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Vanilla Fudge is Sitting Behind Me

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VanillaFudgeCover

Salt Lake City Airport, July 9, 2016:

Two guys with straggly long hair, one in a pony tail, and dark glasses— dangling crucifix earrings, and Harley Davidson T-shirt, two guys with that old grungy look, and a third in a kind of “Paul Revere and the Raiders” black jacket with big buttons and rolled cuffs, no facial hair, but flowing locks. Not quite the same as the other two, but from the same era. They HAD to be aging rockers.

At the gate I thought of saying “hello” to these guys. But what would I say?—”You guys sure look like rockers, but who are you?”

What if they were just from one of those zillions of “tribute” bands? THAT would be weird. So I said nothing, and they sat in the row behind Deb and I. Paul Revere behind me, an empty seat between him and Pony Tail behind Deb, then across the aisle Pony Tail’s shorter pal with the round head, dark hair and mustache.

Paul Revere fiddled on a laptop and the other two mostly zoned out for four hours, until we were approaching Newark Airport and the ride got really bumpy as we whipped through some rain clouds, and Paul and Pony started chatting about the annoyingly loud whine of the engine. Turns out Paul Revere didn’t know the other two, but after agreeing that the engine was clearly producing an “A” note, they talked about perfect pitch, and acknowledging they were both in the music business, got to know each other. Pony Tail mentioned he had just played a concert at the casino in Wendover. 

I looked over at Deb, who was also listening, and silently mouthed, “Shit! Is that Ted Nugent?” (Because we had both chatted about seeing Nugent’s name on the billboard when we passed the Peppermill in Wendover earlier that day. What SONG did Ted Nugent perform? Name one. I can’t. But for some reason his name is memorable.) But it wasn’t Ted Nugent.

Pony Tail was Pete Bremy, bassist, currently with, but not an original Vanilla Fudge band member, and the short guy with the dark hair across the aisle was Vince Martell, the original Vanilla Fudge guitarist. Pete was very talkative, once he got started. Vince hardly said a word. Paul Revere was Dominic something-or-other. He had the thin whisp of the remains of a British(?) accent, lives now in California. He was in another band, another band from the sixties, one that I had heard of, but was not familiar with, and darned if I can’t remember which one. You’ve heard of them, I want to say “Blue Cheer”, but I don’t think that’s right. The name had a “C” in it…It was a 60’s-70’s band, like the Fudge. He said he was mainly into “writing shows” now, and has something to do with the TV show “Vinyl” and is working on a musical project of his own. He made a few comments as the plane bounced and dropped, unfazed apparently as I was by that terrible feeling when you know the plane is moving down fast because your stomach is in your throat. “Oh, we can’t go down! That would make headlines!” He laughed,  “Sixties Rock Legends plunge to their Deaths in New Jersey!!”

My hands clenched tightly on the seat arms. I wanted to ask him to shut up about crashing, but he blathered on about it until the conversation turned to that favorite musician topic, “the road”.  I relaxed a bit as the flight smoothed out and listened as they traded stories about good dressing rooms, bad dressing rooms, and with a laugh, the worst dressing room—”the men’s room stall on the end”. Pete said he wished he could always play casinos, because they have great dressing rooms, pay well, provide good lodging and food and “they treat musicians like important guests” and they both agreed in an obviously warm man-moment that touring was like “getting paid to travel, while you do what you love”. Hm.

This all happened as we bumped our way downward to a landing at Newark Liberty airport. When the plane rolled to a stop at the gate, and the lights came on, Pete introduced Dominic to Vince, and they were shaking hands while most of the other passengers for two or three rows in either direction were clearly awed that these guys were some kind of celebrities—but who the hell were they? They didn’t know. But I knew, because I listened.

We disembarked to find our ride and finish the last leg of our trip, an hour drive to Lambertville.

—Christo

Vanilla Fudge Website <http://www.vanillafudge.com/index.htm>

Better Than “Pokemon Go”. Finding my wallet!

