Wednesday, September 26, 2001 6:21:08 PM
Basement - deep in the hole (A glass of Merlot - Bill Evans Conversation with Myself)
Books confound me. There are those who say it is a problem, all these books that I have. I look up, innocent as all get out, I don't, I say slowly and deliberately, go to a saloon and come home a whole lot of sheets to the wind, singing bawdy versions of Walking Your Baby Back Home (Oh did we have the lyrics for that one, or These Foolish Things Remind Me of You, absolutely scandalous the poetry of those lines verbally spit in front of the ship port bathroom window of the Eastwood Show on a hot Friday evening.) I don't spend my paycheck on the lottery! (I am convinced that I will find a legitimate lottery ticket tucked in as a book marker from some obscure volume (perhaps Goethe in Drag) that I purchase from a thift store and will cash it in for a cool couple hundred million. That is the extent of my gambling. In Biloxi MS I did not spend even one quarter on the twinkling machines at the Beau Rivage. I was there for four days for a conference.) I don't take women who are way too young for me out on extravagant dates in hopes of getting laid. (This last I have been considering, but it turns out that books are much more reasonable.) What I hope to get across with all this sophistry is that as a vice, this owning of copious books is low the totem pole. How many Hail Marys?
So, I was at Half Price Books the other day and I see a girl way too young for me putting copies of what looks like the full fifteen volumes of Samuel Eliot Morison’s History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. I have only seen a volume here or there and I own his Two Ocean War Abridgement. I get closer (and yes I did have a sexual fantasy or two, but the ring through her upper lip gave me pause) and there they are - fully dust jacketed. All fifteen! What to do? I can't afford them all! My credit cards grumble in my back pocket. I think heavy, agonize, then buy the first three volumes. I will be back next pay check for three more and in five weeks I will own the set.
It is now three weeks later. I own the set and it happened like this. The following week less than half of the volumes are left. Don’t tell me there aren't others out there with large fangs trying to foil my every move! And, more tragedy, volume four is missing - Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions. I settle for five, six and fourteen. This is not good! I travel, two days later, across the city and see in another location another mall, that there is only one copy of Four (Ahh!), Nine and Fifteen. I grab them! Hold them tight to my breast. My cards sing shrilly and growl as the fluorescent light is revealed, the clink of cash register, the bite of the swipe.
I travel to Columbus, OH, where there are three Half Price Books locations. In one I get all the rest but volume ten and volume thirteen. I am in a collector’s tizzy! Maybe there is something psychologically complex to this ranting book fever that I exhibit. A mad passion that sends me reeling through three stores and two cities.
This morning while running an errand I stopped, heart in my mouth, at the original store and on the shelves are the two remaining volumes. I salivate then sigh. It is a feeling akin to sexual release and possibly the satisfaction of nirvana. The completeness that I feel. There are those that say I have too many books! How many is too many? I'm going to call Heather tonight. Maybe she'll remove the lip ring for one evening.
Wednesday, September 26, 2001
Tuesday, September 25, 2001
Tuesday, September 25, 2001 6:59:25 AM
Starbuck's McKnight Road Coffee and scone
I am relatively fresh back from a trip to Columbus Ohio. For what reason I give you a straight answer. Every year in order to retain the certificates (Refrigeration and HVAC), which as of 9/17/01 carry the POWER of licenses, that are assigned to me as a contractor in the State of Ohio; I must be (yea and verily) renewed. That renewal takes the form of 10 hours of training in Ohio law, safety, regulations and, of course, some cash. It is not a daunting ten hours that has me running the gauntlet, regulators lined up on both sides of the hotel lobby, pelting me with loose leaf pages stripped from the BOCA Building Code, OSHA devils flagellating me with fall protection harnesses, college professors beating me with plaster busts of Newton spewing the Second Law of Thermodynamics, nevertheless it takes its toll. I begin to wonder.
What, I am saying to myself (and parenthetically to you) does any of this have to do with comedy. It's a cold world out there. Too flip! I've got this stuff down cold! Not even true. Cold fusion? Well, that was a joke! Hey, here's a little known principal. The act of making things cold is actually the process of removing heat. Okay, so about twenty-five years ago I quit a job as traffic manager at a television production center, after a really miserable stint as Program Director at a community radio station and took a job at a commercial refrigeration company run by a maniac. Out, as is said, of one really big black bottomed sizzling frying pan into one particularly virulent wild fire. But it turned out that I really liked refrigeration and all the intricacies that it placed on my palette. It tickled me brain! The funny thing was that the closer I chased the subject, the closer I got to my essence. Just like writing. Just like comedy. It all comes down to the same thing! Comedy/Refrigeration an unlikely Janus perhaps. But I am pleased to wear both faces. Waiter!? An ice cube or two for my mint julep, perhaps a TV dinner! Oh, yes, put on the tellie, Neddy Seagoon or Monty Python, I think?
