Charlotte: Skin-coloring pills will solve America's racial problems

(650 words)

I predict within five years our socially-conscious pharmaceutical manufacturers will develop a pill that will for weeks at a time alter our skin pigments. The pill will act like hair dye, but for the whole epidermis.

Trendy kids will pick vivid blues, fiery reds and canary yellows.

I’d like to see as part of their training our white police officers be given ones that let them know what it’s like to appear black.

I think that would be helpful.

Heck, I’d take one of those too.

Being black for me would be ironically enlightening.

See, I have zero personal insights on what it’s like to be black. 

Everything I hear is anecdotal. Like stories about successful black men who enjoy nice cars — rich, white dudes like ‘em, too, or so I hear — getting pulled over at night for Driving While Black.

I think that would be a nuisance until you start hearing about so many unarmed black men and boys being shot dead in the streets for some innocuous yet insane escalation.

One of the commentators said about how we had a suspected terrorist who’d been shooting bullets at police survive his arrest in downtown Manhattan, yet 40-year-old Terence Cutcher was shot dead on a Tulsa street after calling 911 about a disabled vehicle.

It’s appalling.

It’s happening with such numbing regularity, who can be surprised when there are episodes of reciprocal violence?

I find it odd that an issue that is so ostensibly black and white is imbued with so much gray.

Me, when I’m in trouble, I pray a cop shows up right away. I go out of my way to be extra nice to police officers because I think they have it tough.

I was once moved to anonymously pay for the dry cleaning of a Pennsylvania State Trooper when I saw his uniform hanging there behind my stuff. 

Did I extend a gratuity to a bad cop? I’ll never know.

He may have been dirty, but his uniform was spotless.

I couldn’t extend the same grace to a black person. Our skins are different, but you can’t tell by our duds.

But whenever I’m in Pittsburgh, I without fail extend extra courtesies whenever I deal with diversity. 

Happened just last week. I had one of those awkward sidewalk dosey-dos with a big black guy. He stepped left while I stepped right. My nose nearly bumped into his nipple.

We both smiled. He said, “After you!” and let me proceed.

We made warm eye contact and I said, “Thanks, man. Have a great day!”

I know I’m an idiot, but I like to think our encounter reassured him we can bridge  our racial divides. Like maybe he thought, “Sure we’ve endured nearly 400 years of racial prejudice, but at least that one white dude is trying. I think I’ll go home and download some Barry Manilow!”

It’s my form of affirmative action.

I was touched by Cutcher’s father’s poignant lament: “What breaks my heart is the film shows my boy doing everything I taught him to do … and he still wound up dead.”

How can we as a people ever overcome what to me now seems institutionalized injustice?

I have to think a national pigment altering pill program would help.

Everyone could be cedar green for a month; cerulean blue the next; then, yes, we the purple!

Once we’ve been through a uniform coloring we’d all get to pick a color of our own.

After we’ve all been all the colors, maybe then finally none of them will matter.

Call me crazy, too, but I think I see multitudes of positive responses in the Charlotte protests.

I see people of all races realizing there’s a problem and taking urgent steps to solve it.

That’s very healthy.

Healthy, that is, for everyone but the poor bastards who keep getting killed with their hands up.

Related …

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What California Chrome teaches us about race

Cliven Bundy and my last Klan rally

Soulful encounters while waiting for gyros

(740 words)

Saturday morning I had one of those moments so sweetly humane you later sit back and think, man, I just hope God was watching.

Even if He was not, a lot of people at the Ligonier Farmer’s Market were. I’d gone there jonesin’ for gyro.

So were about six other people. The long, slow-moving line had me feeling crabby and I began making petty judgements about those who were snaking ahead of me.

The old guy dawdled trying to retrieve the exact change. Surfer dude couldn’t make up his mind on his desired toppings. Worst of all, was the woman right in front of me.

About 60, I guess, she kept a big, four-foot gap between her and the guy in front of her meaning I was practically in the lap of the soap-selling hippy at the stand across the midway.

What kind of monster doesn’t comprehend basic line behavior?

Then just as I was about to begin a nasty Simon Cowell-esque critique of her hair — boom! — down she went, like she’d been drilled by a sniper.

 What did I do?

