Dick Summer Connection

Sharp objects are definitely out.

Do you all KNOW how bad my Louie-Louie Lad is with sharp objects?  Our great granddaughter Cecelia knows not to run with anything in her hand, sharp or not.  But not this guy.

He came upstairs from his office with a bandage on his arm and I asked what happened.  “Mmphblug,” was his answer.  There was some blood, but not a lot …

I knew his mother and I know she taught him to always slice away from his body.  I KNOW SHE DID!  The fact that there are scars on his arm from slicing a ham … well, sheesh …

 It’s a guy thing, right?  I asked Big Louie, his own bad self, and he just grumbled in his beard.  Our daughter, Kris, who is an accomplished artist, took a course in welding.  Yup, big black face mask, heavy leather gloves, sparks flying in twenty directions … and she never even got a small burn.  My Lad?  He tried to change a light bulb for me, dropped the thing, and cut himself to pieces.

I hide the scissors and try hard to keep the knives out of his reach.  But when he gets on his lawn tractor, I get … scared …

I just got back from the drug store with a stash of vitamins and magic herbs that will improve my memory, help me sleep, and make My Lady Wonder Wench putty in my arms. And you know those plastic wrappings they put around bottle tops to keep the bad guys from dropping their stuff in there while nobody’s looking ? I grabbed a knife from the drawer, and started cutting around the edge so I could open the lid, and My Lady Wonder Wench said, “Don’t cut yourself.” She doesn’t trust me with sharp objects. What have I done to deserve that ? (For those of you who have been listening to this podcast for a while, never mind with your wise guy answers.)

 I must admit, I’ve been dreadfully distracted lately by this new book I’m working on. I sent the first draft to the editor who sent it back with markings that looked like the ones Sr. Mary Knucklebuster made on the report I did in fifth grade called What I Did On Summer Vacation. Writing a book is hard, not like making a spoken word CD. They even want you to spell stuff right.

 The working title of the book, which has been changed about 15 times…this week, is “Staying Happy, Healthy and Hot. We’re The Louie-Louie Generation. The publisher warned me not to put it on the blog or podcast because “You shouldn’t give it away.” I said something to him in my native klingon, which loosely translates to, “Go forth and multiply yourself,” and I’m putting the draft of the first chapter right here.

 The Times They Are A-Changing

 Once upon a time, in what now seems like a long, long, time ago, every generation lived in what they called, “The old days.” In those “old days,” everybody got old. Wrinkled. Worn out. Crunchy. Yeeechh. That may be why they were called the “old days.” But as Bob Dylan said, “The Times They Are A Changing,” So move over you Baby Boomers, and Millennials, and all the rest of the generations of the past. Here comes the brand new Louie-Louie Generation, and we are “Beyond your command.”

 We may not look like the people in the beer commercials anymore with their fancy abs and perky breasts, but we have lots of surprises in store for people who think we’re just left over chunks of luke warm meat. We know that “He who dies with the most toys, wins.” But our attitude is, “Why envy that guy. He doesn’t get to play with his toys. He’s dead.”  So instead of getting grumpy and old, we’re grateful that we have our own nice toys to play with. That’s called the Louie-Louie Generation attitude/gratitude connection. Happiness helps us stay healthy. And happy healthy people are hot. And hot is sexy. And sexy makes us happy.

 This is the first known written account of the new “Louie-Louie Generation.” It’s mostly a collection of stories about how a Louie-Louie Generation man and woman usually turn up the tingle in their every day lives with a healthy jolt of the “Double ‘Tude”…attitude and gratitude. It usually works. Not always. We’re not perfect. And that’s good. Perfect gets boring pretty fast. And Louie-Louie lads and ladies don’t get bored.

 Our “Virtual Founding Father” is Big Louie, his own bad self, the “Chief Mustard Cutter” of our Louie-Louie Generation. Big Louie’s motto is, “The Tingle Is In The ‘Tude Dude.”  And his “Tingle Jingle”…is Louie-Louie, the song with a double title, and a double dose of  ‘Tude.”

You’re probably already a member of the Louie-Louie Generation if you’ve been around long enough to have enjoyed making some of the same wonderful bad mistakes that the rest of us have made.  But your attitude and gratitude, your double ‘tude, is far more important than your age. If you’re happy, healthy and hot, you are more than welcome to membership in our Generation. People who never heard of lava lamps, Frisbees, or hula hoops can be Louie-Louie folks, too. As long as they have that double ‘tude. 

Louie-Louie lads and ladies face a daily struggle for respect, recognition, and happiness against the insolent forces of the clueless Pimple People and the Drab and Dreadful Drones, who have gone over to the Dork side.

