Tag: kRIS Krankle

kRIS Krankle

founder of M.I.L.D.E.W.
Men with Intimacy and Learning Disorders Experiencing Women

The Wife’s Birthday

If I were allowed to eliminate unnecessary roughness in the game of life, I’d start with eliminating someone throwing a birthday party for me. I don’t know about you, but balloons with my name on them seem to turn these psychic screws in the drywall of what passes for my personality.

First of all, let’s face it, people feel obliged to constantly smile at you if you’re the birthday boy. What happens if you don’t feel like smiling back? Then there’s coming up with something cute to say for each present. Can you refer to a pre-scripted response list you’ve made, or is that bad form?

As the party progresses, you find yourself getting depressed when you realize no one has suggested how young you look. That’s why it’s good to keep a picture of yourself at age twenty in your wallet. And then we have the wonderful experience of blowing out the candles and getting your germs all over the cake, as if that’s supposed to make you happy and the cake enticing. That’s the only good thing I can think of when it comes to Covid – no more candle blowing.

O.k., for the record, I’ve had some pretty awful birthday parties. Nothing against my mother, but on my fifth birthday when she set me up on a blind date and dropped me off at the movies, it sort of set the tone for so many birthdays to come. At my thirteenth birthday party, people played pin the tail on my zit. Frankly, I’ve gotten over most of that, and now as an adult I actually don’t mind going to someone else’s birthday party because I appreciate the wine.

In fact, truth be known, I do have a favorite birthday … for a number of years now, I’ve been uniquely celebrating my wife’s birthday ever since I signed up for a MILDEW group on ‘Birthday Presents for your Spouse‘. That was when I came up with the idea of Manuel Labor.

Apparently women have a love/hate relationship with cleaning the house. To tell you the truth, I was never aware of that. So, inspired by my MILDEW group, I decided that for the wife’s 40^th birthday, I’d send her a letter from a secret admirer and then clean the entire house while she was at work …

On an historic December morning, as the children left for school, and the house emptied into the nirvana known as silence, I kissed my wife of sixteen years good-bye and told her I was leaving for work.

On my way out the door, I carefully made my way into the forbidden province of a female’s handbag, and surreptitiously placed a small brown envelope containing a brief letter of admiration from a man my wife didn’t know. That man was Manuel Labor. The letter claimed that when this hard-working under-appreciated woman returned from work, the entire house would be cleaned in her honor.

I placed the letter strategically under some work documents and a hairbrush, hoping she wouldn’t find it until she was far away from the scene of the crime – a case of breaking, entering, and cleaning.

As planned, I drove cautiously to work making absolutely sure no one was following me before I turned back and headed home. Within ten minutes or so, I made my way back to the house, ascertained the coast was clear, closed the garage door behind me, and went inside.

Once inside, I closed all of the curtains and went directly to the black hole beneath our kitchen sink and methodically located each and every detergent/cleanser/degreaser known to humankind.

Then on the kitchen counter, shoulder to shoulder, I lined up every one of those liquid chemicals, and stood across from them in silence, in reverence actually. I was the brigadier general of a formidable army including Lysol, Pine Sol, and Recycled Ammonia. Let the war games begin.

With reconnaissance, I’d already determined that all three bathrooms were Code Red (skid marks, toxic waste baskets), followed by children’s bedrooms at Code Green (old food, clothes stuck to each other).

The kitchen was a mild Code Blue (a few dishes and a floor to be swept), and the living room (a room we make believe we actually use when we entertain) was a comfortable Code White. I already knew I would skip the living room. I mean, what’s the whole thing about dust anyway?

It was 8:52 in the morning. I had maybe four hours.

I entered the first bathroom and for those men who haven’t been down this road, cleaning a bathroom can be intimidating. And let me make this clear, there is no shame in this. For any of you newbies, think of it as pledging a fraternity.

I looked back at my army of chemicals now perched on the bathroom sink, and I had this foreboding like there was a pigeon taking aim – I soon realized I was totally over my head doing this cleaning thing. To begin with, I wasn’t even sure what was dirty?

Luckily, I flashed on one our MILDEW workshops, Moving Forward, that discussed if you really feel confused or overwhelmed, the first step towards clarity is to find a place of comfort … instinctively, I walked into the kitchen, stopped and then turned to stand directly in front of the refrigerator.

Grateful to be in a safe place, I took a deep breath, and upon pulling the door open, was relieved to be greeted by a beacon of light, showing me the way forward. I decided to do what I usually did in the kitchen – I made a sandwich and opened a beer at 9:15 in the morning. Two beers actually.

From there, I decided to walk around the house to see if our indoor plants were growing. Then, I watched the fish in our fish tank deciding which one I liked best. So far, so good.

By the time 10:00 rolled around, I knew I needed to get to the task at hand, so looking at my two empty beer cans, I left the plants and fish tank behind, and decided upon a strategic plan of motivation – I would allow myself a half beer for every bathroom I finished. I’d been a psychology major in college, and when I first came upon this idea, I remember wondering if all housekeepers employed this same strategy?

