Archive for September, 2012

Don’t Worry Be Happy

Saturday, September 29th, 2012

I am sitting here in my big, comfortable, manly, black leather papa chair in my living room, trying to calm down after talking with an individual who’s birth I suspect, may have been caused by a secret government project gone hideously askew. He is the editor of the new book I’m trying to finish, and he is what you might call a natural source of methane. He is now objecting to the title of my book…which is Staying Happy Healthy and Hot. I like that title, because it expresses the Louie Louie Generation’s outlook on life. Staying happy helps to keep you healthy, and when you’re healthy, your hormones hum heroically. My attitude is that it’s my book, so I’ll decide on what the title should be. He tells me I have an attitude problem. I told him I don’t have an attitude problem. If he has a problem with my attitude, it is not my problem. He claims he even understands internet publishing. I point out to him that the Internet claims that hot naked women want to befriend me, and therefore I distrust everything I read there. Our relationship is approaching a meltdown. Except that a meltdown sounds like fun. Something like a kind of warm cheese sandwich.

I had some books published by Random House and Bantam Books a long time ago. So why don’t I just go back to what was a very good publishing situation? Here’s why: It was back in the days when you could actually hear Louie Louie on the radio. It was so long ago that publishing at that time was just beginning the transition from drawing on cave walls to printing on paper, so all the guys I knew back then have disappeared. More than likely it happened when they let their guard down after one of their tax deductable six martini lunches together and some of the saber tooth tigers that back in those days roamed the savage jungle of what we now call Fifth avenue in Manhattan had them for dinner.

But…Big Louie his own bad self to the rescue. He keeps reminding me that life is too short to waste time worrying about how short life is. He says, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” “Dare to be indifferent.” “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

Sometimes you’ve got to work at being happy so you can be healthy and hot. So Big Louie has a genuine list of 10 Happiness Helpers for you if you’re feeling kind of down and droopy today.

#10- Listen to some happy music. That’s pretty simple #9- Get up and move around a little more. When you move, you groove. #8- Stand and sit tall, and walk strong. Stop the slouch. Pull your shoulders back and reach for the sky with the back of your head. This really works. When you walk tall and strong, you look at life differently. Walk strong, like you’re going somewhere. Strut, don’t wander or mosey. Try it. People get out of your way. And you start disturbing the hormones of all those who’s hormones you want to disturb for miles around. #7- Fake it till you feel it. Put a smile on your face…it’ll actually make you feel smiley. #6- Hang with happy people as much as you can. #5- Drink lots of cold water. Seriously. I’ve tried it. Give it a shot. #4- Take up as much space as possible. Spread out. Do stuff like draping your arms out across the back of the couch. #3- Walk into your clothes closet where nobody can hear you and holler whatever is ticking you off out loud. #2- Go find a picture of yourself that was taken at a happy time, and put it somewhere you have to see it every day. Or make up a happy hero story about yourself, and add to it every day. #1- Do at least one small thing for yourself… just for yourself every day. Or if you don’t feel like doing any of those things…don’t. But give this one Happy Helper a quick try. Just take five very deep breaths…all the way down to the bottom of your belly. It’ll warm up and stir your personal juices.

There’s a story about stirring up some very warm and personal juices in the Night Connections 3 Personal Audio CD. It’s called “Taking A Breath.”

The woman in the story was beginning to feel beautiful again. It took some time, and it took a different man, but eventually she started caring about herself enough to find a new perfume, and change the color of her hair. Then  she re-discovered the power of her lovely smile.

If you like “Taking A Breath” you can just keep the current podcast, or if you want a fresh copy, just download it from the home page…whatever makes you happy.

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

1-     Why does Big Louie say gas stations lock their rest room doors ?

2-     What should you do if you wear booties to bed ?

3-     Where in America can you find a 500 foot man ?

