Dig it
By Charles Kraus
[Assumed names; genuine responses]:
*Bobby here i can help with the digging sink holes call me 36__271-....
*Bill @ 772- 4..... I love to dig
*I'm interested in the gig. Do you alla have tools and everything? Is there any concrete I have to hey through?
*Hell even bring the back fill the holes all you need is the asphalt there
*My name is Hal I will fill those holes for 500. You reach me at +1206-82 ......
*Hi I can start asap pls let me know if and when you want me to start thanks Evan 206 244-1....
*my names Sev I will do the digging for you please let me know wen and were im a very hard worker 360 254-83....
*I can do job for you no problem. But I was hoping we could do at least 1000 ? Please get back to me thanks
As the longtime owner of a suburban house in the Northwest, a house with driveway sinkholes, I've had the opportunity to hire diggers. They tunnel down 4' or 5' feet, replace the muck with rocks and gravel, then top off with a patch of asphalt. We repeat this process about every eight or nine years.
You don't dig a hole because you need a break from piano practice. Manual labor is something you do with your muscles, with your back, with your hands, but not delicately as if crafting. It's performed firmly, significantly, forcefully. Maybe there are individuals who prefer digging, but mostly practitioners dig because their other marketable skills are underdeveloped. It's exhausting.
I believe the foreman we hired in 1992 stopped at one of those day-workers for hire street corners where people hang out waiting for cars to pull up, roll down the window and say things like, $10 an hour to mow the lawn. He picked up a few strong backs and proceed to our driveway. We were charged $700 plus a few rounds of pizza and cola.
A decade later we repeated the procedure. Now there were two sinkholes. Workers kept digging until they hit dry stuff, which was about 5 feet below the surface. They repeated the established refill process. As I recall, the total cost was about $1200.
Here we are in 2018, watching certain spots along our driveway begin to resemble oversized concave bowls. It's been a particularly wet winter and the underground streams have turned into underground rivers, carrying away whatever was holding up portions of the driveway.
It's digging time, but the hiring process has changed. Manual laborers have smart phones. Though very few pay to have their services listed, lots of diggers know how to respond to a virtual request for assistance. It cost me $5 to place a 'gig' notice on Craigs List.
My advertisement described the driveway situation. Pleading my age and reduced income, I wondered anyone would be interested in helping for $900. The ad went live at about midnight. By 12:30 a.m., I had two responses. By morning, I had a dozen. To date -- about a week later, I've heard from forty people interested in coming to dig.
There were people who said they could be over in an hour and have the job done before night fall. Two 'girl friends' vouched for their boy friends. One fellow felt he could complete the job for $500. Another preferred to work alone. Others had associates.
The respondents were men, all men, who wanted work. Who were willing to spend hours, maybe days, performing the kind of punishing physical labor that might be assigned to members of a chain gang. Perhaps the economy is improving for a certain segment of the economy, but I've got pages of emails from people who are not being pulled up by a rising tide. They are willing to dig down to a rising water table.
Friday, May 25, 2018
Saturday, May 12, 2018
How I Celebrated My Mother's Birthday
How I Celebrated My Mother’s Birthday
By Charles Kraus
I know an attorney who begins endless letters by telling his clients, "your file has once again come up for periodic review ..." Then he’d write a few lines about the case and bill for $500. Well, Florence’s birthday has once again come up for periodic review. Five hundred dollars was not involved, but the day turned out to be worth a fortune.
For about two weeks prior to mom’s birthday, serious health issues looked as if they would keep her from so much as an awareness that she was approaching her 88th year. Congestive heart failure combined with a virus caused her body to taken on an almost cationic pose. Eyes closed, head tilted, a general slump. Except for the fact that she would respond to questions, it was possible to think she was comatose. She was not. But her system needed every bit of energy to fight for recovery; it couldn’t waste itself on lively discourse.
Then, several days before her birthday, mom began to improve. By the day of her
birthday, she’d returned to the dining room and was capable of holding up her end of a
short conversation.
Kline Galland throws monthly birthday celebrations. Staff called to remind me that the February birthday bash would take place on Thursday, the 24th. Would I be attending to help my mother enjoy the party? OK, I told them, with low expectations and heightened feelings of obligation. I would do this for my mother, though I did not anticipate much of a party.
I arrived shortly before 1:30. The nursing home community was already assembled in the recreation room. Ten birthday celebrants occupied front and center. Behind them were a dozen loosely fashioned rows of residents, most in their wheel chairs, some in more sophisticated transporters. Almost everyone appeared to be resting. The only animation in the room came from the hostess, Jan, a middle-aged woman undaunted by her task. She was going to wake up this crowd and show them a good time.
But first, the Wallingford Wobblers. Stationed behind the hostess, this neighborhood senior citizens glee club, opened with a medley consisting of every song Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney every sang to one another, plus Moon River, an after thought that seemed to be included because it was on the back of the page that contained the lyrics to You MustHave Been a Beautiful Baby.
The songs were not performed, not in the sense that words, lyrics, or musicality would have attracted a spotlight. Credibility came from the earnest renditions, pleasantly enunciated, though not particularly heartfelt. The singers did not seemed to be aware that a pianist was trying to accompanying them.
I look around the room and notice a kind of a stirring, a subtle, quiet, gentle, plainly rhythmic, perhaps instinctual, response to the music. Hands, or at last fingers, toes, arms, legs, bodies locked into the poses of old age and ill health, moving now a little, then a little more, responding to the tunes, to the memories, to melodies and words that had been sitting in minds and hearts, untapped for decades. Certain words of certain songs emphasized on the beat.
Eventually, modest applause. Then, the hostess retrieved the microphone. I assumed she would thank everyone and send us on our way. But, no, she’s making jokes about getting old. Laughter from the staff. She‘s encouraged. Minute chuckling from one or two residents.
