The Sound of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

I remember that when I was a teenage deejay at WCRA radio in Effingham, IL, I wrote to United Artists to ask if they would send me the James Bond soundtrack albums I didn’t have. I figured they wouldn’t, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

About a month later, a big, white package arrived at the radio station addressed to me. In the return address spot on the package, there was only a big yellow comic book word balloon that read, “Who will save the world?”

I couldn’t imagine what it was. I ripped it open and found the first four 007 soundtrack albums — Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball. I was, as you might imagine, giddy with delight.

I also recall that I was a little disappointed in the album for Thunderball, my favorite Bond movie, because it didn’t include some of the most exciting music from the second half of the film. Why? Because they hadn’t given composer John Barry enough time to complete the score before they had to press the album.

Film composers were often really under the gun to get the music finished.

Untrue Confessions

The first person “relationship” stories I see on YouTube now are exactly the same as the old True Confessions magazine stuff — all fiction, of course, but purportedly real. 

My mother used to write some of those magazine articles — “I Lived in My Car,” “I Married to Get a Green Card,” that kind of thing, and she enjoyed doing it.

For the reader, this kind of thing can generate personal interest along the lines of the old Ann Landers or Dear Abby newspaper columns.

The Homless One

 

His hand-lettered sign said “homless.” I gave him 10 singles and he replied, “Thanks … oh, wow!” 

I wished him luck, this tattered, youngish man who’d run out of it some time back.

The Old Man in the Know

At a local restaurant over breakfast this morning, an old cretin sitting behind me was telling a man at another table the details about several Iraqi cells that were planning or had been thwarted in bombing attacks in central Illinois.

This to be said of a country where we killed several hundred thousand innocent people in an invasion based entirely on Bush and Cheney’s lies.

Funny how profound American guilt so often expresses itself in viciousness.

The Gent Takes Off

The Gentleman Analyst exits his Observatory of All Things. And I observe that AI art is a hoot.

The Remembered Taste of Grape Soda

Doing Photoshop art upstairs, I had a sudden urge to watch Father Knows Best, and wondered why. Not really a great show, after all. 

Then I realized it may have been because I was drinking a grape soda, something I’ve tasted very rarely since early childhood. 

I think it took me back to living with my grandparents in those earliest years, with that warm-as-a-blanket sense of absolute security that never comes again. 

I used to watch that TV show with them on CBS Monday nights, often drinking a bottle of grape soda from a six pack that my grandmother would buy at the neighborhood grocery store just down the block.

On Finding That You Remain Alive

I find I’m alive, 

and I’m still striving to thrive, 

or at least survive.

A Dialogue with a Dog

George the Beagador thinks he has arguments with me, but his vocabulary is extremely limited, like Groot’s.

It begins when George stares at me fixedly with his yellow Rosemary’s Baby eyes.

“No,” I reply, “you don’t need to go outside. I just took you outside.”

“Woo woo,” George says, in a distinctly argumentative tone.

“But I just took you out a couple of hours ago. You don’t need to go!”

“Woo woo!!”

“No, George, I am NOT taking you outside again! That is absolutely final!!!”

“Woo woo WOO!!!”

And then I take him outside.

George always wins those arguments we don’t have.

The Demi-Beagle Lays Down the Law

George’s Rules

1) Motor scooters and bicycles are forbidden.

2) Horses are an outrage.

3) How dare squirrels exist.

4) The pillows are mine. I have plans for them.

5) Paul may not sneeze. Others may, but not Paul.

The real George the beagador.

Dreams of Courage and Daring

It always amazes that some people seem to think that good works can somehow magically appear in a corrupt world without idealism and dreams of courage and daring. My other blog, Great Caesar's Ghost, uses superheroes as a lens to view cultural history. You can browse it here.

Attention Must Not Be Paid

We crossed paths with a young family that was taking a walk — father, mother and a boy about 8. Daddy was staring at his phone, mommy was staring at her phone, but sonny wasn’t staring at his cute canary-yellow phone. Instead, he was smiling at my dog.

Someday, however, he too will ignore his immediate reality most of the time. He’ll learn soon enough.

A Message from the Lone Ranger

I taught and I write, I do what I can. Whatever happens, I will know I was on the right side because I have consciously tried to act with empathy and sanity. The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are. Mindfulness, courage and truth. I don't know if they'll carry the day, but I know they're the only values worth having.