We need to deal with the fact that the world is overrun with Pimple People. Many of them wear their baseball caps sideways, drive spikes through their tongues, and wear their jeans low enough so that when they walk away, they show us a parting nasty crack.

 The Dreary Drones should know better. They’ve been around. But they just keep going around…and around…and around. They slouch through life, drenched in TV, slogging through soggy relationships, and settling for dimmed down dreams. They wouldn’t know a Fun House if they lived in one.

Louie-Louie-Hood has lots of benefits.  Louie-Louie Generation guys are the bedmates of choice of supermodels, lovely, lusty, lady chief executives, and Catherine Zeta Jones look-alikes.  That’s because we treat our women with lots of love and lots of lovely lust, we have some pretty good life stories to tell, and we don’t mind telling them. And many of us have paid off our nice cars and private airplanes. We’ve guys with double doses of attitude/ gratitude.

Louie-Louie ladies know how to laugh and cry, love and lust, and cook … in every sense of the word.  You’ll enjoy watching a Louie-Louie lady, cooking comfortably at some high powered job, hitting her Louie-Louie guy on the shoulder while she laughs at his joke–that she’s heard five times–while making sure the guy does the job exactly the way she wants it done.  

And a Louie-Louie lady on the prowl is a force of nature.  A great example of that happened around here last Friday.  A Louie-Louie lady was eyeing some guy sitting alone at an Applebees bar. She put some perfume on her little lace hankie, slipped it into the guy’s jacket pocket … smiled up at him … and walked away without a word.  Naturally, he caught up with her and asked her what that was all about.  She just said, “It looks good in your pocket.”  Then she started asking if he came here often … shook her head as if she couldn’t hear … and said, “It’s noisy in here” … and leaned over toward him so she could hear his answer.  That guy didn’t stand a chance.

A Louie-Louie lady was sitting at a table with a guy at lunch today.  They were smiling and talking … and she slowly slid her toe under his trouser cuff–nice and easy–and then tucked her toe back up under her fanny. I don’t know how a woman can do that…sit on her own leg. But the nice thing is, they got up very abruptly, paid the check and left.  Good.

My Lady Wonder Wench is a Louie-Louie lady.  Sometimes she just sits over there on the couch and crosses her legs kind of high up on the thigh and lets one shoe slip off enough to show the sole of her foot … then she swings her foot back and forth a little.  Oh yeah … Louie-Louie ladies are very good at cooking.

 This book is full of stories about how this Louie-Louie lad and his Louie-Louie “Lady Wonder Wench” are keeping our double ‘tude tingle working to stay happy, healthy, and hot. Usually. We’ve been together since that old black and white picture on the cover was taken, so many years ago. And you’ll see what the years haven’t been able to do to us in the pictures on the back cover.    

 Big Louie always says, “As long as you’ve still got some moving parts…move your parts.” 

 Dick’s Details Quiz – all answers are in the current podcast.

 1-      What makes an octopus feel ugly ?

2-      What kind of ship do you want to be on around whales ?

3-      What do we know from the research of a scientist by the name of Stumpy.

 Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.

 Staying happy, healthy and hot puts some high power tingle in our lives. Which can cause some problems. There’s  a story about that in the Night Connections 2 Personal Audio CD, and in the current podcast. It’s about a man and woman who became lovers one night.

And it was good. And it was awful. The story is called Temporary Friends. I sometimes wonder if they became permanent lovers. That happens. Temporary Friends is from the Night Connections 2 Personal Audio CD. If you like it, you can just keep the current podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just download it from the Night Connections 2 icon on the home page.

 Staying happy, healthy and hot makes you sexy. Which can make you happy again. But Big Louie, his own bad self always says, “Remember that if you push someone you care about over some towering cliff of passion, you must always be ready to catch her safely with your love.” I guess that should be part of your check list before you find yourself in the company of someone who has so far only been a temporary friend.

 And another thing that should be on your checklist, when somebody you care about makes it clear that she doesn’t trust you with sharp objects. Before you come back with some snotty saying, walk into your bathroom and make faces at yourself in the mirror. Sooner or later that will make you grin. You always win when you grin. And things being what they are, your somebody will eventually pound on the door and yell, “Are you still in there.” Always tell them no. A good surprise never hurt anybody.

I am trying to console my Louie-Louie Lad ‘cause his grass disappeared.  He planted a nice little grass field and it grew very nicely – and then it disappeared.  Just like that.  So did Randy’s, our next door neighbor, but that isn’t enough to make the Lad smile.  He wants his grass back.  The weather, however, isn’t going to cooperate.  He will just have to wait until next year.  If he can.  He is, after all, just a guy …

 Those of us who are Louie-Louie lasses understand that “they” don’t take disappointment easily.  But most of them smile so sweetly that we can overlook the bumps in their roads.