Three bathrooms and two beers later, in just an hour and a half, I felt pretty good about myself, pretty damned good in fact, especially because I was ahead of schedule. Three bathrooms in an hour and a half – I was on fire.

It was a beautiful day outside … o.k., I admit I was feeling pretty cocky about being ahead of the curve and all, and as hubris would play its part, I wound up napping on the patio thinking there was more than enough time to spare. Considering the number of beers I’d consumed, napping is probably not the word for what I did.

When I woke up, I quickly realized my face was half-sunburned and I’d been asleep for over two hours. The wife would be home by one, so the rest of the house needed to be done in less than twenty minutes! I immediately called the MILDEW Hotline and was incredibly lucky to have a cleaning specialist available.

“Shoot no,” the answer came matter-of-factly, “this ain’t the worst thing I ever heard. You’ve got like twenty minutes the way I see it! I had one guy looking straight into the eyes of God during the blizzard of ’91 – the poor lad had less than three minutes until his wife came home. I ran with him through the entire thing!

“So son, here’s what ya ‘gotta remember … number one – the name of the game is it don’t matter if it’s really clean. All that matters is that it smells clean, both you and the house.” I listened intently as this wise man offered his counsel.

“Women just have this freaky sense of smell which is why they ask us to take showers all the time. And what matters most to a woman is that the damn place smells clean. You could have a place cleaner than a fart that wound up in your head, but if it don’t smell clean she’d tell you the place was a mess, fact Jack.”

“So, how do I make the place smell clean?” I asked with palpable fear. “You got Pine Sol, son?” “Yes sir, I do.”

“That’s all you need… ‘just take that there Pine Sol and start sprinkling it around the house, on the furniture, in the garbage, around them kitchen utensils, everywhere. And get some bleach an’ pour it down every drain. Pine Sol and bleach is like Brady and Gronk having a good day on a Sunday afternoon … hell, when I clean with Pine Sol, I gargle with it.”

Like so many unheralded heroes, I never got his name. Though I’m sure my cleaning job fell a bit short, the clear success of Manuel Labor became a family classic.

In fact, the very next year I did the whole thing again, but this time I played Antonio the Italian Mechanic with an entire tool set, which brought what I believe to be the first encore I’ve ever received in my entire life, that is if you don’t include the time I mooned our chemistry teacher at high school graduation.

Antonio the Mechanic celebrated his tenth anniversary this past December, and I have MILDEW to thank for showing me the way –  

kRIS

Family Talk

Kurt and Jan Speier

Today’s Questions –

1. What advice would you give to young people about a long-term relationship?
2. Is it good to be a little jealous?

                                                                                                                                 

Buddha ben Buddha

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent

True or false?

Beating down the spirit makes consent inevitable.

REFLECTION 

Is it possible to feel inferior and superior at the same time?

Word Association

apply the first word separately to each following word

(1.) dominance … money / alliances / size matters

(2.) prejudice … worse now / better now / not me

(3.) equality … compassion / illusion / hard work

(4.) bullying … insecure / bad parenting / walk away

kRIS Krankle

founder of M.I.L.D.E.W.
Men with Intimacy and Learning Disorders Experiencing Women

The Wife’s Birthday

If I were allowed to eliminate unnecessary roughness in the game of life, I’d start with eliminating someone throwing a birthday party for me. I don’t know about you, but balloons with my name on them seem to turn these psychic screws in the drywall of what passes for my personality.

First of all, let’s face it, people feel obliged to constantly smile at you if you’re the birthday boy. What happens if you don’t feel like smiling back? Then there’s coming up with something cute to say for each present. Can you refer to a pre-scripted response list you’ve made, or is that bad form?

As the party progresses, you find yourself getting depressed when you realize no one has suggested how young you look. That’s why it’s good to keep a picture of yourself at age twenty in your wallet. And then we have the wonderful experience of blowing out the candles and getting your germs all over the cake, as if that’s supposed to make you happy and the cake enticing. That’s the only good thing I can think of when it comes to Covid – no more candle blowing.

O.k., for the record, I’ve had some pretty awful birthday parties. Nothing against my mother, but on my fifth birthday when she set me up on a blind date and dropped me off at the movies, it sort of set the tone for so many birthdays to come. At my thirteenth birthday party, people played pin the tail on my zit. Frankly, I’ve gotten over most of that, and now as an adult I actually don’t mind going to someone else’s birthday party because I appreciate the wine.

In fact, truth be known, I do have a favorite birthday … for a number of years now, I’ve been uniquely celebrating my wife’s birthday ever since I signed up for a MILDEW group on ‘Birthday Presents for your Spouse‘. That was when I came up with the idea of Manuel Labor.

