Where the Love-light Gleams

I'll be home for Christmas;
You can count on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree.

Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love-light gleams.
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams.

As I have averred many times in this and other public spaces, I am atheist, but I was baptized and raised Catholic. Though I no longer care for the "reason" for the season, I have a whole childhood's worth of Christmas memories and that magical feeling brought on by the belief that a jolly, fat, bearded man in a bright red suit was going to come down our chimney — and somehow extract himself from our furnace — and spray toys all around our living room without making the slightest of sounds. As I grew older and came to my understanding of things, Christmas became, for me, all about our family being together, feasting on things we feasted on only at that time of year, and everyone staying over and awake until the wee hours, talking, snacking, joking, and playing.

At age 19 I spent my first Christmas in the United States Air Force, my first Christmas Eve away from home. I was in the third week of basic training. It was the worst night of my life to that point, and the special, "holiday liberty" call home certainly didn't make anything better.

It wasn't until much more recently — since our nation sent troops to the Middle East to fight the difficult wars of my generation — that the weight of the words to the song above hit me fully.

It takes knowing of the time that the song was originally written for one to understand why it was written, as it is told from the point of view of a soldier fighting overseas in World War II, and longing to be home among everything and everyone that made Christmas memories. At first it sounds like a promise, but we then realize it's only an ironic, lonesome, heart-felt, homesick wish. I can only imagine the tears the song evoked in the 1940s, in soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, and their families back home.

It was years ago that I suddenly understood the meaning of the song, that I realized I had lived it in my own way. Now when I hear it played, I can feel the heartache of every military member, every military mom and dad and younger sibling, every child or parent far-removed from family, from home, for any reason.

Then that final line brings to me the sad reality of circumstance. And to tears.

Merry Christmas, everyone, whatever those words mean to you. May you be with everyone you wish to be with, no dreaming necessary.



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The Birmingham Sojournal - Day Ten

Well, morning arrived on the day I had come to dread. I wasn’t ready to leave England, yet. I was ready for another two weeks.

Mark fixed a light breakfast and then headed out to pick up Sue from Holly’s, leaving me alone to start packing.

When I finished packing and lugged my bags down to the bottom of the stairs, I went into the living room and found Mark and Sue in front of the telly watching game 3 of the World Series!! Though the game wasn’t being broadcast live, it was a current broadcast of a recorded game! Very quickly I sat down and answered Mark’s questions for the lesson that had been denied us earlier in the week by the fluky television schedule!

All too soon, however, it was time to go. Mark helped me load my bags into the Defender, and after a long hug with Sue, we were off to London.

The ride was no different. We talked the whole way. We arrived at Heathrow too soon for our liking, and were suddenly muttering our reluctant farewells. The visit had turned out to be much more fun than I had anticipated, and I had anticipated a great, wonderful time. And now it was at its end. I did my part to keep the good-bye brief, as I’m sure I would have been in tears before much longer. I already missed those old Limeys!

The flight was on time and, after the usual hassles of air travel before ever getting on the plane, I was on the plane and heading west. One final joy of the trip was encountering the elderly(!) male flight attendant whose name on his food service smock read “Benjamin A. Dover.”

Yes, I met a real, living Ben Dover!!

I returned home much later that evening to the quiet dread of my empty, post-vacation apartment, with only memories, continued correspondences and Skype calls with Mark — and now this journal — to keep the trip alive.

It sucks to be back.

The Birmingham Sojournal - Day Nine

Surprisingly, after the good buzz I had the night before at the Man of Ross, I felt quite well when I woke up. I hopped in the shower, got dressed, and headed downstairs where Colin and Mark were already preparing the traditional English breakfast for all of us...minus the black pudding, because Colin assumed I wouldn’t like it!

We ate up, and then we all headed down across the estate to the bank of the river. It was a pleasant walk on a beautiful, sunny morning, past a horse stable, across a lush pasture with sheep in the distance, down a rutted cart path to another meadow beside the river.

It was the walk back up that was the killer! SHEESH!

After another coffee(?) we piled into the Defender and headed to a place called Symonds Yat, a gelological formation where the river Wye, over the eons, has cut a gorge out of a hillside and created a breathtaking view of the valley below. We met an ornithology buff who appealed to both Colin and me for different reasons. Colin, an ornithology buff himself, was intrigued by this man’s — his name was Tony, by the way — interest; I was interested in talking to Tony because he was using a Canon XL-H1 HD video camera with a Canon 28-300mm zoom lens to record nesting falcons on the craggy rock wall about a half-mile away!

We stopped for a drink of water at the kiosk there, and then back into the Defender to return to Colin’s place. Once there, we had to say good-bye to Stu, who was eager to return to Bristol and, I recall, a meeting with another friend.

Very soon after, Mark and I also said our good-byes to Colin, as he was expecting another overnight guest — a birdwatching friend — very shortly.

More driving and more chatting got us home in what seemed like no time.

I don’t remember dinner that evening, though I’m sure we ate something. Then it was time for some more wine, telly and chat. Sue was still off at Holly’s, so Mark and I had the telly, the wine, and the stash of movies all to ourselves. It became somewhat of a movie marathon. I had never seen Bowfinger, so we watched that. It was as quirky as I thought any film written by Steve Martin would be. And just as clever! Then I indulged Mark by letting him expose me to Withnail & I a very British film about two out of work actors who “escape” London for a few days in the countryside. Next was About a Boy, a cute movie starring Hugh Grant as, guess what... a charming ladies’ man ...who hits on a great idea for picking up chicks: tell them he’s a single father. Awkward hilarity ensues.

Just when we both thought we were finished, I mentioned to Mark that I thought one of the co-stars of Withnail & I had appeared in The Max Headroom Story back in the 1980s. Though he remembered Max Headroom, he had never known of a film about the “origins” of Max Headroom. Strictly only to find the actor I thought was in the movie, I found it on YouTube in four parts. Mark was thoroughly intrigued, and we wound up watching the whole thing! OOF! Was I tired! And the actor wasn't the same guy! As I was leaving the next day, we just didn’t want to stop. But fatigue won out, and we retired.

The Birmingham Sojournal - Day Eight

In the morning, after breakfast, Mark and I loaded Tom and Mia into the Defender and headed for the (name?) Reservoir. It’s a big, somewhat oval hole in the ground surrounded by green pastures and sparse woodlands. Mark told me it was dug by hand in Victorian times, and has been used as a reservoir ever since. Anyhoo, it was a nice, leisurely walk of about an hour, though the temperature and wind combined for a bit of nip on my nose. At one point along the walk, Tom’s attention was riveted on... nothing in particular off to one side. Mark explained that on one past walk around the reservoir a couple years ago, Tom had spotted a rabbit scampering along down there, and every time since then, when they reach this spot, Tom looks for that rabbit! Dogs amaze me sometimes.

We returned to the homestead and readied ourselves for our overnight at Colin’s in Ross-On-Wye, about an hour’s drive to the southwest(?). We were both just a little nervous about meeting our mutual blogger friend, Stuart Goodall, the Ultra Toast Mosha God, with whom we had arranged to meet, finally, during my visit.

Before heading Ross-ward in earnest, we stopped at a Tesco supermarket to get a few things. I bought a jar of Picalilli and some Yorkie chocolate bars. Mark hit the ATM, and bought a few items, such as zip-close plastic bags (for my Picalilli). It was kinda fun to browse a bit and see all the different items in an English supermarket, and to notice which things were the same as in the States, which were different, and which things were entirely unheard of at home.

As had become our usual, along the route Mark and I found no topic that wasn’t worth gabbing along about until our throats were raw, and before we knew it, we were descending into the Wye valley.

Mark had received a text from Colin during the drive, advising us that he was heading off to the grocery for a few items, and what time he expected to return. When we arrived in Ross, we had about a half-hour to kill, so Mark decided to give me a tour of the area.

Ross is on the river Wye, and as such is a picturesque little town in a picturesque valley area. Mark turned down a narrow lane that, had I been on my own, I would have avoided for the assumption that it was a private road. Mark assured me that it is not private. There’s no telling how old these lanes are, as they are between ancient hedgerows that border all the farmland. The earthen part of the hedgerows rise up to almost the rooftop level of the Defender, and the dense foliage tops off a good two to three feet above, creating the perception that I was riding through a tunnel. Each road has a series of lay-bys to be used when two vehicles approach each other; one would have to pull into the lay-by in order to allow the other to pass. That’s how narrow these lanes are! Soon it was time to get to Colin’s, but Mark, having as much fun driving these lanes as I had riding, was now unsure, exactly, where we were, and more unsure of how to get us back. Then the lane we were on suddenly went private, as indicated by a couple of small signs.


The river Wye. I didn't have time to turn off the damn flash,
or get out of the Defender. But you get the idea.