I in an instant became Florence Nightingale. I dropped to my knees, took her hand in one of mine and began stroking her hair with other to offer maximum comfort.

“Are you all right?”

Note: I didn’t even momentarily pause to consider whether I might have been providing perhaps live-saving care to a potential Trump voter.

I just saw a fellow human being in need and instantly began to render aid.

Her knee had buckled. The only real damage was done to her dignity.

“I’m not drunk,” she said. “I’m not high. Right now, I’m just embarrassed.”

"It's okay. No need to be embarrassed."

She lay there for about two minutes with me holding her hand and assuring her she it was all right.

Then — One! Two! Three! — I got her to her feet. She was still unsteady so we wrapped our arms around one another for another minute, long enough that I knew if someone from our church spied me there’d be a scandal.

And that was it. She got her gyro, thanked me once again and away she went.

I got my gyro and did the same.

As I walked away, I was surprised by claps on the back and smiles from people telling me I was a great guy.

Admit it: You’re jealous.

Who among us doesn’t crave more opportunities to do good? To help. To prove even if it’s just to ourselves that when the situation calls for it, we are decent human beings.

Oddly, it was the second consecutive time in one month when purchasing a gyro led to soulful encounters.

The other was last month when Josie and I were in Pittsburgh’s Strip District to chow and I, as I always, do required tasty gyro from the guy with Pittsburgh’s best mustache, the man who coincidentally makes the city’s best gyro.

The guy shaves lamb meat at a stand outside Labad’s, a Middle Eastern grocer at 1727 Penn Avenue.

He shaves a lot of meat so there’s plenty of time for cheerful conversation. He’s a very kind and friendly man.

I tell him my mustache wants to become his when it grows up.

He laughs.

We talk about what a beautiful day it is and in his thick accent, he says “in America, it’s always a beautiful day.”

I asked my exotic-sounding friend about his nation of origin.

“I’m from Syria,” he said.

Oh, my. I was crestfallen and launched into a bleeding heart sermon about how I pray hostilities cease and homeland justice prevails.

“Oh,” he said, “it’s no big deal.”

Huh?

“It’s almost over. Everything will be fine. You’ll see.”

I couldn’t believe it. I express more soulful concern when I learn there’s a cafeteria bully loose in the lunch line at my kid’s elementary school.

Did he still have family there?

“Sure, they’re fine.”

Was he really talking about Syria? 

He was. 

“It’s very pretty there. Do you know they get a lot of snow? Syria will be fine.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. 

On the one hand it’s encouraging to hear someone — anyone — say things in Syria will soon be swell.

On the other, I now in hindsight realize not every opportunity for us to uplift is going to involve someone who’s fallen down.

And I guess all I really know is this:

I’m suddenly craving gyro for lunch.

Related …

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I"m quitting my imaginary job

(713 words)

This will come as a blow to those of you eager for my existential stability, but I’m bailing on the only real job I’ve ever had in 24 years.

It may help soften that blow to know it was all make believe.

Yes, I’m quitting the imaginary job I’ve held at the imaginary hardware store where I’ve been pretending to work since February.

It’s just driving me nuts. More specifically my Mom asking me about it is driving me nuts.

She has dementia. It seems to be getting worse in the last month since we took the necessary step of moving her from Pittsburgh to Latrobe. She’s now in a marvelous independent living place, but we see her every day, usually when we bring her home for lunch or dinner or just hours sitting on our porch overlooking the woods.

I know so many children of aging parents who have it far worse.

The thing with dementia is you don’t know how it’s going to play out. She’ll be 84 in December. Her father lived to be 97.

I do the math and, man, I hate doing the math.

Took her to the doctor last month. He pronounced her in excellent health.

Hallelujah.

All my petty complaints lead to momentous bouts of self-loathing because I know I should be celebrating her. But her memory is shot and I fear a future where a good son is supposed to answer the exact same question honestly about 20,000 times.

One example: It takes eight minutes to drive her home. She once during those eight minutes four times asked me the exact same question the exact same way.

“If you had your life to live over again, what would you do differently?”

The reason that one gets to me is because I’m always asking myself the very same question at about precisely the same intervals — and I’m supposed to be the rational one!

It’s just not the kind of philosophical nugget about which to banter while waiting for the traffic light at Sheetz to change.

