I realize this post is a bit belated, but I have been busy lately with new responsibilities at work along with a shift in working hours.  I am finally working during normal daytime hours now, but this has given me less time to write.  My sincerest apologies to my few faithful readers…

On July 12, 2010, Harvey Pekar died.  Known predominantly for his work as an American underground comic writer, Pekar focused his writing on ordinary life and ordinary people, especially his own life.  Here’s a blurb from the Huffington Post article about his work:

“Pekar took a radically different track from the superhero-laden comics that had dominated the industry. He instead specialized in the lives of ordinary people, chronicling his life as a file clerk in Cleveland and his relationship with his third wife, Joyce Brabner. His 1994 graphic novel, “Our Cancer Year,” detailed his battle with lymphoma.”

His work American Splendor was also turned into an excellent film of the same name, which I would heartily recommend to anyone.  Finally, Pekar was also an occasional music critic, focusing primarily on Jazz criticism; and being a jazz fan myself, you know I can dig that.

So, if you aren’t familiar with the American Splendor graphic novels or the film, check ‘em out.  RIP, Harvey.

“Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say;

Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day;

The second best’s a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.”

-W.B. Yeats

The above lines are from poet W. B. Yeat’s “From ‘Oedipus at Colonus’.” Yeat’s poem is a chorus from his own translation of Oedipus at Colonus by the Greek playwright Sophocles, and is from a scene, I believe, involving Oedipus and his daughters, Antigone and Ismene.

I am unfamiliar with Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, and perhaps my understanding of Yeat’s poem would deepen if I had greater knowledge of the play.  That being said, however, when I first read these lines in a book of Yeat’s poetry (The Tower for those interested), I was struck by the bleakness behind the lines, wowed by its woe.

Now, I know this blog is a sort of compendium of woe, but after reading these dark verses above, I felt compelled to comment.  For those who don’t know me well (or at all), I imagine one may read this blog of mine say, “Oh, Mike, you are so woeful.  God grant you peace in your life, spare you from further woe.”  Well, I actually can’t imagine anyone thinking those exact words (that would be strange), but they might think I am some kind of deeply pessimistic or dour person to maintain, if only sporadically, a blog that focuses on mostly sad or embarrassing stories.

O, reader, I don’t think that is the case at all!  While I admire Yeats’ poetry on the whole, I cannot subscribe to the bleak nature of the lines printed above.  To twist Shakespeare’s iambs, I come not to praise Yeats’ lines but to bury them.  Woe to the person who thinks and feels that “never to have lived is best.”  To never stare into the sun, to never breathe the breath of life!  That is something I cannot imagine.

Like the title of this post, I don’t know why I felt compelled after reading Yeats’ poem to write this entry.  But I hope you understand, faithful reader, as they say, where I am coming from.

Here’s a fresh tale of woe for all you out there in Internet land…

So, less than one hour ago, I went on my lunch break, and I drove to a nearby Mexican eatery just down the road from where I work.  The parking lot was full, save for one available parking space.  I went to pull into said parking space, but just as I decided to do so, some tall, attractive blonde girl, who was talking on her cell phone, decided to stand in the middle of the available space.  I waited a moment or two before she finally realized she was standing in my way.

I got out of the car and headed toward the restaurant’s door.  But, the blonde girl, who was still on her phone, stood oblivious in front of the doorway, blocking me.  I stepped to the left; she also coincidentally stepped to the left.  I stepped to the right; she stepped to the right, her back still toward me.  Was I engaged in a dance step I was not aware of?  Finally, she moved out of the way, and I stepped inside.

I ordered my usual, a chicken burrito, and then sat at a table to wait for my food.  The blonde was behind me in line (she was off the phone, finally), and she ordered and then sat as well.

I listened for my number to be called, but didn’t hear it.  I saw the blonde girl get up and get her food.  That’s weird, I thought.  I figured I would have gotten my food first.  A few minutes later, another number was called.

“Oh my God,” the blonde girl said, “I took someone else’s food.”

I assumed she was eating my burrito, well, just because.  I went up to the counter.

“Your chicken burrito will be up soon,” an employee told me, “someone else took it.”

Figured.  So, I waited a few more minutes before I got my food.

I sat at my table and took a bite.  My burrito tasted strange.  I looked down and saw that they had given me a steak burrito instead of a chicken burrito.

Screw it, I said to myself, and went on eating.

When I was younger, I collected baseball cards, and whenever I was in a place other than Mechanicsburg, I always sought out new baseball card stores to visit.

My grandmother lives in Lancaster, PA, and on one occasion when I couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven years old, my family and I stopped by her place for a visit.  For some reason—maybe it was a holiday or something—many of my relatives were also visiting my grandparents that afternoon.  The group of us was so large, I remember, that we had to eat in the basement instead of the dining room.

Now, my grandmother is an excellent cook.  She was born in southern Italy, and to this day, her gnocchi is my favorite food.  As a youngster, I had a sensitive stomach, but I had never had an adverse reaction to my grandmother’s food, though I usually only ate her pasta and not the cooked meats.  On this occasion, however, I decided to eat some kind of beef she had made.  It was delicious, and I remember that it had slivers of what I think were grilled onions in it, which I wasn’t sure if you were supposed to eat or not, but I ate anyway.