"Now," she says, "we are going to give gifis to those celebrating birthdays and I want to ask each of you a few questions." Mike in hand, with the poise and confidence of Steve Allen getting ready to do some shtick with the audience, she greets the first guest of honor.
"So, you like the singing?"
Doesn’t she know these people are, well, tired, maybe not interested, maybe not altogether cognizant of her expectations? Or the significance of the day?
"Pretty good," the woman responds.
"Where are you from? Where did you go to high school? Were you a GOOD student?"
Jan has become Steve Allen.
"From Seattle. I went to Garfield High. Of course I was good."
A young staff member provides a comic Hip Hip. He gets a few laughs.
"May I ask how old you are?"
"91
Hip Hip!
Applauds.
The hostess proceeds. She is respectful. She is not patronizing.
There is only one male seated among the birthday celebrants. He tells us he’s from Chicago.
“They like baseball in Chicago,” Jan says. “You got a favorite team?
He responds by informing us he is going to sing a song. It turns out to be You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby. He sells it.
“How old are you?”
“95, he whispers.
Hip Hip!
I’m thinking about my mother, about what or if she’ll say when the microphone reaches her. A week before, she could barely open her mouth so we could feed her the soup. Now, she’s about to be interviewed.
I remind her of her age. Will she remember?
Here it comes, “and how old are you?”
“Well,” I can see she’s trying to come up with a number.
“Well, I’ll tell you …” and in the best May West I’ve heard in a long time, “I ain’t getting any younger.”
She sells it, and is rewarded with a big laugh.
The cake isn’t bad. But you know what’s better? What’s better is realizing that everyone had a good time, especially my mother.
////
Sunday, April 8, 2018
Listening to Life
Listening to Life
By Charles E. Kraus
Published in The Oregonian and Oregonlive.com 4/8/18
Life is composed of many elements -- events, sights, expectations, sad moments, and pleasant surprises. Also, sounds. These are a few of the things I've heard during the past 72 years:
Maybe I was four or five, part of a group of neighborhood kids enjoying the afternoon. A truck cab had parked down the block. As exotic as it was gigantic, this was just the kind of attractive nuisance we were looking to climb. And so, we did. Assembled on the cab roof, one of my associates must have lost his balance. He pushed against me to regain stability. The maneuver worked fine, for him. Not so for me. He remained on the roof while I sailed head first onto the sidewalk. Dazed, bloody and suffering from a severe concussion, a bomb bursting between my ears. I can still hear it.
A more pleasant example from my childhood was the exquisite rasp of my father's snoring. Elongated rumbles boasting their own unique melodic scale, my father was so embarrassed by his languid elegance that he only rented hotel rooms at the farthest end of the corridor where he was least likely to get complaints from guests in adjoining rooms. His snores may have disturbed others, especially my mother, but they lulled me to sleep. If I awoke in the middle of the night, right there on the other side of the wall from my parent's bedroom, I listed for my father's snoring. Hearing it, I knew, just knew, that everything was ok, that he was ok, and that therefore, all of us were just fine.
There was a fellow who sold candy and magazines on the train. He'd come on board for a few moments working the aisle before we pulled out. "Candy, Magazines, Chewing Gum," he'd shout in what was surely the loudest, deepest un-amplified voice on earth.
I found myself in the armory the evening presidential candidate John F. Kennedy was scheduled for a campaign stop. He was running really late. Inside the old brick edifice came more and more supporters. As the hour grew, maneuvering space shrank. It felt like Time Square on New Year’s Eve, and if it wasn’t exactly a new year, politically we were celebrating a New Frontier.
The sound that too many people make in a confined space, if they are excited and if their voices collide with the walls and ceiling, can charge a united mindset with massive energy. And so, if you are the candidate, the catalyst, and you wait just long enough, if you enter a rally such as this as the wave of enthusiasm reaches its peak and, accompanied by your entourage, make your way onto the stage, then take the last dozen steps, a lone man, buoyed by a rousing reception, if you are JFK, there is a roar so impossibly exquisite, only the sound of another lone man, in Dallas, pulling the trigger of his 6.5 mm Carcano can eventually extinguish the reverberation.
There were two Vietnam associated sounds.
Attached to MCB 71, our base was adjacent the Chu Lai airstrip. The concept of noise abatement did not exist, or if it did, did not apply. Planes took off or landed every 30 seconds 24/7. As Phantom Jets reached altitude they created an ear piercing turbulence that could have been the sky ripping apart. And thus, one of the most appalling memories I have of my war days was of a drive two of us were making to deliver parts to a vehicle that had broken down at the far end of the field. We heard a Phantom take off, that immense roar filling the senses. The fighter came so close vibrations shook our bodies. Then, all of a sudden, the noise stopped. Just quit. This was an eerie silence. Not merely because of the contrast it made with what we’d been hearing, but for a more important reason. We knew what it meant. The plane’s jet engine had shut down. There would be a crash. I do not know the next part for sure, but what we thought was that the trajectory of the fighter sent it hurling towards a small school house . The pilot could eject, allowing his plane to continue on course, or he could stay onboard and do his best to alter things. He did not eject. With all the sights and sounds of war, what I remember most is that silence, the moments that followed, and looking off in the distance where the school house remained standing.
Our battalion flew back to the States reaching Davisville, RI in the middle of a January night. After stowing my gear and cleaning up, I set out alone through the silently approaching morning. My peacoat offered little resistance to the numbing winter temperature. I crossed a calm, quiet, lonely base, hearing the sounds made as my boots sank into the crust of ice that forms on New England snow, thinking that just a plane ride ago, I’d been experiencing the monsoon season and a military exercise called Vietnam. In the span of two days, the war had become part of my past. The walk had a feeling, a feeling that returns when I recall the quiet crunch of steps through the snow, the calmest, most serene journey I believe I have ever made.
