The Perfect Song Blog

I walked up to the express line of our local grocery store. There were two people in front of me and a woman to my left looking at the headlines on the newspaper stand. She came around behind me. I knew technically she was there before me and indicated that she could get in front of me.

“No. That’s okay. I was over looking at the paper,” she said. She appeared to be in her 40s, black hair, glasses. An older man made his way over.

“Grace, how are you?”

“Okay,” she said. Slight pause. “Still trying to deal with Betty’s death.”

“Oh, yes,” he said in the stiff, formal way we do when we talk about death. “Terrible.”

“Lisa’s having a very hard time of it,” Grace said without prompting. “She doesn’t have the cognitive skills to understand that Mommy’s gone. She keeps asking ‘When’s Mommy coming home and take me to the library?’ Or, “Is Mommy coming to pick me up for church on Sunday?’

“So I went over to Barnes & Noble and picked up some books on death and dying for children and I’ll take them over to the house. She loves to read. So when she asks when Mommy is coming to take her to the library they can give her these books and explain Mommy’s gone and she isn’t coming back. . . .”

“I can help someone here,” a young cashier said trying to mask her tired voice with a weak smile. I handed her my box of matches.”

She scanned it. “That’ll be $1.39.”

I handed her two ones.

“Would you like this in a bag?”

“No, thanks.”

She opened the drawer and pulled out two quarters, a dime and a penny and deftly dropped them into my palm. She was maybe 17. Her hands were soft.

“Would you like your receipt?”

“No, thank you.”

“Have a nice day.”

I stepped out into the sunshine wondering how Betty died. I opened the Explorer door, got in and started the engine.

It doesn’t matter how she died. What matters to a lot of people is she’s not coming back.

And somehow it matters to me now.

At midnight we mix the stuffing, poke it into the turkey, an action I have always felt is a disrespectful invasion of a bird’s  private space but what the hell, someone eviscerated it before I ever get to this step so I ignore my guilt and continue.

Put it in the oven on 250 degrees and go to bed.  Wake up and proceed to slice onions, tomatoes, tear up fresh spinach, slice hard-boiled eggs, fry bacon for spinach salad,  peel potatoes, wash some dishes, wait for Nathan and Danielle to arrive.  Set the table, get the drinks, haul out the turkey, plug in the electric knife, slice the poor bastard to white meat shreds.  Leigh is trying to do three things at once, and doesn’t get to the fourth, which is the gravy.  It  boils over onto the stove creating a greasy, bubbling brown mess that looks for all the world like mud brown lava.  It creates more smoke than I’ve ever seen in a kitchen.

Every year I swear I’m not going to eat too much and every year, no matter how little I eat, it’s too much.  End it all by forcing down two little chunks of peanut butter chocolate pie (the need for rich deserts is built into a woman’s genetic structure and cannot be altered).

The last thing I want to do is anything remotely physical, but I hate dirty dishes, especially when they’re piled higher than the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

With Nathan and Danielle’s help, I rinse the dishes of the greasy gravy and mashed potatoes, reminding me how gross food is when you’re finished with it.  Later, tired from the turkey and gravy and stress of getting it all together, I sit in the living room with Leigh’s Mom (Leigh is sleeping fitfully as she nurses some broken ribs), watching Oprah.

Oprah’s guest is Jay Leno who introduces a variety of rug rats with various talents.  Okay, so a six-year-old Asian boy who can whip through a Mozart piece on piano is pretty impressive.  He’s followed by a girl who can recite speeches and I have to ask myself after listening to her re-create the I Have A Dream speech, am I a better person for this?

Don’t get the idea I’m ungrateful.

I’m very thankful the day is over.

If I ever find a pilgrim I’m going to stuff him in his musket and take aim at the Indian who ate that first meal with him.

I’m standing at the kitchen counter where I have my lap top set up so I have a view of several rooms.  I’m reading the December issue of Wired Magazine who’s cover story is the Google buyout of You Tube and how everything is changing (it is) and how viewers are moving in droves to the internet (they are) and the implosion of traditional commercial TV (boom!).

While I’m reading this, NBC is airing a special on Tony Bennett’s 80^th birthday.