The sun was getting low in the sky, presenting us with great blasts of orange and red in the western sky, but it also meant we were running out of daylight. Mark turned the unwieldy Defender around in an impressive 8-point turn on a sloping three-way intersection, and he backtracked his way out of there.

Very soon we were pulling in to Colin’s cottage complex. He lives in a former resort estate, renting a very cozy, little, two-bedroom terrace cottage. No sooner had he made me a cup of coffee and they had left me to watch Band of Brothers on DVD in the living room while they made some tea, than Stuart arrived from Bristol, about an hour’s drive further southwest(?).
For some reason, I had more confidence than Mark did that we should get along well with Stu, though I had room left in my conscience for doubt. But as soon as he walked into Colin’s cottage and we all exchanged handshakes and hellos, I was comfortable and at ease with him. Stu seemed quite at ease, too. Later, Mark and Colin confessed the same ease upon the meeting.

We chatted briefly while Colin fixed Stu a cup of (I believe) tea, and while Stu sipped his, and I finished my coffee. Then we piled into a taxi and headed into Ross proper and to the Man of Ross.

I came to understand the role of the pub while in England. Where I originally thought of it as strictly a tavern, it is most indeed not. Yes, a pub serves libations, and people frequent it to meet with friends, or for a date, but it seems many married couples stop in for a pint and to catch up on the doings of their friends. It is truly a family place, usually with a full menu available, and it’s a nice evening out. Unlike a tavern or bar, a pub actually closes somewhat early, around 11:00pm or midnight.

And so did the Man of Ross. Colin, Mark, Stu, and I took a table amid a good crowd in the rather small dining room, and Mark took our drink and dinner orders to the bar. We each partook of a pint of (Doom?) while we waited for our food to arrive. I ordered the sirloin steak from the specials menu, and I was chagrined to learn that the others all ordered the salmon. That meant only one thing: no matter how good my steak might be, I would regret not ordering the salmon.

We had a great conversation, with Stu now adding to the mix. As the youngest of our bunch, but probably the most well-traveled — or at least the most exotically traveled — Stu provided fascinating insight to our talk. He’s also a drinker to match the stamina of Mark and Colin, so they felt more at ease while they outpaced me 2 to 1!

Our food came, and where I hadn’t been sure which of the side dishes — peas, steamed mushrooms, onion rings, and chips or baked potato — listed on the specials board came with it when I placed my order, I was shocked to find that it came with all of them, and the choice of potato (I think I got the chips)! The boys got their salmon and, though it was very good, and prepared the way I prepare it, with the skin still on, and despite my embarrassment at how much food was on my plate (I looked such the American!!), I was not sorry I didn’t order the salmon. Mark let me taste his, and it was very good. But my steak, despite it being a sirloin, was very tender and tasty!

After we finished our meals, we retired to the drinkin’ side of the pub, near the bar. I bought the next round for my second pint to their third. We talked about British and American television shows, and the absurdity of censorship in the free society of the United States of America. Stu answered the challenge of a fairly attractive woman (who was there with her man) to attempt to pick up a folded (card?) from the floor without using his hands or touching the floor with anything but his feet. He came oh-so-close, but could not do it. I didn’t even imagine I could try. The woman then demonstrated, to the delight of every man in the place who had the rear view, that she could meet her own challenge!

Someone bought a round of whiskys (Jameson’s?), and I was feeling a little buzzy. Mark and I, having often discussed the sitting before a roaring fire somewhere with a glass of single malt and a cigar each and setting the world to rights, got no closer to the idyll than the Man of Ross, two fingers of Irish whisky, and these teeny, tiny little cigarillos that we had to smoke outside, because the Man of Ross is a smoke-free pub!

Someone bought a second round of whiskys, and I was feeling mighty fine. But then the proprietor of the Man of Ross started shooing people out, as he was trying to close the place. I was sort of hoping for a lock-in, which Mark had described to me at some point during the earlier days of the visit, but it did not appear to be imminent. So a taxi was called, we returned to Colin’s, had a coffee and a little more chatting, and then to bed.

The Birmingham Sojournal - Day Seven

Sue works on Thursdays, so Mark was up with her, and to walk the dogs, and I slept in. It was planned to be a lazy day, as we were really just waiting until evening for Sue to get out of work, at which point we were all going to dinner at Las Iguanas, a “Latin American” restaurant in city centre.

When I woke up Mark made us some breakfast, which, I do believe, was what he called Gypsy Toast: slices of bread dipped in egg and pan fried, and then served with cheddar(?) cheese sandwiched between two slices of the egg-fried bread, and covered with HP brown sauce. It was very savory tasty goodness. The English — or at least mark and Sue — don’t care for sweet things in/on their bread. As Mark dipped the bread in the egg goo, I asked him it he was making what we Americans call French toast. He said that he was not, that he knows what French toast is, and that it’s not very popular in the UK. And I don’t know if there is an abundance of maple syrup in the UK, for that matter...though most of what we call maple syrup here is actually high fructose corn syrup with maple flavoring and artificial color. But I digress.

After breakfast it was my turn to teach Mark about an American pastime. We sat in front of the telly, and he maneuvered through his DVR's on-screen menus to get to the World Series game he had recorded a couple nights earlier on one of the sports channels he gets through his cable service...only, when he started it up, there was no game. Instead, the channel that listed the game in the schedule had run a highlights program about the 2006(?) World Series. Poor instructional value, that, so we fell back and punted to the American football game he had also recorded earlier in the week! To my surprise, it was an edited version of the game, where most of the stopped clock activity, and even some of the kickoffs(!), were omitted in order, it seems, to keep the action moving.

It was a challenging, fun experience trying to teach someone the game; the concept of “the downs” is really tough to one who hasn’t grown up playing and watching the game, and I think I clarified it for Mark. He seemed to enjoy the play once he understood a few of the whys, and what some of the penalties meant. Also of interest to him were the technical aspects about passes caught at the sidelines and the goal lines. His DVR’s pause function, and the video’s slo-mo replays were extremely helpful in demonstrating to Mark how the pass receiver’s feet both need to be in contact with the ground before he goes out of bounds, and how only the ball in the carrier’s possession need cross the goal line in order for a touchdown to be scored. I also learned how exhausting it can be to teach someone the game of American football! But it was fun indeed!

I think this was the day Mark made chili for lunch. It was from a can, which he had heated and poured over rice. I mention this not as a criticism, but for the surprise when I looked at the can. I don’t remember the brand name on the label, but the labeling itself looked suspiciously familiar. And then I found the Hormel logo! I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. It’s as though they own chili.

After lunch, Mark helped me with my lines for the play I’m in at Northeastern Illinois University, Around the World in Eighty Days. He helped in two ways: first in helping me with memorization, by reading my cue lines and helping when I got stuck; second, by identifying and tutoring me on certain accents I’m capable of doing. My English newspaperman is from the south country! We ran through my lines a few times and then called it quits.

I can’t remember, now, but I think this was also the day that Mark, due to the late night previous and his early wake-up with Sue, felt a pressing need for a nap. I left him to his rendezvous with his sofa, and I retired upstairs, ostensibly for a nap, but I wound up catching up on e-mail and Facebooking for about an hour.

Then we got ourselves ready to head into city centre to meet Sue at the movie theater where she works. One of Sue’s bosses is pretty cool, and he happened to be working this evening, so he let Mark park the Defender in the theater’s employee car park. Sue had just come out the door as we pulled in, so we were immediately on our way to the restaurant.

It was a new experience for me, as I had not been to city centre at night. The air was a bit crisp, but it was nice. I had on my heavy brown coat, but I had to leave it unzipped. We arrived at the restaurant court. It wasn’t a “food court” like we have at malls in the U.S.; this was an area with three or four (or five?) nice, elegant, semi-fine dining establishments. Las Iguanas sits on the second level atop the stairway. Mark and Sue had been talking all week about Las Iguanas, and on the ride over, Mark spoke of his eagerly awaited indulgence of a drink called the “mojito.” I told him that it was pretty popular in the States, but that I don’t care for minty drinks.

The exterior of Las Iguanas struck a very familiar chord with me, as it reflects the same Latin American themes as similar restaurants in the U.S. do. I was very interested in sampling Mexican food as interpreted through the English culinary palate! We stepped inside and were met with yet another very familiar American-style setting, with a hostess at a kiosk bedecked with a telephone, a computerized seating chart, and stacks of menus.

And, unfortunately, we were greeted with yet another all-too-familiar American theme: a 90-minute wait to be seated. On a Thursday?! SHEESH!

So, on a day where he had learned about the source of the American phrase “drop back and punt,” Mark looked at Sue and said, “Zorba’s?”

