Cotolo at large

The week before my wife left me

It was the fifth or sixth time that I visited my counselor. I was beginning to feel so comfortable with him that I no longer wore my bullet belt. I walked in, placed my coffee cup on the table by the sofa, sat on the sofa and said, “Good afternoon, doctor.”

“You shouldn’t call me doctor,” he said. “I am a psychologist, not a psychiatrist. I am not a doctor.”

“It’s all right,” I said, “because I am not really a patient. So can we get on with it?” 

He sat down in a chair across from me and began to look through a file folder. “So how are you?” he said, gently looking through a few papers in the folder, one of which I am still sure was an ad from Home Depot. 

“The problem today is huge,” I said, dipping my index finger into my coffee to test the temperature. “This October is my wedding anniversary.” 

“Congratulations,” he said. 

“But I have a problem.”

“Go on.” 

“We will be married almost twenty years and, well …” 

“Go on.” 

“I’m a bit embarassed about this.” 

“Go on, no one is listening. Even I am hardly paying attention.” 

“All right, the thing is this: I am still physically attracted to my wife.” 

The counselor jerked and almost uncrossed his legs. It was shocking, even to him, a man who had heard, no doubt, about men who liked to wear diapers and have their wives sprinkle sawdust on them. He composed himself and said, “Yes, that is a problem. But you are addressing it and that is the good thing. What about your wife?” 

“She is still attracted to herself, too.” 

“No, I mean, have you let her know you have these feelings?” 

“Well, I don’t really want to use the word ‘feelings’ when it comes to physical attraction. Suppose she catches on that I still want to go to bed with her? This could get ugly.” 

“We need to discuss what brings you to this feeling,” he said, reaching for a straw hat, which he often liked to wear a few minutes into the session. 

“I think it has to do with her looks,” I said. 

“That could be true,” he said, donning the straw hat and tilting it a bit, “but maybe you are imagining it all because when you were a child someone who looked like her rubbed you.” 

“You mean I was molested?” 

“No, you were touched and it affected you so strongly that you become touched when you want to touch your wife.” 

“Is it possible that I am just in love with her and I want to express all of those emotions physically?” 

He put his elbow on his knee and rested his head in his hand and said, “Get real. You have been married almost twenty years. There isn’t a man on the planet can still lust for his wife based on love after that long. Men have been killed for less. I think you need medicine.” 

“But you can’t prescribe medicine, you are not a doctor.” 

“That’s true, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so I am going to give you a prescription.” 

“What will this medicine do to me?” 

“Hopefully, it will alert your brain that it is not healthy to be attracted to your wife, though one bad side effect is an urge to give Rosie O’Donnell a hickey. But it is rare.”

I sat in silence, though I hummed the Canadian national anthem to myself. As he began to write the prescription on the inside of a matchbook cover, I said, “Do you think I will get over this?” 

“That is not the problem,” he said. “The problem is will I go home this evening and discover that my wife of twenty-seven years looks good enough to kiss? Or, will I go home this evening at all? Should I find the nearest clock tower and hurl myself from the top? Does this town even have a clock tower? Why do they build towers for clocks? You see, problems breed problems.” 

“You used the word ‘breed.’ Was that a Freudian thing?” 

“No, but I am now considering that the straw hat may be a bad omen.”

Joke drafts

A man, a donkey and a priest walk into a bar … wait, that’s wrong … a priest who worships donkeys walks into a bar and the bartender says, “You worship what?” That isn’t right, either. I’ll start again.

Two clowns, a Chinaman and a rabbi walk into a bar and the bartender says, “What will you three have?” The rabbi says, “Can’t you count? There are four of us.” The bartender says, “Sorry, I didn’t hear the first part of the joke.”

All right, so it needs work. How about this one: A horse, a duck and a spoon walk into a bar and the bartender says, “How the hell does a spoon walk?” That is almost done, that joke, but I may replace the spoon with a cauliflower and try it on a few folks to see if that is better.

Try this one: A young man is courting a young woman and her father says to him, “Hey, you going to honor, cherish and protect my daughter?” The young man looks at the girl’s father and says, “Yes to all three.” The father winds up his fist and punches the young man, who says through a bloody mouth, “Why did you do that?” The father smiles and says, “Because she is already an abused child.”

Now you try to write a few.

History of clothing continues

According to researchers at the University of Florida, humans began to wear clothing 170,000 years ago, give or take a decade.

The conclusion came from the study of a louse. The DNA of clothing lice determined that a certain species was present 70,000 years before humans migrated to cold climates, when most clothing types, except the beret, were developed.

It has been largely agreed that humans left warmer climates for colder ones around 100,000 years ago, when they realized food went bad quickly in the heat. While in the tropic weather, people never needed any coverings to protect their body parts, even when males played an uncivilized version of hockey.

Even when man was more hairy, lice were prone to find homes on the skins of furry animals, preferably ones with great patches on their genitalia. Though it is thought that some males used the genitalia of furry animals as badges to prove their hunting skills, no one wants to admit it in public.