Summation: I’m reading a print article about how cyber space is radically changing everything about our lives as a very talented dinosaur croons to an aged audience, most of whom will be gone in 10 years, taking NBC with them.

*   *  *

Clear Channel, the  media giant that I’ve  had issues with – personally and professionally – for years, is selling its TV stations and a bunch of radio stations.  They give their corporate reasons.  Actually,  it’s the first rumble in the fall of an oversized castle.  I’d say it outlived its usefulness but Clear Channel was never useful.  It was the company’s strangle hold on play lists and its drive to make money at all costs that drove users to create sites where they can hear music they want when they want.

Clear Channel will probably survive in some form but not as the traditional monster it’s been.

Web democracy wins again.

As soon as I trammed my way to the gate areas I started looking for food. I hadn’t eaten much breakfast and I knew there wasn’t going to be a meal on the flight. Ah, for the good old days when they brought you a sandwich in cellophane, coffee and peanuts.

Now if you want anything in your stomach you buy some trail mix.

I found a fast food restaurant. The emphasis is on “a”. In the whole Orlando airport gate area — the place where people from around the world come to get on their planes and fly back to their homes around the world — there is one restaurant.

After some confusion I found the end of the line, which was about an eighth of a mile from the counter.

I had three hours before my flight. I could have stood in an eighth of a mile line and bought a decent fast food hot sandwich for $5. I didn’t do it because I hate standing in long lines. It is not a trait I’m proud of.

I just don’t like lines. Lines make me feel like I’m in a hurry. They make me feel like I should be at the head of the line. I don’t like the slow nature of lines. I don’t like the feeling of helplessness.

So I left.

I found a little stand in an empty gate that sold packaged sandwiches and I paid $7 for a chicken salad sandwich in a vacuum-packed chunk of plastic. I sat down on a seat in the empty gate and watched CNN while I ripped open the wrapper.

I felt like one of those helpless guys in an old Twilight Zone show, sitting by myself in a huge abandoned airline gate watching the same CNN News I’d seen this morning, eating a sandwich.

I don’t know why, but I looked at the printing on the back of the wrapper, you know, calories, fat and all the other information left-wing do-gooders forced upon food manufacturers for good reason but to no avail.

This sandwich had been made the day before I was eating it.

This sandwich was made of processed chicken, which doesn’t have a good reputation to begin with. It had mayonnaise. It was white bread. I was eating poison!

I ate slowly, washing it down with water with the same feelings that Socrates probably felt as he sipped his Hemlock.

You are going to die!

I envisioned myself keeling over in front of hundreds of people at my Northwest gate and having diarrhea, or worse, being 5,000 feet in the air with the pilot telling us in his pleasant southern accent that the skies are clear with just the slightest breeze and all is well while Dennis Miller in seat 34-A is retching with a fever of 104 and dying from eating a day old pre-packaged chicken sandwich that he paid $7 for when all he had to do was stand in line for an eighth of a mile and buy a nice hot fast food sandwich that’s so generic an alien could eat it with no stomach problems.

Damn me! I’m a nationally recognized expert in my field who has given a presentation on podcasting in Orlando. I just paid $60 ($50 with a $10 tip) for a town car. And then I blow it all by eating a day old chicken salad sandwich because I won’t stand in line for decent fast food with all the germs, nutrients and vitamins zapped out.

I monitored my stomach for the next two hours. How many grumbles? How much growling? Diarrhea?

None of the above.

I made it. I lived.

Looking back I could have made more out of the experience. I could have spread out my napkin, eaten my sandwich and enjoyed the third rerun of news on CNN in the empty gate, and just not worried about anything.

But then, hindsight is everything.

This is the catch up blog.

If you’re new to the site, it all started nearly two years ago with the publication of my novel The Perfect Song which has been called “hilarious,” “deeply moving,” and “profound.” A few people have even said it’s changed their lives. Could it change yours? Read it and see. You can buy a copy at amazon.com. All proceeds from the book go to The Perfect Song Scholarship Fund at Mansfield University.

You can also read or listen to my audio version at my website, www.perfectsong.net

And if you know of high school students getting ready for college, check out podcast.mansfield.edu

There are more than 125 shows in which I talk with freshmen about their successful transition into college and what college life is really like. I also talk to our admissions director about how to find the college of your choice and the financial aid director with financial aid tips.