There was the sound, the sight and sound, of Jackie Wilson arriving late for his spot at a sold out rock and roll revival. After a song or two, he stopped the proceedings. Explained he'd been traveling all day and had not had a chance to rehearse. Looking so weary, he vocalized with the band, exercising his voice. And then, when he was ready, Jackie sang us To Be Loved, building and building until he reached for and slammed the final note out of the venue.
I'll tell you the sounds that made me the happiest over the years. These took place during my active parenting phase. It's early morning. I'm up. Probably pacing. Waiting for one of my kids to come home from a party or event. Lots of cars have driven by, their approaches giving me a taste of relief only to be followed by the fading sound of vehicles continuing down the road. Then, finally, a daughter pulls up in the driveway. A car door closes. There are footsteps on the stairs and my child is home. That's the best, most melodic, meaning full, pleasing, joyful sound known to the human ear.
By Charles E. Kraus
Published in The Oregonian and Oregonlive.com 4/8/18
Life is composed of many elements -- events, sights, expectations, sad moments, and pleasant surprises. Also, sounds. These are a few of the things I've heard during the past 72 years:
Maybe I was four or five, part of a group of neighborhood kids enjoying the afternoon. A truck cab had parked down the block. As exotic as it was gigantic, this was just the kind of attractive nuisance we were looking to climb. And so, we did. Assembled on the cab roof, one of my associates must have lost his balance. He pushed against me to regain stability. The maneuver worked fine, for him. Not so for me. He remained on the roof while I sailed head first onto the sidewalk. Dazed, bloody and suffering from a severe concussion, a bomb bursting between my ears. I can still hear it.
A more pleasant example from my childhood was the exquisite rasp of my father's snoring. Elongated rumbles boasting their own unique melodic scale, my father was so embarrassed by his languid elegance that he only rented hotel rooms at the farthest end of the corridor where he was least likely to get complaints from guests in adjoining rooms. His snores may have disturbed others, especially my mother, but they lulled me to sleep. If I awoke in the middle of the night, right there on the other side of the wall from my parent's bedroom, I listed for my father's snoring. Hearing it, I knew, just knew, that everything was ok, that he was ok, and that therefore, all of us were just fine.
There was a fellow who sold candy and magazines on the train. He'd come on board for a few moments working the aisle before we pulled out. "Candy, Magazines, Chewing Gum," he'd shout in what was surely the loudest, deepest un-amplified voice on earth.
I found myself in the armory the evening presidential candidate John F. Kennedy was scheduled for a campaign stop. He was running really late. Inside the old brick edifice came more and more supporters. As the hour grew, maneuvering space shrank. It felt like Time Square on New Year’s Eve, and if it wasn’t exactly a new year, politically we were celebrating a New Frontier.
The sound that too many people make in a confined space, if they are excited and if their voices collide with the walls and ceiling, can charge a united mindset with massive energy. And so, if you are the candidate, the catalyst, and you wait just long enough, if you enter a rally such as this as the wave of enthusiasm reaches its peak and, accompanied by your entourage, make your way onto the stage, then take the last dozen steps, a lone man, buoyed by a rousing reception, if you are JFK, there is a roar so impossibly exquisite, only the sound of another lone man, in Dallas, pulling the trigger of his 6.5 mm Carcano can eventually extinguish the reverberation.
There were two Vietnam associated sounds.
Attached to MCB 71, our base was adjacent the Chu Lai airstrip. The concept of noise abatement did not exist, or if it did, did not apply. Planes took off or landed every 30 seconds 24/7. As Phantom Jets reached altitude they created an ear piercing turbulence that could have been the sky ripping apart. And thus, one of the most appalling memories I have of my war days was of a drive two of us were making to deliver parts to a vehicle that had broken down at the far end of the field. We heard a Phantom take off, that immense roar filling the senses. The fighter came so close vibrations shook our bodies. Then, all of a sudden, the noise stopped. Just quit. This was an eerie silence. Not merely because of the contrast it made with what we’d been hearing, but for a more important reason. We knew what it meant. The plane’s jet engine had shut down. There would be a crash. I do not know the next part for sure, but what we thought was that the trajectory of the fighter sent it hurling towards a small school house . The pilot could eject, allowing his plane to continue on course, or he could stay onboard and do his best to alter things. He did not eject. With all the sights and sounds of war, what I remember most is that silence, the moments that followed, and looking off in the distance where the school house remained standing.
Our battalion flew back to the States reaching Davisville, RI in the middle of a January night. After stowing my gear and cleaning up, I set out alone through the silently approaching morning. My peacoat offered little resistance to the numbing winter temperature. I crossed a calm, quiet, lonely base, hearing the sounds made as my boots sank into the crust of ice that forms on New England snow, thinking that just a plane ride ago, I’d been experiencing the monsoon season and a military exercise called Vietnam. In the span of two days, the war had become part of my past. The walk had a feeling, a feeling that returns when I recall the quiet crunch of steps through the snow, the calmest, most serene journey I believe I have ever made.
There was the sound, the sight and sound, of Jackie Wilson arriving late for his spot at a sold out rock and roll revival. After a song or two, he stopped the proceedings. Explained he'd been traveling all day and had not had a chance to rehearse. Looking so weary, he vocalized with the band, exercising his voice. And then, when he was ready, Jackie sang us To Be Loved, building and building until he reached for and slammed the final note out of the venue.