After our big mid-day meal, I talked my Dad into taking me to a nearby baseball card store.  Before we left my grandmother’s house, I remember two things: My Dad’s younger cousins were fighting over who got to use their new BB gun first, and my stomach had begun to bother me.

My Dad and I pulled up to the baseball card store and went inside.

“Dad,” I said, “my stomach hurts.”

I don’t remember what my Dad said to this, but he probably wasn’t too concerned because complaints about my stomach were typical.

At one point, while I was standing next to my Dad, I pulled on his sleeve—he was talking to the salesman about some aluminum trashcans emblazoned with the Phillies’ logo I think—and told him again that my stomach really hurt.  He told me to be quiet.  Part of my memory says that he even went so far as to put his hand in front of my mouth to get me to shush.  In any case, I remember with great clarity what happened next: I barfed all over the floor.

Now I had everyone’s attention.  My Dad told me to go outside while the salesman told his co-worker to get a vacuum.

I went outside by the sidewalk and continued to barf.  I threw up all over some leafy plants.  I threw up on my shoes as well.  My barf was pink in color and I saw the bits of grilled unions in there.  I threw up with such force that the vomit came out of my nose and my mouth simultaneously.  I have never thrown up so forcefully in my life.  A mother and her two kids walked by, aghast.  They quickened their pace away from me, the human barf machine.

Eventually, I stopped throwing up and went back inside the store.  I remember that I purchased an old Willie Stargell card and went home, my Dad and I thoroughly embarrassed I’m sure.

So, I did manage to get a baseball card out of the whole ordeal, but even that satisfaction wouldn’t last, as when I got back to Mechanicsburg, I somehow managed to accidentally sit on the baseball card and it got a big crease in it, thus rendering it worthless.  The End.

My friends were away for the weekend, and they put me in charge of checking in on and feeding their two cats.  I did this twice a day.  I had watched them in the past, without incident…

Sunday night, I drove to my friends’ house.  The two cats, a female named Charlie and a male named Vinny, greeted me at the door as usual, both meowing in anticipation of being fed.  The male cat, Vinny, was especially vocal that evening, which I assumed meant that he was extra hungry.

Now, Vinny is extra enthusiastic toward feeding, so much so that he has taken to bullying the other cat  to steal her food.  Because of this, I had to separate the two felines for feeding time.  I gave Charlie her food in the extra bedroom and shut the doors.  Vinny meanwhile had already devoured his food and was meowing and following me around, looking for more.

“Quiet, you little piglet!” I said.

While waiting for Charlie to finish her food—she’s a slow eater—I decided to use the bathroom.  Now, the bathroom at my friends’ place has two doors.  One was already closed, as to allow Charlie to eat her food in peace.  I entered the bathroom through the other door, but when I went to close the door, I looked down and saw that Vinny, still hot on my heels for food, had joined me in the bathroom.

No big deal, I thought.  I stood by the toilet, unzipped, and started my business (Number 1).

Suddenly, Vinny darted between my legs and popped his head up to look into the toilet.

“Vinny! No!” I exclaimed.

Too late.  The cat had stuck its head directly into my stream of urine.  I stopped urinating as quickly as possible, but the cat still got sprayed.  As quickly as Vinny had appeared, he darted away and ran out of the bathroom.

I continued my business, laughing the entire time, waiting to finish so I could call my friends and tell them that I had just peed on their cat’s head.

The final installment of my Philadelphia Story.  To start at part I, click here.

At the police station, I called my parents on a pay phone and told them what had happened and that I needed the credit card information in order to cancel the cards I had just lost.  Ryan, Hank, and I then waited to give our statements to the detective.  The detective called me in first.

I sat in a chair in a cubicle next to a desk.  The detective introduced himself and then we got down to business.  He sat in front of his computer, took down my information, and then asked what had happened.

The detective was a brown-haired, not-quite-middle-aged man, who was smoking a tiny cigar.  You know, one of those brown cigars with the plastic end that goes in your mouth.  He started typing at his computer, but ashes from his cigar kept falling in his lap.

“God damn it,” he would say each time this happened.

Just put the damn thing in an ashtray!

So, I started my story: “We were walking towards Walnut Street…” but I paused because the detective stepped away from his computer.

“Keep going,” he said.

So I kept going.  But when I finished my story, the detective sat at his computer once again and said:

“Ok, so you were walking towards Walnut Street.”

Good grief.  I had to tell the story again so he could enter it into the computer.  This was taking forever, I thought.  Meanwhile, I heard Hank and Ryan laughing hysterically in the waiting room as they talked to another crime victim.  This guy must have told them a hell of a funny story and, of course, I was missing out on all the fun.

After the detective got my story, he put me in front of a computer to look at mug shots.  I entered different criteria (e.g. approximate age, height, weight, complexion, etc.).  But while I was looking at pictures of men, I saw a few pictures of women.  The detective looked over my shoulder and said:

“Those aren’t women.”