 Even our great granddaughter Cecelia understands that the male population has a limited attention span when it comes to being the gardener in our worlds.  They want what they planted to grow.  Properly.  And they do not take disappointment easily.

 So what do we do, lasses?  How do we convince them that we like what they grow?

I’ve got to be careful about this. I’m going to tell you about a guy who has been a friend of mine for a long time. And I think this is important. “Frank” and I have shared around 30 years worth of hamburgers and cold ones, bad jokes, and Auld Lang Synes. He was there to help me when my Lady Wonder Wench had that accident that almost cost her life.  He’s the kind of guy you want around for laughs, and also for when the sky is crashing down around your ears.  But there’s something we can’t talk about any more, because every time we get into it, he gets angry.  Really angry. The subject is America.

“Frank” says this isn’t his America any more, and he is furious about that.  Frank is a patriot.  He flies the same starry flag in front of his house that flies at my house.  He’s ex-USAF.  But he is convinced that he can’t trust America to protect the way of life he’s worked so hard to achieve these days.  He has gathered an arsenal of weapons to protect himself and his “stuff” because he feels a revolution will break out in the near future. “Frank” feels betrayed.  And he has been.  But I don’t think America betrayed him. I think he’s been betrayed by the message he got growing up: “Work hard and follow our rules, and everything will be ok.”

The other day he said, “I’ve worked hard, I’ve played by the rules, and I deserve better than this.”  I was surprised, because I got a different message growing up.  So I asked him, “Who says you deserve better than this?”  That raised his pulse rate and his voice quite a bit and he said quite emphatically, “Everybody … and God.”  What a jaw dropper. And all of a sudden I understood why he’s so scared. The message he got from his parents, his teachers, and the preachers in church was: “Work hard, follow our rules, and everything will be ok.”

I got a different message. It was, “Trust yourself. You can always find a way to get things done.”  Two very different messages.  If you believe the message I got, and I do, there is hardly anything that can scare you, because you can always find a way to make things work out. And most of the time that seems to be the case with me.  I can always find a way to make things work.  Maybe not the best way … but some way.

“Frank” is a generous guy with his friends and family.  He has been successful in several careers, and he has now begun a substantial if not luxurious retirement.  He has a wonderful wife, a couple of dogs, a small flock of parrots, an extensive arsenal and a beautiful home.  He was counting on his beautiful, expensive home as an investment to secure his future.  But his home has lost a lot of its value in the housing bust, and he also lost a considerable chunk of his planned retirement funds in the recession. 

 “Frank’s” scared.  And angry, and he’s striking back.  He writes a regular blog that screams against the government that he feels has betrayed him. He has more “stuff” than probably 50% of his neighbors, but he says the government is now plotting to take his “stuff” and give it to … “Them.” And “Them” of course, is the mob that he says “lives off the efforts of guys like us.”

“Work hard, do what you’re supposed to do, and things will be ok” sounds like a message about individual responsibility, but it’s not.  What that message really says is, “Do what we tell you and we’ll take care of you.”  That’s very different from, “Trust yourself.  You’ll find a way to make things work”.

I’ve never been a political guy, and I’m not going to change that now.  But I have the standard Brooklyn-American big mouth, so I can’t resist asking “Frank” and all my friends who are convinced that the sky is falling on our economy and our country, a couple of questions.  For example:  What would happen to a politician today who suggested that we build a highway connecting all of our major cities … all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  President Eisenhower did that … when the country was still trying to recover from the devastation of World War Two.  How about, “Let’s dam up the mighty Colorado river so we can supply water and power to most of our Southwestern cities.  We’ll call it the Hoover Dam.”  How about some guy who puts on a powdered wig and says, “We don’t even have a treasury, but let’s send George and whoever he can round up to kick those pesky British with the biggest army in the world the hell away.”  I suspect any politician who said those things these days would be locked up to keep him from hurting himself with a sharp object.

My buddy is so scared that he’s angry … no, outraged. And it’s not really his fault.  He was brought up to believe that if he worked hard and followed the rules, everything would be ok. So he did.  Now he doesn’t know what to do because there’s nothing in those rules to tell him what to do when things aren’t as ok as he thinks ok should be.

That reminds me of Big Louie’s advice about honesty.  “Honesty = The Truth + Maybe.”  When you apply that advice to, “Work hard and follow the rules, and things will be ok + MAYBE,” you at least have some heads up that no matter what you do, you may be in for a slap on the side of your head.  But the rule itself doesn’t tell you what to do if things go wrong.