So a while back I started giving into fantasy answers.

“I would have pursued my dream of driving an ice cream truck.”

“I’d have become a rabbi.”

“I’d have told Val about how much I enjoy wearing her frilly summer dresses when she’s not around.”

Does this make me a bad person? She didn’t remember one lie from another and it keeps me from dying of exasperation.

What’s odd is the only one she remembers is the one I told her about working in the hardware store. She responded so positively to the lie I thought, yeah, what the hell, I’m taking a pretend job there.

I began making up richly detailed stories about the regular hours, the co-worker camaraderie, and how the price of lumber was playing havoc with the profit margins.

I was really enjoying it. It felt great to be part of a team. The lie became a big part of our time together, and I knew she was telling all her friends about my new career. And, boy, you should see the wistful look on Val’s face whenever she brings it up.

And she brought it up all the time.

It became a real grind, albeit in an imaginary way. I started bitching about the hours, the tyrannical boss and how tired I was of coming up with a new acceptance speech for the seven consecutive employee of the month awards I’d earned.

So last week I told Mom I’m quitting and never going back.

I suppose it’s natural to self-demonize when you behave less than saintly towards the woman who gave birth to you. In the eyes of many, I’m something of a model son.  

But it’s difficult treading the thin line between her elusive sanities and my very own.

For the sake of our children, I try and do it with playful and, I think, harmless humor.

Still, she seemed so disappointed that I quit something that seemed so stable and promising, I had to lie about my prospects.

Now she thinks I’ll soon be driving a kosher ice cream truck!

I only hope Val doesn’t mind I’m planning on pulling together my uniform from clothes on her side of the closet.

Related …

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My gay friend John

How to kill your mother (with love)

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Amish porn & word counts (from '12)

(719 words)

Astute readers will notice I’m introducing a new parenthetical feature. It’s not code. It’s not enigma. It’s another reader service designed to make your visit more efficient.

And let me be clear, I think anyone who stops by to read my stuff is very astute -- and that includes all of you who mistakenly stumble here based on search terms like “amish porn,” “amish breasts,” and “do amish can bacon?”

This happens on a near-hourly basis. Someone will land feet first and, I guess, pants down at www.EightDaysToAmish.com because some fraudulent search engine indicated this is a clearinghouse for things like Amish porn and lifestyle news.

It’s becoming frequent enough to at least have me considering trying my hand at Amish porn. Here’s a sample:

“Miriam arose from the stool beside her butter churn and approached Jacob with lusty intentions. She seized his stiff wick in her rough, able hands and gave it a good long dip.”

Needs some work, I know. But I thought I’d leave it up to sensitive readers to decide if Miriam and Jacob were engaged in Amish sex or merely making a supper table candle.

Back to the new feature.

It’s this post’s word count. From now on I plan to include right at the very top in parenthesis the total word count of that day’s offering.

Even though I’m unshackled by any artificial space constraints, I still try not to exceed about 750 words per post. That’s traditionally the length of one column up and down a broadsheet newspaper.

It’s a format still favored by the majority of newspapers. And that column includes enough space for just about 750 words.

Ideally, I think my blog posts should be about 600 words, but I can’t help myself.

That nonsense about the Amish sex? It consumed 92 words. I should probably cut it but it seemed like a good idea when it came to me, and I don’t have an editor to shout at me it’s too stupid to include.

That’s key.

I was raised in newspapers and remember deadline tyrants screaming at me about spacial concerns.

I remember the time I had a page one story about a major cocaine bust that required 1,000 words of crisp copy, a challenge because I only had about 600 words of facts and quotes.

I told him that was impossible. I’d exhausted the topic.

“Then write 400 more words on the chemical composition of cocaine, if it has any household applications -- some damn thing! Just give me 400 words -- and I need it in 90 seconds!”

It was very stressful.

So today I write as long or as short as I please with the understanding the internet’s not going to run out of room.

Sometimes, just for the playful spite of it, I’ll even write the very same sentence twice.

Sometimes, just for the playful spite of it, I’ll even write the very same sentence twice.

But I worry about you. I know how busy you are. You have work to do. You have kids to chase. You’re impatient to resume your search for authentic Amish porn.

The word count will let decide if you want to invest in that day’s offering.

