Spring Fever

We have a minor-league baseball team and park not far from here. Folks who were at the spring-training game yesterday all are abuzz. Many say it was a miracle: St. Francis himself appeared, and knocked the next pitch clear over the centerfield fence. But I myself think it was just a lucky swing.

-Old Gargoyle

St. Louis Saint

Thank you, thank you, anonymous reader, you who mailed me the Christmas fruitcake which arrived yesterday after having taken seriously one of my December blogs. The fruitcake's special ingredients---don't ask me which ones or how---really have improved my mad-cow disease. The thrashing of my arms and legs and the loud bellowing from my mouth much decreased after I gulped about half the cake. Just what the doctor ordered! As I say, you didn't give your name, and I barely can read what seems to be a half-scratched-out return address on the cake's package: "Minnebago Street, St. Louis, MO." The little woman too thanks you. Maybe other readers will be inspired by you.

-Old Gargoyle

Awe

You know what I miss? Don't laugh. Awnings---awnings for house windows and awnings for car windows. You promised not to laugh. Awnings were great---ugly, I guess, but practical. You could have your car windows down in a light rain while the awnings did their work---refreshing. You could have your house windows open even in a heavy rain---refreshing. Write your auto dealer and your furniture store; demand the return of awnings. You won't be sorry.

-Old Gargoyle

Wasted Popcorn

Boy, am I confused. I saw a special offer on t.v.; a well-known d.v.d. direct-mail company would send me for only $5 all the current big-name movies involved in this weekend's Academy Awards. They arrived a couple of days ago, and I began viewing them. But why are they such strange cartoons, dumb documentaries, or weird, badly-acted plots? I double-checked their titles: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Mutton" (a badly-drawn cartoon about a lamb named Mutton, who leaves his farm for the city, and is quickly hit and killed by a truck); "Goubt" (a disgusting documentary on an ugly medical disease); "Frozen Liver" (the camera watches a cold bodily organ slowly melt); "The Wrassler" (a non-understandable Mexican midget who cleans dirty boxing rings); "The Dark Night" (another motionless camera, watching a brief sunset followed by almost two hours of just darkness); "Slutdog Millionaire" (a disgusting doc about backward Southerners betting on a winning pitbull in dogfights); "Silk" (a boring doc featuring poor Chinese at sewing machines); "Revolutionary Toad" (another stupid cartoon like "Benjamin Mutton," this one about a frog which leaps out of its pond); "The Reeder" (instructions on how to cultivate bamboo shoots); "Frosty/Nixon" (90 dull minutes of watching a snowman named Nixon slowly melt); and "Gram Torino" (a pointless doc about a grandmother in Italy who still cooks pizza the old-fashioned way).

Arrrgh! What a disappointment! I returned to the website company, Nitflex, from which I ordered these so-called hit movies. Nitflex---seemed legitimate. Where did I go wrong?

-Old Gargoyle

Dog Day Afternoon

I read that Loki, the 17-year-old chihuahua of my old buddy, actor Mickey Rourke, died this week, a few days before Mick's appearance at the Academy Awards this Sunday. What a shame. But a chihuahua? Aren't dogs supposed to look like their human owners? A chihuahua? Have you seen pictures of Mickey lately? He ain't no chihuahua look-alike. Weird.

Mick, if you can read this: If you win the Oscar this Sunday, please, please don't thank Loki, and please don't have the camera man show a picture of you holding the stupid chihuahua.

-Old Gargoyle

Bringing Home the Bacon

My favorite current t.v. commercial just might be the one in which the household dog begins yelling, "Bacon! Bacon! I smell bacon! I love bacon! I gotta have bacon! Bacon!" as he lunges at his owner holding a bag of bacon bits (the voice of the dog belongs to a comedian whose face I can mentally see, but whose name I forget). This commercial cracks me up---maybe because I act and shout in exactly the same way as the dog does, when I smell the little woman cooking bacon at the stove. But Jonka doesn't act like the commercial's lady; Jonka screams, "Stop smelling my bacon!" as he bonks me with a large stir paddle.

