the stems. I feel like such a florist! But, minus a little glueing, I have finished at least three of the flowers and feel hopeful that I can complete almost all the others by the time I head back to Kansas in April.

Sadly, I don't think I'll be quitting my day job anytime soon to become a Master Origamist. Nonetheless, I'm enjoying this newfound, long-delayed hobby. It gets me away from the workaday world, relaxes my mind, and exercises my hands more than anything else of late, save gardening, the latter of which is a bit difficult to get excited over during a long, brusque Pennsylvania winter. (Waiting for tulip bulbs to rise from the deep freeze can only entertain one for so long.)

What's also fun for me is that I feel like I'm creating something. I've spent too many years admiring the abilities of others, focusing too much on work, on distractions, on the stuff that goes on inside my head, instead of taking the time to acquire skills and talents that I've longed to do for years (perfecting my Spanish, learning the rudiments of German and French, practicing calligraphy, cooking, and writing, to name but a few).

But with this origami jones, a cooking class or two, some half-begun short stories in the works, and the occasional German-by-radio lesson, maybe I'm on to something.

Honestly, I wasn't sure I had it in me, never having been too dexterous or patient and generally dissatisfied with my attempts at anything that I can't be "perfect" at. But this origami gig is working out, at least in the way I want it to, giving me a chance to do something enjoyable, make something with my hands for someone else, and, if done well, add a little delicate beauty to the world.

In the panoply of all art, my origami may be slight, it may be crudely executed, and it may be (I fully admit) completely dorky. But it is at least mine.

Odds and sods (i.e., oddities and sodomites)

Before the month gets away from me, I need to post, and yet I don't have the elasticity in my synapses to snap into place actual paragraphs, let alone stretch out my thoughts into anything that could be generously described as a theme or essay.

So, instead, I bring you random bits (odds and sods, as our friends the British would say) that occur to me before sleep, on the highway, in the shower, chatting with friends, or doing other things too delicate to mention in a "family blog" . . . .

* * *

First off, have I ever mentioned how much I hate the overuse of the word "family" in our current clime? What constitutes a family? Well, yes, we know the narrow phylum-genus-species that the American Family Values Junta uses to taxonimize a family for cultural armageddon purposes, and single me and my household of homosexual dustmites ain't it. But, golly, could you come up with a less inclusive-sounding term in this day and age, especially when the whole nuclear (or if you prefer, nuke-u-lar) unit has been up-ended and traditional families are, by all counts, the minority, not the majority? And even though I'm single and gay aren't I part of a family, too? I have a mother, a father, a sister, and two brothers, after all. Or was I derived via alchemy from two parts glitter, two parts Nutella hazelnut spread, and one part dry vermouth?

* * *

Speaking of vermouth, shaken as well as stirred, what follows is the transcript, more or less, of an actual conversation (edited for clarity and to fit this screen but certainly not for content) at lunch today between my friend No Rella and me--

Rap Licious: "What's that line from that James Bond movie, where one of the Bond girls refers to James as a 'cunning linguist'?" [Editor's note: Does anyone--especially my place of employment's human resources office--really need to think too much about why or how a reference to cunnilingus came up during a lunchtime discussion?]

No Rella: [Sarcastically] "Oh so clever! Doesn't the Bond girl do something with her tongue while saying it? Raps it around a flagpole or something?"

Rap Licious: "Probably! I wish they'd get a bit more radical with James Bond, though. Make him sound like a lager lout extra from EastEnders, 'Corr, darlin', I don't know nuffink about being a cunning linguist, but I do know that with a few beers--'"

No Rella: "Martinis!"

Rap Licious: "'Mahr-teen-ies in me, I'm brilliant at Gaelic!'"

"Gay lick"--Get it? We should really go on the road, No Rella and me.

Or maybe I mean the lam.

But for now I promise to steer clear of any untoward references to Goldfinger at work.

* * *

Speaking of close shaves, why did Britney Spears steal my hairstyle? I have so few options, and there she goes ruining the bald look for everyone.

Granted, it's one way to deal with split ends, and the look does show off her eyes more (specifically, her dilated pupils). But if the real reason she shaved her head is because Kevin Federline threatened to test her hair to see what drugs she was taking, what's to stop him from gathering hair samples from other parts of her body?

Oh wait. I saw those pictures of her desperate and panty-less with Paris Hilton. Never mind.

Except to say, Brits, if you have to shave your head as a preventative measure for rehab or to resolve child custody issues, really, your problems are perhaps a bit bigger than your 'do--or your sudden, self-induced need for a doo-rag.

* * *

Speaking of airing skidmarked laundry in public, are you beyond aggravated yet with all the celebrity news passing itself off as real news?