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

Next Thursday is an anniversary that should not go un-noticed…it marks the anniversary of the death of a strong and gentle man. He called himself Edward English. I have a feeling that’s not the name on his birth certificate. He was a rumpled, bearded, black man who wore a Tam O’Shanter, and believed he was looking at God when he looked into the eyes of the people he loved. He was a vagabond poet, a jewelry maker, and a fund raiser for the Civil Rights movement who was sometimes reduced to living on welfare. Edward English was always an optimist. He was a happy guy. He lived mostly in Brooklyn, but he was a world traveler…Canada, Scandinavia, Western Europe, North and West Africa, and Central America. He was a poet who couldn’t be concerned with trivial things like spelling. He mispronounced words, and spelled them that way. He never read other people’s work. He said, “I don’t want other people to rub off on me and get into my work. I just want to be me.” Some people say he had an attitude problem. But I think that’s what I liked best about him. His attitude. A little while before he died, he wrote this about his own life. He said, “Life is nuthin but a struggle for something you want that is worthwhile. Now here is my struggle. I just want a little Gloria out of life.” 

Mr. Edward English didn’t have an attitude problem. He simply owned himself. He was a warm and happy man.

 

Wonder Wench Writes

Wednesday, September 26th, 2012

We are just back from a really nice vacation – and I am ready to leave again.  Enough emails to build a book, for heaven’s sake.  And 99.9% of them are useless. 

As for that other .1% — 

Happy late birthday, J … and oh, my, yes, Bahstan was certainly the place to be in the 60’s.  Wherever I live, I will always remember how the night sky lit up when music filled the Hatch Memorial Shell … and listening to (then) very young men play their guitars and sing in the small clubs … and getting my foot stepped on by a female singer (no, as much as I would like to, no names) as she and the other “Stone Ponies” wandered onto the stage … and feeling so proud when my very own Louie Louie Lad emceed a show … 

For those of you who are not quite up to LL status just yet, the thing to do is – live.  And never ever let your mind get old.  You can’t stop the rest of the world, but you control your ideas and your mind.  Do not get old in your thinking, no matter what. 

Let’s see, where to vacation next year …

Dickie-Quickie

Sunday, September 23rd, 2012

 

I just got an Email from one of our group that deserves some consideration from all the rest of us. Here’s the email, and my reply:

Hey Mr.summers hope I’m not interrupting your vocation. Anyways you seem like a wise fella, i recently went out to a birthday hangout and it hit me how scared I’m of ageing. Its not about looking old but mainly about the physical restraint that will be put on my body (not being able to run wild and do the things i can now). I would like to hear your thoughts please and thank you.

P.S I’m only 21 years old.

Hi – , thank you for your confidence in whatever judgment I may have. That’s very special. I think the best thing I can tell you is that I’ve caught hell for doing everything wonderful that I’ve done in my life…but it has been worth it. I’d say, keep yourself in good physical shape, treat other people with consideration, and…have a blast. Be yourself, Travis. Everybody else is taken.

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 Please jump in here, and tell me how you’d answer this question. Just go to the “comments” section below, or email me at dick@dicksummer.com.

 Thanks.

Dickie Quickie

Saturday, September 22nd, 2012

On the way home from vacation. Had a good time. A new podcast and blog on September 30.  #1 Son David who is also the podcast master says people will enjoy a week off. My Lady Wonder Wench says after some time in the sun I look, “swarthy.” When she says things like that in her warm  pancake syrup voice, my “swarthy” gets all “sweaty.” When will I get over this problem?

Tucking Summer Away

Saturday, September 15th, 2012

Most what I’m going to tell you this time we talked about last year, because it’s happening again. I hate this, but it’s time to tuck another summer away. Sunrise, sunset. To everything there is a season. And this is the season when Summer falls asleep. The long, laughing, lazy, crazy, hazy days at the beach, the nights full of soft lovers voices under the boardwalk…Saturdays in the park, itsy, bitsy, teeny, yellow polka dot bikinis, roller coasters, Italian ice cups, baseball, the sound of crickets, and lawn sprinklers…you can feel them all slipping away…into fall.

Time to tuck away the fireworks, hang up the hammock, and take one more turn around the grass on the lawn tractor. And for my Lady Wonder Wench and me, time to wrap the cape around this Summer’s memories. The ones that started in March with Met’s Spring Training. We’re taking our end of the summer trip up to old Cape Cod this week. I love the ocean…when it’s gentle…or even when it gets a little frisky. I can hear it in my head, even in the winter.