The Chronicle of George Hilton Beagle

Feb. 22, 2010

Well, I just paid $41 at the pound to become the owner of a beagle. Toby or George? We’ll pick him up at the vet’s Thursday afternoon, after that little operation.

He was a stray, they said. He immediately stood up and licked my hand through the fence when I went to meet him, and I told him to hang on, that we would save him.

--

Feb. 25, 2010

Tomorrow, Larry and I pick up George, our new beagle, from the vet’s, as soon as I write them a $157 check. He’s named for our late friend historian George Hilton Jones and the dog in “Bringing Up Baby.” Maybe for Prof. George Falconer now, too, in the wonderful film “A Single Man” that Sally and I just saw. 

“One must always appreciate life’s little gifts.”

--

Nov. 12, 2010

I suspect George had a lonely, hard life at the beginning. Well, no more. 

He’s a plucky lad. He curls up on my lap routinely now when I’m at the computer, a warm little circle of sighing trust.

--

Nov. 25, 2011

I guess George is a seeing-eye dog now. He ate a pair of reading glasses.

--

Aug. 17, 2012

Tornado warnings started sounding throughout the area. My colleagues huddled downstairs in the hall as the Buzzard Building and campus alarms went off. I raced home under a weird, swirling sky to find George alone in a house that was completely dark at mid-afternoon, howling at the tornado siren that had started again. Boy, was he happy to see me. 

We curled up together on the sofa and I talked softly to him as we watched the weird weather lash at us.

--

June 23, 2013

Today, I’m going to take George for a ride to Mattoon to PetSmart for dog food. George loves car rides, and drags you right to the car as soon as you mention it.

I see George trotting jauntily ahead of me in harness, with his dish towel-sized ears bobbing, and think, “He’s just a little guy in a great big world.” 

That image symbolizes a kind of life-affirming bravery for me.

--

Jan. 10, 2014

This morning George stomped on my laptop in his eagerness to get a treat, locking up the program. I didn’t really yell at him, but he seemed to sense my displeasure and vanished to a bedroom to curl up by himself. 

Poor little fellow. He's remarkably thin-skinned for someone who barks so loudly.

--

June 20, 2014

I took George Hilton Beagle to Mattoon to buy dog food, and to the office to water Phil the Philodendron and his friends. George sized up the elevator, with its insidious sliding doors, as a trap.

The beagle is distressed to have the wet grass touching his paws. Call of the Wild, my ass.

--

July 5, 2014

The mist ghosts are waltzing on Blackford’s Pond this morning. George and I walked past them at dawn. They dance above a brown surface that shimmers with hints of green and blue.

When the beagle and I go walking, we see merely a suggestion of light in the east.  Nice to walk with the glow of the coming day growing in silence before you.

--

July 28, 2014

For the last week, George Hilton Beagle has been obsessing over and guarding his soft toy mustard pot, part of a set that my nephew Brian and his wife Alison got for him for Christmas. His devotion to these little toys is weird. He carries them around in his mouth for several days as if they were puppies, freaking out if anyone tries to touch them, and then “accidentally” splits them open. 

We named this little yellow fellow “Musty.”

--

June 19, 2015

So if I’m sitting in the middle of the sofa, George Hilton Beagle will now walk up to me and shove my laptop hard with his nose. That means I am to “raise the drawbridge” so he can stomp across me to the side of the sofa that is now suddenly more attractive to him.

--

Sept. 18, 2015

I made the mistake of saying the word “bark” to George again this morning, and he sprang up and ran to the window to look out. He always thinks I said “Bart,” his favorite visitor.

--

Nov. 10, 2015

George Hilton Beagle will not tolerate even the appearance of physical aggression in our household, not even in jest. He is like Gort.

Matt Mattingly interpreted for him, “I will reduce your sofa to a smoldering cinder. The choice is yours.”

--

Sept. 21, 2016

Yesterday, I took George for a stroll around the fairgrounds and he was fascinated by the horse trotting around the track, following it with his eyes. Perhaps the first horse he’d ever seen. I could tell he was thinking, “That's the biggest damned dog I've ever seen in my life.”

--

Oct. 28, 2016

George has gotten really used to having me around all the time since I got “Raunered” out of my university teaching position this year.

George Hilton Beagle is my perfect companion during the day. He listens attentively to whatever I have to say, and makes no reply.

--

Jan. 14, 2017

Everything is covered in a thin coat of immensely dangerous ice. I fell on the steps taking George out, but managed to do it gently.