Apparently women have a love/hate relationship with cleaning the house. To tell you the truth, I was never aware of that. So, inspired by my MILDEW group, I decided that for the wife’s 40^th birthday, I’d send her a letter from a secret admirer and then clean the entire house while she was at work …

On an historic December morning, as the children left for school, and the house emptied into the nirvana known as silence, I kissed my wife of sixteen years good-bye and told her I was leaving for work.

On my way out the door, I carefully made my way into the forbidden province of a female’s handbag, and surreptitiously placed a small brown envelope containing a brief letter of admiration from a man my wife didn’t know. That man was Manuel Labor. The letter claimed that when this hard-working under-appreciated woman returned from work, the entire house would be cleaned in her honor.

I placed the letter strategically under some work documents and a hairbrush, hoping she wouldn’t find it until she was far away from the scene of the crime – a case of breaking, entering, and cleaning.

As planned, I drove cautiously to work making absolutely sure no one was following me before I turned back and headed home. Within ten minutes or so, I made my way back to the house, ascertained the coast was clear, closed the garage door behind me, and went inside.

Once inside, I closed all of the curtains and went directly to the black hole beneath our kitchen sink and methodically located each and every detergent/cleanser/degreaser known to humankind.

Then on the kitchen counter, shoulder to shoulder, I lined up every one of those liquid chemicals, and stood across from them in silence, in reverence actually. I was the brigadier general of a formidable army including Lysol, Pine Sol, and Recycled Ammonia. Let the war games begin.

With reconnaissance, I’d already determined that all three bathrooms were Code Red (skid marks, toxic waste baskets), followed by children’s bedrooms at Code Green (old food, clothes stuck to each other).

The kitchen was a mild Code Blue (a few dishes and a floor to be swept), and the living room (a room we make believe we actually use when we entertain) was a comfortable Code White. I already knew I would skip the living room. I mean, what’s the whole thing about dust anyway?

It was 8:52 in the morning. I had maybe four hours.

I entered the first bathroom and for those men who haven’t been down this road, cleaning a bathroom can be intimidating. And let me make this clear, there is no shame in this. For any of you newbies, think of it as pledging a fraternity.

I looked back at my army of chemicals now perched on the bathroom sink, and I had this foreboding like there was a pigeon taking aim – I soon realized I was totally over my head doing this cleaning thing. To begin with, I wasn’t even sure what was dirty?

Luckily, I flashed on one our MILDEW workshops, Moving Forward, that discussed if you really feel confused or overwhelmed, the first step towards clarity is to find a place of comfort … instinctively, I walked into the kitchen, stopped and then turned to stand directly in front of the refrigerator.

Grateful to be in a safe place, I took a deep breath, and upon pulling the door open, was relieved to be greeted by a beacon of light, showing me the way forward. I decided to do what I usually did in the kitchen – I made a sandwich and opened a beer at 9:15 in the morning. Two beers actually.

From there, I decided to walk around the house to see if our indoor plants were growing. Then, I watched the fish in our fish tank deciding which one I liked best. So far, so good.

By the time 10:00 rolled around, I knew I needed to get to the task at hand, so looking at my two empty beer cans, I left the plants and fish tank behind, and decided upon a strategic plan of motivation – I would allow myself a half beer for every bathroom I finished. I’d been a psychology major in college, and when I first came upon this idea, I remember wondering if all housekeepers employed this same strategy?

Three bathrooms and two beers later, in just an hour and a half, I felt pretty good about myself, pretty damned good in fact, especially because I was ahead of schedule. Three bathrooms in an hour and a half – I was on fire.

It was a beautiful day outside … o.k., I admit I was feeling pretty cocky about being ahead of the curve and all, and as hubris would play its part, I wound up napping on the patio thinking there was more than enough time to spare. Considering the number of beers I’d consumed, napping is probably not the word for what I did.

When I woke up, I quickly realized my face was half-sunburned and I’d been asleep for over two hours. The wife would be home by one, so the rest of the house needed to be done in less than twenty minutes! I immediately called the MILDEW Hotline and was incredibly lucky to have a cleaning specialist available.

“Shoot no,” the answer came matter-of-factly, “this ain’t the worst thing I ever heard. You’ve got like twenty minutes the way I see it! I had one guy looking straight into the eyes of God during the blizzard of ’91 – the poor lad had less than three minutes until his wife came home. I ran with him through the entire thing!

“So son, here’s what ya ‘gotta remember … number one – the name of the game is it don’t matter if it’s really clean. All that matters is that it smells clean, both you and the house.” I listened intently as this wise man offered his counsel.

“Women just have this freaky sense of smell which is why they ask us to take showers all the time. And what matters most to a woman is that the damn place smells clean. You could have a place cleaner than a fart that wound up in your head, but if it don’t smell clean she’d tell you the place was a mess, fact Jack.”

“So, how do I make the place smell clean?” I asked with palpable fear. “You got Pine Sol, son?” “Yes sir, I do.”

“That’s all you need… ‘just take that there Pine Sol and start sprinkling it around the house, on the furniture, in the garbage, around them kitchen utensils, everywhere. And get some bleach an’ pour it down every drain. Pine Sol and bleach is like Brady and Gronk having a good day on a Sunday afternoon … hell, when I clean with Pine Sol, I gargle with it.”