The Greek restaurant was a mere thirty steps away from Las Iguanas, and was almost empty. Zorba’s has a very nice, calm atmosphere, with Greek music softly seeping in through speakers all over the dining room. It was interesting to see most of the same items on the menu as in Greek restaurants at home, though the saganaki doesn’t seem to be as popular in the UK; nobody in the place ordered the flaming spectacle while we were there.

I don’t remember what Mark and Sue ordered, but I did sample what they had, and it was very good. I think Sue ordered the veggie lasagna. I ordered a very traditional Greek-style pork dish. There were lots of vegetables piled on top of the generous portion of meat. I didn’t miss Las Iguanas one bit.

We ended the evening at Zorba’s with drinks. Even though it wasn’t listed on the drinks menu, Sue and I convinced Mark to ask the bartender if he knew how to — and would — make a mojito. He knew how to, but couldn’t. He didn’t have all the ingredients. Sue ordered a big, pink, sweet, fruity concoction; Mark ordered a whisky drink, I think; and they both marveled at the number of different liquors that combine to create my Long Island iced tea. Despite all of them, I really didn’t feel anything from the drink. I had gotten fuzzier from the wine we had had on the other nights earlier in the week.

Back at home we settled in with some more wine, some more telly, and my favorite part, the conversation. Sue went to bed, leaving Mark and me to ourselves to watch No Country For Old Men. What a disturbing, unfulfilling movie. It was intense and suspenseful, but I didn’t care at all for how it ended. It really felt like they forgot to tack on an ending.

The Birmingham Sojournal - Day Six

Today Sue was scheduled to babysit their daughter Holly’s son Ben for the day, so Mark had decided that, after breakfast, he would take me for a stroll through city centre in Birmingham.

Sue had walked over to her mum’s(?) to pick up Ben and brought him back, and we were around long enough to get to play with him a bit. He’s apparently a very energetic toddler, and I had the feeling, as Mark and I left, that Sue had been left to some sort of punishment. Torture by child.

Birmingham's city centre has changed very little, if at all, from 2005. The only difference I could see was the barricades around the fountain dubbed “The Floozy In the Jacuzzi;” She was undergoing some repairs, and the workmen were actually finishing up.


This is not "The Floozy In the Jacuzzi,"
but, apparently, Queen Vicky had quite
a set of hooters!

We walked a little bit, I took a few photos — the sky was crystal clear blue — but I had covered it in 2005 with Mark and Ashley and Ed. The circumstances did however afford Mark and me more time to just sit and chat. And watch the lovely English girls walk by. ...well, I did. Mark is a married man, and thus doesn’t do such things...though he did point out several for me to gawk at....


It's only a model....

There was a group of college-age people standing with some weird contraptions on tripods. I thought they were maybe some sort of camera, though I didn’t seriously think so. Mark thought there might be some place to eat inside the mall, so we went in.

We found a fairly large panini sandwich shop; think sandwich shop ethos with a restaurant interior. It seemed a nice place. The food was pretty good, and I fell in love with yet another beautiful Englishwoman seated a few tables away from us.

Afterward Mark and I headed to The Walkabout, an Australian — or at least Australian-themed — pub. We each had a pint of Foster’s and I tried to at once figure out what NASCAR documentary ESPN was showing on the telly hung in the corner, and explain the American fascination with NASCAR. I think I failed at both.

From The Walkabout, we headed back home. I think. On the way back through the city centre I approached the young people with the strange contraption and asked what they were doing. It turns out they were doing a study of the eye/hand correlation regarding the perception of slope. I’d explain the contraption, but it’s really not worth it.

When we arrived home, Sue was gone to return Ben to Holly. Not long after we got home, Sue arrived, and not long after that, Mark ran out to get some real fish and chips. We ate them in the living room on lap trays while watching telly. And it was good.

The rest of the night, as I recall, was spent chatting with Mark and Sue in front of the telly, sipping wine... and maybe Dura single malt Scotch (Mark and I, anyway) ...and we may have watched a movie or two. If we did, memory fails.



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(Photos ©2010 Tony Gasbarro)

The Birmingham Sojournal - Day Five

My gracious hosts, Mark and Sue, at Weston-Super-Mare.


Today was an earlier wake-up than what had been the norm for the week. Actually, it was a scheduled wake-up, whereas up to that point it had been a wake-up-whenever week. The reason for getting up early was our planned day-trip to Weston-Super-Mare in the southwestern coastal area. One reason Mark and Sue wanted to take me there was that it’s a place I want to visit on my dream journey, retracing my father’s wartime footsteps through Europe. His unit arrived first in England, and one of their training stops was Weston. And I learned why the moment I stepped out of Mark’s Defender: Weston’s seashore is a vast, wide, long, smooth beach, and it looked to me very similar to the coast in the photos I’ve seen of the Normandy beachhead. Mark said that, though it looks very sedate, it’s very treacherous out in the far reaches of the beach at low tide because of quicksand.


Low tide at Weston-Super-Mare. Photo: DarkFarmOwl

The downer for the day was the rain. Thus far in autumnal England, the weather had been superb, perhaps even flawless. But, of course, the one day we planned to go out sightseeing is the day England got her typical English autumn weather. It didn’t matter a great deal, as we still walked along the beach parkway, and to the end of the pier, where we had some salt & vinegar chips (which is what we call french fries in the States).


Taking the rain as the English do: in stride. With Sue, Tom,
and Mia. Photo: DarkFarmOwl


Chowing on chips at the end of the Grand Pier in Weston.
I appear to be totally absorbed in my food.
Photo: DarkFarmOwl

The sky fell on us in a steady, miserable drizzle, and we were all in varying degrees of soaked. The dogs even seemed less than enthused. We walked back along the pier, stopped for a spot of tea, which Mark bought for the three of us, only to bring back a somewhat discouraging, though hilarious, account of the “help” not being very helpful when Mark, who only has two hands, needed to carry three very hot take-away cups of tea.

I’m not sure if it was today or earlier that I amused and infused Mark with the concept of “number three,” in reference to the evacuation of body waste. Where “number one” is going pee, and “number two” is taking a dump, I created a third term, “number three” when you have to do both number one and number two. I mean, come on! It’s the kind of simple math that I can do!

Tom the greyhound once again proved, at Weston, that he is the king of number two. No fewer than three times in less than an hour did he grace the beachfront pavement with the remnants of his most recent meal. I however, claim the title of king of number one. The sudden reintroduction of copious amounts of caffeinated products to my diet brought ceaseless amazement to Mark, whom Sue has described as a “camel.” But it may have something to do with his two humps, so I’m not entirely sure.

We left Weston and headed for Glastonbury. To my recollection, it was only about a half-hour drive from Weston, but I could be mistaken. Glastonbury is the location of an annual music festival, cleverly called The Glastonbury Music Festival, which, to my understanding, very closely resembles Woodstock, to include the dancing naked in the mud; the free sharing of venereal diseases; and the three-day, mushroom-induced blackouts. However, as this year’s festival had long since ended, we contented ourselves to a stroll through the town’s high street, where Sue bought a box of incense while Mark and I stood on the walk and ogled wom... er, the really cool old building across the street from the incense shop.


A Glastonbury street scene.

We walked a few doors down and through a funky corridor into a small courtyard area where we stopped for lunch at The Blue Note Cafe, a cool little earthy kind of place that harks of the endangered Heartland Cafe in Chicago. Mark and Sue, dedicated omnivores, both recommended the veggie burger from this place, so we ordered a round with chips and tea, and we dined out in the rainy courtyard under an overhang while the dogs gazed longingly at us, and two young women — Blue Note employees — sat on the stoop for a ciggy and snuggles with the dogs.

We returned to the car park at Glastonbury and, before we hit the road again, I had to make a “number 3” pit stop. There, in the car park, were several loos of the future. One walks in and shuts and locks the door; unbeknownst to the user, closing and locking the door starts a timer. Everything in the bathroom is automated. The toilet is a cold, one-piece, stainless steel cousin of your basic, standard prison cell toilet. There is a touch sensor on the wall beside the toilet for flushing...no moving parts. The wash basin is literally a hole in the wall, a stainless steel rectangular box into which you stick your hands. Supposedly soap dispenses onto your hands, after which a timer, which has been set for the average amount of time it takes for the average person to wash his average hands to average cleanliness, begins its timing sequence. After the average hand-washing time, the average hand-rinsing time commences, during which the average amount of water is dispensed. Next, the timer switches on the hand dryer, which blows warm air for the average amount of time it takes to dry the hands. All this takes place in the same little rectangle in the wall. No drippies on the floor. The drawback for me was that the soap never dispensed, so I had only rinsed hands. And dried. Fortunately, despite how slow I am, I was out of the restroom before the alarm sounded, a device designed to deter squatters from camping out in the bathrooms overnight.