--

Aug. 6, 2017

George Hilton Beagle and I took a Sunday drive out to Lincoln Log Cabin State Park, where we wandered about in the lightest little drizzle and looked at the sheep. 

“What in hell are those things?” George said.

--

Feb. 24, 2018

In a book by existentialist philosopher Albert Camus, I read, “These essays begin with a meditation on suicide: the question of living or not in a universe devoid of order or meaning.” 

Then the beagle straddled my lap, vigorously licked my face and waited to be petted. 

I’ve never seen a more eloquent refutation of Camus.

--

July 2, 2018

Every so often while I’m typing, George Hilton Beagle will stroll up to me and give me what I call “the Nose.” Peremptorily shoving aside my laptop with his muzzle, he’ll hop up on my lap in a move that means, “It’s time for my scritches, you!”

--

July 13, 2018

George and I drove to Mattoon to get him dog food and pill pockets. He looks happiest when we’re in the car moving, although he doesn’t like to stick his head out the window if we’re traveling 50 miles per hour or faster. Too much wind flapping his long ears. 

At stop lights or other delays, he whines a little. He wants to go.

--

Nov. 14, 2018

Waiting with George for an operation on his fatty growth today. He doesn’t understand why he hasn’t been able to eat or drink this morning, but he’s been pretty good about it, just watching me curiously.

--

Nov. 15, 2018

George is still seeping blood from time to time, and has a hard time lying down, so I have been sitting up with him, the poor little guy.

George barked twice in his sleep just now, loudly, something he rarely does. I suspect it’s a reaction to the trauma of his surgery experience.

All while the first real snow of the winter falls silently around the house.

--

Jan. 17, 2019

Every night, when Larry gives George Hilton Beagle the small rawhide treat we have so cleverly named the “boney bone,” George trots off to find me, drops it at my feet and growls softly. Then he barks.

This is his way of saying that this particular boney bone is HIS, and that I’d better not try to get it or there will be 

HELL.

TO.

PAY.

George seems to think that the treats we give him — so foolishly — are things we will immediately want back, once we regret the error of our ways.

Thus challenged, I naturally have to make a grab for it, but he snatches it up and dashes off to another room.

We run, we feint, we stop and stare at each other like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. 

“Drop it, bitch,” I tell him, and he drops the boney bone, tauntingly. 

At my slightest motion, he grabs it up again and dashes room to room to room.

“Tonight is the night I’m GETTING that boney bone!” I tell him, hot in pursuit. “Say goodbye to it!” 

I feel, strangely, a little like Wile E. Coyote.

Sometimes I hide behind a door, which worries him. A ridge of hair on his back rises like the spines of a stegosaurus, and he barks with mad, abandoned joy when I jump out from my hiding place. And we’re off again!

This kind of thing continues until I slow down and collapse on the sofa, muttering, “Okay, okay. Enough, enough.” 

Then George settles down happily to eat his boney bone, reassured that he is a streak of tri-colored lightning, much faster than any pokey old human.

George chews his treat with great satisfaction, knowing that I have once again been put in my place. And I rest gratefully until he finishes the boney bone, and it is time for us to go outside and pooty.

--

March 28, 2019

When I returned from shopping yesterday, I caught George staring at me, his eyes brimming with love. Then Paul told me that when I was in the driveway, George whined and moaned, missing me.

--

June 9, 2019

A clerk in Rural King said, “George, you’re perfect! You know that?” George Hilton Beagle seemed unsurprised.

It just occurred to me that I even love the word “beagle.” It has such a happy lilt built in.

--

Aug. 11, 2019

Paul had to pick up his mother at the St. Louis airport at 9 p.m., and didn’t get home until almost 1 a.m. George and I waited up for him.

George went to the door and windows and whined a little about 8 p.m. I think he was worried about why Paul hadn’t yet returned. I reassured him that Paul would be back, and he settled down to nap.

--

Jan. 10, 2020

Looks like it’s going to rain for 48 hours or so. Convenient for George, who likes to lick water off the deck steps. 

Deck water is like Perrier to him.

--

June 2, 2021

Now that George is getting older, I pick him up and carry him more. And when I do, I find myself resting my cheek against the warmth of his neck. 

He’s anxious to get where he’s going, but I want to keep him where he is.

--

June 30, 2021

George is sleeping deeply and peacefully on the floor right now, as he always does on spa days.

They didn’t give George his rabies shot because of his condition, but I authorized blood work on him. The vet thinks he has Cushing’s, an adrenal gland disorder.

Total cost today, $222, which is irrelevant because I’d do just about anything for my beagle.

