Sifting Thru the Rubble

For about a month, the single crown in (not on) my head has been loose. I've had it since 1993, when I went to some crap-ass dentist in my old home of Wappingers Falls and over the course of three nights, he made a mold of my teeth by filling my mouth with some kind of gel, gave me a root canal, and finally, put a post in my upper gum and inserted a fake tooth on it, stuck like a head on a pole.

It came loose once before, and my favorite dentist ever, back in Hudson, MA, fixed it just a day or two before my insurance ran out from getting laid off from Access Magazine (R.I.P.).

It's been loose again for a month, but I've been eating around it. Of course, I'm physically/psychically incapable of not prodding it constantly with my tongue, and that has lead to my present predicament: with three days to go until I get in for my dentist appointment, today's the day the false premolar bicuspid got sucked out as I was chewing some left over lasagne.

Unfortunately, I didn't know that until I swallowed it.

I haven't had a hole in my mouth like this since I had my wisdom teeth removed. It's a bizarre feeling, and my traitorous tongue can't stop investigating the damn emptiness. I hope it's happy. Stupid, stupid tongue.

Now, the question is.... do I just go to the dentist and expect a new tooth? Won't that cost a lot?

Or... do I try to recover the old one?

I really can't decide which is worse.

Alone. So... Alone

My wife has left me.



For the weekend. I should be used to this by now, but I always grow melancholy when she's away like this, me alone with two of the three Labra-dolts, with nothing but time. I've got projects and things I want to do, and lord knows I'll do anything to avoid real writing, so I fill the time. Still, I'm for the most part, alone. And even though I might have days when I crave some time to myself, I never really enjoy that time like I should. Oh well. My work day is over (long holler-day weekend and all) so time to start some of those projects.

You Kids Get Off My Lawn!

When I was 19, and working in my beloved dining hall as a student supervisor -- my nickname behind my back was, for a time, "Little Hitler" as I got drunk on my power (Power I say!) -- I was swiftly humbled when a freshman told me she didn't realized I was a student. She thought I was a full time employee of the place and that she thought I was about 25 years old.

When I was 23 and moving into an apartment, my landlord was telling me some story and said something like, "You know how that is, you being what, 30? 35?"

Yesterday, the world went too far. I received this in the mail:

I'm 33 years old. But some list somewhere thinks I look over 55.

Actually, though, this could work in my favor. I read through this piece of paper and the little fake card carefully and absolutely nowhere does it say that I must be over 55 to belong to AARP.

So, I intend to join. My check for a one year membership is all made out. By this time next month, I intend to be enjoying the old-fart discount on everything I can get. I might even make a name badge out of the card, just in case some clerk some where looks at my and doesn't under stand that I'm old enough to get bargains in exchange for my grey hairs.

Faster Spam

Many of you know i changed my email address recently to cut down on spam. It's worked for the most part -- almost all I get now is from my work email address.

What's interesting is that just last Tuesday, the 19th, I created another new email, specifically just to get messages regarding the CBLDF.org site I maintain for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. I created the account and posted it on the site that day. By Wednesday this week, that address had been harvested by enought spammers (or maybe just one very industrious spam-king) to get me seven new unsolicited messages. Today, it's already up to nine.

So, what's obvious is (and should have been obvious to me before) is that an email address on a popular site is bound to get harvested fast. Thus I remain greatful no one is reading this site.

No Allergies to These Peanuts

I have a lot of peanuts in the house. Not the oily kind in the shell that make some kids blow up like Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka and die choking -- the kind for packing. After moving out here, I must have gathered four or five garbage bags full of Styrofoam packing materials which I keep stored in a closet because, hey, we might move again some day and I'll need the padding. And since we get boxes in the mail all the time for work stuff and things we order, there's always more.

About three weeks ago, for whatever reason, I had one of these bags sitting in the hallway and I left to run an errand and when I came home, it looked like the bag had exploded. Foam nuts were everywhere in the hall, ankle deep. My three idiot dogs -- the Labra-dolts -- I assumed had been running full-tilt around the house and had hit the bag so hard it ruptured like a boil.

Now I'm not so sure.

Yesterday, I got my monthly batch of comics in the mail from my mail order service (who, I just looked it up, I've been ordering from monthly since 1984). For a while now, they've shipped the books in plastic bags, surrounded by "edible peanuts" -- some kind of foam packing material that is based on rice puffs or something. You can run them down the sink with enough patience and hot water. One time, I fed one to Caper, our middle-child mutt, and he swallowed it down like candy.

Today, I found in my basement office the box my comics had come in, completely empty. Caper or one of the other canine morons had eaten every single one. Should make scooping poop in the backyard later today an interesting exercise.

That bag up in the hall weeks ago probably had some of those rice-foam pellets as well, but it never occured to me to look and see if they were gone. Perhaps later I'll set a trap for the dogs to see if they 1) open another bag and 2) can eat around the indigestible stuff to get to those oh-so-nummy (yet strangely tasteless) packing morsels.