 When you apply the same advice to, “Trust yourself.  You’ll find a way to make things work + MAYBE …” that tells you that if you keep looking for a way to make things work, you might find it.  So don’t stop. Keep looking.  Another of Big Louie’s comments comes to mind here … “You can never tell when something wonderful is going to happen.”

When I make this case to some of my friends who also feel betrayed, their usual reaction is, “What’s the matter with you?  Why won’t you fight for your rights.”  And my answer is “I’m from Brooklyn. As in New York City.  I have some nasty scars, a pretty good background in martial arts,  and I know how to use my 12 gauge, and if worst comes to worst, I know a couple of very good New York lawyers…so back off.” Of course you fight for your rights. The point is, what are your rights.

Just because you’ve worked hard and followed the rules all your life do you have a right to expect everything to turn out ok? I don’t think so. Because in my experience, everything just never does turn out ok.

Does that mean that you just let the bad stuff crack your head apart? Of course not.  What it means is that when the sky is really falling, you don’t just stand there screaming that you’ve been betrayed.  You grab your woman by the hand, find the nearest cave and jump in.  Then when the noise stops, and the dust settles a little, you climb back out and start all over again.  Tough?  Oh yes.  But I believe that if you trust yourself, you’ll find a way to put your life back together again.  And remember, you can never tell when something wonderful is going to happen.

There’s a story in the current podcast, from the lovin touch Personal Audio cd that fits here. It’s called, You Shine.

 Bottom line:  “Frank” has been a real friend for a long time. And I plan on us singing Auld Lang Syne, and burning burgers, and telling jokes, for a long time to come. Maybe you’re lucky enough to have a friend like “Frank” too. I hope you do. Maybe you got the same message he did…or maybe you got the message I got…or maybe you got some entirely different message growing up.

Whatever growing up message you got, here’s my message for all of us right now: Knock off the anger and the screaming, the throwing rocks at each other and the panic. Let’s share some bad jokes, some burgers and cold ones. And along with the cold ones let’s drink in the words of that song we sing before the ball game starts.  The one about living in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Let’s feel free to be brave again. We built that highway. We built that dam. Then for an encore we put brave American guys on the moon. Nobody could afford that stuff. But we did it anyway.  We can do anything we want to do as long as we don’t give up, and we pull together.  But we have to agree that “Compromise” and “Moderate” aren’t dirty words. Our Constitution is based on honest compromise.  And cold ones are great in moderate amounts. You can have your burger rare and I can have mine well done. You can sip your Bud, while I chug my Sam Adams.

We’ve got to forget that old bumper strip that said “America love it or leave it.” Just love it.  If you think something is not as ok as it should be, you don’t leave America.  You trust yourself…and your burger buddies… to find a way to fix it.

Together

I’m not quite sure what the Louie-Louie Lad means by that “perilous pound.”  What in heaven’s name do guys know about pounds, as in weight gain?  Do they worry about whether their shirts are too tight?  Of course not; the tighter the better.  Do they grimace (as in oh, my goodness, what happened during the night to make this dress shrink?) if their jacket feels a bit snug?  No; they just grin and say, look at all the muscles I’ve gained with that heavy duty weight lifting.

They never stand there gazing mournfully into their closet trying to figure out just what bit of clothing might … just maybe … fit well enough to keep you from looking either like a frump or the babe working hard to steal all the good-looking guys in the neighborhood.  Oh, no, they don’t really know what that pound … or ounce … looks like.

But we do.

And there is no babe in this world good enough to get between my Lad and me.  And still be coherent enough to brag about it.

Perilous pound, indeed.  Gain all the weight you want, Lad.  You’re mine.

I may have been sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room a little too long. That lying, miserable bathroom scale just said I am one perilous pound short of Dick’s Disaster. Dick’s Disaster occurs at 190 pounds. I was 175 pounds at the end of my college career, which consisted among other things, of weight lifting, swimming, and vigorous Viagral adventures. Don’t laugh. I hear some snickers coming from the more fully evolved but prostate challenged among you. Especially those with nicely decorated fourth fingers on your left hands. Don’t laugh. Viagral adventures are great for a guy’s health. In fact a new study done at Duke University, claims that having 200 Viagral adventures a year will add an average of six years to a guys life. I sometimes wonder how you get to sign up for studies like that. I suspect that there are certain weight limits involved. Which brings me back to the impending Dick’s Disaster from which I am temporarily spared by one little, skinny perilous pound.