I'll tell you the sounds that made me the happiest over the years. These took place during my active parenting phase. It's early morning. I'm up. Probably pacing. Waiting for one of my kids to come home from a party or event. Lots of cars have driven by, their approaches giving me a taste of relief only to be followed by the fading sound of vehicles continuing down the road. Then, finally, a daughter pulls up in the driveway. A car door closes. There are footsteps on the stairs and my child is home. That's the best, most melodic, meaning full, pleasing, joyful sound known to the human ear.
Sunday, February 11, 2018
Abe Lincoln and my Dad
Abe Lincoln and my Dad
By Charles E. Kraus
Published in The Oregonian 6/17/18
Abe Lincoln was born on the same day as my father. This was no coincidence. My father told me to say that.
Both these great men have ceased to walk the topsoil. In the old days, my old days, it was handy that the state we lived in recognized Mr. Lincoln's birthday, even going so far as to make it a holiday called Lincoln's Birthday. Signs of the approaching festivities reminded me to pick up a card for my dad. I don't recall getting one for Abe.
When my father drove out of New York State for the last time, heading to life in California, the license plate on his American Rambler began with the letters HH. Began, or ended, or had two consecutive H's somewhere in the mix. His lady friend, who went along for the ride, speculated that HH stood for Honest Harold. Harold was his first name, and he was easily as honest as Lincoln. Lincoln didn't even have a license plate.
My father never registered to vote. He claimed it made him eligible for jury duty, and though he was honest, he wasn't particularly civic minded. Obviously, Lincoln had the urge to participate in good government efforts. He was a state legislator, a congressman, a President. He freed the slaves. My father freed my mother.
President Lincoln was more than just a great emancipator. He was also a great people manipulator. I learned this from the historian Steven Spielberg. My father had limited social skills. I learned this from personal observation. Dad didn't try to persuade by means of reason or evidence. His preferred methods involved escalating volume and increasing dramatic facial expressions.
And still ... and yet?... these birthday boys share more than the hashtag #February12thparty. Lincoln once walked six miles to return a few cents that he’d over charged a customer. My father liked to walk, too.
When I was a about seven, we were on a family vacation somewhere so exotic that residents didn’t even have New York accents. One day I found a wallet. This was before the invention of credit cards, so the only thing it contained other than an ID was a wad of cash. For ten seconds I considered myself rich. But then my father budded in. No, he assured me, the ethical principle was not Finders Keepers Losers Weepers. It was, Send Back To Others What They Rightly Owned. He paid the postage.
Oh sure, it was easy for dad to be Honest Harold. He hadn’t found the damn wallet. Reluctantly, I complied with his recommendation that it be returned.
The following week, I received a letter from the wallet’s owner. It was probably the first letter ever addressed to me. It contained a thank you note, plus a five dollar reward for my honesty. It was actually a five dollar reward for my father’s honesty.
All Lincoln did was give back three cents. Even with inflation, we beat him by a mile. I was allowed to kept the five spot.
And so, with February 12th approaching, I think of Mr. Lincoln as the Great Emancipator, and my father as one of the first people to every have a personalized license plate.
Thursday, January 18, 2018
A Trump parable: Guest opinion
A Trump parable: Guest opinion
as published in the online Oregonian 1/18/18
and print version in the Sunday edition 1/21/18
Note: an earlier version of this essay appeared in Otherthannow in 2016.
A car salesman sold me a lemon. It reminds me of Trump's presidency: Guest opinion
By Charles E. KrausA year into this presidency, I'm thinking about the time I mistakenly purchased a Chevy Corvair.
In 1968, I was just back from Vietnam. Shortly after arriving at my duty station in Norfolk, I sold my rather dilapidated Opel Kadett. It made a horrendous squeal when turning left. I was pretty sure if I kept driving the damn coupe, a wheel would fall off leaving me dead or wishing I was.
I headed for the nearest dealership. The salesman saw me coming even before I left base. He was a hot shot. I was a target: A city boy who knew about subway routes, but not much about cars. He was a salesman. He knew about needs and desires.
I'd been in ‘Nam, other occupied and not particularly interested when Ralph Nader's book, Unsafe at Any Speed, knocked the socks off Chevy Corvair sales. Dealerships were doing their best to dump inventory. I could get a new car on the cheap.
The salesman assured me the vehicle was safe, reliable and affordable. Don't believe the bad press, he said in his confident-demeanor disguise. Dealers couldn't sell them if they were dangerous. Right? And keep in mind, the guy said, cars were not forever. You didn't like one, you traded for another. What was there to lose? Other than your life.
I could have a new model for only $1,700, coincidently, just the amount of my savings. I was being offered an opportunity to drive off with that new car smell filling my nostrils, seated in a new vehicle, steering wheel controlled by my very own hands.
Mr. Trump has me thinking about that car. About the attitude I had when I handed over the biggest wad of cash I'd ever held, and in exchange received promises and the keys to a vehicle that ended up just about killing me.
The Corvair was an outlier, different than any of its American-made counter parts. Uniquely designed to shake up complacency -- the engine in the rear and the trunk in the front. There were Corvair clubs and Corvair motorcades, the salesman told me. He forgot to mention there were Corvair lawsuits. Corvair fatalities.
The car shut down suddenly while I was on the turnpike causing quite the commotion. Lots of skids, horn blasts and a few thuds. On another occasion, it became so unmanageable while I was driving cross country that I ended up stranded in Lordsburg, New Mexico. For days. Awaiting parts. Lordsburg, New Mexico!
I'd sunk my bank roll, hopes and expectations into what was supposed to be a solution to previous car problems. But, I'd misjudged, hitching a ride on a sales pitch, an illusion rather than the genuine thing.
Poor decision. Didn't get me where I wanted to go.
I've been thinking about that. About flamboyant salesmen and poor performance. On what's promised and. what's delivered.