Then we loaded up in the Defender again, and we headed to the town of Wells, the recent claim to fame of which is that the film Hot Fuzz — or at least parts of it — was shot there. The film history aside, Wells is an interesting little town. There’s a huge church there, which is apparently the home of a bishop, which, if I recall correctly, is very castle-like and surrounded by a real moat!

[It is my sincere hope that Mark will read these posts and provide the clarity that I lack.]


The (formerly Catholic) cathedral at Wells.


MOAT!

By this time in the day the rain had mostly stopped, though there were a few spots of fine mist in the air. We left Wells and rolled on to Cheddar Gorge, which is the birthplace of cheddar cheese. No, really. Being that it’s a gorge, it was nestled in a geographically interesting area, with what I would never have guessed, had I seen it in photos, would be found in England. The road wound back and forth through the gorge and climbed its way past craggy rock cliffs up to... a rather boring area up top, and pointing us in much the wrong direction. So we turned around and, my ears popping as we zig-zagged along our way, wound back down to the river and town.


Cheddar Gorge.


I would post more photos of me, but I have the same stupid
look on my face in all of them.
Photo: DarkFarmOwl


The dam at Cheddar.

But it was closed. Well, not the town, but everything in it...except the “licenced traditional” chippie...which didn’t give away free samples of cheddar cheese. As night fell, we decided against breaking and entering and theft, and we simply got back into the Defender, and we left. And I intentionally made that previous sentence rhyme.

Our day’s exploring done, we wound our way back through the countryside and, despite Mark’s valiant efforts to avoid it, through the city of Bristol.

Before we arrived home, we stopped once again at an “Off Licence” for some wine.

I can’t for the life of me remember what we did for dinner that evening. It was fairly late when we got in, though Mark’s estimate of our arrival around 8:15pm was spot on!

I’m pretty certain we watched some telly, and we might have even watched Children of Men this night instead of Monday night.


Tom


Mia


All photos by Tony Gasbarro, except where noted.

The Birmingham Sojournal - Day Four

Years ago — I was still living in Georgia — Mark and I traded attempts at explaining our respective national pastimes to each other...to equal failure. Mark already had a passing understanding of baseball, though there were a few things he couldn’t figure out on his own. I knew absolutely nothing about Cricket, though it looked like something baseball could have come from.

After breakfast, Mark pulled out, with some measure of glee, The Ashes – 2005, a DVD record of the 2005 Cricket match between England and Australia, a huge rivalry that has raged for years, and which England won, despite a late surge by Australia.

Where a particularly grueling duel between baseball teams can seem to go on for days, a typical Cricket match does go on for days! I don’t recall how it’s all broken down, but they will play all day until sundown, and then pick up again the next day and play just as long, and then go again the next day. I think they play until someone dies of boredom, and then they call it a match.

But, seriously, with the highlights of the match to use as a guide (all the slow, boring bits were edited out, and the video showed only the scoring and the outs), Mark’s explanations gave me a much clearer understanding of the game than I ever thought I would care to have! And, even though I knew England wins it, the late surge by Australia to within 12 runs (and, believe me, that is an extremely narrow margin!) was pretty exciting!

In order that I could return the favor, Mark perused the television schedule and found a baseball game (San Francisco Giants v. Texas Rangers... WORLD SERIES!) to record later.

Mark and I later hopped into the Defender and he conducted a motor tour of Birmingham, commencing first with a crawl through Small Heath, which could also be labeled “Little India,” according to his descriptions. We made a meandering circuit, taking in the Birmingham Football Stadium, where Mark’s beloved Birmingham City Football Club (the Blues) play; Edgbaston Cricket Grounds, site of the 2005 Ashes match; the former site of the Rover Cars factory, which has since been leveled and appears to be in development of some new housing site; and Lickey Hills, which was the source of the urge within me to titter, but I contained it for fear of offending Mark, a concern I learned, through the course of the week, was entirely unnecessary. There we took a brief walk to the top of Beacon Hill, overlooking the whole of the city of Birmingham. Throughout the entire trip Mark and I talked and talked, in topics ranging from American politics, to British politics, to race relations, to cars, to women, to personal experiences falling off rocks... my throat was already sore, and I’d only been there two days!


The view of Birmingham from atop Beacon Hill.
Photo: Tony Gasbarro

After the tour we headed back home...I think. We gathered up Sue, I think, and we headed out again to visit their daughter Gemma and grandson Hayes, I think. Their son-in-law, Dave, was away at work, definitely. Gemma is pregnant with her second child, due in about 8 weeks, so she looked at once happy and uncomfortable. Hayes’s birthday was approaching, so Mark and Sue, being the proud and doting grandparents, had brought along sacks of birthday gifts for him. The boy was pleased.

After about an hour or so at Gemma’s, we headed back home. I think. More chatting ensued.


The view down Mark's street in this middle-class Birmingham
suburb. Photo: Tony Gasbarro

As night fell, Mark, Sue, and I headed over to Mark’s folks’ again and gathered up his Mum, and then we drove about a half-hour to Earlswood, and to the Red Lion pub. Mum was fun, and full of questions for me! She’s very quick-witted with a great sense of humor, and she didn’t seem as old as I expected her to be.

Dinner at the Red Lion was wonderful. I had some sort of lamb (again) stew followed by, I’m not certain, though, a slice of apple pie on a sea of custard. The custard I’m sure of, but the pie I’m not. Whatever I had, it was good.

A quick drive back and Mum was tucked away, and we headed once again to the “Off Licence” for some wine, and back home for some chat and wine, and I believe we watched Up. Mark has, as he characterizes it, “acquired” some films, and he happened to have Up in his inventory. I had strongly recommended this movie to them, and upon my arrival, they had not yet watched it.

As the film started, I noticed that all the titling was in French, to include that in the “newsreel” footage which starts the film. Knowing that Mark “found” this copy, there was no telling what language the soundtrack was going to be. Fortunately, the characters were speaking English, though; also fortunately, there were no subtitles. Fortunately for Mark and Sue, I had already seen the film twice, so in moments crucial, apparently, to French-literate viewers where writing on screen was in French, I was able to translate, such as in Ellie’s scrapbook, titled, “My Adventure Book,” the page where she has scrawled, “Stuff I’m Going To Do,” and, later, when the old man discovers that she had added stuff there, her handwriting, “Thanks for the adventures. Now go make some of your own!”

As I had warned them, they did cry, and as I had assured them, they loved the film!

Afterward, we either chatted some more and watched some telly, or Sue went to bed, and Mark and I watched Children of Men. Or that might have been Wednesday night. Children of Men is an apocalyptic story that takes place approximately 18 years after the last baby in the world has been born. Humans since then have been inexplicably incapable of procreating, and the world is in chaos. The United Kingdom has become a fascist state, and is expelling all foreigners and other immigrants, herding them into ghettos against their will. Then a woman is found who is into her third term of pregnancy. She’s in the hands of a group of freedom fighters, but the fear within the less zealous among the group is that, once the baby is born, the mother will be cast aside while the baby is used as a bargaining chip for the assured humane treatment of the immigrants. Or something like that. It was disturbing, all the same, but still a good film.

The Birmingham Sojournal - Day Three

(As I have written this a full week after the fact, I can’t recall certain details, such as what we had for breakfast on any given day, but breakfast ranged from simple buttered toast with coffee, to toast with Marmite (think Vegemite), to Gipsy toast (slices of bread dipped in seasoned egg and grilled, with a layer of (cheddar?) cheese between them, and covered in HP Brown Sauce), which was actually quite good!)

Mark woke me up in the morning with a knock on the door and, after first asking permission to enter, brought in a cup of coffee with a small biscuit. Moments later, and dressed, I carried the cup down and joined Mark and Sue for more chat.

Later on, we loaded the dogs, rescued racing greyhounds Tom and Mia, into the Defender and headed for the Kingsbury Water Park for the dogs’ weekly Sunday walk. At the end of the walk, and about four poop-stops for Tom, we stopped at the little snack shop there and had a late breakfast of buttered toast and coffee.


Mark with Mia (the gray greyhound) and Tom (the black),
in their home.

We brought the dogs back home and chatted some more, and then we went back out (I think) to a garden store to pick up some dog food. This place was pretty huge, even by U.S. standards, and very diverse and eclectic. Not only a garden store, it was also a crafts store, clothing store (though limited to shoes and outer wear), pet supplies and fish store, snack shop, coffee shop, AND a Starbucks! Mark tossed a bag of dog food into the trolley, and then we wandered around a bit. It became annoyingly obvious here that, due to my sudden increased intake of coffee, I had to break away very often to pee. The problem is that, when I’m on the road, I like to have coffee. And Mark and Sue also make tea every day, so, in an effort to do as much as possible as the British do, I had whatever they were having when they were having it. Hence, lots of coffee and tea! And pee!