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Friday evening I lost my wallet. I should have known better. It had jumped out of my pocket previously: Twice at restaurants, where it was spotted by sharp-eyed companions before it could get away. Once when I was walking on the canal path and I heard it plop to the ground behind me. Little devil. And a couple times it slipped out in my car, hiding under the seat. It’s not like it is camouflaged or anything. It’s bright orange, (because if it was a dark color I would lose it in my backpack!) But it’s a slippery devil and with all the other bionic devices I have to keep track of in middle age—you know, two pairs of prescription glasses, keys, phone—sometimes a wallet can just get away. And it did.

It must have popped out of my car right in front of my house when I returned from a nearby restaurant, onto the sidewalk, where it hid, in plain sight, in the twilight, until I realized it was missing an hour or two later and discovered it had escaped and was gone.

I was so sure where I had lost it, that there was NO DOUBT that someone had picked it up. And what were the possible outcomes? Well, let’s review the tempting contents:

  • $50 cash
  • 3 credit cards
  • Driver license
  • Business cards with my email address and phone number

Clearly the money and cards were at risk. Hours had already gone by, and no one had called. Not a good sign. Was “Wallet Finder” a good samaritan who would leave my little orange wallet with the police?

I called and filed a report. No one had turned in my wallet to the local constabulary. I checked with my bank, and there were no new charges on my cards. That was good. Rather than cancel (what a pain!) I suspended all the cards. I could wait a few days. I kept telling myself, “Have faith in humanity.”

But why hadn’t she called? If a potentially good person found the wallet, wouldn’t that be the first thing she would do? The number was there. I supposed if it was found by an only-slightly-ethically-compromised Wallet Finder, he might take the cash and throw the wallet (with everything else) in the gutter, a garbage can, or some alley. Okay. I walked up and down the street with a flashlight, peering into my neighbor’s garbage cans. Nothing. Maybe Wallet Finder pocketed it and planned to drop it at the Police later? Feeling that there was nothing else I could do, and that I had been foolish not to keep my wallet on a shorter leash, I went to bed.

It took forever to fall asleep. I imagined the events and possibilities as I thought Sherlock Holmes might, or as a forensics detective or “profiler” would. I could see someone wanting to do the right thing but not wanting to make the phone call, not wanting to be involved. Maybe a tourist Wallet Finder picked it up on the way home and forgot about it? Now he’s back in Philadelphia and remembers it – what will he do? Throw it in the trash? Mail it? Where? How would he get my address?

Earlier in the evening my partner had asked about the driver’s license. “No,” I said, “I completed the change of address with the NJ Division of Motor Vehicles, but for whatever reason, they never sent a sticker. Just a receipt. So the license has my old address—there’s nothing in the wallet with my current address.” Something about this stuck in my mind, but that’s all it did, stick. I finally let it all go and fell asleep.

Saturday morning I awoke early, resolved that the wallet and contents were gone for good and I would just accept it and move on. Despite a long line, the NJ Motor Vehicle office in Flemington was fast and efficient and provided a duplicate license. I went to breakfast, walking from Lambertville to New Hope. Paying at the restaurant, I opened my new wallet, and looked at my new license. It wasn’t precisely a duplicate, it had my current address. Hm. Should I walk by my old apartment? What if Wallet Finder had dropped it off there? I imagined someone just popping it into the door mail slot. Nah. If that had happened, my phone number was still in it. Wouldn’t someone have called by now? It seemed so unlikely, but on a whim, I called one of my old neighbors. He promised to mention it to the current resident of my old apartment. But I was not hopeful. When I got home I went for a long bike ride.

I almost fell over. The text said: “Call me. I have your wallet.” On my phone when I got back from my bike ride.  Unbelievable! From my old neighbor. The incredible journey of my escaped wallet, returned like some lost pet, and as I soon learned, with ALL THE CONTENTS intact.

The first Wallet Finder, still unidentified, picked it up from the sidewalk—and for all I know, passed it along to dwarves and goblins during the night, where it sat on the table like some temporary mascot, used as an ante in a mystical card game—who knows? But at some point, by Saturday, one mystery Wallet Finder had dropped little orange in the mail slot of my old apartment. The current resident’s daughter found it on the floor, and with no hesitation, passed it to her mother. She in turn, had just posted it on a web site when she was apprised of the tale by my old neighbor—the only one in this chain who actually knew me—Wallet Finder number Four. She happily surrendered it to him, and he called me.