 I don’t want to be skinny, just Clint Eastwood – Harrison Ford lean. I think very skinny people always look nervous. Probably because they know they’re hurting the economy. They generate less body heat, and therefore they require more fossil fuel energy to heat their homes. Lack of body heat makes it necessary to wear warmer clothing such as wool and fur, thereby causing the death of many innocent sheep and mink. I think skinny people must use more light to read by, because their eyes must be smaller. Cars driven by skinny people are lighter, and therefore have less traction on ice and snow, thereby causing traffic hazards.

 And remember, Big Louie, his own bad self, the Chief Mustard Cutter of the Louie-Louie Generation always says, “Never eat more than you can lift. But on the other hand remember that, starvation takes the fun out of dieting.” He explains that, “You are probably dieting too much if instead of actually walking your dog, you save energy by simply holding him out a window…or if you find yourself constantly licking your lips, or those of your co-workers…that’s another bad sign.”   

 Dick’s Details Quiz. All answers are in the current podcast.

1-    Why should everybody on earth hang on tight?

2-    What sex survey missed out on my participation ?

3-    Why should lady elephants never wear high heels ?

Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.

 Like most healthy, active Louie-Louie Generation guys, I like going for my daily brisk sit. But now, the smart guys say sitting is the new smoking it’s so bad for us. Hell, I’m a Louie-Louie Generation guy. I’m lucky I can still sit. Actually, I’m still in good enough shape to even open applesauce jars. Have you ever noticed how tight they are? No little old ladies living alone are eating a lot of apple sauce these days. I don’t think you would call me extremely in-active either. I mean I don’t avoid making toast too crisp because it’s too hard to cut that way. I still do my push ups…most days. And I never miss my index finger twiddling exercises. One needs strong button pushing fingers these days.

 And like most Louie-Louie Generation guys, I still have a lot of fun. Just last night, I took my Lady Wonder Wench to a new Italian restaurant that recently opened down the block…and I ate with a pair of chopsticks that I thoughtfully liberated from the Japanese restaurant where we like to go for sushi. My Lady Wonder Wench gave me one of those “He’ll never grow up, but I love him any way” looks. She knows I’m worried about having only one perilous pound between me and disaster, and she said, “Italian food has lots of calories.”  I asked her if she ever saw a real calorie. She said “of course not.” I told her they’re not what people think. I tried to make her understand that calories are really tiny creatures that lurk in your closet, and sew your clothes a little tighter every night. She laughed. I love her laugh. I’ve loved her laugh for a long time.

 Laughs have been a big part of our lives, ever since the beginning…a lot of years ago. That’s pretty much how our lives have gone. Lots of laughs, lots of loving, lots of lust, and our share of tears. Ever since the beginning…which was about forty years ago now. I wrote a story about our lives all those years ago. It’s in the lovin touch Personal Audio CD and also in the current podcast. It’s called, Growing Up.

 My Lady Wonder Wench made it ok for me to be what and who I really am. I was getting pretty Grown up when I met her. But it was Grown as in G R O A N. I was trying to be somebody I thought I should be. And that never works. You can’t be somebody else… somebody else beat you to it. She was all loves, laughs, lust and tears…all those years ago. That’s how we made it through ‘till now. And we’re going to keep on going…as long as we can.

 Growing Up was written a lot of years ago. But it’s in the just a few years old lovin touch Personal Audio cd. If you like it you can just keep the current podcast, or if you want a fresh copy, just download it from the lovin touch icon on the home page.

 I know some of the members of our huddle group are going through some rough romantic times right now. I don’t tell you about how it is with my Lady and me to make you feel worse. Just the opposite. There aren’t many somewhere around 40 year old love stories going around these days. So lots of people are beginning to think that doesn’t happen any more. It does. And it can happen to you. As Big Louie always says, “You can never tell when something wonderful is going to happen.”

So when somebody’s laugh gives you the kind of whiplash hers gave me, feed that laugh. On windy days, brush wayward strands of her hair out of her eyes and mouth. Kiss her from shoulder to shoulder when she turns her back to go to sleep. When she’s feeling scared, hold her…hold her…hold her…and tell her you love her. Read to her for a few minutes every night.

 And keep yourself in some kind of physical shape for her too. I promise I’ll do better at that. I’ll do my push ups every day. Not just almost every day. I’ve gotta push that perilous pound away.  

There are times when I feel about as proud of my Louie-Louie Lad as it’s possible to get.  And there are times when I want to hold him as close as I can to keep him from being hurt by all that crap … garbage … junk flowing around the world.  He is one of the kindest, most caring people ever born.  When he stayed up all night to play music and listen to those of you who needed to talk, he was doing what he knew he could do to help in any small way he was able to provide.

 The reason for this … up above … is, I guess, because I just had a birthday.  And got suddenly “older”.  Didn’t mean to, y’ know.