Like so many unheralded heroes, I never got his name. Though I’m sure my cleaning job fell a bit short, the clear success of Manuel Labor became a family classic.

In fact, the very next year I did the whole thing again, but this time I played Antonio the Italian Mechanic with an entire tool set, which brought what I believe to be the first encore I’ve ever received in my entire life, that is if you don’t include the time I mooned our chemistry teacher at high school graduation.

Antonio the Mechanic celebrated his tenth anniversary this past December, and I have MILDEW to thank for showing me the way –  

kRIS

Buddha ben Buddha

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent

True or false?

Beating down the spirit makes consent inevitable.

REFLECTION 

Is it possible to feel inferior and superior at the same time?

Word Association

apply the first word separately to each following word

(1.) dominance … money / alliances / size matters

(2.) prejudice … worse now / better now / not me

(3.) equality … compassion / illusion / hard work

(4.) bullying … insecure / bad parenting / walk away

Agnes Killjoy

Killjoy : I would like to thank the Republican National Committee for the robot they sent to answer my questions today. It’s refreshing to see such a high level of give and take that we share in America.

Robot : Thank you for having me.

Killjoy : Some WD-40?

Robot : Thank you, no.

Killjoy : The Republican National Committee has issued a statement that the Jan 6^th insurrection mostly involved “good people hoping for constructive dialogue.” Yet the Congressional Committee investigating the incident has been reaching far different conclusions. Would you comment on that, please.

Robot : The committee you mention is an affront to all Americans, or at least to the Americans we can trust. If only we had a Democracy that embraced rather than scorned the electorate, like our gracious leader President Trump did so often and with such class while he was in office.

Though at this time I can’t talk for all Republicans, the good ones will tell you that we remain devoted to our real president. We are excited to have a fuhrer with a great tan who we can trust.

If only we’d elected this great man sooner, maybe we wouldn’t have a climate to worry about … if only Democracy would have let him rule until natural causes came to play, we’d be far better off.

Killjoy : By natural causes, are you suggesting something like senility or a McOverdose?

Robot : I’m suggesting that mainstream Republicans feel they’re being ignored in this political culture of namby-pamby coddling of the poor, giving out healthcare for free when so many find it so hard to afford botox … or shall we talk about the Democratic hypocrisy of letting everyone and their dead relatives vote while ignoring the Republican robot minority?

America is feisty. So was January 6th. May I ask, have you ever been to a professional football parking lot before a game? America is proud of its gunslinging history, of its undeniable ‘you vs. me showdown of fair play you’re dead’. In America, it’s your own fault if you choose not to have a weapon.

Killjoy : So what if everyone did have a weapon? What if large groups of black people brandished weapons and asked for change? Would that come under the heading of good people hoping for constructive dialogue?

Robot : No, that would be an insurrection. Look, black people are good people when they try to be. No one has any problem with the black agenda as long as it takes a few hundred years to come to fruition. I’m open, I’ll still be here in a few hundred years, no tin off my nose. But let’s face it, black people only vote for what’s good for themselves. What’s up with that?

Killjoy : So you’re saying that the black agenda is selfish?

Robot : Of course it is, and it’s selfish that they want to take over America. This country is the land of the red, white, and blue. There’s no mention of black that I’m aware of. Like they say in Tennessee – the white is who we are, the red is the sunburn we get working the fields, and the blue is when we choke ya’ for looking at our women.

Killjoy : Will Donald Trump run in 2024, and if he does, do you think he will win?

Robot : I’m all for a Trump/Ivanka ticket. Even with God on his side, Pence is a loser. Apparently, God has room for losers, America does not. Yes, Donald Trump will run and with him comes the braintrust of Rudy Giuliani, Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell and a host of intellectual giants the kind of which this country has never seen before.

And as far as Ivanka goes, who cares what’s real, she’s hot. Although the press has maliciously claimed that her head doesn’t move when she talks or eats, that doesn’t mean she’s one of us. That said, the time is coming soon for a robot to be president

kRIS Krankle

founder of M.I.L.D.E.W.
Men with Intimacy and Learning Disorders Experiencing Women

Multi-Tasking

At the insistence of my family, in case I fall down somewhere and don’t have a cowbell around my neck, I was given a cellphone for my birthday. I’ve never had a cellphone. They spent something like half a kidney to buy the damn thing, and now I’m supposed to pay more than I spend on gas every month to keep it up. I think it’s an I-Apple.

Big deal, I had heart surgery. And so what, the operation took seven hours. I’m only in my freaking fifties for God’s sake, I’m good to go … not to say I always know where I’m going, especially now that I can’t see that well. Which brings up the fact that I’ve pretty much figured out this whole cellphone present from the family was just a ruse to get me hooked on facetime.