Starbuck's McKnight Road Coffee and scone
I am relatively fresh back from a trip to Columbus Ohio. For what reason I give you a straight answer. Every year in order to retain the certificates (Refrigeration and HVAC), which as of 9/17/01 carry the POWER of licenses, that are assigned to me as a contractor in the State of Ohio; I must be (yea and verily) renewed. That renewal takes the form of 10 hours of training in Ohio law, safety, regulations and, of course, some cash. It is not a daunting ten hours that has me running the gauntlet, regulators lined up on both sides of the hotel lobby, pelting me with loose leaf pages stripped from the BOCA Building Code, OSHA devils flagellating me with fall protection harnesses, college professors beating me with plaster busts of Newton spewing the Second Law of Thermodynamics, nevertheless it takes its toll. I begin to wonder.
What, I am saying to myself (and parenthetically to you) does any of this have to do with comedy. It's a cold world out there. Too flip! I've got this stuff down cold! Not even true. Cold fusion? Well, that was a joke! Hey, here's a little known principal. The act of making things cold is actually the process of removing heat. Okay, so about twenty-five years ago I quit a job as traffic manager at a television production center, after a really miserable stint as Program Director at a community radio station and took a job at a commercial refrigeration company run by a maniac. Out, as is said, of one really big black bottomed sizzling frying pan into one particularly virulent wild fire. But it turned out that I really liked refrigeration and all the intricacies that it placed on my palette. It tickled me brain! The funny thing was that the closer I chased the subject, the closer I got to my essence. Just like writing. Just like comedy. It all comes down to the same thing! Comedy/Refrigeration an unlikely Janus perhaps. But I am pleased to wear both faces. Waiter!? An ice cube or two for my mint julep, perhaps a TV dinner! Oh, yes, put on the tellie, Neddy Seagoon or Monty Python, I think?
Monday, September 24, 2001
Monday, September 24, 2001 6:06:37 PM
Rainy day blog
It is my habit, after dinner, to go out on to the patio, on which I spent many hours earlier this summer, perspiring, fighting off insects of unimaginable dimensions (Walter Reed fought no more daring battles), cutting thorn infested bushes with a machete, digging, cleaning then carrying huge heavy white stones a furlong or further (I know, brothers, how the Druids suffered on the Salisbury Plains), in short (which I admit is almost never my choice of expression) building a backyard patio compete with wooden picnic table and tacky blue and white shade umbrella (nowhere the word Perrier, nor does Calvin Klein, much as I suspect he might like to, adorn my ass). And have a glass or two of some fine Italian wine. (I know California and France make better, but I am really happy with a Sangiovese or some other grape that grows in the Tuscan hills). And write. Alas this evening a drizzle and a grey dead sky bracket the stones of my labor.
So I sit deep in the basement listening to Ornette Coleman and make some necessary corrections to my Blog entries.
I have been chastised. Mea Culpa! I was (and am I suppose) as I mentioned, the Highh Hheen of Lackzoom Acidophilus, but I got all the other titles wrong. Marc was Loww Hhheen, Foley was Double Splagg, Dean was Single Splagg, and Phil was the Treasurer. I almost apologize for any inconvenience I have caused by spewing forth this egregious and incorrect information.
On to the anvil. You will take my anvil over my dead cold.....well I don't really feel that strongly about it, but I would put up a great scratching screeching fight, you beasts! The anvil is a noble tool. Just you go to Danville during the Annual Anvil Celebration, put on by the local Red Grange Ghost Society and see what a festive feast is placed on your pewter platter. And, oi!, the iron pills. It just gives me the shivery fits! Which is also how I feel about my pants in the morning after a dozen or two donuts!
I will not at this time tell y'all how to get in touch with either the Anvil Workers of America or the Anvil Anti-Defamation League. When the two groups got together after an evening of beating dented metals the acronym AWAAAL was created and then later incorporated into a blues hollar that is sung to this day on most parchment farms down in Loosiana, while the prisoners whap heavy sledges on to the hot surfaces of their - dare I say it - Forged Steel America Made ANVILS! AWAAL!