So we wandered into the snack shop area and got coffee for each of us, though not at Starbucks. We sat at a table in the seating area for a short while, chatting and sipping our coffee. From there we headed toward the checkout lines and made our way out.

Back home for a while, we readied to go out to supper at The Eastern Curry Inn, just a few “blocks” away in Sheldon. The food was very nice, though I am not at all versed in Indian cuisine. I pretty much let Mark and Sue act as my guides into the menu, and I stayed pretty conservative. The nan bread came with some sauces, one supposedly very spicy, which I did not try; one that was a minty, yogurt based thing; and another that was a sort of sour...well, I’m not sure what. The thing is, I didn’t really care for any of them. My appetizer was a few strips of chicken prepared in (Tandoori?) style. My meal was basically a mildly spiced lamb stew over steamed rice. It was very good. I sampled Mark’s dish (he and Sue each ordered the same thing as the other. It, too, was very good.)

After dinner we headed home, once again via the Off-Licence for some wine. This time we got one bottle of red and one of white. Once home we (I think) watched some telly. British television has some damn funny shows. I can’t remember the names of all of the programmes I liked, but one of them was called Q.I. One episode had Rich Hall (of Sniglets fame) on the panel; he really didn’t say a whole lot.

A fairly late night, we called it around midnight, I think.

The Birmingham Sojournal - Day Two

On the plane, after I had settled into my seat with my feet on the bag of pillow and blanket and covered myself up under my jacket, I was awoken I-don’t-know-how-much later by the woman in the seat next to mine when she needed to get up to use the bathroom. When she returned I thought I might have to use the facilities soon myself, but I sat back down and covered up under my jacket again.

The next time I awoke, sunlight streamed into the cabin, and the flight attendants were wheeling out the breakfast service. There was less than one hour left until landing at London/Heathrow. I had slept almost the entire flight!!

The cabin crew handed out the landing cards for UK immigration, and as I filled out mine I realized that I didn’t know Mark’s address. I entertained the thought of fudging it, but I figured I could just call him when I landed...until I remembered that my phone would be useless in the UK. If I pled my case to the immigration official, I would probably be allowed to call him...and then I realized that, despite all the times I wrote down his number for others, I had never written them down for myself. Okay, so I could call directory assistance and hope to reach Sue, who could then tell me their address. But then I thought that I would probably remember the address by the time it got to that point.

When it got to that point, I still had not recalled their address. And I fudged it for the immigration agent. While standing in the immigration line, I wrote “86 Sheldon Way, Sheldon, Birmingham” as Mark’s address on the immigration form; I was WAY off! The agent asked me what sort of place the address was where I was to stay, and I told him it was my friend’s house. He asked me who my friend was, and I told him. He asked me how I knew this friend, and I told him, realizing how absurd it actually sounded. He asked how long I had known this friend, and I told him, adding that I had visited him in 2005, hoping that would make our original acquaintance sound less absurd.

The immigration agent allowed me in, though I was technically entering the country illegally!

I was early, at least according to Mark’s calculations. He estimated that immigration and bag claim would have me out the doors between 11:00 and 11:30 a.m. The flight had landed maybe only ten minutes early, but the immigration line for non-E.U. passport holders was short and quick-moving, and my bag came out quickly as well. I was standing on the curb by 10:30! I waited, wearing my agreed-upon, easily-spotted Cubs cap, until about 11:10, when I saw a black Land Rover Defender 110 enter the short-stay car park; it was the only Defender I saw in the entire time I stood out there, so I just knew it was Mark.
Or was it? I thought I recalled that he would come to the curb to look for me, so now I wasn’t sure it was him after all. There could be someone else with a Defender 110 coming to the airport, right? I didn’t want to head inside to try to find him and wind up actually missing him at the curb. What to do?

I caved to the fear and I headed inside. And I realized very quickly that I would never find him in that throng!

Meanwhile, as I found out later, Mark was himself embroiled in an ordeal. To keep it brief, he was misled by signage to a parking area for “high-sided” vehicles, only when he got to the barrier it wouldn’t let him in. He thought his Defender was over seven feet tall, but it isn’t, and the sensor that senses the height of vehicles didn’t sense his, so no entry was allowed. After dealing with a couple of parking attendants who couldn’t be bothered to actually help him, he went in search of the car park supervisor.

I left the madding crowd in the arrivals area and headed back outside. When I had earlier entered, I had noticed a door leading into a coffee shop in the arrivals area, though I walked past it. I saw it again from inside, and this time I decided to take it, as it would save me quite a few steps to get back to the curb. As I stepped outside from that doorway, I saw across the way from me, as well as across the way from where I had earlier been standing at the curb, a man who looked from a distance of about 100 yards a lot like Mark! He stepped briefly inside the valet booth there and came out again.

When I had decided to head inside to look for Mark, I had very dutifully walked to the crosswalks and made my meandering way in. Now, as this person who looked like Mark stood across from me, I made my way toward him across two lanes of traffic where there was no crosswalk. I was already criminally present in England; why fear crossing a roadway illegally?

As I crossed, the man who looked like Mark looked in my direction and set off determinedly toward me. It was Mark! We approached each other quickly, and as we closed the last few feet between us, I was without doubt he was Mark, but he glared past me as he trudged along.

“Mark?” I said as he went by.

The man turned to look at me. “OH! Christ! TONY! I’m sorry! I didn’t even see you!” He threw his arms out and hugged me. Then, as we walked back to his car, he told me about his ordeal, and why he didn’t see me from only feet away, and that, while he ventured off to find the car park supervisor, he had parked illegally. I felt right at home with a fellow criminal!

Very soon we were on the road north toward Birmingham, engaged in what would become the main activity during my visit — talking. About halfway to Birmingham we stopped for lunch at The Orange Tree, a nice pub in apparently a very posh area. The women there were very attractive and very attractively dressed. The Orange Tree became the frequent off-hand joke of where I wanted to go “tomorrow.”

When we arrived at Mark’s home, Sue came outside to greet me and welcome me inside. After a cup of tea and a brief chat, they suggested I take my things upstairs and have a quick nap, and I took them up on it.

Later, Mark knocked on the door to get me moving again, and when I got downstairs there was already-cold Domino’s pizza in the kitchen. Ordering pizza had been mentioned, and we had discussed a one-hour nap, but it would appear that Mark and Sue opted to let me sleep a little longer to catch up, and they went ahead and ate when they were ready. When I came down Sue heated up a couple slices for me, and I ate while watching some telly with them.

After dark, Mark and I headed over to his parents’ home where his brother, Colin, was visiting for the day. We went in, I was introduced to the parents, and we gathered up Colin to head over to The Griffin Inn for a couple of pints.

After only a brief stay — we were there maybe an hour — we brought Colin back to the folks’, headed to an “Off Licence” to pick up a couple bottles of wine, and then back to Mark’s where we sat to watch some telly and sip wine with Sue.

The Birmingham Sojournal - Day One

To be fair and honest, I didn't journal every day. Hell, I didn't journal at all! But, as this series of posts is a relatively accurate account — written as much as nearly a month after the fact — of the daily doings during my recent trip to Birmingham, England, IT'S A FRIGGIN' JOURNAL!

22 October 2010, Friday
Things did not go as planned. I don’t know why I ever thought they would. I worked through the night in the taxi, and that was uneventful. I had a late airport run which sounded off right about the time I had planned to leave for the 303 Taxi office, scheduling me for a pickup in Arlington Heights 20 minutes later, and setting me back about a half-hour in my schedule, after going out of my way to the airport to drop off the customer, and after waiting extra time for the tardy customer to get his shit together.

At the office, I turned in the taxi and the spare key, all very quickly, and then I went outside and tried to ask the first taxi driver who came out of the office if he could drive me to the Rosemont Blue Line station. The first guy said, “Yes, of course...in five minutes...I have to find my phone.” He crawled around in his car for a few seconds.

“Dial me, please,” he asked in his heavily accented English (I think he’s Indian). I didn’t hear him at first. “Dial my phone please!”

He dictated his phone number and I dialed it. It took two tries for him to locate it at the bottom of a cloth shopping bag full of stuff as it rang, but he did find it. then he said, “I’ll be one minute,” and he went back inside the building.

Ten minutes later, and about 5 minutes too late for me to catch the 9:18 Metra train from Jefferson Park, which set my schedule back another hour, another taxi driver came out of the 303 office. He took me to the Rosemont Station for free, but asked me along the way how much I make. When I told him, he was shocked. Not in a good way. For me. I spent the rest of the day rather depressed about it.

I seized the opportunity of the nearly 90-minute wait (I missed the 9:18 by about ten minutes, exactly the amount of time that stupid “I’ll be one minute” idiot made me wait) to get breakfast at McDonald’s. Since I had the time to eat in, I got the steak, egg & cheese bagel with the round egg instead of the scrambled. Either they changed something in the ingredients, or I’m just jaded, because it has never tasted as good as it did in the first year they made them.