Look, I get it, I’m eating the dust of progress, but whenever I think of facetime I don’t know, it’s not that I want to, but I think of just one face, the face of Mark Zuckerberg. Is it me? What is it with that face? Sometimes I wonder if there is a God.

I know my having a cellphone definitely runs counter to my image as somewhat of a curmudgeon, the whole kRIS Krankle/ Kris Kringle thing, and I admit I’ll miss witnessing the shock in people’s eyes when I tell them I’ve never had a cellphone. Believe me, those puzzling and often vacuous looks of bewilderment are worth the price of admission.

But there’s a big problem doing this cellphone thing, especially with facetime. Let’s start with what seems to be the world’s addiction and need to be seen. I’m not sure I understand the urgency. Have you ever seen what faces look like on facetime? There are some really odd-looking people on the other end of the telescope.

Unfortunately and unexpectedly, one day I saw my face looking back at me on my computer, and not only do I think I’m way better looking, but it scares me to think I might really look like that.

There’s a reason why we have only a dim light above the mirror in our bathroom, mainly because in that light, I’m still blond. So, I’m telling everyone from now on if you want me to do facetime, I’m doing it in the dark. I realize this is the same thing as talking on the phone, but I will have to choose to ignore that.

Then there’s the yelling. For some reason, older people seem to yell when they’re on facetime. The one time I did do family facetime on the wife’s IPad, our adult children had to remind us they definitely understood what we were saying, and they’re not mentally-challenged.

I’m not sure if that’s just the wife and me, the yelling that is. Sometimes, we’re hard of hearing each other and to be honest, at one time or another, we’ve both considered if the other may be mentally challenged … but we’re good.

Actually, there is something a bit deeper that concerns me about facetime and cellphones, and it begins with a complaint I heard in one of my M.I.L.D.E.W. groups awhile back.

One of the group members shared that he didn’t like being on a cellphone because so many people were obsessed with multi-tasking, making it difficult to distinguish heavy breathing from an obscene phone call. He added that he was especially afraid of facetime. So I asked him, “What does multi-tasking have to do with facetime?”

He answered, “What if they’re, I really don’t want to say this, but what if … you know … what if they’re on the john or something? I saw my girlfriend do that once, not facetime, but she was talking to some car dealer on her cell when she was on the freaking toilet! I’m thinking dude, what if people did that on facetime?”

Like most experiences in the bathroom, this vision seemed to be painful for Godot. And in case you’re wondering about the name, all you need to know about Godot is that, yes, he renamed himself. I snuck a peek at his drivers license and he’s really Gasper Regis Von Bleek III. I wonder how long he waited to come up with a new name?

The greater issue in my book, is the whole multi-tasking thing. As far as I’m concerned, I know I’m old school here, but a wise man once said at a Safeway I frequent, “You can never do two tasks at once as well as you can do one … like when George tells Jerry about trying to eat while he’s having sex.”

Or when my daughter calls me from NY City walking in between business appointments … she’s out of breath, bumping into people, and sometimes she blurts out ‘F**k off, asshole’. I’ve learned not to take that personally.

Multi-tasking – I actually looked it up. The concept involves computer language, a term invented or at least tagged with language emerging in the 1960’s. It essentially described a computer doing two things at once.

The term eventually found additional context as an expression of popular respect for the American housewife, apparently in response to so many male breadwinners coming home and asking “Honey, did you have a good day with the kids? Were you busy? Were you able to paint the house like we talked about?”

So I get that multi-tasking in the feminine world of Father Knows Best was a kind of sit-com Girl Scout merit badge that supposedly offered identity on a blue ribbon of condescension disguised as appreciation.

The wife told me that. She’s good at that stuff, and I get it, I really do. But like someone in group said recently, “If men are pigs, then how come everyone loves bacon?” I’m pretty sure I know what he means.

But as it’s applied today, the statistics are in – whether you’re at work or at play, a human being can only concentrate on doing at the max, two things at once. It’s true … life is like two hands on the piano. There’s no third hand.

I’m doing my best to adapt, really I am. I’m on Verizon who kindly calls me every week to see if I want to upgrade to something I apparently need today. Somehow, AT&T and T-Mobile have my new number as well, and they hope to call me family.

I know this isn’t cool to say, but really, at this time I just don’t want any more family in my life, I just don’t, pretty much none of you, unless you’re a grandkid … and even then I’d have to think about it – kRIS

Dr. Vanilla

Dr. Vanilla’s first DJ gig was The Thrilla in Vanilla in 1992 after which he went on to be a total unknown except to his relatives. The following audio clips are taken from Amy’s Answering Machine by Amy Borkowsky, a hilarious sequence of pleas from a daughter to her mother to stop trying to control her daughter’s life. The CD can be purchased new or used from Amazon.                               

                                                                                              

Family Talk II

Kurt and Jan Speier

Today’s Questions –

If you could do over anything in your marriage, what would it be?

How do you prevent a marriage from becoming Ground-Hog Day?

e.