Okay, I've said what I wanted in the most obscure way possible. It is time to move on to other things, but Ornette, Don, Billy and Charlie are done and the wine is but a sip (Now it is even less) - so adieu until the morrow and really parting ain't all that bad!
Rainy day blog
It is my habit, after dinner, to go out on to the patio, on which I spent many hours earlier this summer, perspiring, fighting off insects of unimaginable dimensions (Walter Reed fought no more daring battles), cutting thorn infested bushes with a machete, digging, cleaning then carrying huge heavy white stones a furlong or further (I know, brothers, how the Druids suffered on the Salisbury Plains), in short (which I admit is almost never my choice of expression) building a backyard patio compete with wooden picnic table and tacky blue and white shade umbrella (nowhere the word Perrier, nor does Calvin Klein, much as I suspect he might like to, adorn my ass). And have a glass or two of some fine Italian wine. (I know California and France make better, but I am really happy with a Sangiovese or some other grape that grows in the Tuscan hills). And write. Alas this evening a drizzle and a grey dead sky bracket the stones of my labor.
So I sit deep in the basement listening to Ornette Coleman and make some necessary corrections to my Blog entries.
I have been chastised. Mea Culpa! I was (and am I suppose) as I mentioned, the Highh Hheen of Lackzoom Acidophilus, but I got all the other titles wrong. Marc was Loww Hhheen, Foley was Double Splagg, Dean was Single Splagg, and Phil was the Treasurer. I almost apologize for any inconvenience I have caused by spewing forth this egregious and incorrect information.
On to the anvil. You will take my anvil over my dead cold.....well I don't really feel that strongly about it, but I would put up a great scratching screeching fight, you beasts! The anvil is a noble tool. Just you go to Danville during the Annual Anvil Celebration, put on by the local Red Grange Ghost Society and see what a festive feast is placed on your pewter platter. And, oi!, the iron pills. It just gives me the shivery fits! Which is also how I feel about my pants in the morning after a dozen or two donuts!
I will not at this time tell y'all how to get in touch with either the Anvil Workers of America or the Anvil Anti-Defamation League. When the two groups got together after an evening of beating dented metals the acronym AWAAAL was created and then later incorporated into a blues hollar that is sung to this day on most parchment farms down in Loosiana, while the prisoners whap heavy sledges on to the hot surfaces of their - dare I say it - Forged Steel America Made ANVILS! AWAAL!
Okay, I've said what I wanted in the most obscure way possible. It is time to move on to other things, but Ornette, Don, Billy and Charlie are done and the wine is but a sip (Now it is even less) - so adieu until the morrow and really parting ain't all that bad!
Tuesday, September 18, 2001
Tuesday, September 18, 2001 5:46:29 PM
It happens every night. It is an obsession I will admit to, not freely, mind you, but with grave worries about the state of mental acuity.
I sit down to dinner. This evening it was some chicken and rice in a mushroom sauce nicely cooked by my mother. I descended into the basement, sat at a table and turned on the TV. I should read, I know, I have so much to read! I flip around the channels, there is Emeril preparing a chicken in rice with a nice mushroom sauce, there is the recycled newscast, and there is a western about a dead horse on AMC, and then I find it. The Pennsylvania Channel or whatever it's called and tonight, so help me, and I think I do need some kind of help, there is a visit to a knitting factory in Hometown, PA. I watch. I chew. I forget to gulp!
Can you remember the joy of a program called Industry on Parade on Sunday mornings? I would sit with about fifteen meat ball sandwiches and a bottle of Vernor's Ginger Ale and feast on plants in America that made shell casings, sausage casings, or beer cases and gyros and nuts, bolts and grommets, glass windows, aluminum extrudings, pig metal castings, airplane wheels, automotive oil and soap. Man, I loved that program. And the Pennsylvania Channel delivers same! I swear I watched for about three hours one night when a factory in Warren, PA made a fire truck. I am most definitely hooked.
It was with some sadness that I realized that I do not belong to an industry that would ever be featured on this most worthy of cable channels.
ME: Hi! (I might say to the camera), my name is Joe and I would like to take you around the comedy factory at Lackzoom Acidophilus.
CUT TO: EXT: Dean's house on the South Side
ME: Here is the entry to the comedy factory. We'd better knock!