If you walk across Flushing Meadow in New York (like we used to do) you will come across a rather large rock, just sitting there.  As rocks sometimes do.  But I sat on that rock … and he remembers.  So do I.  But he remembers me, not just the rock.

How special is that?  Yup, I had a birthday.  But he sees me. 

 How special is that?

YOU GET IT. Thank you. This is one of the answers I received from yesterday’s post about sharing hugs instead of throwing rocks. It’s from a man of good will who is honestly confused, and is asking for help. I hope this message reaches someone of the Muslim faith who can answer his question. THAT’S CALLED COMMUNICATION. And it sure as hell beats throwing rocks at each other.

Comment: I live in a city with many Muslims and went to school with quite a few many years ago.  Those people whom I have come into contact with are peaceful and quiet, but what bothers me is I dont know what is taught in their mosque, if they hide terrorists in their midst, and what their children are taught in what is the Muslim version of Sunday school.  Our other houses of worship Temples  and churches have banners proclaiming “Peace” and “Brotherhood” on their walls, but not so of the Mosque in our town.  I have always gotten the feeling that I could walk into a Temple or any church in town and feel welcome, I dont get that feeling from the Mosque.  If a member of that faith can correct me on what I hope is a misguided view, I would appreciate it

This is not, and never will be a political blog. But from time to time, I need to tell you…the members of my huddle…how I feel about things that happen around us.

The Wisconson Whacko who murdered innocent people because they wear turbans will provoke the usual gun control political finger pointing, and little else. “And The Beat Goes On.”

The United States Constitution is a magnificent document born of outrage, nurtured in blood, and powered by moderation, mutual respect, and compromise.

“E Pluribus Unum.” Out of many, one. “United We Stand.” But we aren’t standing together. The bad guys are standing together. But instead of talking over our problems and possibilities with the moderation, mutual respect, and compromise called for in our consitution, we are forming mobs and screaming, and throwing stones at each other. The bad guys are picking up the stones, and stockpiling them…preparing for another 9-11. Or more than likely, another Mega McVeigh disaster caused by…ourselves.

They throw a few stones back to distract us. Like that Wisconson Whacko. But their stockpile gets higher and higher, every time the call goes out for another screaming, rock throwing, mob attack in some lying campaign ad…every time some scuzball politician stands up and says, “Elect me, because I will never compromise”…every time the gun guys go nuts because we don’t want AK-47s on our streets and the rest of us don’t accept what the second amendment really means…every Saturday or Sunday that we ignore the words of the ancient Arabic wisdom that says, “All prayers rise to the same God.” And I wonder why can’t our Muslim brothers and sisters seem to remember that either?

 Of course the rest of us can’t seem to remember our own wisdom. As in: “He who is completely innocent should cast the first stone.” So the mobs keep screaming, and the stones keep flying. And we keep bleeding.

There are some things we can do about that.

1-   Stop screaming. When a Democratic friend starts screaming about rich Republican women riding horses, resist the temptation to scream about the wisdom of the Democratic auto industry bail out. Instead, learn about how riding horses can help heal that woman’s terrible physical hurts. And listen to your friend tell you about his friend who still has her job in a diner in Detroit that’s still open for lunch because the GM plant is still there.

2-   Respect and appreciate our differences for what they are: Opportunities to learn from each other. When a Jewish friend says, “There isn’t really any such place as hell.” Grab a grin and say, “The hell there isn’t.” Then have a good laugh, and a hug, and a few beers, and spend all night figuring out together, how an all good and powerful God can let innocent kids be born with aids.

3-   Talk to each other. Out loud. Cut the cultural, political and religious bullshit. Proud Podcast Participant Bill K send this open letter from an airline pilot that says it much better than I can:

YOU WORRY ME!

By Captain John M. American Airlines Pilot
I’ve been trying to say this since 911, but you worry me. I wish you didn’t. I wish when I walked down the streets of this country that I love, that your color and culture still blended with the beautiful human landscape we enjoy in this country. But you don’t blend in anymore. I notice you, and it worries me.

I notice you because I can’t help it anymore. People from your homelands, professing to be Muslims, have been attacking and killing my fellow citizens and our friends for more than 20 years now. I don’t fully understand their grievances and hate, but I know that nothing can justify the inhumanity of their attacks.

On September 11, ARAB-MUSLIMS hijacked four jetliners in my country. They cut the throats of women in front of children and brutally stabbed to death others. They took control of those planes and crashed them into buildings, killing thousands of proud fathers, loving sons, wise grandparents, elegant daughters, best friends, favorite coaches, fearless public servants, and children’s mothers.