It’s a tale of redemption. At least for me, in these times where every day we can hear some horrible story of some heinous act, it’s a wonderful tale of not just one—but at least four—people, maybe more, each of whom could have at any point selfishly and safely kept the money and instead CHOSE to do the right thing and help a stranger. I couldn’t ask for more!

To all you Wallet Finders, known and unknown, THANK YOU. Thank you to EVERYONE who returned it!!

—Christo

2016, a Design Update for the Blob

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Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis

In what I hope is only the beginning of my re-invigorated interest in blobbing, I have, for 2016, paradoxically changed the design of the “christoplummer” blog to WordPress “Twenty Twelve” because the design met my two main requirements: “responsive”, and “free”. It’s clean, easy to read, and doesn’t pretend AFACT to be a clone of Goggle, Middle, Hybrid, or any of the other writing sites. But don’t get too enamoured with it, because it will probably change!

Why the change? Change is in the wind. Change happens. Change changes whether you like it or not. Now that I have been liberated from my BDC corporate job, I will change.

Tally Ho!

—Christo

Immune to the Plague of So

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I have finally become immune. But it took a long time.

It used to drive me to distraction how so many people start every response to a question with the word, “So…” Bad enough to notice this the first time or two, like seeing one dead honey bee, but then to start noticing it more and more, every freaking person who is interviewed, everybody who answers a question, the whole freakin’ hive is sick! This is not the simple popularity of a word that everyone seems to be using. (Remember around the turn of the century when suddenly everything was “tony”? “The tony shops on Rodeo Drive.” “Carrying a tony leather purse she exited the Mercedes…” But at least “tony” is a word that serves a purpose.) The plague of “so” isn’t even as mundane as the migration of the word “epic” from surfing to a descriptor of everything else that is awesome, amazing, spectacular. And it’s not just kind of dumb and dopey like using the word “dope” as an adjective to describe what? Something is cool? After all, it’s a word that has plenty of legitamate uses—just not at the beginning to the answer of every question. No, it’s closer to habitually stuttering, “Uh…” before saying anything else. Or, “y’know” sprinkled all over an otherwise sensible narrative. Starting every answer with “so” is just obnoxious.

For awhile I wanted to blame this tsunami of bad syntax on the millennials, since it seemed it was always some  young Silicon Valley genius who was answering a question about how he earned his billions, and why his one trick app had such incredible engagement, starting his explanation with, “So…” And, of course, for me the WORST part of “so” is the implied and unspoken message of tolerance and patience, “So…since you ask, and you’re just not as smart as I am, I will deign to explain it to you in a way you can understand.” But it wasn’t just them; everyone was doing it.

Whenever, rarely, I  heard a speaker begin  a response or explanation without “So..” I let out a whoop of  triumph. But it didn’t happen often. In protest, I tried to ban “so” from my own writing and speaking. And I decided I just couldn’t write about the plague of so because I was TOO EMOTIONAL about it. Give it some time. Maybe it will blow over. Even Ebola burns itself out, right?

Anyway, (anyway? so?) – I’m over it. I’m  done. I gave up. I hardly even notice anymore. Answer the question any way you want. I don’t care. I’ve been so exposed, so overexposed, that I don’t even notice any more. I am immune to the plague of so.

—Christo

Shelter in the Night

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Boston, Massachusetts
Tuesday, March 24, 1981

Every morning the blackbirds fly to the east in long arching streams. A continuous band comes over the condo project across the street and disperses in a scattered line that breaks up the failing pink of the dawn as they head, approximately, for the ocean.

All winter, as I crossed the street, the wind cutting cold through my trouser legs, my cheeks red, scraped by the raw, I suspected that the blackbirds had set some dubious course for their migration and it was taking them to the coast before they turned south. Through the entirety of that season they persisted, crowding their sky-lane silently as their path intersected the man paths below. Did they ever actually leave? Were these the same birds? Every day?

One late afternoon I thought I’d discovered at least part of their secret.