On the train I called 303 to order a taxi. About 20 minutes before I was due to arrive at Palatine, I got the notification text that a taxi — number 567 — had been dispatched. About five minutes before arrival, I got the callout phone call. While I was about to enter the amount of time I wanted him to wait, I received another callout phone call from 303. As it was a redundant call, I pressed “Ignore” on the phone’s screen, and finished the other call, requesting the taxi to wait five minutes.

The train arrived on time, and I walked out to taxi number 567. As I approached, the driver asked me if I was Tony. I answered him and got in. Then he told me that he waited, just in case, because he had gotten a cancellation notice! FUCK! What is it about me that, whenever I use 303 Taxi Service’s fantastic automated dispatch system, I always get fucked...or nearly so, in this particular case? So, after having a very calm, brief argument with the driver about the rate number (he was charging rate 2, I thought it was rate 1 from Palatine to Hoffman Estates; he changed it to the cheaper rate 1), he drove me home.

Being so far behind in my schedule, I began packing with the full resignation that, despite working through the night and having been thus far awake since, I would get no time to take a nap. I called Saad (303 Taxi number 530) and asked him if he could pick me up at 5:30 to take me to the airport. He said that it would be no problem.

It was a problem. At 5:30 he didn’t show. Patient as I am, I waited, and used the time to move myself outside to wait. As I got to the deck outside the “rear” door of the apartment building — at 5:40 — my phone rang; it was Saad.

He had taken a fare to the airport and was now stuck somewhere in traffic that was not moving. He said that he would make it, and that everything would be okay.

At 6:00 I called Saad back. He apologized and said that he had not moved at all from the place he was when he had called me 20 minutes earlier! AT ALL! I had thought in the earlier call that he was exaggerating when he said the traffic was “not moving,” but he wasn’t. I was a little pissed off that he had not called me again sooner when traffic still had not moved, so he said he would call one of his other friends; he said he would tell him not to charge me, and that he would pay him for my trip out of his own pocket. I was too pissed off to feel at that moment that his gesture was not necessary.

The friend he called was cab number 508, someone I’ve met before, but whose name I do not know. He showed up around 6:30, which was ten minutes past the time I was “supposed” to be at the airport (8:20pm flight). He said he would speed to the airport. And boy, did he!

Traffic was fairly light for a Friday evening, and he got me to O’Hare in about 20 minutes! I confirmed that Saad told him not to charge me for the trip, and I tried to give him a tip for taking the chances, but he refused, even telling me that I was making him feel guilty. I didn’t push it. I will insist to Saad that he let me repay him. It wasn’t his fault that he got stuck in traffic behind what was apparently a wreck involving an 18-wheeler.

Once at the airport, things finally started moving smoothly. The plane was on track to depart on time, a fact which I reported to Mark via text/e-mail.

Once in the air, and before we were even flying completely level, the flight attendants began the dinner service. I had already removed my shoes and set my feet on the bag of pillow and blanket (EXCELLENT idea!) Dinner was served and eaten, the tray was cleared, and after toying with the idea of watching a movie, I pulled my jacket over me and “reclined” my seat.

As the General Days of My Children's World Hospital Turns

Reading of late about the demise of the venerable daytime drama As the World Turns, my mind is drawn to a funny memory from the early days of my broadcasting career, at the ABC affiliate WSIL-TV, in southern Illinois.

A brief education about TV stations: Master Control is the room in a TV station through which all the stuff you see on a given channel passes. There is an audio/video switchboard that controls which a/v circuit is sent to the broadcast antenna, and then out to the viewing public. And, in some capacity, there is a human watching over that switchboard.

At WSIL, Master Control was almost 100 percent manual; the Master Control Operator had to manually load all the individual local commercials into individual videotape players, and had to manually cue up all the players, and had to manually roll them when their time came to play, and had to manually switch to them with the a/v switchboard when their commercials started. The Master Control Operator also had to monitor the signal for any errors that might be coming from our station, or our antenna, or even from the network, if a network program was on the air.

When I started as the Promotions Coordinator at WSIL, I was informed that I would also be a backup Master Control Operator, to fill in for the regulars when ill or on vacation. I already had master Control experience from my days as a student Master Control Op, working at the PBS station on campus. Nevertheless, I wasn’t too happy with the specter of Master Control hanging over my head again...and it was worse at advertiser-supported, ABC affiliate WSIL; PBS doesn’t have commercials!

Early one morning I received a phone call. God-awful early. That’s never good; I feared my father had quickly followed my mother into the grave. But, fortunately, no. It was merely to inform me that Vanessa, the sign-on – to – mid-day Master Control Operator had quit, effective immediately. I had to fill in for her that day...and every day until a replacement could be found, and until that replacement could be trained. By me.

Thus began the torturous schedule of 4:00am wake-ups for 5:30am sign-ons, and harrowing mornings of lining up and running the breaks for the morning newscasts, Good Morning, America news cut-ins, Live with Regis and Kathy Lee, some other morning shows, and the dreaded afternoon Daytime Dramas. But, actually, since the daytime dramas were pre-recorded, the network provided supremely accurate break schedule information, so they were vastly easier to do than the erratic, crazy Live with Regis and Kathy Lee! That show was sometimes next to impossible to run a clean break, especially near the end, when they had to cram in all the scheduled breaks they put off at the beginning!

So, when the daytime dramas started, it was actually a time to relax! And since it was my responsibility as the on-duty Master Control Operator to monitor the signal, I had to watch. And a funny thing happens when you have to watch daytime dramas: you get sucked in. When you’re resistant to them, like I was... am ...you don’t realize you’ve been sucked in until one or both of two things happen: there is a surprise plot twist in the story (and aren’t they all?), and you hear yourself say out loud, “Oh, SHIT!” or “You BITCH;” and someone who cares about a particular show asks you what happened in today’s episode. And you can answer them. In detail.

Jim showed up one morning behind my boss, Ron. I knew Jim from our days at Southern Illinois University in the Radio-TV curriculum as well as at the public TV station operated by the university. His circumstances had kept him in the area after he graduated, where he had been stuck in minimum wage jobs outside of our career field. Ron had brought Jim in to introduce him to me as Vanessa’s replacement, indicating silently that Jim had finally landed a minimum wage job within our industry. Training commenced the next day.

Having worked in Master Control at the public TV station, I was spared having to teach Jim the ethos behind the job. All that was left was the nuts and bolts of the job: turning on the transmitter, signing on the station, and familiarizing him with the beast that is Big Network television broadcast schedules.

I worked with Jim for a couple days, letting him just watch me, and involving him more and more with the routines: loading the commercial tapes on the rolling cart in the order of their scheduled airplay; marking the daily air log to show when the spots ran, and when there were errors or discrepancies; putting the air tapes away when they were finished; recording programs we were to air later in the day....

Then we switched chairs for the easier part of the day, and I let him run some breaks. More and more as the week progressed. By the end of the second week of his training, we had reversed roles, and I was watching him run the breaks and set everything else up, and helping him during the moments when he got overwhelmed.

Finally, after Ron asked me if I thought Jim was ready, Ron came in to Master Control and watched Jim work. After a couple breaks, Ron stood up, said, “Good,” smiled and walked out. I told Jim to just call me down any time he needed help or had a question. And then I asked him if he had any questions before I left him on his own. He didn’t, but he expressed concern about making it through the “stupid” daytime dramas each day without killing himself or, worse, falling asleep and missing a break.

I said, “Jim, inside of three weeks you will be so wrapped up in those stupid shows, you won’t believe it.”

Jim shot back, “Oh, HELL no! I can’t stand those things.”

I smiled at him. I said, “Okay. Whatever.”

I walked back to my desk, a seemingly alien place after a whole month in Master Control full-time, and I marked my calendar for three weeks to the day of my conversation with Jim: “Ask Jim about All My Children.”

A day before the event, I set my VCR at home to record All My Children, and that evening I watched it in order to catch up on what was happening on the show.

The next day, just as All My Children was about to end, I went in to Master Control under the pretense of checking to see if some promos had been updated. Then I asked Jim how things were going, how he liked it, and so on.

Then I “noticed” the program on the air, and I asked a pointed question, something like, “What did Erica say to so-and-so about his affair?”

Jim answered me quite readily, and with some attached emotion. So I asked a follow-up question, regarding another character, and again, with a bit of excitement, he answered me, without even a hint of curiosity about why I would ask. Then I smiled at him.

He looked at me. “What?” he asked, an uncertain smile crossing his face.

I pointed my finger at him. “Gotcha.”

He closed his eyes as the earlier moments of our conversation played back in his head. He was indeed wrapped up in the daytime dramas, and he knew I knew it.