DEAN: Well, Hi, to all you nice folks come on in. The place is a mess but comedy is a sloppy business.
FADE: INT A long room that leads to the kitchen. A desk with gads of computer paraphernalia that cascades into metal and plastic boxes full of blinking electronics on the floor, an audio mixer set on an end table and three mics on stands with loops of cable tossed artistically about the black heavy metal bases.
ME: Here is where we make the actual comedy. But (I smile for the camera) it is only one end of a long process. We sometimes sit for hours and throw lines at one another that somehow transform into the brand of humor that we practice.
CUT TO: INT Three people sitting around a kitchen table. Scraps of congealing dinner on the plates in front of them and various colors of liquids in jelly jars that we sip.
FOLEY: I don't think the chicken would cross the road, Joe.
ME: Oh!?
DEAN: I just flew in from Akron and boy are my arms tired!
ME AND FOLEY: Cleveland!
ME (Still smiling at the camera with a knowing grin): Once the writing is down. It's time for the performance!
FADE TO: Three faces huddled about and three microphones
DEAN (Italian accent that turns Irish): And at these prices you won't get any!
FOLEY: (Scottish accent that turns Yinser): That'll be three fitty, Mac!
ME (Simian accent that turns Jewish): So, nu you've done it.
ME (I turn to the camera): We then mix all these comical hijinks with sound effects and music.
CUT TO: INT. Dean madly moving a mouse about a computer screen that has all kinds of scrolling squiggly lines, then hitting a mini disc recorder soundly with the back of his hand while holding a patch cable tight to the audio in of the sound card.
ME: And finally we turn all of this stuff into a CD.
FADE TO: INT. The three of us staring with mad glazed eyes, silent with our thoughts as the computer screen ticks off the number of bytes that have been copied.
The more I think about it.... I'll bet they have a phone number when they flash the channel ID.
It happens every night. It is an obsession I will admit to, not freely, mind you, but with grave worries about the state of mental acuity.
I sit down to dinner. This evening it was some chicken and rice in a mushroom sauce nicely cooked by my mother. I descended into the basement, sat at a table and turned on the TV. I should read, I know, I have so much to read! I flip around the channels, there is Emeril preparing a chicken in rice with a nice mushroom sauce, there is the recycled newscast, and there is a western about a dead horse on AMC, and then I find it. The Pennsylvania Channel or whatever it's called and tonight, so help me, and I think I do need some kind of help, there is a visit to a knitting factory in Hometown, PA. I watch. I chew. I forget to gulp!
Can you remember the joy of a program called Industry on Parade on Sunday mornings? I would sit with about fifteen meat ball sandwiches and a bottle of Vernor's Ginger Ale and feast on plants in America that made shell casings, sausage casings, or beer cases and gyros and nuts, bolts and grommets, glass windows, aluminum extrudings, pig metal castings, airplane wheels, automotive oil and soap. Man, I loved that program. And the Pennsylvania Channel delivers same! I swear I watched for about three hours one night when a factory in Warren, PA made a fire truck. I am most definitely hooked.
It was with some sadness that I realized that I do not belong to an industry that would ever be featured on this most worthy of cable channels.
ME: Hi! (I might say to the camera), my name is Joe and I would like to take you around the comedy factory at Lackzoom Acidophilus.
CUT TO: EXT: Dean's house on the South Side
ME: Here is the entry to the comedy factory. We'd better knock!
DEAN: Well, Hi, to all you nice folks come on in. The place is a mess but comedy is a sloppy business.
FADE: INT A long room that leads to the kitchen. A desk with gads of computer paraphernalia that cascades into metal and plastic boxes full of blinking electronics on the floor, an audio mixer set on an end table and three mics on stands with loops of cable tossed artistically about the black heavy metal bases.
ME: Here is where we make the actual comedy. But (I smile for the camera) it is only one end of a long process. We sometimes sit for hours and throw lines at one another that somehow transform into the brand of humor that we practice.
CUT TO: INT Three people sitting around a kitchen table. Scraps of congealing dinner on the plates in front of them and various colors of liquids in jelly jars that we sip.
FOLEY: I don't think the chicken would cross the road, Joe.
ME: Oh!?
DEAN: I just flew in from Akron and boy are my arms tired!
ME AND FOLEY: Cleveland!
ME (Still smiling at the camera with a knowing grin): Once the writing is down. It's time for the performance!