There are other shows that are just plain informative and entertaining.

I’ll continue my Orlando blogs in a few days.

Have a nice day. (And I’ll have a blog about this phrase in the future).

The conference was over on Friday. I checked out of the Disney Hilton, hired a town car and headed for the Orlando airport. A driver with a mid Eastern accept loaded my bags and we headed out. I tried to engage him in conversation but had no luck. He was professional, polite and really quiet.

In line at check in, a very redneck family stood in front of me. They consisted of two oversized men in their early 40s with beefy, hairy arms, and big bellies that were regular processors of kegs of beer. The women were also heavy. So were the kids. In total this family represented over a thousand pounds of flesh. I hoped they weren’t on my flight. The two men pushed carts full of suitcases and boxes. I shook my head. I don’t fly that much but I know there’s a baggage limit.

When they reached the ticket counter, a no-nonsense black woman weighed everything and said, “You’re gonna have to mail all this.” She pointed to about one half the luggage and souvenirs. “Or pay extra.”

The two men looked at each other, stunned. It was obvious that they handled the travel arrangements and hadn’t bothered with details like how much they could bring back to Montana or Virginia or whatever mountain they called home.

I could see their minds spinning. They were not about to make a scene in an international airport where guards, agents and invisible people with guns made their living picking off trouble-makers.

How embarrassing is it for a redneck to get shot clutching his Mickey Mouse mug and Goofy shot glass?

“How much?” One asked.

The no-nonsense lady caculated. “A hundred and fifty dollars.”

The two men assumed an immediate deer-in-the-headlight expression. You know, big eyes, faces frozen in fear, confusion and general shut down of all working parts of the brain.

“A hun’rd fifty bucks?” The second one asked, suddenly feeling very alone.

I’ll bet that was his beer money.

The women said nothing but you could tell by the expression on their faces they’d had enough of their keg-swilling, know-it-all husbands who had led them all to an embarrassed standstill in the Orlando airport.

“Please step aside and let others through,” the no-nonsense woman said. They did as she ordered, standing in the corner figuring out how they were going to ship their Disney booty. The women were pissed. The kids were tired. This was not the happy ending that Walt Disney envisioned.

I was looking at two men who were not going to get any nookie for a long, long time.

I checked in okay and immediately entered a swirling mass of thousands of people in two lines waiting to get inspected. I made it to the first inspector who made me throw my bottled away. I drank half of it on the spot and tossed it. I then spent a half hour of moving very slowly and listening to one of the loudest, most persistent screaming two- year-olds ever put on this planet. The kid fed off his own energy. Instead of getting hoarse, his voice actually improved with each scream.

I took off my shoes, pulled out my computer, emptied my pockets, pulled off my belt and passed through the inspection machine to the great Other Side, the side we all aspired to, the side where I was again allowed to wear my shoes and hold my pants up with my belt. I could have change in my pocket and carry my computer!

I jumped on a tram, not really knowing where I was going but figured, what the hell, it’s one-way so I must be heading in the right direction. The tram spit me out at the end of the line and I made my way to my gate.

The next morning the six folks giving presentations were shuttled to the Hotel Disney. I quietly said goodbye to The Buena Vista whose staff who laughs and jokes with visitors without losing the ability to serve with excellence. It tells me the company has a good screening process when hiring and a great training program for employees. These were people who were from Africa and Jamaica and native African Americans. White employees are more reserved.

Anyway, the Hotel Disney is the essence of quiet posh with upscale clothing stores, restaurants and gifts shops, of course. I quickly made the rounds to get to know the lay of the land, bought a salad and ate it on the patio by the pool. I shamelessly watched women sunbathe themselves and cursed myself for not bringing my sunglasses so I could stare with less subtlety.

Sunbather ogling is, in my mind, the perfect sport:

-You can move around the pool if you want to for different angles and perspectives

-You can sit in one spot and just analyze each motionless body

-You can wait, expending no energy at all, until the sunbather turns over and you have a whole new geography to study

-In the comfort of your chair, you are free to enter a world of fantasies that can go on as long as your mind and body can take it.

-There are no winners and losers.

-And . . .there’s no tipping!

Catch my photo and rant by clicking here.

More later…