The Palestinians celebrated, the Iraqis were overjoyed as was most of the Arab world. So, I notice you now. I don’t want to be worried. I don’t want to be consumed by the same rage, hate and prejudice that has destroyed the soul of these terrorists. But I need your help. As a rational American, trying to protect my country and family in an irrational and unsafe world, I must know how to tell the difference between you, and the Arab/Muslim terrorist.

How do I differentiate between the true Arab/Muslim Americans and the Arab/Muslim terrorists in our communities who are attending our schools, enjoying our parks, and living in OUR communities under the protection of OUR constitution, while they plot the next attack that will slaughter MORE of the same good neighbors and children?

The events of September 11 changed the answer.. It is not MY responsibility to determine which of you embraces our great country, with ALL of its religions, with ALL of its different citizens, with all of its faults. It is time for every Arab/Muslim in this country to determine it for me.

I want to know, I DEMAND to know and I have a right to know, whether or not you love America … Do you pledge allegiance to its flag? Do you proudly display it in front of your house, or on your car? Do you pray in your many daily prayers that Allah will bless this nation; that He will protect it and let it prosper? Or do you pray that Allah with destroy it in one of your Jihads? Are you thankful for the freedom that this nation affords? A freedom that was paid for by the blood of hundreds of thousands of patriots who gave their lives for this country? Are you willing to preserve this freedom by also paying the ultimate sacrifice? Do you love America ? ? If this is your commitment, then I need YOU to start letting ME know about it.

Your Muslim leaders in this nation should be flooding the media at this time with hard facts on your faith, and what hard actions YOU are taking as a community and as a religion to protect the United States of America . Please, no more benign overtures of regret for the death of the innocent, because I worry about who you regard as innocent…. No more benign overtures of condemnation for the unprovoked attacks, because I worry about what is unprovoked to you. I am not interested in any more sympathy; I am interested only in action. What will you do for America – our great country – at this time of crisis, at this time of war?

I want to see Arab-Muslims waving the AMERICAN flag in the streets. I want to hear you chanting ‘Allah Bless America ‘. I want to see young Arab/Muslim men enlisting in the military. I want to see a commitment of money, time and emotion to the victims of this butchering and to this nation as a whole.

The FBI has a list of over 400 people they want to talk to regarding the WTC attack. Many of these people live and socialize right now in Muslim communities. You know them. You know where they are. Hand them over to us, NOW! But I have seen little even approaching this sort of action. Instead I have seen an already closed and secretive community close even tighter. You have disappeared from the streets. You have posted armed security guards at your facilities. You have threatened lawsuits. You have screamed for protection from reprisals.

The very few Arab/Muslim representatives that HAVE appeared in the media were defensive and equivocating. They seemed more concerned with making sure that the United States proves who was responsible before taking action. They seemed more concerned with protecting their fellow Muslims from violence directed towards them in the United States and abroad than they did with supporting our country and denouncing ‘leaders’ like Khadafi, Hussein, Farrakhan, and Arafat.

IF the true teachings of Islam proclaim tolerance and peace and love for all people, then I want chapter and verse from the Koran and statements from popular Muslim leaders to back it up. What good is it if the teachings in the Koran are good, pure, and true, when your ‘leaders’ ARE teaching fanatical interpretations, terrorism, and intolerance? It matters little how good Islam SHOULD BE if huge numbers of the world’s Muslims interpret the teachings of Mohammed incorrectly and adhere to a degenerative form of the religion. A form that has been demonstrated to us over and over again. A form whose structure is built upon a foundation of violence, death, and suicide. A form whose members are recruited from the prisons around the world. A form whose members (some as young as five years old) are seen day after day, week in and week out, year after year, marching in the streets around the world, burning effigies of our presidents, burning the American flag, shooting weapons into the air. A form whose members convert from a peaceful religion, only to take up arms against the great United States of America, the country of their birth. A form whose rules are so twisted, that their traveling members refuse to show their faces at airport security checkpoints, in the name of Islam.

We will NEVER allow the attacks of September 11, or any others for that matter, to take away that which is so precious to us — our rights under the greatest constitution in the world. I want to know where every Arab Muslim in this country stands and I think it is my right and the right of every true citizen of this country to DEMAND it. A right paid for by the blood of thousands of my brothers and sisters who died protecting the very constitution that is protecting you and your family.

 I am pleading with you to let me know. I want you here as my brother, my neighbor, my friend, as a fellow American…… But there can be no gray areas or ambivalence regarding your allegiance, and it is up to YOU, to show ME, where YOU stand. Until then, “YOU WORRY ME!”             