Thursday, December 21, 2017
SANTAS I HAVE KNOWN
SANTAS I HAVE KNOWN
By Charles Kraus (aka: Charles The Clown)
“Is
this the line for cheeseburgers?”
"NO! It’s for Santa!"
That’s a kid responding to my
question. I’ve been Charles The Clowning my way through
life — more than 50 years of performing for children, including
hundreds and hundreds of Christmas events. That means I’ve
introduced, worked with, and/or helped to sober up hundreds and
hundreds of Santa Clauses. Evidently kids are not
particular about who is wearing the outfit.
I finish my show, making the final extra
gigantic balloon reindeer. My puppet and I are saying
good-bye when suddenly we hear something.
"Hold on kids." I look
up.
Could it be … ?
"I think Santa might be up there."
Puppet: "Santa Monica?"
"No … that’s to the south."
Puppet: "Santa Barbara?"
"To the North."
Puppet: "Santa Who?"
"Santa CLAUS!"
I point to the door, the prearranged door, for
the prearranged entrance. I’ve said my line … now
Santa is supposed to come rushing in.
Not yet? Where is he?
"OK. Kids, maybe he’s having
trouble finding a parking spot for the sleigh. Perhaps his
GPS isn’t working and he can't locate us. Why don’t we
shout “Hello Santa!”
"HELLO SANTA!”
Eventually, when he, or she, is ready, has
gotten up the nerve, refastened the beard, and figured out the cue
has been given … and given ... out pops Santa.
The person in the red suit is young, or
old. He’s fat or skinny. He’s Black,
Hispanic, Asian, Filipino. There was the Santa with the
very French waxed handlebar mustache, the ends twisted into swirling
curlicues. It might be time for Mrs. Santa. Santa
in a wheelchair or using a walker. I’ve worked
with gay Santas, with lesbian Santas, and in retrospect, possibly
with transgender Santas.
One of my jobs is to travel the line, keep the
kids entertained while they wait for a turn to tell The Claus what
they would like for Christmas.
“I’ve
got my list,” I tell them, waving it around. I start to
read …
“Bread,
Milk, Swiss Cheese … hold on, that’s my shopping list.”
Sometimes I ask children what is on their
Christmas list. Occasionally, having sized up the Santa
they are about to meet, I’m thinking the best thing the kids could
ask for would be a change of venue.
The meet and greet is a right of passage that
most kids take in stride. Some may be fearful, but I’ve
heard few complains regarding authenticity. It does
strike me that most Santa impersonators have been cajoled into
donning the suit. There is a reluctance. Perhaps an
embarrassment aspect.
A little Ho Ho Ho. The official
questions: Been good? And what do you want for
Christmas? Not a demanding script.
The trick is to listen to the answers.
The better Santas help children put the gift thing into perspective.
“I’ll
try to get you that, Harriet, but if the elves don’t have time make
one, I promise to get you something else you’ll enjoy.”
Say it like you mean it, Santa. And,
oh …. pull down that sleeve. Your Grateful Dead tattoo
is showing.
Saturday, October 14, 2017
CUT AND DRY
CUT AND DRY
By Charles E. Kraus
Sometime in 2010 ......
For a while there, say the first twenty minutes, when the blood was seeping through the towels, I was the least happy clown since Emit Kelly played the Garden. Until the accident, I never knew you could use Mehron Clown White grease paint as a coagulant.
You may not consider my show business career very high end. When I'm not writing, often, I'm performing. Just a kid's act. Clown, magician, more clown than magician now because the make-up reduces comments about my age.
Kids-show people either stay in town and entertain at birthday parties or they move from school to school, library to library, recreation center to state fair, from festivals of the arts to festivals of the darts. It's quite a circuit. They get in their cars, drive three hundred miles, unload, set the stage; the "stage" might be a field, a room, or just a portion of a busy library with the kids seated on the floor. They amaze, possible amuse, strike the set, drive to the next gig or find their motel, then dine at McDonald's. OK, make your demeaning comments. Just keep in mind, during my summer road trips -- if I do a show or two a day, I can make a living.
I hit the motel in San Jose one night late summer. I'm about fifty-five years into my career. Not many "new" customers. But the regulars still like me. They phone my wife, and using just enough tact to avoid direct questions such as, is he still alive and vertical, ask if I'm available for a performance. San Jose calls. I respond, and so here I am yet again.
I'm scheduled for the Cambrian Library, on Hillsdale Avenue. The program is not going to attract Silicon Valley's affluent tec-tots. Most likely I'll face a room full of Hispanic and Asian children from hard working everyday families. Deal me in. Doing shows is my therapy, my self esteem, possibly my ticket to a Heavenly venue.
I reach the motel the night before, coming in from two library performances in San Francisco. Shows are easy, but you try parking within blocks of the Chinatown library. You try the 101 South during rush hour. Hitting San Jose feels like a milestone. Before exiting the car, I glance at the dashboard temperature gage -- the one estimating how things are doing outside, beyond mobile air conditioning. Hundred and twelve. Hundred and twelve? Naw ... Chinatown was in the eighties. I open the door. Hundred and twelve. Confirmed. By the time I reach the room, nothing much is left in me. Uncle. Enough. You win. Go away. Leave me alone. See you in the morning. We are currently closed for repairs. Lights out. Is the unused portion of the day returnable for a full refund? I'm think the Motel Six air conditioner was purchased from a bankruptcy sale at the Motel Four and a Half. The only thing cool about it is the retro 1980's design.
Cambrian is a 10:00 a.m. appearance, meaning I have to arrive by 9:00. Such arrangements are stupid, always. Libraries DO NOT OPEN until 10. You'll find me pounding on the door at 9:30 hoping my paradiddling will remind staff I'm not some street guy asking to use the facilities.