I tuned in to CBS's Morning Show the other day (the dumbest morning news program on American TV, this side of ABC's Good Morning, America), and the opening line from the newscast was--I kid you not--"Our top story this morning, the latest developments in the Anna Nicole Smith case . . . ."

And the latest development was that she was still dead. Very, very dead. Like John Brown before her, Anna Nicole's body lies a-mouldering in, uh, a morgue somewhere in South Florida.

Um, let's see if I can help you out here: We as a nation are involved in wars on two or three fronts at the moment, none of which we've handled expertly; there's global warming so rampant that I half-expect the government of Canada to start exporting dates to us in thanks for all the palm trees that have sprouted up along Lake Ontario; GM's about to go under or must be if they thinking selling part of themselves off to DaimlerChrysler represents a sound business decision; people are being murdered in Darfur for not being the "right" color or "right" religion; the Anglican Church is about to split wide open all because a bunch of ol' evening-gown-wearing, jewel-bedecked Catholic-lites in the African Sahel have more of a problem with homosexuality than they do with polygamy (it's all about how you play the game, I guess, and apparently a straight beats a pair of queens anyday); and the unequal distribution of income in this country must rival that of Batista-era Cuba.

Given all that to choose from and you go with Anna Nicole Smith as your top story?

Wow. This country is more decadent than I could have ever imagined or hoped for.

Life is a cabaret, ol' chum. And the setting for this version of Cabaret has been relocated from Weimar Germany to contemporary America. The role of Sally Bowles is now being played by David Gest instead of Liza with a Z. Starring in the role of Brian Roberts, formerly played by Michael York, fresh (?) from a long run on YouTube, we have Paris Hilton's g spot.

For an unlimited, unappetizing engagement.

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Well, even bitter me can't resist following a trend.

What I keep wondering about in the Anna Nicole Smith case is the important stuff. Like how did an ol' piece of Shell No-Pest Strip like her attract two handsome-looking, reasonably intelligent-seeming guys like the cute and well-employed Howard K. Stern (a lawyer and a mensch, willing to accept her baby as his own when the chances that his sperm alone fertilized her egg are about as likely as my winning the PowerBall by playing a string of six 69s) and the dashing but much-too-highlighted-for-a-straight-man's-own-good Larry Birkhead, not to mention a Cecil B. Demented cast of thousands claiming to be her baby-daddy? All while I, reasonably charming and employed at something other than slurring my words and jiggling my knockers, remain dateless and undiscovered? There is no justice.

Is it just the $800 million inheritance that keeps the flies hanging 'round the kitchen door? Is it maybe the inheritance and the knockers, which seem to be repeatedly (and animatedly) featured in every video clip shown of the late Anna Nicole?

That's $400 million per knocker, by the way. Call me cynical, but if the term "fun bags" is bandied about by Howie or Larry, I'm thinking they're referring to the huge sacks carrying all that cash and not the physical effect brought about by overripe silicone implants.

* * *

Speaking of money, guns, and lawyers, this past Saturday I visited a new coffeehouse in the Harrisburg area. Instead of going to my usual, slightly funky Cornerstone Coffee in Camp Hill (great live music, if you're interested), I was trolling other parts of the West Shore in search of an Eastern European deli I'd heard rumors of, and in the process of trying to find some cheaper-than-normal weisswurst, I discovered this new place in a somewhat tony part of town (relatively speaking). The neighborhood brimmed with stately homes, three Volvos in every garage, and a rack of lamb in every pot. The clientele in the cafe was chiefly waif-like teen, mapping out a trip to Talbot's with Mom or comparing notes on potential colleges and their social scenes with their like-goaled friends.

The coffee and scones were tasty, especially on a blustery February afternoon. But what gives with the multiple issues of Guns magazine in the for-your-reading-pleasure racks?

Alongside of back issues of Time, Vanity Fair, and Susquehanna Life, Guns was an odd little somethin'-somethin' to page through while enjoying one's Mocha Chocha Latte Ya-Ya. Given the youthfulness of the clientele, I would have thought that the magazine selections might have leaned more toward Cutting Monthly or Sassy, Text Message Edition.

Regardless, leading a fairly caffeinated lifestyle myself and therefore understanding on a deep level coffee's potential for both good and evil, I'm not a big booster of the idea of people tanking up on high-test espresso beverages while thumbing through articles on the latest in designer holsters for concealed weaponry or advice on how to fell assailants in your home with body armor-piercing ammo.

But then I live on the West Shore where during the last election I was one of maybe 50 persons in my boro who voted Green (except for the races that counted, in which I voted Democratic).

Thus, I suspect rites of passage for some folks in these parts do indeed involve bulimia, a non-stop circuit of frat keggers and sorority rushes, and a nad-tazer with a hair trigger.

Ah, which brings us back to the discussion of American family values. So I guess maybe I had a theme after all.