But I think there’s going to be a problem on the beach this year. I can’t pack my old Speedo swimming trunks that I’ve worn ever since I was a competitive swimmer back in college…a long, long time ago…even though it pretty much still fit me the last time I saw it…because my Lady Wonder Wench confessed last December that she did indeed dispose of it behind my back…or actually while my backside was turned. So I will be wearing that godawful thing she bought me that she calls, “Your new trunks.” I feel that trunks are for elephants and Mafia cars. She disagrees. And she’s wearing that…wife look. You know the one that says something along the lines of, “I had a nightmare last night that you and George Clooney were fighting over me, and you won.” I knew this was going to happen ever since this time two years ago, while I was striding down the beach in my Speedo. I told you… she didn’t want to walk with me, and I distinctly heard her tell her friend Carine, that I was making it obvious that all men are not created equal. I took that as a compliment at the time. But…maybe not.

I used to go walking in the sand like I owned the beach when I was a Coney Island life guard, a long, long, long time ago. Can’t do that since I had a knee replacement. It WAS a long time ago…when girls first started wearing bikinis. I wasn’t used to that. I sometimes walked down the beach for hours and never saw a girl’s face. I took it as my civic duty all those years ago, to stride down the beach at least twice a day to let the girls see me. Us Louie-Louie Generation guys have been around for a long time. So have our Louie-Louie ladies. And we like that. Most of the time. There’s a story about watching the seasons spin around together in the Bedtime Stories personal audio cd, and in the current podcast. It’s called “For The Long Run.”

I like that I know exactly the place on my shoulder where her head rests at night. I like that I can recognize her perfume. I like that when she has a bad dream, I can make it go away by just holding her hand…she smiles in her sleep when I do that. I like that she feels safe with me…she has done me the honor of allowing me to protect her for a long time.

“For The Long Run” is from the Bedtime Stories 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 Bedtime Stories icon on the home page.

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

1- Why did my friend Bob’s license plate request get turned down?

2- What’s the real reason homing pigeons can’t navigate with a magnet attached to their necks ?

3- What keeps women in Ontario from going topless ?

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

To everything there is a season. Sunrise, sunset. My Lady Wonder Wench and I are New York Mets fans…for our sins. And our summer begins in late March, when we go to Florida to catch some Spring Training. I like that word…spring. I think they gave it that name so you could start listening for it in the middle of the night in March. Haven’t you ever listened carefully and heard little green stuff popping out of the snow ? That means Spring is coming.

I know there’s a soggy, sweaty, stinky side to Summer. But Summer is my season. I love it. But it’s time. Sunrise, sunset. It’s time to tuck another summer away. To everything there is a season. My Lady Wonder Wench and I will be away for a couple of weeks. I’m not taking a computer, because a vacation is a vacation. So there won’t be a blog or podcast for a couple of weeks either. I hate to tuck this summer away…but I’m pretty sure that if I listen closely enough next March…in the middle of the night when everything else is quiet…I’ll hear that little green stuff popping up.

I know this Summer has to fall asleep. Because…sunrise, sunset… that’s the only way there can be another spring.

 

 

 

Wonder Wench Writes

Wednesday, September 12th, 2012

Those are marvelous words in “Always” … but they belong more to a Louie Louie lad than any lass I know.  Don’t get me wrong, here—they are perfect and I have always wished I could have had the opportunity to use them.  But I never did, having acquired my very own Louie Louie lad some time ago.  And knowing him, he would have been terribly upset if I’d found myself in that situation!

As for all that goop he gets on his computer, my thought is, just erase them.  But he can’t do that.  He has to read them all.  Nah, he doesn’t answer them or anything … but he has to LOOK.

Isn’t it marvelous what the information highway has done for us?  Anyone … anywhere … anywhen … can reach out and touch us.  Or not, if you’re like me and refuse to get on that particular road.  My car and I like highways just fine, only not all those drizzly drivers who poke along trying to drag me with them.

 I write either in longhand or an actual, honest to goodness electric typewriter.  Not the computer … although I must admit I kind of like the I-Pad’s ability to take my words (curses?) and put ‘em down while I’m driving so I don’t forget those magnificent ideas which come to me while I’m on my way to the supermarket.  I am not completely old-fashioned.