Yikes.  Dudes dressed as girls.  And in mug shots no less.

I couldn’t pick out anyone that looked familiar in the mug shots, so I went back into the waiting area while Ryan and Hank took their respective turns telling their versions of the story.  At one point, while Hank was telling his story and taking a particularly long time to do so, Ryan and I wondered aloud: How can a blind guy tell such a long story about what happened?  Mean perhaps, but it’s what we were thinking then, impatient to go back to Ryan’s apartment and finally call it a night.

After all was said and done, the three of us got a ride back to Ryan’s apartment with another cop in a normal cop car.  One item of particular interest: the back seat was one piece of plastic.  The cop explained that this made it easy to wipe blood and other bodily fluids off the seat.  Also, there was a drain in the bottom of the car, so you could hose the back seat down.  Yikes again.

We drove through Chinatown—don’t ever eat there, the cop warned us, they have rats so big they could steal a baby—chatted with the cop, laughed, and finally ended our mugging ordeal.  A fitting end for Ryan’s last night in Philadelphia.

Now part III of my Philly story.  To start at part I, click here.

An unmarked police car, a blue, American-made four-door, pulled up in a matter of minutes.  Two plain-clothes officers sat in the front seats.  “Get in,” on of them said with urgency.

Ryan and I jumped into the back seat.  Hank struggled with his guitar and gear, and asked the officers if they could open the car’s trunk.  But there was no time for that.  We sped away and left Hank standing at the curb.

“Where did it happen?” the driver asked.  He had his window down and appeared to have a wad of chewing tobacco tucked behind his bottom lip.  He spat brown tobacco juice out the open window.

“I don’t know,” Ryan said.  “Somewhere down this street.  I lost my sandals.”

Moments later we stopped in the middle of the street.  Ryan jumped out and grabbed his sandals from the spot where we were mugged.

“Did they have a gun?” the other officer asked as we continued on.

Before I could say anything, Ryan said, “No, they didn’t.”

How could he be so sure?  I added, “Well, they said they had a gun.”  Ryan gave me a look.

“But they said they had a gun, right?” one officer said.

Ryan conceded that one of the muggers had said he had a gun.

We sped through streets and alleys.  Other marked police cars showed up, criss-crossing paths with our car, sirens wailing, trying to close in on any of the guys that had attacked us.

But too much time had passed.  This was soon clear to all of us in the car.  We soon slowed our pursuit.  We now meandered through the streets at the speed limit, and the cops chatted with one another.  At one point, the officers stopped by a nearby park.  A young couple were seated on a bench, hugging.  The driving officer shined his light on them and told them the park was closed.

The muggers had gotten away; it was painfully obvious at this point.  The cops didn’t seem too surprised, though, and, frankly, neither were Ryan or I.

We drove back to our starting point, picked up Hank, who had been chatting it up with the two guys who called the police, and then made our way to the police station.  Our long night still wasn’t over.

To be continued…

Sorry to interrupt my Philadelphia Story again, but I had to let you all know about my latest tale of woe.

Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we?  It has been raining for three days straight here in California at the time this is being written.  Serious rain.  Torrential rain. 

I had the day off.  And I was bored.  Tired of sitting around my apartment and staring at the walls, I decided that the rain wasn’t coming down that hard, and I prepared to venture out into the world.  I got into my car and headed towards the freeway.

Things looked bad, however.  Roads were partially flooded, and everyone was driving slowly or like an idiot.  But I pressed forward.

I got on the freeway and was moving along pretty well; but the rain was coming down in sheets over my windshield, and I had to pay extra close attention to the road ahead of me.  Then I asked myself: What the heck am I doing?  I shouldn’t be driving in this weather.  Nuts to this!

So, I got off the freeway, turned around, and got back on the freeway to head home.  But when I was about to merge—my lane was ending—I saw an ominous object on the road.  It was a fist-sized chuck of black asphalt.  I managed to drive around this mass, but as I did so, I saw up in the distance a pile of fist-sized asphalt chunks.  I didn’t know what to do.  I looked to the lane on my left—there was a car there.  I couldn’t get over.  Behind me some jerk in a pickup on my ass.  I couldn’t brake, either.  So, I forged ahead, toward the pile of debris.

Bam!  My front right tire went in and out of a giant pot hole.  I thought, I sure hope my tire is okay.

Oh, but faithful readers, you know all too well about my many tire troubles!

I didn’t take me long to realize I had a flat.  I pulled over immediately.  I climbed out of my car via the passenger-side door and saw that, yes, my front right tire was flat.  The rain washed over me.  I made quick work to change the tire, but with the rain, the mud and gravel, and the traffic rushing by, it took me about fifteen minutes to put on the spare.

I climbed back in the car, soaked and exhausted, and drove home, where I promptly threw off my wet clothes, hopped in a hot shower, and then, later, drank hot chocolate.  All the while, I was shaking my head in disbelief that yet again I had another tire tale of woe.