 Life According To Chicks And Frogs

kRIS Krankle

The way I see it, on any day of romance such as Valentine’s Day, we are compelled to consider the reality that life as we know it encircles two competing forces – the world according to chicks and the world according to frogs.

Eventually we learn somewhere in the crap shoot of it all, that we’re not supposed to actually understand the people we call the opposite sex, or what to do on these holidays. Considering the hordes of Americans who accept t.v. wrestling as real, experience teaches us that as a population we’re only a few rungs above sniffing, making the complexities found in relationships often unnerving.

As if we didn’t have enough birthdays, anniversaries, and recitals to enjoy, we apparently needed a primary relationship day to make the world whole. The initial idea of calling that day Veteran’s Day was already taken, so someone made up the word ‘Valentine’ … and in spite of the cynicism that capitalism alone spawned this day of chocolates, flowers, and digital romance, relationship advocates are quick to say that days like Valentine’s Day help to reduce stress.

I don’t know, if we’re going to deal with the stress card, why not go all the way? I once made a list of who I’d eliminate first – the lady at work who eats kale with her mouth open as if she wants all of us to see what she’s eating, my daughter’s boyfriend who looks like he lives near a shower but doesn’t go in one, and my cousin Freddy who every time I see him launches a silent but deadly and then walks out of the room.

Of course there are more general categories I could do without like realtors with big teeth, politicians who think I believe them, Seventh Day Adventists who want to convert me, talk show hosts, meter maids, morticians, and basically anyone without a personality who thinks they have one.

However, if we want to approach the true motherlode of stress, we become drawn to a social construct invented by some genius who told us that males and females are opposite sexes.

My experience is that, sure, some opposites attract, especially if you’re a magnet. But as far as I can tell, when it comes down to actual relationships, most opposites divorce. Maybe that’s why so many young people want to be called ‘they’ instead of he or she. They’re tired of the inherited societal conflict, the passive-aggressive whack a mole war between men and women. At least that’s what the wife tells me.

Some people have a problem with giving males or females nicknames especially those implying animal status, like chicks and frogs … I don’t know, to begin with, I think I have to put something on the table – I’d trust a frog way before I’d trust a chick.

Frogs have this way of regurgitating exactly what they’re all about which is why the belch is considered an art form. It may seem strange, but there is a clarity to a belch that chicks will never have. Chicks who want to be frogs belch a lot.

Chicks are vicious, especially to each other. However, their real skill is leaving their bodies and walking in analytic circles around men who enjoy talking about themselves, thus utilizing their primordial feminine connection to multi-tasking. At any given moment, a woman employing this skill can come back into her body without missing a beat.

I mean, in spite of their gifts, c’mon, women take themselves pretty seriously, don’t they? This birthing thing for example … seems a little overblown on the sperm side of the equation. I mean, do chicks ever think of how many sperm it took to hit the target? Don’t get me started on all those sperm who are missing in action.

You know that old 50’s riddle, “Why does a chicken cross the street?” I’m not sure about chickens, but I do know why a chick crosses the street. Chicks cross the street to get away from frogs because frogs like to jump-a-lot. Frogs don’t know exactly why they like to jump-a-lot which seems to annoy chicks who view jumping as more of a once-a-week activity, not every ten seconds.

I’m reminded of a saying by a wise and experienced woman – “All men are born frogs and all frogs must be kissed to one day become King.” 

Simone was a millionairess in her thirties and I was nineteen at the time. We met in a bar on Valentine’s Day in Puerto Rico and just looking at her brought on waves of terminal frogness, making me want to jump out of my skin.

I learned a number of defining lessons from Simone, who that night played many roles including briefly becoming my mentor … Simone possessed this way of making you feel like a big frog in a small pond which I initially confused with love until the bill came. She made me feel like I was no longer a boy but a man, which again confused me with the illusion that I was making her feel like a woman … it’s good to be the king, it’s hard to be a frog.

After the first time I ever drank two martinis in less than twenty minutes, Simone took me to a back booth in some Puerto Rican night club where the Commodores were singing, the people were dancing, and she made me King in a real frog kind of way. She told me two things I’ll never forget – first, that one day I would meet the right woman and her one kiss would last a lifetime; and second, that romance is dead only if we bury it … all of which seemed important to her.

Then in an evening I thought half-over, Simone smiled and told me she was going to the bathroom, but instead walked out the front door, crossed the street into this Bogart darkness and we never saw each other again … for the next three weeks, I went back to that bar more times than I can remember in the hope of once again being King for a day.

A number of years later, I did meet that woman, and her kiss has now become a lifetime. And for Valentine’s Day this year, I wrote a pretty good poem. In fact, this time I went the whole nine yards and with the poem I’m giving her flowers … it cost me twenty deep to buy those flowers, which I don’t know, they’re colorful I guess, but to me, flowers can be pretty depressing having to watch them die and all. There’s no way I’m spending that kind of money and not keeping them at least a month.