I thought about putting something like “2 mins, 40 seconds,” that being the average time it should take to read it.

But someone might feel boneheaded and sad realizing it’s taken them three minutes. Other hyper-competitive sorts might post comments bragging they read the thing in, say, 89 seconds.

And the idea of me encouraging anyone to engage in speed reading is as unappealing as encouraging my wife to engage in speed sex.

The two activities should be savored.

I understand adding a word count will present me with temptations to deceive.

If I see a trend of more readers checking out posts that are about 600 words, there’s nothing to stop me from putting (599 words) atop a post that’s 1,232 words long.

Or if I write something that seems particularly pointless to even me, I might type “4,430” in hopes it’ll discourage readers from investing the time.

I’ll try not to do that.

I’ll try, instead, to be honest, to keep my wick trim, my candle bright and to continue ever onward on my relentless quest to make every single word count.

Kansas robber would rather go to prison than stay married

(698 words)

A 70-year-old Kansas City man who told police he robbed a bank because he thought he’d prefer prison to marriage will likely get his wish.

I guess Lawrence John Ripple, whose record is otherwise spotless, will refuse lenient house arrest.

It’s an interesting case.

Ripple angrily wrote the terse robbery note — “I have a gun, give me money” — right in front of his wife. He then drove to a bank that was on the same block as the city police HQ. He gave the teller the note, took $2,924 in cash and then sat down on a bench right there in the bank lobby.

When police arrived, he said, “I’m the guy you’re looking for.”

He told police he robbed the bank because he no longer wanted to be married.

I guess he hasn’t heard of Tinder.

If this were a Lifetime movie, his wife would commit a crime of her own, arrange to get in the same cell and these kids would work things out in federal custody, a rare case where the proverbial old ball and chain came with her very own proverbial ball and chain.

I come at this from a very interesting perspective.

In seven days it’ll be 20 years I’ve been married to the same wonderful woman. I’ve been very lucky and only wish I could give her the kind of security she deserves — and I mean maximum, just not in the penal sense.

But I also spent one night in jail with a really great cellmate.

It was wonderful. We laughed, told stories, shared ambitions of the places we’d get drunk together when we got out of stir.

It was like a honeymoon only instead of sex we had hangovers.

It was a night I’ll never forget (first link below).

But it was only one night.

Had we been held for another two or three days, one of us might have made the mistake of bringing up politics. He’s very conservative. I’m not.

I might have had to sleep with one eye open as he sharpened his jail-issue toothbrush into a deadly shiv.

As of next Tuesday, Val and I will have been married for 7,300 nights.

That’s a lot of opportunity to for matrimonial tumult. Besides all the laughter and loving, there’s also been criticism, arguments and words we both wish we’d never said.

A lot of people didn’t think it would last. Remember, she’s a church organist. And she’s an editor. I’m a writer. 

When I thank her for turning my comma into an exclamation point she corrects me.

Then, oh, boy, there was the time many years ago I showed up at church drunk. I danced down the aisle singing, “Just a Closer Walk With Thee.”

And I wasn’t wearing pants.

I think the only thing that saved our marriage was I showed up at the wrong church.

I made that story up. I tell it during my talks because it always gets a big laugh.

I have no idea how long Ripple and his wife were married or if she was so awful that prison is preferable. 

Two weeks ago he posted the above picture of her and the two seem very content. There’s another picture of the two of them standing with a strapping young U.S. Marine. 

Maybe he was having a bad day. Maybe he’s mentally ill.

I’m glad, too, he didn’t hurt her or anyone else in his desperation. Sadly, that’s a common reaction to disappointment — and we can all be thankful we live in a land where people who surrender to that mindset have to go through rigorous screening before being sold a lethal weapon.

But I hope the Ripples find some mutual peace. Really, the judge should consider sentencing him to some intensive marriage counseling. 

Some estimates say it costs about $129.44 a day to incarcerate a convict — and that doesn’t include the mints they put on the pillows.

I’m going to try and follow up on this story to see the resolution.

Ripple may find out prison’s no picnic.

I guess it all depends on who you get for a cellmate.

And having a loving soulmate reduces the chances of you ever needing one.

Related …

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Blacks in prison and what it has to do with time I saw Johnny Cash

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Life & death of the prisoner with the really big penis