-Old Gargoyle

Dead Woman Walking

Jonka convinced me that, having withstood the January onslaught of commercials for me to lose weight, I still should do some walking. So off she and I went down the block. Before long, we merged on the walk path with the young bleached-blond woman who lives several houses away. From the tall trees nearby began to come the cries and chirps of early-spring birds. The blond suddenly became so agitated at the crows among them. "They're calling my name! They're calling my name!" she began shrieking with fright.

"You go on ahead of us," Jonka then told me, "I'll stay here awhile with Caw."

-Old Gargoyle

O Ye of Little Fat

Well, I made it through January with its annual bombardry of commericals and ads telling me to diet, exercise, lose weight. I stood firm; I didn't do a single exercise nor eliminate a single fat food.

I'm tired of what became a linguistic switcheroo a couple of decades or so in our country. Public officials and public signs used to be strict and firm---e.g., "Do not smoke," "Defense de crachez" ("Do not spit"), do this, do that, etc., no nonsense, no ambiguity, and with clear penalties involved. Rules were rules; anything else clearly was a suggestion. Commercials and ads just invited or suggested that you do or buy this or that.

Then came the chaos. Somewhere in the recent past, "guidelines" came to mean "rules"; but, of course, not always---such that one sometimes had to guess what was ordered and what was merely recommended. So "No smoking" or "Do not smoke" gave way to "Thanks for not smoking." Well, thanks your butt, but are you implying that I still may (permission) smoke, but that you simply will not thank me if I do? Other public-social rules became merely recommendory in their language. "Penalties" somehow became "consequences," even when the two words are not objectively identical in meaning. Damn confusion. And while public-social language became fuzzy, the language of commercials and ads became downright mandatory in tone: "Buy this TODAY!" or "Call NOW!" or "You will NOT find this deal anywhere, stupid, so come right this minute to our store." I'm still waiting for traffic signs to catch up with this trend by saying, "Please consider not driving in this direction which, after all, does run only one way"; or "Do you happen to remember the international meaning of the color red at the intersection sign you are now approaching?"

And here I sit wondering what will be the "consequence" (i.e., penalty) of my not subscribing to any of those weight-loss programs of all of January. Gotta go now. The carpenter I called is at my door. I'm going to have him cut a small semi-circle into my dining-room table so that I can more comfortably be seated at it to reach for the little woman's cooked servings.

-Old Gargoyle

Meditation on a Big Apple

Jonka and I went to New York City a few years ago in order for her to sing with her group at Carnegie Hall. It was my first visit to the city; my miscellaneous impressions: So many people constantly walking the sidewalks, and very few overweight walkers (trimness from all that walking, I'm sure). Taxi cabs everywhere (I was almost hit by several while standing on the curb). Of all the clerks, attendants, street passers-by, etc. to whom I spoke, almost every one of them had a foreign accent (to them I too had one, I guess). Contrary to the popular view, no New Yorker I encountered was rude or haughty (maybe the semi-hidden pistol on my chest made a difference---I don't know). I was surprised at Broadway and Fifth Avenue. In the movies they seem larger and more elegant than in real life. Carnegie Hall seemed downright small and ordinary. But I have to realize these are old buildings. In fact, the Manhattan buildings and stores as a whole struck me as aged and ordinary looking. Even St. John the Divine Cathedral was fairly disappointing. The number of things to do and see in New York is endless, I realize, but I noted the general lack of beauty and charm compared to almost every European city. In short, perhaps as many Americans say: a nice city to visit, but not to live there (given the choice, however, it would be N.Y. over Pierre, South Dakota).

-Old Gargoyle

Renaissance Man

A friend of mine in Florida is accomplished in both geology and theology, an unusual combination. He lives with his feet on the ground and his head in the clouds.

-Old Gargoyle

Knox, Knox! Who's There?