Actually, the setup begins the night before.
Motel Six, at least this one, does not provide an ironing board. You free a pillowcase or two from other responsibilities, spread these on what passes for a nightstand, apply your travel iron and perfect your costume. Ironing a clown outfit on a two by two table, you assume that each time you rotate the pants, the pillowcases will shift, bunch up under the garment, or fall on the floor. You are correct. Don't forget to prepare the scarves for the flag trick. "Here I have a red scarf, a blue scarf and a white one. Bingo Presto .... what's the magic word? READ! The silks blend into a genuine American flag!" The scarves are a little threadbare. I've taken to waving them around; in motion they look just fine.
Not trusting the front desk, I set my cell and the radio-alarm clock for Seven. No. Seven sounds awful. Seven-thirty. Plenty of time to wash, shave, load the car. Breakfast. Not McDonalds. Not again. Subway has the egg thing sandwich. Not so much "egg," sort of a flat, circular yellow disk microwaved into edibility. The route has been looked up on Google Maps. No printout. No printer. This is before GPS. I write the route down and put the scrap of paper into my puppet's mouth. I take the puppet, I have the route with me. Unless Biscuit The Dog eats it.
Next it is morning. Man I hate early shows.
I have a laptop. A cheap one. Acer. Its old enough so the battery is permanently deceased. If you hook the unit to the wall current, you can still run things. I plug it in, navigating to NPR.com. The bedside radio only picks up Country stations. Also revival meetings. The Acer, even when it was in its prime, full blasts audio by whispering. You listen standing still, devoting your attention. The cord is short and the only working outlet over by the TV. I want to hear the news and shave. Simultaneously. From the bathroom, NPR sounds like a trace element. I catch the gist of stories, but need to fill in details with imaginary facts.
I retrieve my razor and dollar store foam. Let's light up the place so we can catch a glimpse of the old unvarnished -- pre-clowned - face. Little stubble removal before applying the white. Clown makeup is my version of a reality distortion field. Eat your black heart out, Steve Jobs.
Turning on the bathroom's florescent creates its own distortion field, a sort of hum/crackle further degrading NPR's meek audio feed. Strangely, the Acer can broadcast the static at a much greater volume than mere conversation. So, OK, I'm flexible. The military taught me how to assemble an M16 while blindfolded. Surely, I can shave without benefit of the bathroom light. Despite my fading memory, I recall where I put my face.
I'm scraping the razor through the lather as Bob Edward's replacement -- many replacements, years of them, but each time I listen, I'm still expecting Edwards, helps me feel I'm informed. It's early. Not paying much attention to my facial maintenance, I'm alternately catching the news and taking a mental inventory of my puppet routines. "These kids are members of the Summer Reading Club." "Oh," says Bones The Dog, "I though they were part of the summer eating club." I'll use that.
As I rinse away the lather, instead of a harmonious complexion, I'm finding blood. Not, Oh, I cut myself while shaving blood. I'm talking about a massive, serious, unnerving gusher. Several of them. My face, my neck, my chin; I thought I was listening to the radio, but it appears I was actually participating in a knife fight.
A quick examination of the razor indicates that after years of using these devices then throwing them into my toilet kit, sans the little plastic sleeve you are supposed to slip over the blades, I've finally run out of lazyman's luck. The edge is mangled, contorted, jagged. It's become miniature dagger. Under protective cover of hot water and foam, the device silently shreded my face. My neck is sliced. My cheeks peeled. My chin suddenly has a cleft. I'm Kirk Douglas, in red. Dad told me clowning was a cut throat business, but I don't think he had this in mind.
Using tissues and toilet paper faster than you can say 'bleed to death," I'm making absolutely no healing progress. While applying pressure, I'm also thumbing through my belongings just in case I still have the first aid kit. Also, I'm eyeing the clock. Show time, or at least arrival time, is less than an hours worth of bleeding from just when I've run out of paper compresses and begun working the towels.
I have to get to a drug store. Calling on skills I never knew I had, I manage to load my props into the car without dying, and head for a nearby strip mall. Part of me is face focused, another aspect of my consciousness wonders how the Motel Six housekeeper is going to react to the cheery cherry accents that have been added to the bathroom walls, the counter and especially noteworthy, the Jackson Polk blood red treatment on the linoleum. Does she call the authorities? Perhaps I should have left a tip.
No pharmacy, but thank Heaven for Seven-Eleven. At only twice the price of a case of beer, I become the proud owner of a package of gauze. Damn. It is so late. This is when I should be pulling up to the library, not sitting five miles away grinding assorted dry goods into my face.
After a while, I'm either out of blood or have induced coagulation. If I don't move at all, I don't bleed. I blast the car heater hoping to dry the evidence. A union man who loves scabs. Reaching Cambrian, I sit in the car applying massive doses of Clown White, power it, and repeat the process until I've built a grease barrier that discourages bleeding while hiding the more grotesque aspects of my current effigy. I create lips, redden my nose, add colorful freckles, draw a large heart on my left cheek, and blue arches over my eyes. I take a red scarf from my prop case, twist portions around my neck, teasing the silk higher and higher then tuck the ends into my collar. If you didn't know what had transpired back at the motel, you'd merely suspect I had applied my clown persona with my eyes closed.
There is little point in trying to explain my new look. If the librarian suspects I'm camouflaging the results of a bar fight, or even a mugging, she's going to report me to some committee. Not only will I never again perform for her, I'll probably never again perform for any library in the San Jose Public Library System.