--

July 1, 2021

Well, George has only six months to live. He doesn’t have Cushing’s, but some kind of liver disorder. We’ll treat it, but there’s a terminal point in sight. My beagle likely won’t see 2022.

--

July 28, 2021

Sometimes now when I have to leave the house for an errand, George whimpers with separation anxiety. He’s just old and he knows it and he’s afraid, just as I am sometimes. Two old dogs. It makes me feel even closer to the little guy, whom I now have to carry just about everywhere.

Carrying George outside to do his business, I hold him next to my head and whisper, “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

--

Dec. 22, 2021

However bad a shape he was in, I decided not to mourn George as long as he was still beside me.

And then, one day, he was not.

Someone to Hold Your Hand

Painting by Claude Bernard

The day after I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, I did something strange.

I got a manicure — the first I’d had since I was a boy in my Aunt Shirley’s beauty shop.

Leaving our ailing beagle resting at home, I stopped by the public library to renew my card, borrowing a Harlan Corben mystery and buying a handful of magazines — Esquire, AD, Veranda — for a dime each.

Then I went to Walmart to pick up some fresh bread for the birds and squirrels at our “feeding oak.” 

I looked around at all the people gliding through the store, many of whom seemed only half alive, and thought about all the times I’ve only been half-alive too.

But now, at this moment, I was sharply aware of being alive. The consciousness of your own mortality can do that for you.

Passing the nail salon, I thought of all the times I had idly considered getting a manicure, but rejected the notion as being silly. I didn’t even know what one cost.

I strolled in.

Sixteen dollars.

Not too bad.

Why not?

A middle-aged Asian fellow dropped my hands into a bowl to soak, firmly, efficiently. Cuticle trimming, filing, buffing, all pleasant and relaxing.

My hands haven’t looked so good since some previous century.

Sitting Alone With a Dying Dog

Sitting alone

With a dying dog,

His soft snores a respite

From his waking fears.

Warm to the touch,

Brave as a beagle,

Eyes a little haunted, as

The far-away nears.

The Fall of Benito Trumpolini

I was only surprised that everyone couldn't see this.

 

The Ugly Social Media Platform

I was banned from Facebook for a month merely for mentioning the name of this famous novel, which also became a Marlon Brando film. 

Facebook called it “hate speech.”

When I Was Vandalized by Veronica Lake

I put Paul’s handsome new Biden sign out on the lawn this morning. I placed it well toward the house, so the Trump vandals will have to come a long way up onto the lawn to attack it.

I remember the night of Halloween 2008, I was awakened at 3 a.m. by angry, drunken shouts from the front of the house. I saw four college guys out there, and one of them was yanking our Obama/Biden yard sign out of the middle of the lawn. 

I wasn’t having any. 

I chased them down the block and around the corner in my robe and bare feet (cutting my foot).

I was so mad that it took me a moment to realize that the drunkest and nastiest of the bunch was wearing a long blonde wig and a short silver dress.

I had been vandalized by Veronica Lake.

I decided to reason with them. 

“Fuck you, you little pieces of shit,” I explained.

They wandered off down the road, shouting “Faggot!” and “Old man!” back at me, as I stuck a hand behind me to flip them off and limped home to look for the sign.

A police patrol car came rolling up, cherries and spotlight blazing, then another one. Paul had called 911, and he joined me outside.

With an officer, we found the sign lying in the yard where one of them had ripped it off the holder. The police headed off after the four college guys, after asking me if I could describe any of them.

“He’s wearing a dress,” I said.

This Blog Is Banned by Facebook

This blog is banned by Facebook. Why? Who knows? They refuse to specify.

Oddly enough, since Facebook banned Odin’s Ravens a while back, it’s started getting thousands of views. 

Maybe that has something to do with why they banned it. Your guess is as good as mine.

Sen. Sanders and the Hissy Fitters

Yesterday, I noticed something odd.

A friend had posted detailed Democratic poll data and left out Bernie Sanders, who was in second place. I added that information, and he informed me that his page was a "No-Sanders Zone." I remarked that his post — which left out the second-place winner of the poll — was intellectually dishonest. He unfriended me.

You know, Hillary Clinton was showered with corporate millions to run TWO presidential campaigns, and lost both times.  Bernie Sanders didn't do that to her, and this lingering hissy-fit bitterness from some of her supporters is childish.

By the way, the person I'm talking about is a librarian. A librarian who censors relevant public information in a fit of political pique.