Are you old enough to have heard of Paul Harvey, the famous news commentator? I was fortunate to have met him personally when he was a guest at a radio station in New Orleans years ago. At that same station on a different occasion, I personally met the late intellectual-commentator, William Buckley (all in my young-and-foolish conservative days). Anyway, I remember Harvey saying that he thought the U.S. had only four distinctive, historically and culturally interesting cities: San Francisco, San Antonio, New Orleans, and Boston. I think I agree. But in which to live without being killed? Earthquaked to death in S.F., sunburned and water-droughted to death in S.A., drowned to death in N.O., or frozen to death in Boston? From my survey of earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, floods, snowstorms, and heatstorms in America, I think it's safest to live in Knoxville, Tennessee. Call the mover and start packing my banjo, little woman!

-Old Gargoyle

The Occasional Gardener

Another fired office worker in my city "went postal," I read, and shot several coworkers at his former work place. That's a shame---and frightful. I'd suggest that if you ever go temporarily insane, don't shoot anyone, especially your ex-colleagues. Instead, try to do some gardening, because you'd really be surprised.

-Old Gargoyle

The Curious Case of Benjamin Gargoyle

I've been babysitting my younger grandchildren, each just a few months old. It turns out to be fun, making me sad that I didn't have the chance to babysit the older ones. With the younger ones, I read and play games, and I try to have them mimick my faces, gestures, words, etc. Sometimes we . . . Whoa! I just thought of something. What if, being unable to resist my charisma, they actually develop, rapidly or slowly, into little replicas of the Old Gargoyle? What if it reaches the point that they even start looking like me, something in the manner of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"? Oh, Lord, where and when does this gargoyle curse end?

-Old Gargoyle

Da Vinci, Jr.

I write lefthandedly. As any lefthander knows, writing from left to right is cumbersome and almost unnatural. So I find writing unimportant stuff backward, from right to left, to be relaxing. I used to think that, because of this, I probably was a reincarnation of Leonardo da Vinci. But that's when I was young and foolish. Now that I'm older and wiser, I just keep writing from right to left. And I frequent flea markets to find a typewriter which types right to left.

-Old Gargoyle

Your Friend

Talk to the hand. Go ahead, talk to the hand. Talk to the hand. Listen, talk to the hand. T a l k t o
t h e h a n d. Talk. Do it. Talk to the hand. Don't be shy. Talk to the hand. TALK TO THE HAND!
And it'll talk back.

-Old Gargoyle

Slithering Along

Lord, I hate snakes. Never touched one, never want to touch one. Poor Indiana Jones in one of his early movies when he was plunged into a snake pit! But better he than I. I think the authors of Genesis hit the nail on the head in depicting the introduction of moral evil into the world through the effort of a snake. Slimy little bastards. The only good snake is a dead snake. I guess it's inevitable: my time in hell or purgatory will be spent trying to peel countless snakes off my body(?). On the other hand, maybe snakes have received a bum rap over the centuries. Maybe it's apples I should be fearing.

-Old Gargoyle

That Old Gang of Mine

"Why do you call yourself Gargoyle," dozens of readers have asked me.

"Because I'm a creature of Logic," I reply. When I was a young gargoyle attached in succession to four different European cathedrals in the middle ages, obviously before my current reincarnation, my tutor was Logicus, a nearby and older gargoyle. He taught me the required grimaces and growls, etc., so I always considered myself to be more or less a creation of his. Also next to me was Prudentia, a nice lady gargoyle but a little too uptight and proper for my taste. Melancholia on my right side was a downright drag. Felicia, on the other hand, was a perky joy to be near, though she did have a difficult time maintaining her frightful demeanor. Platititudinus just above me was a bore with his dreary repetition of commonplace sayings.

I miss those old dudes and dames. What has to suffice for me now is my collection of gargoyle statues in my office. We talk daily. Sometimes I forget to dust them.