To be honest, what is it with chicks and flowers? I was advised by our M.I.L.D.E.W. therapist that flowers seemed to be the right call after last year’s chainsaw. My wife is an avid gardener who hacks the crap out of tree limbs all the time. And besides, what couple doesn’t need a chainsaw? I still don’t think it was the wrong message to send.

So in conclusion, on this current Valentine’s Day, let me belch this out – I know I get a lot wrong when it comes to so many things, but this I do know – Simone was right … whether you do flowers or a chainsaw, whether you kiss in a back booth or on line at the public market, romance is dead only if you bury it – kRIS

Dr. Vanilla

Boomer Music / Doo Wop

Picture four African-American youth on a dark summer night under a dimly lit street lamp practicing their four part harmony. Doo Wop came from rhythm and blues music that originated in the mid-1940s, mainly in large cities across the United States. It employed a carefully blended harmony, a simple beat, and more often than not, the song was about love. Gaining cashable popularity in the late 1950s, Doo Wop remained mainstream until the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and long-haired capitalism took over.

“Tonight” was a familiar theme in Doo Wop songs. Of course, the Eisenhower fifties were classically innocent, reflecting the illusion that all the big wars had been fought and won, and now it was time to live the good life, the life we’d all been promised … which included falling in love. Here is the classic hit from the Tokens, a group most famous for singing the mega hit, The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

One of the Doo Wop hits that experienced an instant and meteoric rise on the pop charts was Blue Moon by The Marcels. The group recorded the song in two takes, and in a total stroke of luck, a copy of the song found its way to the legendary New York disc jockey Murray the K. The rest is Doo Wop history.

At the height of Doo Wop reaching the mainstream, everyone got in on the act. Most all of these songs were not only about love, but about being young and optimistic, even though at the mere turn of a hormone, love could be cruel. One of the classics in that regard is by Dion and the Belmonts, Teenager In Love.

Doo Wop was an inclusive era in music history, connecting the 40’s to the 60’s, the Mills Brothers to the Beatles, influencing so many who would follow. Although Doo Wop music might seem simplistic and naive to the modern ear, its unapologetic innocence resides somewhere deep within the modern soul.

An encounter once between a Native American and a tourist yielded the following conversation about music – the tourist asked, “Why do so many Native American songs have to do with rain?” The Native American answered, “People sing about what they need, what they don’t have. That is why your culture sings so much about love.”

Tonight … could be the night.

 Life According To Chicks And Frogs

kRIS Krankle

The way I see it, on any day of romance such as Valentine’s Day, we are compelled to consider the reality that life as we know it encircles two competing forces – the world according to chicks and the world according to frogs.

Eventually we learn somewhere in the crap shoot of it all, that we’re not supposed to actually understand the people we call the opposite sex, or what to do on these holidays. Considering the hordes of Americans who accept t.v. wrestling as real, experience teaches us that as a population we’re only a few rungs above sniffing, making the complexities found in relationships often unnerving.

As if we didn’t have enough birthdays, anniversaries, and recitals to enjoy, we apparently needed a primary relationship day to make the world whole. The initial idea of calling that day Veteran’s Day was already taken, so someone made up the word ‘Valentine’ … and in spite of the cynicism that capitalism alone spawned this day of chocolates, flowers, and digital romance, relationship advocates are quick to say that days like Valentine’s Day help to reduce stress.

I don’t know, if we’re going to deal with the stress card, why not go all the way? I once made a list of who I’d eliminate first – the lady at work who eats kale with her mouth open as if she wants all of us to see what she’s eating, my daughter’s boyfriend who looks like he lives near a shower but doesn’t go in one, and my cousin Freddy who every time I see him launches a silent but deadly and then walks out of the room.

Of course there are more general categories I could do without like realtors with big teeth, politicians who think I believe them, Seventh Day Adventists who want to convert me, talk show hosts, meter maids, morticians, and basically anyone without a personality who thinks they have one.

However, if we want to approach the true motherlode of stress, we become drawn to a social construct invented by some genius who told us that males and females are opposite sexes.

My experience is that, sure, some opposites attract, especially if you’re a magnet. But as far as I can tell, when it comes down to actual relationships, most opposites divorce. Maybe that’s why so many young people want to be called ‘they’ instead of he or she. They’re tired of the inherited societal conflict, the passive-aggressive whack a mole war between men and women. At least that’s what the wife tells me.

Some people have a problem with giving males or females nicknames especially those implying animal status, like chicks and frogs … I don’t know, to begin with, I think I have to put something on the table – I’d trust a frog way before I’d trust a chick.

Frogs have this way of regurgitating exactly what they’re all about which is why the belch is considered an art form. It may seem strange, but there is a clarity to a belch that chicks will never have. Chicks who want to be frogs belch a lot.

Chicks are vicious, especially to each other. However, their real skill is leaving their bodies and walking in analytic circles around men who enjoy talking about themselves, thus utilizing their primordial feminine connection to multi-tasking. At any given moment, a woman employing this skill can come back into her body without missing a beat.