The children's librarian is not a morning person. She looks worse than I do. At first she barely nods hello. But as we walk to the community room, I catch her assessing her guest artist. To distract, I point here, there, waving my arms, telling funny stories, remembering the program I presented last year with the kid who raised his hand in the middle of the show and asked, "where do I pee?" To which another kid responded, "in your pants." All of this is met with silence.
I am left alone to set the stage, a glance in my hand mirror reveals several of my wounds have uncoagulated. Nothing exotic, but lots of oozing. More dabs, more white. Will the dam hold? Will the show go on? Will I succumb to iron deficiency anemia?
The kids enter. Fortunately, their focus is on the balloon comedy and the puppet routines.
"Here we are, Bones, in the library."
"I thought we were in a strawberry."
You had to be there. Unfortunately, so did I.
It was not my best performance. It was also not my worse. You might say it was a cut above the usual. And then, it was over.
Exit the kids. Enter the librarian ... my check in hand.
She spends a moment staring at me.
"That's amazing."
I wasn't sure how to respond. What exactly was amazing? My disfigured, slightly swollen face? My show?
"Very creative," she continues, handing over the fee.
Exit the librarian.
I dare not de-clown until I've left the premises, or perhaps the state.
I cram my props into cases, load the car, pull out with all deliberate speed, driving just far enough to park in privacy. Am I a wreck? Does my face look as bad as it feels? No. I'm more or less OK.
Interestingly, blood has mixed with grease paint forming designer swirls, multicolor, iridescent, textured patterns on the clown white.
Centered on my chin, appearing as if by magic, most likely droplet by droplet during the course of the show, a bright red star.
Wipes and makeup remover at the ready, a Motel 6 towel standing by just in case. Let the de-clowning process begin.
By Charles E. Kraus
Sometime in 2010 ......
For a while there, say the first twenty minutes, when the blood was seeping through the towels, I was the least happy clown since Emit Kelly played the Garden. Until the accident, I never knew you could use Mehron Clown White grease paint as a coagulant.
You may not consider my show business career very high end. When I'm not writing, often, I'm performing. Just a kid's act. Clown, magician, more clown than magician now because the make-up reduces comments about my age.
Kids-show people either stay in town and entertain at birthday parties or they move from school to school, library to library, recreation center to state fair, from festivals of the arts to festivals of the darts. It's quite a circuit. They get in their cars, drive three hundred miles, unload, set the stage; the "stage" might be a field, a room, or just a portion of a busy library with the kids seated on the floor. They amaze, possible amuse, strike the set, drive to the next gig or find their motel, then dine at McDonald's. OK, make your demeaning comments. Just keep in mind, during my summer road trips -- if I do a show or two a day, I can make a living.
I hit the motel in San Jose one night late summer. I'm about fifty-five years into my career. Not many "new" customers. But the regulars still like me. They phone my wife, and using just enough tact to avoid direct questions such as, is he still alive and vertical, ask if I'm available for a performance. San Jose calls. I respond, and so here I am yet again.
I'm scheduled for the Cambrian Library, on Hillsdale Avenue. The program is not going to attract Silicon Valley's affluent tec-tots. Most likely I'll face a room full of Hispanic and Asian children from hard working everyday families. Deal me in. Doing shows is my therapy, my self esteem, possibly my ticket to a Heavenly venue.
I reach the motel the night before, coming in from two library performances in San Francisco. Shows are easy, but you try parking within blocks of the Chinatown library. You try the 101 South during rush hour. Hitting San Jose feels like a milestone. Before exiting the car, I glance at the dashboard temperature gage -- the one estimating how things are doing outside, beyond mobile air conditioning. Hundred and twelve. Hundred and twelve? Naw ... Chinatown was in the eighties. I open the door. Hundred and twelve. Confirmed. By the time I reach the room, nothing much is left in me. Uncle. Enough. You win. Go away. Leave me alone. See you in the morning. We are currently closed for repairs. Lights out. Is the unused portion of the day returnable for a full refund? I'm think the Motel Six air conditioner was purchased from a bankruptcy sale at the Motel Four and a Half. The only thing cool about it is the retro 1980's design.
Cambrian is a 10:00 a.m. appearance, meaning I have to arrive by 9:00. Such arrangements are stupid, always. Libraries DO NOT OPEN until 10. You'll find me pounding on the door at 9:30 hoping my paradiddling will remind staff I'm not some street guy asking to use the facilities.
Actually, the setup begins the night before.
Motel Six, at least this one, does not provide an ironing board. You free a pillowcase or two from other responsibilities, spread these on what passes for a nightstand, apply your travel iron and perfect your costume. Ironing a clown outfit on a two by two table, you assume that each time you rotate the pants, the pillowcases will shift, bunch up under the garment, or fall on the floor. You are correct. Don't forget to prepare the scarves for the flag trick. "Here I have a red scarf, a blue scarf and a white one. Bingo Presto .... what's the magic word? READ! The silks blend into a genuine American flag!" The scarves are a little threadbare. I've taken to waving them around; in motion they look just fine.
Not trusting the front desk, I set my cell and the radio-alarm clock for Seven. No. Seven sounds awful. Seven-thirty. Plenty of time to wash, shave, load the car. Breakfast. Not McDonalds. Not again. Subway has the egg thing sandwich. Not so much "egg," sort of a flat, circular yellow disk microwaved into edibility. The route has been looked up on Google Maps. No printout. No printer. This is before GPS. I write the route down and put the scrap of paper into my puppet's mouth. I take the puppet, I have the route with me. Unless Biscuit The Dog eats it.
Next it is morning. Man I hate early shows.
I have a laptop. A cheap one. Acer. Its old enough so the battery is permanently deceased. If you hook the unit to the wall current, you can still run things. I plug it in, navigating to NPR.com. The bedside radio only picks up Country stations. Also revival meetings. The Acer, even when it was in its prime, full blasts audio by whispering. You listen standing still, devoting your attention. The cord is short and the only working outlet over by the TV. I want to hear the news and shave. Simultaneously. From the bathroom, NPR sounds like a trace element. I catch the gist of stories, but need to fill in details with imaginary facts.