I was waiting near the Brigham hospital for a bus. An agitated whirring drew my attention to the bare trees in the neighborhood nearby. Blackbirds filled the boughs, hopping about, leaning and looking, as if waiting for some imperceptible signal. One or two birds in the highest branches of each tree tested the air, springing free, five, ten, fifteen feet vertically; their greatest leaps mimicked by as many as five or six converts from the lower realm. These preliminary sortees gained in frequency and magnitude, clusters of birds circling the trees and then lighting again. And then springing spontaneously from the midst of hesitance and confusion, one bird shot with urgency and conviction into the darkening sky. Others followed at virtually the same moment, and then more, in ranks, one after the other, filling the air again with that dark scattered stream. The winding, blackbird cloud, swirled its way to the south, yet the buzzing, whirring remained. Many birds were left in the trees. Some, unsure, had peeled off from the original departing flock; others, anxious but not yet ready, never left the limbs.

Gradually the performance was repeated several times by those remaining, each a near duplication of the last—except for the deepening background of evening that was making the performers indistinguishable from their perches. Finally they all took wing, vacating the last trees in an instant, rushing to some goal beyond the approaching gloom, seeking companionship on the journey, or shelter in the night. 

Gone. Activity and noise receded like a wave, leaving a brief and sudden silence, until the #69 bus surged through the darkness, illuminating flecks of rain in the soft sphere of yellow light it pushed before it.

But Really…Isn’t the Truth Good Enough?

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Isn’t the truth good enough?

For some people, maybe not. I knew a young man once who worked in a French bakery. He, Italian girlfriend one-point-oh, and I, hung out some. And he told us how he played guitar in a band on “the Vineyard”—where he came from—but he didn’t have his guitar anymore. He also mentioned one time that he studied Kung Fu. I didn’t think anything of either of these declarations, because they seemed perfectly normal.

And then one night he was supposed to come join us for dinner at our apartment, and he was very late. Eventually he showed up, and said he had a problem with some driver who tried to run him (a pedestrian) off the road. He said he jumped on the hood of the guy’s car, and kicked in his windshield. Wow. I was impressed. It was Boston after all, and I had my own run-ins with the idiot drivers, so it really didn’t seem over-the-top. Not quite. Almost. The part about kicking in the windshield…he was wearing sneakers, and they didn’t seem the worse for the wear. Just how could a soft foot in a sneaker break a windshield? But I didn’t think too much about it at the time.

I had my guitar out, and I offered it to him. He hesitated and then picked it up carefully, and spent ten or 15 minutes touching it delicately, carefully, as if it were made of fine glass, without ever fingering a chord. How weird. “Just play it if you want.” I suggested.

“No, no, I have respect for an instrument. I just want to examine it.”

Okay, so he went on like that, it was painful to watch, and we eventually broke off and had dinner. He left, and I mentioned to Pal, my girlfriend, how odd he had seemed that night.

She looked at me matter-of-factly, and with a resigned sigh said, “He can’t play guitar.”

“What?” I asked.

“He can’t play guitar, and he doesn’t know Kung Fu.”

“What? Why would he tell us all that?”

“He’s chronically late. He made an excuse about kicking the guy’s windshield. It’s all bullshit, to distract us from the fact that he was over an hour late.”

“Really?” I couldn’t believe it! I just couldn’t understand why anyone needed to create such an elaborate story around something so minor as being late.

“Yea,” She continued, “He dug himself into a hole when he told you about ‘his band’, and when you handed him your guitar he had to improvise, but not on the guitar, because he can’t play.” She finished with a smile, revealing her slightly crooked front tooth. Adorable.

Jeez. Anyway, I was skeptical about everything the guy said from then on. I lost track of the guy, but he was the first of several “pathological liars” I have known. It always surprises me how gullible I feel when I realize afterwards how obvious it is that they are lying. How easy it is to believe them, and how bizarre it seems that they create this stuff, inevitably, to enhance their own image, or escape their own human frailties.

I was working retail, selling computers. There was a guy in the service department, and I used to hang out there and chat, waiting for things to get assembled, installed, or fixed. (In those days, a personal computer had to be “built” with certain options – type of video card, amount of RAM, type of drive – were all optional. I know kids, it’s hard for you to even imagine what I’m talking about – we’ll discuss that in some future post.)