-Old Gargoyle

Choo Choooo

All this national talk about jumpstarting the economy with bailout money, public-works programs, etc., and not one word about . . . trains! I've been waiting for decades to hear some politicians promote the idea of expansion of trains. For U.S. travel, what's wrong with more trains? Airplanes and aiports have become too expensive, unreliable, frustrating, and even dangerous to use compared to the past. Buses are seldom needed by anyone---everyone and his brother has a car now, and highways are congested with slow-moving vehicles. Ships are useless for travel around our country. The answer is trains. Build and rebuild thousands of miles of train tracks. Why not have elevated tracks running parallel to our interstate highways, peppered with sleek, jet-type modern trains racing at 100 to 200 miles per hour between cities? Europe, even though smaller and more crowded than some parts of the U.S., thrives on trains. Trains, doggone it, are the answer! "Ride the (Drowned) City of New Orleans!" would be one track's slogan. "Ride the Big (Rotten) Apple Unlimited!" could be another; "Ride the Windy (Frozen) City Special!" yet another.

I'll now show you my train-and-tracks set which I've had since I was 9. I still can sit atop the engine and the first few cars, and go round and round the track. Here, let's see . . . goes like this . . . er . . .
just tuck in my legs like this . . . one moment . . . oh, rats . . .

-Old Gargoyle

Prediction on Super Bowl

Cardinals 666, Steelers 18, Laity 0

-Old Gargoyle

On the Road with Oscar

I had no "Doubt" that the briefcase I found on the sidewalk while jogging on "Revolutionary Road," the briefcase with the imprinted, small-letter words, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," belonged to "The Wrestler" of that same name. A little research revealed that Button-Wrestler lived "In Bruges," a snooty neighborhood in the north section of my city. I hopped into my "Gran Torino," and arrived at his house in about a half-hour.

"Frost/Nixon" appeared on the nametag of the dour-looking, heavy-eyebrowed butler who answered Button's doorbell. "Mr. Button's 'Rachel Getting Married,'" coldly announced the butler, "so he is busy and cannot be disturbed. Give me the briefcase," he frostily ordered.

"No, no, Nixon," growled the voice in the hallway behind the butler, "let 'The Visitor' in, dude." It was The Wrestler himself, an aging, battle-scarred hulk who looked like---hmm, I'll guess, somewhat like---the actor we haven't seen in years, Mickey Rourke. "Thanks, oldtimer," Button said to me, "for returning my briefcase. Come in for a few minutes. Can I offer you coffe, tea, 'Milk'?"

I was surprised; Button struck me more as the beer-whiskey type.

"Surprised?" he asked. "Don't be. People think I'm some kind of 'Slumdog Millionaire,' but I'm more of 'The Reader' type. In fact, when you rang the doorbell, I was reading St. John of the Cross' 'Dark Knight (of the Soul'), kind of to prepare me for Rachel's wedding and for meeting my new, numbskull son-in-law."

I gratefully declined his offer, seeing that he was indeed a busy man. That didn't stop him from slipping me a 100-dollar bill as he received his briefcase from me. I sang all the way home, even while crossing "Frozen River," feeling as lucky as "Last Chance Harvey." That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

-Old Gargoyle

Fish Story

The little woman and I visited the new aquarium in town. People around us began laughing we they overheard me say that I think the jellyfish is one of the most-beautiful things in the world. What they don't understand is, I mean a jellyfish with long, blond hair and lush, red lips.

-Old Gargoyle

Walker

At late night I caught a comedy movie which I enjoyed in the 1950s, and had not seen since: "Bell, Book, and Candle," starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Jack Lemon. It was a delight. A nice surprise in it was the additional appearance of the t.v. comic giant, Ernie Kovac(s), a scruffy, cigar chomping, witty, creative, somewhat ditzy guy. Suddenly Kovac reminded me of an old friend of mine, Walker (first or last name? no one seems to know). Knowing Walker for these past decades has been like knowing Kovac---like sneezes, a burden yet a blessing. Aaaaachewwww! Pardon me.

-Old Gargoyle