I retrieve my razor and dollar store foam. Let's light up the place so we can catch a glimpse of the old unvarnished -- pre-clowned - face. Little stubble removal before applying the white. Clown makeup is my version of a reality distortion field. Eat your black heart out, Steve Jobs.
Turning on the bathroom's florescent creates its own distortion field, a sort of hum/crackle further degrading NPR's meek audio feed. Strangely, the Acer can broadcast the static at a much greater volume than mere conversation. So, OK, I'm flexible. The military taught me how to assemble an M16 while blindfolded. Surely, I can shave without benefit of the bathroom light. Despite my fading memory, I recall where I put my face.
I'm scraping the razor through the lather as Bob Edward's replacement -- many replacements, years of them, but each time I listen, I'm still expecting Edwards, helps me feel I'm informed. It's early. Not paying much attention to my facial maintenance, I'm alternately catching the news and taking a mental inventory of my puppet routines. "These kids are members of the Summer Reading Club." "Oh," says Bones The Dog, "I though they were part of the summer eating club." I'll use that.
As I rinse away the lather, instead of a harmonious complexion, I'm finding blood. Not, Oh, I cut myself while shaving blood. I'm talking about a massive, serious, unnerving gusher. Several of them. My face, my neck, my chin; I thought I was listening to the radio, but it appears I was actually participating in a knife fight.
A quick examination of the razor indicates that after years of using these devices then throwing them into my toilet kit, sans the little plastic sleeve you are supposed to slip over the blades, I've finally run out of lazyman's luck. The edge is mangled, contorted, jagged. It's become miniature dagger. Under protective cover of hot water and foam, the device silently shreded my face. My neck is sliced. My cheeks peeled. My chin suddenly has a cleft. I'm Kirk Douglas, in red. Dad told me clowning was a cut throat business, but I don't think he had this in mind.
Using tissues and toilet paper faster than you can say 'bleed to death," I'm making absolutely no healing progress. While applying pressure, I'm also thumbing through my belongings just in case I still have the first aid kit. Also, I'm eyeing the clock. Show time, or at least arrival time, is less than an hours worth of bleeding from just when I've run out of paper compresses and begun working the towels.
I have to get to a drug store. Calling on skills I never knew I had, I manage to load my props into the car without dying, and head for a nearby strip mall. Part of me is face focused, another aspect of my consciousness wonders how the Motel Six housekeeper is going to react to the cheery cherry accents that have been added to the bathroom walls, the counter and especially noteworthy, the Jackson Polk blood red treatment on the linoleum. Does she call the authorities? Perhaps I should have left a tip.
No pharmacy, but thank Heaven for Seven-Eleven. At only twice the price of a case of beer, I become the proud owner of a package of gauze. Damn. It is so late. This is when I should be pulling up to the library, not sitting five miles away grinding assorted dry goods into my face.
After a while, I'm either out of blood or have induced coagulation. If I don't move at all, I don't bleed. I blast the car heater hoping to dry the evidence. A union man who loves scabs. Reaching Cambrian, I sit in the car applying massive doses of Clown White, power it, and repeat the process until I've built a grease barrier that discourages bleeding while hiding the more grotesque aspects of my current effigy. I create lips, redden my nose, add colorful freckles, draw a large heart on my left cheek, and blue arches over my eyes. I take a red scarf from my prop case, twist portions around my neck, teasing the silk higher and higher then tuck the ends into my collar. If you didn't know what had transpired back at the motel, you'd merely suspect I had applied my clown persona with my eyes closed.
There is little point in trying to explain my new look. If the librarian suspects I'm camouflaging the results of a bar fight, or even a mugging, she's going to report me to some committee. Not only will I never again perform for her, I'll probably never again perform for any library in the San Jose Public Library System.
The children's librarian is not a morning person. She looks worse than I do. At first she barely nods hello. But as we walk to the community room, I catch her assessing her guest artist. To distract, I point here, there, waving my arms, telling funny stories, remembering the program I presented last year with the kid who raised his hand in the middle of the show and asked, "where do I pee?" To which another kid responded, "in your pants." All of this is met with silence.
I am left alone to set the stage, a glance in my hand mirror reveals several of my wounds have uncoagulated. Nothing exotic, but lots of oozing. More dabs, more white. Will the dam hold? Will the show go on? Will I succumb to iron deficiency anemia?
The kids enter. Fortunately, their focus is on the balloon comedy and the puppet routines.
"Here we are, Bones, in the library."
"I thought we were in a strawberry."
You had to be there. Unfortunately, so did I.
It was not my best performance. It was also not my worse. You might say it was a cut above the usual. And then, it was over.
Exit the kids. Enter the librarian ... my check in hand.
She spends a moment staring at me.
"That's amazing."
I wasn't sure how to respond. What exactly was amazing? My disfigured, slightly swollen face? My show?
"Very creative," she continues, handing over the fee.
Exit the librarian.
I dare not de-clown until I've left the premises, or perhaps the state.
I cram my props into cases, load the car, pull out with all deliberate speed, driving just far enough to park in privacy. Am I a wreck? Does my face look as bad as it feels? No. I'm more or less OK.
Interestingly, blood has mixed with grease paint forming designer swirls, multicolor, iridescent, textured patterns on the clown white.
Centered on my chin, appearing as if by magic, most likely droplet by droplet during the course of the show, a bright red star.
Wipes and makeup remover at the ready, a Motel 6 towel standing by just in case. Let the de-clowning process begin.
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