FADE TO: Three faces huddled about and three microphones
DEAN (Italian accent that turns Irish): And at these prices you won't get any!
FOLEY: (Scottish accent that turns Yinser): That'll be three fitty, Mac!
ME (Simian accent that turns Jewish): So, nu you've done it.
ME (I turn to the camera): We then mix all these comical hijinks with sound effects and music.
CUT TO: INT. Dean madly moving a mouse about a computer screen that has all kinds of scrolling squiggly lines, then hitting a mini disc recorder soundly with the back of his hand while holding a patch cable tight to the audio in of the sound card.
ME: And finally we turn all of this stuff into a CD.
FADE TO: INT. The three of us staring with mad glazed eyes, silent with our thoughts as the computer screen ticks off the number of bytes that have been copied.
The more I think about it.... I'll bet they have a phone number when they flash the channel ID.
Monday, September 17, 2001
Monday, September 17, 2001 5:42:09 PM
I'm sitting in the back yard, comfortable on the picnic table, the umbrella is flying full mast and picks up gushes of wind which threaten to sail me off to Borneo or some such exotic location. Bees buzz around my glass of wine, a peppery Valpolicella from somewhere close to Venizia. Ain't modern commerce a wonder?
And apples are falling. Falling with an appalling frequency in the heavy breeze. I have asked my mother but she assures me these apples are no good. "No pies?" I moan, stricken. I live on Orchard Drive and right next, as I realized about a week ago, to the orchard that gave the street its name. Not the brightest bulb in the incandescent luminescence. Eventually I get it. I have lived here for almost six years and have gazed upon the trees that separate the neighboring house from ours every single day without ever associating the tract of land with an orchard.
There are apple and pear trees and they only serve the function of making mowing the lawn a sticky torture and getting the local fauna drunk. No kidding. The fruit ferments, soggy and soft. I saw a cock-eyed turkey bobbing for apples down by the vegetable garden and I swear he was singing about a dead man's chest. And the bees. They don't sting; they just congregate and buzz some honey dipped gossip while they try to get passed the cork that I am forced to stuff back into the wine bottle. It's madness here in the autumn!
The squirrels and the deer sit on their haunches and sing doo wop favorites. Available. I might add, for just $21.95 on three CD's. Just the other day I saw three raccoons streaking, each carrying dancing chipmunks on their backs. Fetching little dervishes!
I look forward to the bleak black and whiteness of winter. I may just haul the old laptop out and chop ice from the top of the table, brush the snow from the seat, boot it up to this journal and write and drink my wine in peace!
I'm sitting in the back yard, comfortable on the picnic table, the umbrella is flying full mast and picks up gushes of wind which threaten to sail me off to Borneo or some such exotic location. Bees buzz around my glass of wine, a peppery Valpolicella from somewhere close to Venizia. Ain't modern commerce a wonder?
And apples are falling. Falling with an appalling frequency in the heavy breeze. I have asked my mother but she assures me these apples are no good. "No pies?" I moan, stricken. I live on Orchard Drive and right next, as I realized about a week ago, to the orchard that gave the street its name. Not the brightest bulb in the incandescent luminescence. Eventually I get it. I have lived here for almost six years and have gazed upon the trees that separate the neighboring house from ours every single day without ever associating the tract of land with an orchard.
There are apple and pear trees and they only serve the function of making mowing the lawn a sticky torture and getting the local fauna drunk. No kidding. The fruit ferments, soggy and soft. I saw a cock-eyed turkey bobbing for apples down by the vegetable garden and I swear he was singing about a dead man's chest. And the bees. They don't sting; they just congregate and buzz some honey dipped gossip while they try to get passed the cork that I am forced to stuff back into the wine bottle. It's madness here in the autumn!
The squirrels and the deer sit on their haunches and sing doo wop favorites. Available. I might add, for just $21.95 on three CD's. Just the other day I saw three raccoons streaking, each carrying dancing chipmunks on their backs. Fetching little dervishes!
I look forward to the bleak black and whiteness of winter. I may just haul the old laptop out and chop ice from the top of the table, brush the snow from the seat, boot it up to this journal and write and drink my wine in peace!
Sunday, September 16, 2001 7:55:10 AM
My friends laugh at me because I have an anvil!
Now, I've had the anvil for a long time. Never once as much as chuckled. One clean-up day at a place that I used to work, the anvil's usefulness came into question in light of tight shop space. I took it home. It languished for years in the basement buried under the detritus of seldom used tools, hardware and books. Then I moved. Follows the laughter.