 But I do know how to erase that guy from Ghana …

Do Not Delete

Saturday, September 8th, 2012

The little counter at the bottom of my computer screen says 1,529 emails have just poured into my lap top, as I’m sitting here on my big, comfortable, manly, black leather poppa chair in my living room. Four of them seem to be from people I know, although one that says it’s from our son Eric claims that if  I click on the attachment, I will win an all expense paid cruise to the Antarctic, with six famous porn stars to attend my every need. That’s not the kind of email Eric usually sends. A whole stack of these emails are from some very nice guy in Narobi who wants to send me the money a fourth cousin twice removed left me as his only blood relative. And although I don’t have a facebook page it has somehow attracted the attention of a bevy of Russian beauties who are desperate to have their way with me. And there are educational emails from all kinds of people. Big Louie, his own bad self always says, “Never read the educational emails or your life will disappear down a black hole.” And I know why he says that.

If you read the educational emails, you will no longer be able to open a public bathroom door without using a paper towel. You won’t be able to use the remote in a hotel room because you have no idea what the last person was doing while flipping through the channels. And you’ll never sit down on the bedspread because you can imagine what probably happend on it since the last time it was washed. And no more lemon slices in your water because lemon peels have all kinds of nasty germs and traces of feces. And how are you going to bring yourself to shake hands with someone who has been driving, because you now know that the number one pastime while driving alone is picking your nose.

Of course the good news is that your money troubles will be over once Bill Gates, Microsoft and AOL send you that half million dollars for participating in their special e-mail survey. Too bad though that you’ll never eat KFC again because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers. Naturally you won’t drink Pepsi or Dr. Pepper because the people who make them are atheists who refuse to put “Under God” on their cans, and the only reason you will accept packages from UPS or FedEx since they have been exposed as agents of Al Qaeda in disguise is because you know you’ll be will be completely safe since you recently sent a small donation to Pastor Peter, who will personally see to it that you are protected by legions of well armed, and Navy Seal trained angels…who…for a small extra donation…will perform a medley of Christmas Carols which can be downloaded a maximum of three times.

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

1-    What’s that scent at the gym?

2-     What’s the matter with 14% of Americans?

3-   Who’s heavy breathing into your phone in the middle of the night?

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

Hard to believe that the internet and email were invented by a bunch of geeks who wanted a fast and easy way to share their geek-iness. Hard to imagine how we’d get along without them now, even though lots of the people sending you emails seem to have the same motto, “If at first you don’t succeed, try again when nobody’s watching.” “Buy our green hearing aid. No batteries. It get’s it’s power from the propeller on your beanie.” “Our mustard plaster will stop your coughs, and imagine how popular you’ll be with your friends when you let them come over and roll their hot dogs around on your chest.” “Are you upset because you underwent a sex change operation and nobody noticed ? Join our on line dating service, and meet lots of folks just like yourself.” Lots of cheating going on. Just like in real life. There’s a story about that in the Night Connections Personal Audio CD, and in the current podcast.

It was the way that cheater looked… all the way into her eyes…all the way into her goodness…He saw the good girl in there, clamping a straight jacket on the crazy passion that had been screaming around inside her for a long time …and he deliberately un-fastened it, one teasing glance at a time. Then he disappeared in the quiet that had to follow…leaving her to catch just enough breath to have one last word.

The story is called Always. It’s from the Night Connections Personal Audio CD. If you like it, you can just keep the current podcast, or if you want a fresh copy, you can download it from the Night Connections icon on the home page.

I shouldn’t have called it Always. That doesn’t always happen. I sometime disappoint myself when I make mistakes like that. And I do make mistakes that disappoint me a lot. For example, if I go to a baseball game on cap day, I get a cap. If I go on bobble head day, I get a bobble head. But when I go on ladies day, I am sometimes disappointed. Just like I am on the internet.

Oh yes…The address of this podcast is www.dicksummer.com/podcast. And I must tell you that if you don’t send that address to at least 20 people in the next thirty minutes, a large sparrow will spot you and do his duty on your head, and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back causing you to grow a hairy hump. I am confident this will happen, because I understand  it happened to a friend of my next door neighbor’s former mother –in-  law’s second husband’s cousin’s hair dresser. And in closing, we’d like you to send for our new diet. It will get rid of your wrinkles. You just eat all the stuff we send you till the wrinkles fill out.

Wonder Wench Writes

Wednesday, September 5th, 2012

… one small wink at the moon for Neil … 

… and one giant footstep for mankind … 

Thank you, Neil Armstrong and all the other ladies and gentlemen, for giving us the stars.