This guy, I’ll call him “Bob”, was a little older than me, but not much older, a big guy, maybe six-four, over 225 pounds. No matter what shirt he wore, his belly always bulged over this pant waist. He was generally very friendly and upbeat. And out of the blue one day he started telling me about his time as an Army Ranger. I didn’t even know he had been in the Army.

“Yea, it was pretty good. I know how to use a knife, and I was a sniper.”

“Really?” I asked, in awe, “That must have been quite an adventure!”

“Yea,” He said, “The worst thing was when I got this infection.”

“Really?”

“Yep, snipers can’t move for days. I was camouflaged, on my belly; I had to pee in my pants. For days. My dick got all infected. When I finally got back to the base, the doctor had to slice me open to let out all the puss.” He was very matter-of-fact about this.

“You mean?”

“Right,” He said with a sniff, “From the base almost to the tip! Like a hot dog. That’s why I can’t have kids.” His words were even more descriptive than this, but I will spare you.

“Shit!” I said.

“I was serving America. Shit happens. I have a scar to prove it.”

I didn’t ask to see the scar. Six or eight months went by. Bob married his girlfriend. She got pregnant. I wondered how that happened. I mentioned it to Bob’s boss, who I also hung out with. “How did Carol get pregnant?”

“The usual way I would think,” Roger replied.

“I mean, with Bob’s injury and everything. Did they have a sperm donor?”

“What injury? What are you talking about?” Roger asked.

“From the Rangers, when he was a sniper. Don’t you know about that?” I figured he must, they worked pretty closely there in the service department.

“He told you that story too? It’s bogus, I called him on it. He was never in the Army, and certainly not the Rangers! He was having some fun with you.”

Yea, ‘having some fun’. A gross story with pretty elaborate detail in the effort too. And never cleared up the mess. I’m glad I didn’t ask his wife about it! And from that day forward, I didn’t trust anything that Bob said.

Maybe I’m just gullible. Or trusting. Or Carraway-esque? There were a few more big liars in my life, and I’ll tell you about them when I get a minute.

—Christo

 

To the Guy in the Pinto Wagon

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Dude! It was just a merge!

To the guy in the Pinto wagon who followed me twenty miles across New Jersey. Oh sure, when I first realized that you really were angry, and you were honking and shouting at me (with your window up), I thought I should pull off the road and kick your ass. My second reaction? This guy is obviously nuts, and might have a gun or other weapon, or at least, be someone who would get some weird satisfaction from smashing my window with a brick. Yea, that would be fair retribution for pulling ahead of somebody when the two lanes merge.

But most of my male defensive rage disappeared not long after you stopped honking your horn – which I remind you, you must have had going for a mile or two at least, from one backed up stop light to the next, down 206. So how could you work so hard to hang onto your anger? I started to become rational—even compassionate—very quickly. You must have had a pretty bad morning, or a pretty bad life, up to that point, to be so angry with a total stranger who just pulled in front of you at a merge. And then to follow me? And glare at every intersection? You had plenty of opportunity to pull ahead and get where you were going faster, if that was really what was important. But you stayed angry, and kept shouting obscene threats to your closed window, and kept following me. I got to experience a fear. What if this guy is more than a little nuts? What if he’s a Psycho-killer??

Then my survival instinct kicked in. If you were going to follow and attack me, sucker, I was gonna make damn sure you’d pay for your insane craziness. Oh yea. You stay behind me? I’ll pull into a Starbucks parking lot and see how committed you are. I’ll wait until you pull in behind me, then I…do something. Drive away, run you over, call the cops, or the baristas. But you know, once you start thinking about this, letting your imagination run, you can just go to incredible extremes with it. What if this guy gets my license number? Manages to find out where I live? And so on.

At that point I figured it out. Take the iPhone, take good picture. Get a record of the guy’s face, of his car. And I did. And make sure he sees me taking the picture. For extra measure, I might tweet it. Internet to the rescue. Sort of.

Because really, he was in the slow lane. I was in the fast lane. The lanes merged. He pulled forward, I pulled forward. He backed off his accelerator, I didn’t. It was just a merge. Dude! It was just a merge!!