I enlisted Dean and Bill's aid in the final day of moving. I have no furniture, just thousands of books and some tools. Some very heavy tools. There was no laughter when the Radial Arm Saw was carried up the steps. It was unwieldy. So the table saw on the heavy steel base, even the lathe gave, because of its length, pause, but not much comment going up the steps. Then we came to it as we lifted a box of moldy books that had obscured it. "You have an anvil!" cried one of the two. And I swear they started laughing and dancing about. "We never knew anyone who had an anvil." And then Bill gave Dean proper instruction on the way that you carry an anvil. Thrust the two arms forward like the forks of a lift, insert under the arms of the anvil and lift. It is an intimate way to carry anything I admit and off he went hugging the lump of steel up the steps and down into the truck.
I heard about the anvil for the rest of the day. And with some frequency since. I expect the "we never knew anyone who had an anvil!" litany, although no longer true, will ring out whenever we get together and reminisce. (If you have an anvil to move I do recommend Bill and Dean, although, they will now have to sing out "We only know one other ******* with an anvil!"
The anvil? I was looking at it this morning as I cleaned the workbench. Do I use it? Yes, on the rare occasion that some piece of recalcitrant metal needs a whacking. One proud day, when Dean was at my home and a sprocket or gear or thingy from his bicycle broke, he had to use the anvil the beat it back into shape. Don't think there wasn't a glint of triumph and pride my eyes.
My friends laugh at me because I have an anvil!
Now, I've had the anvil for a long time. Never once as much as chuckled. One clean-up day at a place that I used to work, the anvil's usefulness came into question in light of tight shop space. I took it home. It languished for years in the basement buried under the detritus of seldom used tools, hardware and books. Then I moved. Follows the laughter.
I enlisted Dean and Bill's aid in the final day of moving. I have no furniture, just thousands of books and some tools. Some very heavy tools. There was no laughter when the Radial Arm Saw was carried up the steps. It was unwieldy. So the table saw on the heavy steel base, even the lathe gave, because of its length, pause, but not much comment going up the steps. Then we came to it as we lifted a box of moldy books that had obscured it. "You have an anvil!" cried one of the two. And I swear they started laughing and dancing about. "We never knew anyone who had an anvil." And then Bill gave Dean proper instruction on the way that you carry an anvil. Thrust the two arms forward like the forks of a lift, insert under the arms of the anvil and lift. It is an intimate way to carry anything I admit and off he went hugging the lump of steel up the steps and down into the truck.
I heard about the anvil for the rest of the day. And with some frequency since. I expect the "we never knew anyone who had an anvil!" litany, although no longer true, will ring out whenever we get together and reminisce. (If you have an anvil to move I do recommend Bill and Dean, although, they will now have to sing out "We only know one other ******* with an anvil!"
The anvil? I was looking at it this morning as I cleaned the workbench. Do I use it? Yes, on the rare occasion that some piece of recalcitrant metal needs a whacking. One proud day, when Dean was at my home and a sprocket or gear or thingy from his bicycle broke, he had to use the anvil the beat it back into shape. Don't think there wasn't a glint of triumph and pride my eyes.
Saturday, September 15, 2001
Saturday, September 15, 2001 8:17:41 AM
Panera Monroeville and actual cream cheese on my bagel
For the Blog
Here I go setting goals that will make me unhappy. I will make as many entries in this Web Log as I do in my personal journal, which is to say at least three and probably six times a week. Wow! I said it and already my stomach is tied in knots. Remember those articles in Reader's Digest. Hi! I'm Joe's Stomach? I don't every remember them getting around to my genitals.
My name is Joe Coluccio and I am the Hhigh Hheen of Lackzoom Acidophilus. Not many can make such a claim. Highh Heenn is a controversial title and we all believed at the moment of creation that it should have as many spellings as possible. (We did reject Hahepe Hfyuyusdf pretty soundly and the perhaps accurate A**H*** I rejected right out of the box.) Before I really tell the story of HHighh Hheenn I want to introduce the group - present and past.
I will use first names only and urge the others to come out of hiding and fess up.
There is Marc, Foley, Dean sometimes Bill. We are au courant. In the passe simple to keep rolling with this French malappropriate lingual romp is Phil, Dave, Mike. (for a tres petite pois I think there was a Jeanine and a Monica, but my hair starts to fizzle when I give that much presence of my mind to our history((And as all can point out that is a precious small commodity(((where does the period go?)))