I mean, in spite of their gifts, c’mon, women take themselves pretty seriously, don’t they? This birthing thing for example … seems a little overblown on the sperm side of the equation. I mean, do chicks ever think of how many sperm it took to hit the target? Don’t get me started on all those sperm who are missing in action.

You know that old 50’s riddle, “Why does a chicken cross the street?” I’m not sure about chickens, but I do know why a chick crosses the street. Chicks cross the street to get away from frogs because frogs like to jump-a-lot. Frogs don’t know exactly why they like to jump-a-lot which seems to annoy chicks who view jumping as more of a once-a-week activity, not every ten seconds.

I’m reminded of a saying by a wise and experienced woman – “All men are born frogs and all frogs must be kissed to one day become King.” 

Simone was a millionairess in her thirties and I was nineteen at the time. We met in a bar on Valentine’s Day in Puerto Rico and just looking at her brought on waves of terminal frogness, making me want to jump out of my skin.

I learned a number of defining lessons from Simone, who that night played many roles including briefly becoming my mentor … Simone possessed this way of making you feel like a big frog in a small pond which I initially confused with love until the bill came. She made me feel like I was no longer a boy but a man, which again confused me with the illusion that I was making her feel like a woman … it’s good to be the king, it’s hard to be a frog.

After the first time I ever drank two martinis in less than twenty minutes, Simone took me to a back booth in some Puerto Rican night club where the Commodores were singing, the people were dancing, and she made me King in a real frog kind of way. She told me two things I’ll never forget – first, that one day I would meet the right woman and her one kiss would last a lifetime; and second, that romance is dead only if we bury it … all of which seemed important to her.

Then in an evening I thought half-over, Simone smiled and told me she was going to the bathroom, but instead walked out the front door, crossed the street into this Bogart darkness and we never saw each other again … for the next three weeks, I went back to that bar more times than I can remember in the hope of once again being King for a day.

A number of years later, I did meet that woman, and her kiss has now become a lifetime. And for Valentine’s Day this year, I wrote a pretty good poem. In fact, this time I went the whole nine yards and with the poem I’m giving her flowers … it cost me twenty deep to buy those flowers, which I don’t know, they’re colorful I guess, but to me, flowers can be pretty depressing having to watch them die and all. There’s no way I’m spending that kind of money and not keeping them at least a month.

To be honest, what is it with chicks and flowers? I was advised by our M.I.L.D.E.W. therapist that flowers seemed to be the right call after last year’s chainsaw. My wife is an avid gardener who hacks the crap out of tree limbs all the time. And besides, what couple doesn’t need a chainsaw? I still don’t think it was the wrong message to send.

So in conclusion, on this current Valentine’s Day, let me belch this out – I know I get a lot wrong when it comes to so many things, but this I do know – Simone was right … whether you do flowers or a chainsaw, kiss in a back booth or on line at the public market, romance is dead only if you bury it – kRIS

                                                                                                                                     

Family Talk

Kurt and Jan Speier

Today’s Questions –

If you could do over anything in your marriage, what would it be?

How do you prevent a marriage from becoming Ground-Hog Day?

happy birthday, Kurt

Dr. Vanilla

Boomer Music / Doo Wop

Picture four African-American youth on a dark summer night under a dimly lit street lamp practicing their four part harmony. Doo Wop came from rhythm and blues music that originated in the mid-1940s, mainly in large cities across the United States. It employed a carefully blended harmony, a simple beat, and more often than not, the song was about love. Gaining cashable popularity in the late 1950s, Doo Wop remained mainstream until the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and long-haired capitalism took over.

“Tonight” was a familiar theme in Doo Wop songs. Of course, the Eisenhower fifties were classically innocent, reflecting the illusion that all the big wars had been fought and won, and now it was time to live the good life, the life we’d all been promised … which included falling in love. Here is the classic hit from the Tokens, a group most famous for singing the mega hit, The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

One of the Doo Wop hits that experienced an instant and meteoric rise on the pop charts was Blue Moon by The Marcels. The group recorded the song in two takes, and in a total stroke of luck, a copy of the song found its way to the legendary New York disc jockey Murray the K. The rest is Doo Wop history.

At the height of Doo Wop reaching the mainstream, everyone got in on the act. Most all of these songs were not only about love, but about being young and optimistic, even though at the mere turn of a hormone, love could be cruel. One of the classics in that regard is by Dion and the Belmonts, Teenager In Love.

Doo Wop was an inclusive era in music history, connecting the 40’s to the 60’s, the Mills Brothers to the Beatles, influencing so many who would follow. Although Doo Wop music might seem simplistic and naive to the modern ear, its unapologetic innocence resides somewhere deep within the modern soul.

An encounter once between a Native American and a tourist yielded the following conversation about music – the tourist asked, “Why do so many Native American songs have to do with rain?” The Native American answered, “People sing about what they need, what they don’t have. That is why your culture sings so much about love.”

Tonight … could be the night.