Philip's Pickup Truck

This is Philip's pickup truck. It is the truck he would load old stoves in, filch miles of telephone cable with, struggle in and out of since he lost the leg. Philip was a real person. He lived for years in the boot-hill of Arkansas, a total goddamned enigma to the community where he lived and mowed yards and stirred occasional trouble at the KFC in. It is a long story that I will be trying to tell in pictures coming soon.

Leather Punch

Flava Flav, Fridays and Long Island

Where do I start? I considered not mentioning this to anyone. Because if I admitted I saw Flava Flav at a TGIFriday's in Riverhead, Long Island, I would have to admit that I was at a Friday's on Long Island.

Unless you have tried their fried green beans, don't cast stones. They are supergood.

Anyway. Flav was held up there in section 3, gigantic clock ringing his little neck, Blackberry on his ear, 3 people posse, choking down a bloomin' onion. (Or is the bloomin' onion Applebees?). It was those waiter kids lucky day, yo. Flava was in duh house, on Old Country Road, next to the Home Depot, Lane Bryant and Pier One, in the Friday's.

Photos of Zoe

Zoe, Hester (Right) and her Physical Therapist (Left), escorted by several Guardian Angles hit mile 26. For more photos, click on the link to the left.

Meeting Zoe @ Mile 25 of the NYC Marathon

I met up with Zoe and her entourage at mile 25-ish. Where the trip down 5th Avenue meets back up with the park. It was about 10 AM this morning - that is 27+ hours after she started the race yesterday morning. Her physical therapist, who walked the entire marathon with her and has for many years, told me they get special permission to start at 6:30 AM - about 2 hours prior to the actual start of the NYC Marathon. They even got a special escort, she said, smiling, amazingly energetic after walking all 5 boroughs, all night, all day, all the next morning. They had a great view of the sun rise as they came across the Verazzano bridge. The view was beautiful, they said, the cop, their escort, was very nice and an excellent motorcycle rider, from their reports.

Zoe was diagnosed with MS over 25 years ago, she also has diabetes. The 2007 NYC Marathon was her 20th. You want to know how I knew it was Zoe, coming down the road amid hundreds and hundreds of touristy hangers about? First it was the glinting of the morning sun off her magenta-colored metal crutches, then it was the gaggle of Guardian Angels - yes - Guardian Angels (I thought they were gone, gone, gone too but they aren't, aren't, aren't. Dear God if you must read about them check out www.guardianangels.org), then it was the twinkely-sparkley reflection off her SEQUINED TOP.

I introduced myself - she was walking along at a good clip. I did the Chicago Marathon in a lot less time than she did the NYC, and I wasn't in as an accomodating mood as Zoe. I told her I thought she looked great, and thanked her for what she was doing and told her I had been diagnosed with MS a little over a year ago. She looked at me and said, "Well, Welcome Aboard!" I thought that was swell.

I will be uploading pix tomorrow and have more for y'all then.

3 West End Road, East Hampton, Long Island

Grey Gardens. Home of Big and Little Edie Bouvier Beale. Finally, after long last, Tim and I headed to East Hampton to check out the famous local. Marvelous, simply marvelous. The Marble Faun would be thrilled!

www.greygardens.com

Thoughts on Vinnie P. & the Alarming Murder Rate in Cabot Cove

Last night was like any other. My child getting ready to go hang out with her girlfriends, me, on the couch, excitedly working crosswords from the new book I purchased, watching cable. It was a good night. And then, all of a sudden, it got a lot, lot better.

TCM was running a VINCENT PRICE MARATHON. It was fantastic! Masque of the Red Death, The Pit and the Pendulum, Fall of the House of Usher, Terrifying Tales. What a fantastic surprise. I am not kidding, I love Vincent Price. I always have. The mastery with which he attacks Poe's tragically mad characters, working his way through the cheesball sets of castles mostly. I remember as a kid when there were only 4 channels and public television would sometimes run Vincent's movies late at night on the weekend. I loved them all. Then of course, his resurrection so to say, "rapping" on Michael Jackson's Thriller - Brilliant! Here is a freaky website that features Vincent's Voice:
www.thesoundofvincentprice.com.

Also, I am shocked at the incredibly high murder rate in Cabot Cove. I thought, as I was watching Jessica Fletcher detect her way through office buildings and houses of ill repute, my God, folks in Cabot Cove, Jessica's home in Maine, a village of only 3000 souls, are practically endangered. Seems other people shared my concern. I did some research, there are several sites dedicated to Murder, She Wrote, and the strange homicides popping up in the otherwise idyllic Cabot Cove community. Some web sites reported about 500 murders over the years, while another one, perhaps a little conservatively, placed the number around 50.

Hey you runner up!

Here is a snippet of my recent rejection from Antioch regarding my runner up'ed-ness for their Scholarship:

Dear Andy:

Allow me to introduce myself: I am chairperson of the committee charged with choosing a recipient for the Betty Crumrine Memorial Scholarship for the Antioch Writers' Workshop......(etc.,etc.).....We want you to know that while you did not win the scholarship, you were our runner-up....(etc., etc.)....We believe that in a field where manuscript rejection is the norm, you deserv e the encouragement of knowing we appreciated your work....(etc.)

Sincerely,

[Chairperson]

MOOKIE JAM

Check out this website:

www.mookiejam.org

It is a NFP organization that aids artists with MS - this year I am lucky enough to be one of the recipients!

Enjoy, learn, participate.

Every day is like Sunday

So sayeth Morrissey.

I am fixing to revamp a story I thought long finished. Perfect, polished, then, sadly, upon reflection, pathetic.

Okay, too harsh. It is pretty good. It is the first story that I liked that I produced. I worked hard on it. Then, I began submitting it, garnering rejection letter after rejection letter, maintaining faith that this was the little story that could.

I re-read it the other day, as I am getting ready to "workshop it" (see notes) and it makes me cringe. There is so much that needs to change, it is full of restraint and abrupt. Anyway, that's why I feel like today is Sunday, not early morning Sunday when I sit still sleepy drinking coffee watching the invasion of the hummingpig (see notes) out the back window. No, the Sunday feeling like when you were a kid, sun setting, Wild Kingdom coming on the TV, that knot in the pit of your stomach, knowing school is waiting for you in the morning.

Notes:

Workshop it: (first, gag me with a spoon, okay, on the use of workshop as a verb) I am going to a workshop at Colgate University this Summer and have chosen the story in question to bring for dissection, to the workshop. A testament to my wall of rejection letters and tenacity, the good folks at Colgate saw fit to give me some money to cover the cost of the stay at their bucolic spread in Hamilton, NY.

Hummingpig: the slovenly hummingbird that has come to my feeder, draining it at an alarming rate, which has earned that little boogens the nickname hummingpig. because that's what he/she is.