Good Night

I'm sitting here in my big, black, manly poppa chair in my living room, looking over the report page for this podcast. It's interesting that we call this podcast Goodnight. Because it looks like you mostly download it in the overnight hours. I don't know when you actually listen, of course, but I'm hoping you also do that at night. I loved being on the air at night. Even all night. Because nights get lonely, and I liked being the guy who showed up when the lonely was getting a little tough and nasty.

What are friends for, if not to break each other's crystal balls. I took a baseball bat to my buddy Eric's today. Eric's had some tough breaks recently. I mean tough. Not just stuff like it's pouring rain, and your dog won't do anything but sniff around, or after an evening of passion you notice that the empty condom packet in the wastebasket is labeled, "Made in China"...or the milk you just poured on your Cheerios smells funny.

Eric's had his head handed to him. Lady stuff. The kind of thing that has you staying awake all night watching ESPN's six hour special called "Legends Of Miniature Golf." He told me he woke up this morning and found his clothes scattered all over the floor...and he was still wearing them. He's really down, and this has been going on for a while. It's called a depression. Most Louie-Louie Generation folks have had a few of them. They can make you feel like an exchange student from the Twilight Zone.

I just came out of the closet, and I found a long lost treasure in there. Let me be very clear what I mean by coming out of my closet. I've been looking at the bulge in the door of my office closet, where I keep my stuff. You know...my stuff. My reel to reel tape recorder, my back issues of Time magazine, my living room lava lamps...you've probably got a closet full of stuff like that too. And I figured that since I can't finish the job I was planning on doing...cutting the grass...I might as well take on the battle of the bulge...the bulge in the door.

Big Louie, his own bad self, always says, "This is a hit and miss life. There's nothing in between." And as almost always, he's right. Brian Williams, on the other hand, keeps reporting on TV, that there are near misses all over the place...in the air and in politics...everywhere. And he's wrong. There are no near misses.

Think about it. If I look out the windscreen of my little four seat airplane, and it is completely full of the business end of a 747's right inboard jet engine...I hope we have a complete miss...not a near miss. If we have a near miss, the airline captain and I are going to very quickly become much more intimate than either one of us want to think about. And the same principle applies to women.

Because I am a Louie-Louie Generation Gentleman, I still call a very young woman..."Miss." I think miss is an appropriate and descriptive term for a young woman who has probably been hit on by plenty of Pimple People guys...but so far they have all missed. I think that's where we got the term "miss."

I'm sitting on that 3 place swing set that was made in China, with parts from Burma that I told you about a while ago. It looks like the one Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon were sitting on at the end of the movie. It's under a tree by our driveway.

I'm just sitting here waiting for my Lady Wonder Wench to get back from spurring on the economy. I always unload the packages from the trunk...and there are always lots of packages to un-load. So I'm just sitting here keeping busy by watching my grass grow...which is a good thing to do on a hot and sticky Summer afternoon.

Actually, the grass I'm watching is a just a little clump right next to the garage. I call it my grass, because I'm from Brooklyn. And this is the first grass I ever planted. The rest of the grass came with the house. This grass...I planted myself. I've planted much more important growing things...like kids, and ideas, and even a few hopes. But this is...some kind of a new experience for me. This is weird. But you're probably used to that in these podcasts by now. But I've actually had some no word conversations with my grass.

I'm being quiet...sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room. I'm being quiet, because I just heard a little click from across the room, where my Lady Wonder Wench is sitting on the couch doing her needlepoint. I'm pretty sure her fingernails made that click.

I like the fact that her fingernails are long enough to make a click like that for several reasons. One's obvious. Even to the pimple people. It has to do with the terrible need for a slow, thorough scratching a Louie-Louie Generation guy's back develops over time. I don't know if Pimple People guys have the same problem. But I have a deep, heavy duty, emergency level, need for long, luxurious, ladylike, fingernails slipping up my spine...starting all the way down at the bottom...slowly skittering up between my shoulders... sneaking into the hair on the back of my neck...and s c r a t c h I n g my head...all the way around to my forehead. Oh it feels good... just talking about it.

I am not sitting in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair. Right now, I'm hangin in my hammock...out on my back deck...under the trees. There should be a hammock hangin song. Maybe a rapper.

Hangin in my hammock, looking up at the trees,

If you have any problems don't tell me 'bout them please.

Just a t shirt and jeans, no suit, tie or shoes.

Can't help smilin and rockin, and takin a snooze.

It's Summertime, Summertime, Sum, Sum, Sumertime... Summertime. Summertime, and the livin is easy. And ol' Summertime's got me. I guess you get the point.

I'm sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room, wrapping another toy airplane to send to the newest member of our family, three year old Cecilia. Cecilia had to bring our daughter Kris along when she came to visit us a few months ago, because the airlines don't let three year olds fly alone.

Cecelia is that kind of three year old. Cecilia lives near a small airport, and Kris has taken her to see the small planes take off and land many times, much to Cecilia's delight. So she was really looking forward to flying in a big plane to see us. And she wasn't disappointed.

I am sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable black leather poppa chair in my living room, admiring my Lady Wonder Wench's curves. No, not those curves. The curves in her handwriting. She's working on her new novel, and she likes to write in handwriting. Cursive they call it.

It is used almost exclusively by highly evolved human females. My lady wrote a beautiful blog about Cursive just the other day. When she finished it, she closed her computer and gave me a smile like I first saw on the face of the girl who sat in front of me in the 4th grade at St. Gregory's grammar school in Brooklyn.

Her name was Kathleen McMullen. She was very smart. Every time Sister Mary Knucklebuster asked a question, Kathleen raised her hand with the correct answer. I couldn't stand her. She had pigtails. I dipped them in the inkwell every time she leaned back.

We're starting our seventh year together. Lucky seven. Some of you have been with us all the way, and some of you just jumped in tonight. Good and thanks to both.

But some people aren't with us. And you know, I think they're really missing something. I hope you'll tell them about the huddle we have here.

It's like a football huddle...lots of us gathered around, to help each other get to the goal...which is making it through the night...every night.

We've been around long enough to know that the night can get pretty dark, and there are bad guys out there on the other team. You can't keep running the same plays, and expect to make any yardage. You've got to come up with some new wrinkles if you want to score.