We started out on a small somebody fill in the wattage cause I don't remember community access FM radio station in Pittsburgh, PA. Call letters WYEP, then 91.5, now 91.3, as a four hour Saturday morning radio program that featured comedy recordings, readings from, well, I remember Woody Allen's Without Feathers anyhow and eventually original work. And the Lackzoom members accrued.
We, in a fit of fatigue, started to perform locally. We almost made it to the movies playing gay sailors at the Erie shore. We once got bonged at a local version of the Gong Show. Yes it was quite a life and someday, I swear, the full story of Duke the Wonder Dog will be read into the historical record.
Hihh Hean!
Well, with all the loot we got from performing, we needed a safe storage place when the mason jar completely filled. We choose good old Mellon Bank here in PBurgh. Marc got a hold of an account application card and we were immediately in a high and definite quandary. They wanted the names and titles of the people who were signatory to the account. What could we do? We had to create them. Hheen, what good was a Hheen without a Hhigh Hheen. Phil volunteered to become Splagg and that left Dean with the title of Double Splagg. (If you are paying close attention, you will have figured that Marc was the Hheen and because I don't want you to think that I think you are really dumb I will not point out that I already laid claim to the title Hhhhighhh Hhhheennn earlier in this journal entry.)
Marc took the proudly and, I would like to point out, fully filled out bank card to the Mellons. Now, we all figured that he would come back with stories of a truly bewildered bank clerk, but instead she entered the information and thanked him. It has been a problem with our comedy.
Ciao bambini!
Panera Monroeville and actual cream cheese on my bagel
For the Blog
Here I go setting goals that will make me unhappy. I will make as many entries in this Web Log as I do in my personal journal, which is to say at least three and probably six times a week. Wow! I said it and already my stomach is tied in knots. Remember those articles in Reader's Digest. Hi! I'm Joe's Stomach? I don't every remember them getting around to my genitals.
My name is Joe Coluccio and I am the Hhigh Hheen of Lackzoom Acidophilus. Not many can make such a claim. Highh Heenn is a controversial title and we all believed at the moment of creation that it should have as many spellings as possible. (We did reject Hahepe Hfyuyusdf pretty soundly and the perhaps accurate A**H*** I rejected right out of the box.) Before I really tell the story of HHighh Hheenn I want to introduce the group - present and past.
I will use first names only and urge the others to come out of hiding and fess up.
There is Marc, Foley, Dean sometimes Bill. We are au courant. In the passe simple to keep rolling with this French malappropriate lingual romp is Phil, Dave, Mike. (for a tres petite pois I think there was a Jeanine and a Monica, but my hair starts to fizzle when I give that much presence of my mind to our history((And as all can point out that is a precious small commodity(((where does the period go?)))
We started out on a small somebody fill in the wattage cause I don't remember community access FM radio station in Pittsburgh, PA. Call letters WYEP, then 91.5, now 91.3, as a four hour Saturday morning radio program that featured comedy recordings, readings from, well, I remember Woody Allen's Without Feathers anyhow and eventually original work. And the Lackzoom members accrued.
We, in a fit of fatigue, started to perform locally. We almost made it to the movies playing gay sailors at the Erie shore. We once got bonged at a local version of the Gong Show. Yes it was quite a life and someday, I swear, the full story of Duke the Wonder Dog will be read into the historical record.
Hihh Hean!
Well, with all the loot we got from performing, we needed a safe storage place when the mason jar completely filled. We choose good old Mellon Bank here in PBurgh. Marc got a hold of an account application card and we were immediately in a high and definite quandary. They wanted the names and titles of the people who were signatory to the account. What could we do? We had to create them. Hheen, what good was a Hheen without a Hhigh Hheen. Phil volunteered to become Splagg and that left Dean with the title of Double Splagg. (If you are paying close attention, you will have figured that Marc was the Hheen and because I don't want you to think that I think you are really dumb I will not point out that I already laid claim to the title Hhhhighhh Hhhheennn earlier in this journal entry.)
Marc took the proudly and, I would like to point out, fully filled out bank card to the Mellons. Now, we all figured that he would come back with stories of a truly bewildered bank clerk, but instead she entered the information and thanked him. It has been a problem with our comedy.
Ciao bambini!