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I used to have some job, and I was buddies with a guy there. Every now and then we'd amuse ourselves by pranking people.
Somehow we came up with the idea that I was a Civil War re-enactor. A gay Civil War re-enactor. He went around telling people this. I didn't mind. Some of the people were sweet and extremely helpful, letting me know when Civil War events were planned in their towns.
I found an online group of actual gay Civil War re-enactors. Mostly it consisted of naked photos of really beefy guys in washtubs, which I'm okay with. Oh — and cigars for some reason.
One day I Photoshopped my face onto a group photo of Civil War-type people. It circulated in the office. Everything was cool until someone noticed I was wearing a wedding ring. Oopsk. So my buddy came up with this elaborate story that I had a dead lover and couldn't get past it. He told this to people.
It ceased being fun after that. I don't like going to the dead place if it isn't true. Very bad.
Then an enormously overweight woman sexually harrassed me and I lost my job! Damn it!
In 1988 I worked on a book published to commemorate the 25th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination. It consisted of a bunch of celebrities writing about what they were doing when they heard Kennedy was shot. John Travolta's contribution was hand-written. One of the submissions came in on a cocktail napkin.
It made me think back to that fateful day in 1963. I was five years old, in kindergarten. Our parents took turns driving the kids to and from school. It was Patty Sweeney's mom's turn to drive that day. She was grim-faced as we got into the car.
"Hurry up," she said. "The president's been shot." It was raining.
She took us all right back to her house because, let's face it, that was the best television programming anyone had ever seen. Patty and I played a game while her mom poured herself a little drink, weeping. Her husband was a doctor. They had a big Mediterranean console TV in the bedroom. She stripped down to her bra and panty-girdle and sat on the carpet, massaging her feet and weeping. It was an awkward sight.
Years later, I related this story to a friend and he said, "No wonder you're gay. You associate naked women with the shooting of the president."
Another friend of mine wasn't so lucky. Her father brought home a big block of feta cheese that day. Her sister told her it was a puppy. She's still confused.
Monday: Gay Civil War Reenactors!
"Hey fella! That's Woodrow Frikkin Wilson you're sculpting there! How about a little size on that puppy? A little heft? Some gravitas, perhaps? He looks a bit twee, doncha think? Huh buddy? Huh?"
William Clark Noble looks back at me through the truncated abscesses of time and thinks, "Idiot."
And he'd be right. No doubt about it.
There's an Asian restaurant up the street from me called Spices DC. It's quite good. I'm not a big fan of Asian cuisine, as it tends to send me reeling for the nearest bathroom stall within minutes of ingestion, but Spices is different. For some reason, it's a kinder, gentler Asian fusion.
Spices has the hottest dish I have ever eaten. It's called Suicide Curry. It's available in chicken, beef, or shrimp flavors. I get the chicken. It's hot. It's beyond hot. It's torture. And yet, it's so delicious that I cannot stop eating it. It has the most satisfying gestalt I've ever encountered. A perfect blend of pleasure and pain. Laugh and cry simultaneously. Scream and then say, "Mmmmm."
I can't describe it's greatness.
I never would have thought about going to Spices but for the insidious grift of the French restaurant next door. It advertised a pre-theater price-fixe dinner (the theater being the Uptown, Washington's last standing movie palace). Sounded like a good deal — three courses for $25 a head. Some of my adorable friends went there on a mass outing, only to find that they were victims of a merciless bait-and-switch. Offended, they left the establishment and stumbled upon Spices, which no one had ever noticed before. The next day, one of them called me and asked, "Have you ever been to Spices?'
And thus I began burning my taste buds to a crisp whenever my budget permitted.
Tomorrow: Husker Du?
Back in 1995, I helped organize a workplace jaunt to an amusement park near Richmond, Virginia. It was a Saturday afternoon, slightly overcast but otherwise warm, a perfect day to waste standing in line for roller-coasters. We pooled cars and everyone was enthusiastic. It was an "unauthorized" work trip, so we all felt just a little bit bad.
I've always been a big dark ride fan. You know — spookhouses. At the age of five I was traumatized beyond belief by a trip to Marshall Hall Amusement Park on the Potomac River near Mount Vernon. First, my siblings took me on the big roller coaster. There were no height requirements in 1963. I just remember that the restraining bar wasn't built for a toddler, so I spent the whole time clinging to something — anything — to avoid being thrown from the car. I managed to keep a brave face.
Later, I was beaten senseless in Laff In The Dark, a pitch-black, walk-through maze in which the large children lay in wait to rough up the small ones. I emerged, tearful, terrified, and was hit by powerful air jets, much to the amusement of the assembled crowed. I must admit that, nowadays, if I saw a shrieking five-year-old running out of a dark maze get hit by rude blasts of air, I'd have a hearty laugh or two.
(But one rarely sees that sort of thing anymore.)
From that day forward, I felt that spookhouses owed me something.
So on that day in 1995 I was anxious to try the "Haunted Mountain," a largish blob involving water and flumes and God-knew-what-else. The line outside was huge. We waited for quite a long time, until it was our turn to board the log. In we went.
Now, there was a problem with the Haunted Mountain. Apparently it was about to be decommissioned. We loomed into a void. Here and there we glimpsed dead scares through ambient light, but those were mostly in tatters. The flume went up and up, but there was nothing to look at. It smelled like mildew. People started making disparaging remarks. Occasionally we'd come across some park employees dismantling things under the glare of work lights. That was all. Then there was daylight up ahead. One of the workers was tilted back in a chair with a door propped open, talking on a radio phone.
A sudden drop, and everyone was drenched. A mean drop. I banged my leg on the side of the flume. The log slowly came to a stop with four sopping, miserable creatures inside.
A haunted pussy.
Tomorrow: Sculpture and Food!
The title of this post comes from the inscription on songwriter Johnny Mercer's grave. It's a nice sentiment. I wonder if Mr. Mercer stood around and watched the stone being inscribed. Imagine the annoyance of the guy doing the carving, wondering if Johnny was going to change his mind mid-cut. Do you suppose he kept reminding Johnny that the slab of marble being worked on was extremely expensive? I would.
The salient features of my neighborhood are two mammoth hotels, the Omni Shoreham and the Wardman Park Marriott. Both are loaded with history. The Wardman Park was once residential, and housed notables like J. Edgar Hoover. The Shoreham is quite haunted. You can see Denzel Washington dashing from its front doors in The Pelican Brief. He's not running from the ghosts. He's acting in a movie.
The nice thing about living with two hotels nearby is that the neighborhood demographic changes constantly. The not-so-nice thing is as follows:
Woodley Park Metro station serves both hotels and the rest of the neighborhood. It has one of the tallest escalators in the world. I suppose that confronting such a thing for the first time would be daunting. Those of us who live here trot down the steps, anxious to get to our destinations. We're busy. We need to be somewhere. The freakishly long escalator is a nuisance.
To our city's visitors, the escalator is a thrill ride. They scream and gasp when they get to the edge, then pile on en masse, chit-chatting and making merry on their leisurely ride to the bottom. This is especially annoying at rush hour. To those of us who live and work here, they cease to be human beings. They become obstacles.
One needs to balance one's irritation with these folks. They're on vacation. They want to relax. They spend tremendous amounts of money in this city. And, frankly, when they clog the stairs, there's no way of getting around them short of mosh-diving their heads and hoping they help out. Otherwise, serious injury could result.
And the angels sing.
Tomorrow: The Haunted Pussy!
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