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My thanks to Capt. John, and to Proud Podcast Participant Bill K. Here are a couple of closing thoughts:

UNITED WE STAND. BUT ONLY WHEN WE ARE TRULY UNITED. ALL OF US. 

HUGS. THAT’s ANOTHER ANSWER. WHEN YOU’RE HUGGING SOMEBODY, YOU CAN’T THROW STONES AT EACH OTHER. YOU’RE STANDING TOO CLOSE…TOGETHER. 

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I’m sitting here in my big, black, manly poppa chair in my living room, looking over the report page for this podcast. It’s interesting that we call this podcast Goodnight. Because it looks like you mostly download it in the overnight hours. I don’t know when you actually listen, of course, but I’m hoping you also do that at night. I loved being on the air at night. Even all night. Because nights get lonley, and I liked being the guy who showed up when the lonely was getting a little tough and nasty.

It’s hard staying up all night, when the rest of the world is sleeping. You run into a progression of problems. The first day after you’re up all night, you walk around kind of tired and dizzy, your hair is messed up and your pulse rate drops down into the mid teens. After a week, you notice a loss of muscle tone, and you start eating a lot of oysters and chicken soup. After about a month, you start having trouble remembering things like your zip code and your middle name, you start getting bubbles in your think tank, and you begin to look like something that would eat its young. After about 6 months, you begin to have trouble counting backwards from 2, and you begin to grow a third set of teeth…but not in your mouth…on your eyelids…because your mouth has become stuck shut. After about a year, you change blood types and begin speaking in tongues. And that’s why all night disc jockeys look and sound the way we do. It’s kind of a fraternity… people who stay up all night. Actually these days, there’s a large and growing sorority too.

You get to the point where you begin to see things differently. For example, you suddenly realize you think of your dog as your friend, and therefore you shouldn’t have him neutered. After all how many of your other friends have you had neutered ? You begin to understand that there will always be prayer in school as long as there are algebra exams. It dawns on you that just because you sit around all night taking up space, doesn’t mean you’re an astronaut. And you get angry because you know that stupidity got you into this mess, so why can’t it get you out of it ? You write an Email to the president and tell him when we pull out of the desert in those middle East countries, instead of bringing all that equipment home, we should have just had a mirage sale. Then you begin to wonder if ghosts put their cars in a mirage. And that’s when what’s left of your brain pulls the plug, and like it or not you finally fall asleep but you dream that you’re working for a station that plays a song called “Don’t Worry Be Happy” 24 hours a day.

Dick’s Details Quiz. All answers are in the current podcast.

1- Why can’t the smart guys in the white lab coats remember everything they’ve discovered about chocolate ?

2- Why don’t woodpeckers get headaches from all that pecking ?

3- What does Big Louie say guys should do when they spend their days bending iron bars, running triathalons, and tearing phone books in half?

Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.

Sometimes staying awake all night is more dangerous than other times. A lot of it has to do with your all night job. There are pilots who work all night. Some of them fly air liners with two other pilots to help fly the plane, and keep the coffee coming. Some fly small single engine planes alone. Usually they’re transporting checks. That still happens. I don’t know what it’s like to fly an airliner at night. But I’ve spent lots of nights in my small single engine plane. There’s a story about that in the current podcast. It’s from the Personal Audio CD called Love Comes When You Least Expect It. The story is called, Night Flight.

Been there, done that…looking down at the lights of the city. Sometimes you don’t have time for that…like when the weather’s banging you around, and you’ve really got your hands full. But sometimes things are calm, and the autopilot’s on and you have lots of time to think. And your thoughts start tumbling all around in the dark…the dark outside…and sometimes in the darkest part of your heart.

Night Flight is from the Love Comes When You Least Expect It Personal Audio CD. It you like it, you can just keep the current podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just download it from the Love Comes When You Least Expect It icon on the home page.

Things can get pretty intense when you’re on the radio all night. You’re on the phone a lot, because the people who are listening to you, lots of times want you to listen to them too. Some of the things people told me in the middle of the night became the stories in the Night Connections albums. But some of those conversations were so private that I could never tell anybody else about them. And I’m pretty sure some of those calls were the last words the callers ever said. I talked three people out of ending their lives through the years, but I’m not sure about two others. My Lady Wonder Wench sometimes called in the middle of the night. She listened to my show on a little night stand radio, with a small light that showed the numbers on the dial. When she called, I swear I could see her soft curves in that same little light. I always tried to make her laugh a little when she called in the middle of the night. Middle of the night lady laughs…like little human fingertips slipping out of the dark…holding on to my hand…so I could make her feel safe.

I always liked being the guy who showed up…when things got tough and nasty…and lonely…in the middle of the night.