Wonder-Full

Saturday, September 1st, 2012

I was sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable black leather pappa chair in my living room listening to our little 3 year old Cecelia sing, when the news about Neil Armstrong’s death came in. The song she was singing was a three year old’s happy, but very careful version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, How I Wonder What You Are.” It was the absolutely perfect song for the occasion. Cecelia is only 3, but she sometimes amazes us with the things she wonders about. Most of the time she’s a bundle of bounces and non-stop noise. But I’ve also seen her sit very quietly on our daughter Kris’ lap on a Summer evening, and look up at the stars…and wonder…what they are.

 Neil Armstrong was only a little older than our Cecelia when he had his first plane ride. It lit the fuse on his life long rocket ride into the history of the entire universe. He was just a little kid when he told his parents and all his friends, “I’m going to be a pilot.” A few years later, he got a job at an airport…fueling planes, and generally working to earn flying lessons. He grew up to fly Navy jets in Korea, and then he became a test pilot. The test pilot gig was at least as dangerous as flying in combat. Think about it. An airplane designer geek does all kinds of math, and runs wind tunnel tests, then he turns his brand new, untried, hot rod jet plane over to the test pilot and says, “Here. I think this will work ok. Why don’t I go hide in a bunker while you fly it and we’ll see.”

I’m a pilot too. Certainly not in Neil Armstrong’s league. But all pilots have a little kid inside who can’t help saying “Whoopiee…look at this…I’m flying.” It’s wonderful. We’re all three year olds wearing Ray Ban sunglasses. And we all have some un-forgettable memories of times when we wondered, What the heck am I doing here ?” My first flying “What am I doing here” moment was on my very first flight lesson, when the little airplane went zooming down the runway, and I could feel the wheels lifting from the ground. I remember wondering, “Oh my God, there goes the ground. What am I doing here?” Most student pilots are scared when the instructor pilot steps out of the plane, and says, “Take her around the pattern three times by yourself.” That’s called “First solo.” I actually enjoyed my first solo, because I’ve always been a little over confident.

Somehow I don’t think “What am I doing here” is a big enough thought to cover the kind of wonderment that must have been going on in Neil Armstrong’s mind as he opened the hatch of Apollo 11 and looked down at the surface of the moon, just a few feet away. It was Buzz Aldrin’s “What am I doing here?” turn next. But Michael Collins must have had a very different kind of “What am I doing here” thought going through his mind. He made the trip all the way from the earth, but he had to stay up in moon orbit to pilot the return rocket. So he came all that way from Earth, but he never got to set foot on the moon. I’ll bet he always wondered what it would have been like. All his life…wondering how wonderful it might have been.

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

1-      What’s fishy about Congress ?

2-      What kind of suckers are we ?

3-      Why should you go soak your head ?

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

There’s all different kind of wonderful stuff going on all the time. Some people wonder how I can almost always find a good parking spot. I don’t have the answer for that, except that I’ve come to expect it now, and maybe that helps. I used to wonder what the kids got away with doing behind my back. They used to laugh about it, look up at me, and laugh with each other some more. What they didn’t know is that I also did stuff behind their backs. My Lady Wonder Wench and I weren’t always just taking a nap.

And don’t you ever wonder what will happen when you die, and friends and relatives will have to go through your stuff? I mean what will they find that will make them laugh. What will they find that might shock them? What will they find that might break their hearts? And I wonder if whoever wrote the alphabet song realized it’s the same tune as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Think about it. And I’ve often wondered why the letters are in that ABC order, instead of some other order like Z E G F U K Y…or any other order. And don’t you wonder if whoever put the letters in the ABC order had any idea how much of an impact that was going to have on our lives ? I mean can you imagine trying to use a telephone book that’s not in alphabetical order ? And do you ever look in the mirror, and wonder who that person looking back really is? There’s a story about that in the lovin touch Personal Audio CD, and in the current podcast. If you like it, you can just keep the podcast, or you can go back to the lovin touch icon on the home page.

Three year olds love to wonder…including those of us who put on Ray Ban sunglasses and go flying. And it seems to run in the family. When Neil Armstrong’s family announced his death, they said: “For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil and give him a wink.” The dreary drones won’t do that. Too un-dignified. And the Pimple People are always too busy texting.

But little Cecelia, my Lady Wonder Wench & our daughter Kris went out in the yard with me last night and we winked at the moon. Little Cecelia winked both eyes. And then very softly, we all sang it together…Twinkle twinkle little star, How I wonder what you are. 

It was wonderful.