The Cape of Cod

Back after a week of vacation on the isthmus with the mostest (I spent the entire week mistakenly calling it an isthmus -- and even then, I really wanted to call it an island -- but a cape is really just a cape. I'm not even sure it's a peninsula) and here's some memories:

We felt welcome almost immediately. After the seven hour drive, our first moments on the Cape came in the rotary (AKA traffic circle, for those outside of Massachusetts) on the other side of the Bourne Bridge. As we navigated to our exit, a van whipped out behind us with someone screaming "Go Home!" No doubt, the site of our New York license plates had him immediately enamored with us.

On the beach in East Dennis, walking distance from the cottage, we sat on the beach, curling toes in the sand. I would read, Bon liked to walk around the beach wondering why she hadn't become a marine biologist. On our first day there, I heard her say "Ah, the mating rituals of youth." I looked up from my copy of "Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas" by James Patterson (a book I would never have read had it not been recommended to me... and I regret wasting four hours of my life with it) and saw what Bon referred to: three gangly teenage boys and one blond, pubertal girl -- in a string bikini. After a few minutes of talking with the boys, the girl threw her hands in the air and said "I feel like I'm so powerful!" -- no doubt, because she'd suggested a dip in the fridig waters of the bay and the boys had readily agreed. I muttered to Bon, "Of course she's powerful. She's got complete control of them. And you realize, even if one of those boys is gay, he's probably still going to follow one of the other two boys wherever they go anyway, so the girl is STILL in complete charge." Bon could not disagree, as she is also female, and thus, completely in charge.

Whale watch out of Provincetown: we saw at least 20 whales make dives. Very cool.

Bon wanted to visit the beach in the dark one night after we'd bought a $100 meal for ourselves at a fancy restaurant. We drove down, found the parking lot empty (we couldn't park there during the day without stickers), and walked out in the gathering gloom. You'd be surprised how every little divot and footprint in the sand looks like a crab waiting to pinch you in that amount of light. We didn't stay long, as Bon had had a drink with dinner, and she has a bladder the size of Barbie's navel.

The first truly nice sunny day we had, Bon went down to take pictures of the sunset on the beach. She was joined there by a rather large fox, who was raiding the low-tide sand for whatever grub he could gather. He didn't seem to mind the human company. Later, we saw him in the backyard of the cottage. Whales and foxes are much cooler than the dumb-ass deer and rabbits we get at home.

After hours of shopping in P-Town's downtown, I was disappointed to see only one lousy transvestite. And he was pretty lousy-- he must have been 90 years old -- I could tell that just from looking at his elbows. But he did have lovely, glittery dress.

Posted by Eric G. at 09:51 AM | Comments (2)

A Fable?

Okay, imagine if you will, you have a little sister, or a daughter, or a kindly old aunt. Any of the above will do. She works in the local video store. She sells and rents out videos and DVDs to anyone and everyone in town. She's not the owner, she's just an employee, who likes movies and likes to talk to the people that come through looking for the latest films.

In the back of the store, there's an adults only section. She doesn't like those videos. She's not into any of that. But hey, it's there, it's labeled "No one under 18!". She makes sure now one under 18 goes back there, and she cards the folks who look too young to be renting or buying any of them.

One day, a person she's never seen before comes into the store, peruses a bit, and heads for the back. Typical. People don't want to look like they're heading straight for the smut -- they want to make you think its an impulse purchase.

This new customer --quite obviously an adult -- comes up to the counter with a hardcore triple-X video title and wants to purchase it. Your sister/daughter/aunt rings up the purchase, takes the money, and smiles kindly at the customer. She doesn't judge.

And then, this customer slaps the cuffs on your favorite relative.

Over the course of the next couple of years, this relative's life is made a shambles. Arrested on the charge of "selling obscenity," she faces, at the least, probation. But an overzealous district attorney could get her a major fine. or jail time. Of course, she lost her job. And many friends.

In the end of the trial, the DA -- who didn't present any evidence to say this -- argued in his closing that "all videos and DVDs and movies are for kids.... they appeal directly to kids."

And it worked.

Your aunt/sister/daughter gets a $4,000 fine. One Year Probation. And 180 days in jail -- that's six months, if you want to skip the math.

Think it can't happen in these United States of America? Oh, you're probably right. Maybe it can't.

Not with videos and DVDs.

But it did happen with Comic Books.

Jesus Castillo did exactly the same thing in a Texas comic shop. He was brought up on TWO charges of selling obscene materials-- even though he was selling adult books, from a marked display for adults, to an adult. The DA made exactly that same argument, that comics are only for kids -- sans evidence, in fact, the defense had major witness to the contrary -- and the jury still found Jesus guilty.

As of today, the one count of obscenity that stuck (the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and Castillo's legal team had the second count thrown out, luckily) will continue to stick, as the United States Supreme Court has refused to hear the case. Read the news about it here.

This case has cost thousands of dollars to defend.

Luckily, Jesus Castillo didn't have to pay for it, nor did he have to cover his fine. That was paid for by the donations made to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Sadly, it's not the first case and won't be the last.

Just keep it all in mind the next time you want to veiw something entertaining that's suitable only for adults, something that will impact no one put yourself. That means porn, or watching the Sopranos, or even just reading a book like Vox or even Catcher in the Rye.

Someone out there wants to take that away from you.