We both had a good laugh, and I forgave him his failure, telling him I, too, had denied any possibility that I would care anything more about the soaps beyond whether or not our signal faded while they were on. But they’re irresistible; if you have them on and audible, as we were required to do, and you plop yourself down in front of them, you’re going to follow them. It’s juicy gossip of the most harmless kind, and you know everybody’s secrets, and you don’t have to worry over whom you might tell. It’s what made them so successful in the first place. It goes deep down into our collective social psyche.

The fortunate part is, once you are able to pull yourself away from them, their draw fades quickly. I was able to leave Master Control and move on with my life and my assigned duties. Jim didn’t have the luxury of training his way out of it until he was ready to move up or move on.

And, no. I don’t watch the daytime dramas any more.



°

September Breeze

The wind across my nostrils
blows the fading sense of summer
the sweet and melancholy
air of moments gold and light which
keeps the night at bay.

A tickle of my mem’ry
calls the fleeting scents of summer
with resignation tender
thoughts of coming autumn tumble
‘cross the shortened day.

(I'm no poet. Please feel free to improve upon or add to it in the comments section!)

Careering

When does a job become a career? I had a job for eight years, and before that I had several other jobs, doing much the same thing, for another eight years. But early in 2009 that string stopped.

And one year ago I started driving a taxi.

I never wanted to be a taxi driver. Oh, at times it seemed like it would be an interesting job, and over the past year I learned that it can be an interesting job. But it’s not the job I want to do. The unfortunate truth, however, is that my chosen career seems to have abandoned me.

I used my new unemployment last year as my opportunity to pursue some dreams: acting, writing. But this job that supposedly allows me the flexibility of schedule demands so much time in order to earn a living income that the schedule is very inflexible, lest I starve, or choose between paying the rent or the electric bill. Where I had hoped to drive the taxi to fill in when the freelance video work and the paid acting gigs left gaps, it’s quite the other way around. There have been damnably few freelance production gigs, and the acting gigs to date have been pro bono.

Of course, a few relatively minor lifestyle changes could make being a taxi driver a little more comfortable. I could move into a smaller apartment; it’s not like I spend much time in my place, now. Or I could get a roommate; I would never get to know him or her, and neither of us would ever really be a bother to the other.

But I don’t want to be a taxi driver. Yet it’s what I am. For a year, already.

And counting.

Just. Like. That.

Little more than a year ago, not long after I was laid off from my job, I started meeting at a nearby Starbucks on Wednesdays with a group of people with the similar interest of video production. It is rather loosely helmed by a friend of mine, Sean, and we talk about all kinds of things, but generally about new media and content creation.

The group has never been large; there’s usually only the core group of about four or five of us, and everyone other than Sean — with whom I once worked with back in 1989 at the TV station at Southern Illinois University, and then again in 1993 at the ABC affiliate in southern Illinois, and with whom I have bumped into on and off in the intervening years — is someone I hadn’t known before I started meeting with the group.

One of the group was an older woman, Celina, who I had guessed was in her late fifties to early sixties. She was admittedly clueless about video production at all, let alone video for the digital age. While I found myself mildly annoyed that she would monopolize the day’s conversation with her efforts and questions to understand a concept of production or a trick in editing, I was also impressed at her dogged determination to learn something that was so far beyond the realm of her body of experience, as well as the many computer-age things she had incorporated into her otherwise old-fashioned world.

Celina was forever searching for client companies and organizations for which she could produce videos, and in March of this year I helped her shoot a video for the local chapter of a national sewing organization. The edit of that video became her new obsession, and the new distraction for our Wednesday morning group!

I never really knew Celina all that well. I recall from conversations that she had been an art teacher, but had retired. She and her husband, Ernie, had me over for lunch one Sunday afternoon in autumn last year, and it was a very cerebral experience in addition to the excellent chicken parmegiana that Celina made for the occasion. She wasn't a close friend, but she was a current friend, all the same.

Several weeks ago Celina went absent from our group due to a cracked rib she suffered moving a heavy item in her home, and she remained at home to recuperate. On pain medication, she didn’t want to drive under its influence.

Last week a get well card was passed around the group to send our wishes to Celina that she return to us soon. In my inimitable style, I wrote “Don’t die!” and then crossed it out as though to imply an afterthought, and then the pat, “Get well soon!” comment in its place.

The very next day the whole group and I received an e-mail from Ernie telling us that Celina had experienced a fall in their home the day before, which resulted in a severely broken arm and a broken neck. At the emergency room, tests and x-rays revealed, in addition to the broken bones, a mass in her lungs: stage 4 cancer which had metastasized and spread to her cervical spine and her brain.

There was nothing the doctors could do for her. It had already spread too far.

She opted against any life-saving measures — had there been any available to her — and chose instead comfort care, and was immediately sedated beyond coherence.

One of our group, Stephen, was able to use his status as a clergyman to visit Celina in the ICU where no one else other than family were allowed to visit. In addition to the comfort and support he provided to Ernie, he was able to give us an update on her condition. She was still heavily sedated and incoherent. As one would expect, the outlook was grim.

In reference to my suddenly callous-seeming comment on the get-well card, I had expressed the hope that the card had not yet been sent, but it had been. Stephen, in an attempt to head it off, or to head off any offense it might cause, mentioned the comment to Ernie. Stephen later reported that Ernie, in his characteristically warped good humor, said that Celina had opted not to take my advice. Regardless, I was still mortified, though relieved that he had taken it in stride.

Tuesday evening, around 11:30, I received from Ernie the message that Celina had passed away just after 8:00 that evening. “Shocked” does not even begin to describe my feelings about the whole progression.

Celina is the first friend I have lost. There have been other friends with whom I had lost touch years before and never re-established contact before their passing, and there have been friends of the family — of my siblings or of my parents — who passed away, and to whose families I came and provided support and comfort, but, until now, I had never lost a personal friend. The strange, sudden, and seemingly cruel manner in which she was taken has left me feeling quite hollow, and this bustling, noisy Starbucks today seems nonetheless quieter.

Celina was 62.



Celina Acquaro
September 25, 1948 - September 7, 2010
(photo: Sean McMenemy)


(edited to replace originally posted photo with a better one, above, and assign proper photo credit)

Sap

In case you’ve been reading here less frequently than I have been contributing here at fa·ra·go, you may not know that, a couple months ago, I began working out with the P90X Program.

I started another blog to chronicle that adventure, so I won’t bore you with that here. You can go there to let me bore you with that.

Instead, I’ll bore you with more fa·ra·go-style boredom, though somewhat related to working out and physical fitness.

The other day I was mildly procrastinating the start of the day’s workout. I believe I was attending to that all-important task of lint extraction from the seams in my office chair, when the thought occurred to me, ”Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to push me to work out?” I mean, Tony Horton, the workout maven in the P90X videos — even though he’s little more to me than an animated electronic flicker on my TV screen — keeps pushing me and encouraging me and praising me for such hard work during and after each workout. I need somebody — in the flesh or in the ether — prodding me and pushing me to get out of bed, to put on my workout clothes, and to tell me that investigating my Facebook friends’ new Facebook friends is NOT a necessary demand of my time.

And, in a brief flash, my mind fell back onto my “glory” days in the U. S. Air Force. Not to basic training where PT (physical training) seemed much less about fitness than about conformity, but to the tech school I was sent to a year and a half later, “en route” to my duty station in Germany. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona, was, at that time, the training center for the Ground Launched Cruise Missile (GLCM, or, affectionately, “glickem”) program.

(During Desert Storm, and again during the unnecessary Iraq War, much to do was made of the Navy’s highly accurate “Tomahawk Cruise Missile,” launched from the decks of battleships in the Persian Gulf. The “Tomahawk” is the Navy’s sea-launched version of the BGM-109 cruise missile, and the same missile that the U.S. Air Force had in its arsenal during the late 1980s and into the ‘90s, only configured to be transported around in transporter-erector-launcher trucks, highly mobile and deployed stealthily throughout the pretty forests of Europe. The Air Force canceled the GLCM program in the mid-1990s, though I believe it still maintains the air-launched version.)

Upon the first day of training, we were informed that there would be PT every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning at 5:30am sharp. For most of us in the program, who had been out of basic training for up to several years, this marked a drastic change to what likely most had ever known. Five-thirty?! Were these people crazy?

And sure enough, that first Wednesday the NCO squad leaders in training with the rest of us walked through the dorm banging on doors at 5:00 to get everybody up and outside for PT.

It was early October. It was Tucson, otherwise known as The Desert. It was dark. And? It was chilly outside, one of the surprises of The Desert. One of the instructors met us outside the dorms, the NCOs formed us up, and we marched to the PT field. Where basic training had us working out on asphalt or concrete PT pads, this was literally a grass field, dusty and dirty.

Still in formation, we spread out uniformly across the field with enough space between each man to allow for proper exercise form. And then we met our Tormentor.

I don’t remember the man’s name. Or his rank. As a matter of fact, I never saw the man in uniform, in the classrooms, or anywhere else any other time on base, except on the PT field. I really don’t know. He seemed kind of fat, and pretty old to me. Of course, I was 21; 35 was “old” to me. This guy was probably no more than 45 or 50. He may have even been a retiree to whom they gave the privilege to work out with us. I wouldn’t be surprised if I learned that he was only 40. But he was “old.” And he was the leader of our PT.

We still worked out with conformity, each man doing the exercises to the same count and cadence as everyone else. But the odd thing was — at least to my experience, which had been in Basic Training that the Training Instructors simply walked around us grunting recruits during PT, barking orders and watching us grunt — this old guy who nobody ever saw away from the PT field, did every rep of every exercise with us! Every push-up, every jumping jack, every sit-up, every evil stretch he made us do, he did himself, too. And? He was always ready for more! Despite his apparent girth, he was tremendously fit and strong, and he put most of us young kids to shame.

And he got me into the best shape of my life. In Montana, my duty station before I was sent to Davis-Monthan, I had ballooned from my highest, fittest, basic training weight of 165 lbs. up to my highest (at that time), fattest (at that time) weight of 177! Within a couple of weeks, I was back down to 165, but with less fat and more muscle than I had ever seen on my body since I joined the Air Force!

So I thought about that guy the other day, and I wondered — as I always wonder when I think about someone who sped past my eyes in my youth — whatever became of him. If he was as old as 50 then, he’s pushing 75 now! I wonder if he’s still alive.

Of course, this does nothing for my motivation issue today. While it was a small slice of Hell to have someone pound on my door at 5:00 in the morning three times a week, it represented no real conviction or dedication on my part to the cause of my own fitness. But, in hindsight, it was certainly convenient! And, if I recall correctly, the rude awakenings stopped when we all proved we could show up downstairs in time for the march to the field. We were not raw recruits, after all. But even at that, I had the pressure of conformity, not to mention the sounds of the other guys milling about in the hall, getting ready, to get me to haul my ass out of bed.

Oh, Motivation! How are ye disguised today?



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A Sunday in July

As is my usual excuse, I've been devoting my time to other, more time consuming tasks than writing, so far·ra·go sits on a back burner, barely simmering, with a slimy skin forming on the top....

Well, Shoot!
I worked last week in my chosen career, that of video production guy. I went to Omaha on Sunday July 11 for two nights. It was kind of weird doing that after not having done it for nearly a full year. Some things came to me like I had last done them yesterday, while others took some thought. Most frustrating was my intermittent inability to find certain non-essential-yet-still-crucial little buttons on the camera. But, in all, it was like getting on a bike again. I walked away kinda sweaty with a sore ass.

Don't go there.


P90Xtasy? Uh, no....
I've completed week number three of twelve in the P90X Extreme Home Fitness program. I'm still alive. I think my belly is slimming down a bit, but it's hard to tell. My pants are loose again. I think that's a good sign. Feel free to follow my progress, bitching, and moaning at my P90X blog, P90Xperiment



My Eye Queue
I've been squeezing in a few movies lately, chipping away slowly at my Netflix queue. Recent movies have been The Simpsons Movie, which I swear I had never seen before, but so much of it was familiar I doubt myself (but when did I see it?!); Million Dollar Baby; Ratatouille; and, just today, 3:10 to Yuma.

Million Dollar Baby
I have always taken Clint Eastwood — as a director — with a grain of salt. I come under the gun (to make a pun) with friends and film nuts alike whenever I give them my opinion of Eastwood's Unforgiven which was hailed as an instant classic in an era when the Western is all but dead. I saw it as pointless, a violent soapbox diatribe claiming to be against violence. I must be the only one.

So it was with a similar attitude that I watched my Blu-Ray player swallow the Million Dollar Baby disc. It was a likeable story about a determined young woman, played by Hillary Swank, whose dream was only to be trained as a fighter by her vision of the greatest trainer that ever lived, the old, worn-out boxing trainer portrayed by Eastwood, who thinks a woman training in his gym is bad for business. Of course, he's finally convinced, thanks to her tenacity, to take her on. Of course, he's dealing with the emotional loss of his daughter, estranged from him years ago and who refuses to communicate with him, and he feels a paternal tug toward this young woman who is otherwise alone.

So I expected a boxing movie, only with a woman in the ring kicking ass and making her way to the champeenship, which she of course wins.

Not.

This movie hits you with a surprise haymaker from your blind side, and redefines "unpredictable." I won't spoil it for anyone who has a worse record of movie-going than I do (this film was released in 2005!), But I will say that I'm not supposed to cry like that over a boxing film!

Mr. Eastwood, I bow to you and your directing prowess, and I give your film four Netflix stars. Million Dollar Baby deserves all the Academy Awards it received (Best Director, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Morgan Freeman), and Best Actress (Swank)).

Unforgiven still blows, though. Thanks.

Ratatouille
Set aside the ridiculous proposition that a rat could be a culinary genius, communicating to an inept human the movements necessary to create impossibly delicious dishes. Okay... done?

This film was FANTASTIC! With each progression of digitally animated storytelling, Pixar Studios further hones the craft and sets the new standard for it. The detail in Ratatouille is mind-boggling, both in attention to character movement, as well as scenic background elements. There are several scenes of Paris exteriors that I had to pause the film to study, almost convinced that the background was at best a mix of actual photos/film of Paris street scenes. But no. It's all art work of unbelievable meticulousness and realism.

And the story. Aside from its preposterous premise (but how else to get the kids in the theater seats?), the story was sweet, dealing with relationships at both the human level and the rat, through conflict and motives, needs and desires. And the best part? No musical numbers! There's a good bit of slapstick — necessary for the ADHD set — and a nice balance of shtick and witty banter for the parents they dragged with them. There's also a bit of a surprise, as the usual happy ending isn't quite what you expect it to be. Great vocalizations carry the story comfortably, despite an inexplicable inconsistency of French accents (some have them, some don't; none of the rats do).

I thoroughly enjoyed Ratatouille, laughing out loud many times while watching it. If you like animated films, I highly recommend this one. If you don't like animated films, then screw you. Go watch Million Dollar Baby again.

3:10 to Yuma (spoiler alert!!)
Based on a 1957 film of the same title, and an Elmore Leonard short story, it's about a poor rancher who agrees to house a captured gang leader, and then assist with transporting him on a two-day ride to the town of Contention in order to put the prisoner on a train to Yuma.

Starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, this film is billed as a psychological drama against an Old West backdrop, but as such it falls short. This is an action-adventure film, with very little suspense or psychological intrigue, if any. If it doesn't act like a duck, don't call it a duck.

The film certainly lives up to its correctly identified genre, but that's about it. If you like shoot-em-ups with lots of exploding blood-packs and guys falling off horses, then you won't be disappointed. If you want a story that makes sense, look elsewhere. Crowe is cast as the fearsome bad guy, Ben Wade, who earns his gang's respect through terror and swift repercussions for less than exceptional work. He has made his fortune by repeatedly robbing the stagecoach that carries the railroad's payroll, haplessly guarded by Pinkerton's Security Services. Bale portrays the rancher, Dan Evans, who the land-hungry railroad agent has on the ropes by damming up a creek that would otherwise bring water to his cattle and his grassland.

Evans facilitates Wade's capture by stalling him in a saloon while the law and railroad men move in on him, and then he accepts their offer of money if he'll assist them in first housing Wade and then in transporting him to the nearest railroad town, a couple days' ride away.

Wade then commences a confusing dance of murdering some of his escorts while submitting to others. By the end, it's just Wade, Evans, Evans's son, and the weasely railroad agent waiting nervously in the town of Contention for the train to Yuma to arrive, as Wade's ruthless gang descend on the town to free him. Inexplicably, Wade assists Evans in getting him to the train through the gauntlet of lead sprayed around the town by Wade's men, despite several opportunities to either kill Evans or simply escape. And does Evans really do all this because his boy thinks he's a wuss? Apparently so. And all for naught, as Evans is finally gunned down by Wade's men just as Wade willingly gets into the cell-car of the train. And Wade's show of gratitude to his men? He kills them all. And then he gets back on the train to go to jail.

WTF?

Maybe Elmore Leonard's 4500 word short story explains it better. Maybe the original 1957 film does a better job of outlining why Wade doesn't kill Evans with the many opportunities the 2007 film offers him.

Maybe, if you've been wanting to see this film after missing its theatrical release (like I did), you'll just change your mind. The Simpsons Movie is more intellectually gratifying.



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