The lice most likely appeared around the time humans left Africa, said one researcher. When they moved north, a random move since no one knew about directions, an Ice Age was beginning. After failing to be able to move enough by traveling on one another’s backs to share body heat, humans somehow started the practice of wearing animal skins.  

Another study is in progress concerning early clothing, this one focusing on the origin of wearing clothing under clothing, that is, underwear. Researchers are confident they will discover more about lice when this study is complete.

Looking at my life, again

Every now and then, mostly then, I reflect upon my life as it tumbles through time like a monkey down a mountainside.

I should have followed through on creating a medicine people could use to treat their inability to cope with the real world. I got as far as the name: Xanadu.

This summer I became lazy, so instead of running with the bulls in Pamplona, I walked with the cows in Pompano.

No other time in my life did I understand what Rudyard Kipling meant when he said, “It’s a jungle book out there.”

I never questioned using Nyquil as a mouthwash until it was too late.

It is so sad that Andrew Lloyd Webber turned down my offer to help him write a Hebrew version of a popular musical he wrote. So there will never be a production of “Katz.”

What a difference there was in my driving skills when next to the plastic Jesus standing on my dashboard I added a plastic Luke, plastic John, plastic Bartholomew, plastic Thomas and etcetera.

This year I gave up for Lent.

It was worth a try but I failed to launch a telethon for side effects.

My son began taking human growth hormones last month and he’s already ten feet taller.

I was developing a new sitcom idea about life as an embryo, called “How I Met My Mother.”

The Dr. Seuss estate was not hot on my idea about Dr. Seuss versions of Shakespeare. I submitted a draft for the first edition: “Green Eggs And Hamlet.”

I just turned down another invitation to the Iconoclasts Convention.

I considered going on a pilgrimage for peace but I couldn’t find a robe that looked good on me.

This year, skyrocketing gas prices are causing me to launch less sky rockets.

What I know now, if only I knew then

Those who know how to leave get invited back far more often than those who linger indefinitely. But those who linger get more beverages. 

People seldom leave people. This is because they don’t know where to leave them. Do you leave them in an apartment, a house, a store? It has to be somewhere that makes them unable to find their way back. But we do know that people who leave people are the luckiest people in the world.  

Timing can be everything. You fail to full stop at the sign and get stopped by a cop, unless you are driving a car at the time.   

If they pour the mix first and then pour the booze, be sure they are using a glass.

Neil Diamond is right: “No one’s listening, not even the chair.”

Opposites may attract but they seldom embrace. 

I’ve come to believe that all my past failures and frustrations were the foundation for the failures and frustrations awaiting me soon.

Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command if we focus our resources on mastering a single area of our lives, like making out, for example.  

Our life is composed greatly from unconscious powers, though you cannot row a boat when asleep.  

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do. If only I could do something.

Can’t see England from here

I am out of town, near a beach, looking across the ocean, trying to see England. The East Coast is a sandy place if you get close enough to the big water. It’s like a carnival in certain places, with games and food along the boardwalk and people with colorful shirts, some putrid colors but colorful anyway. The sky became dark and the beach area looked like Normandy, where the Allied Forces attacked. I like a gray beach and I enjoy being somewhere that is so far away from where I live.

It isn’t often that I can stroll along a public area and wonder what it would be like if it were a private area. Still, I see many people who have private areas. All, in fact, have them.

Clowns, freaks and Chinamen are in the hearts of all the people I see, though they feel, I imagine, that they are just normal folks basking in the summertime. I know better, I can see into the hearts of people, where shadows hide the details.

I want to go into the ocean, like Shelly, only not so far out because I would like to come back to the beach after being in the ocean. I have no suicidal notions for any oceans. They belong to the sea creatures and don’t need a human body decaying all over the ocean floor.

As I walk I think of many people, mostly people I wish were with me on this gray journey along the sandy road near the ocean. Maybe if one was here, she would have binoculars and we could see England in the horizon. We would share an ice cream, count the grains of sand between our toes, inhale the season, hold hands, light fires, crush soda cans, exchange headbands …

Here, along the lonely dunes of America I stand, my heart loaded, my finger trigger itchy, my yearning for the lovely smile I am yet to see. Hey, is that a Jewish bird flying above me?

King Twit of Twitter

Here are some of my recent well-received tweets. Follow me on Twitter. It won’t reduce your cholesterol but if you have a terminal disease it may make life more tolerable. In fact, if you are in great health it may make your life more tolerable.

~~~

My politically correct son was outside today playing cowboys and Native Americans.

Wanna have a “U.S. Defaults” party? Drinks, fireworks, flags and a bonfire for legal tender.

Walmart merges with Costo merges with K-Mart. Call stores Walco? Cosmart? Kwal? Cosk? Costwal?

How can a political party that isn’t gay-partisan be bipartisan?

It’s so hot that I woke up in a pool of sweat. What is worse is it wasn’t mine.

It’s so hot that I just wrestled with my dog to get the last few laps of water from her bowl.

If the U.S. defaults, Captain America will be demoted to Private Second Class America.

I was disappointed to find out that the new movie, ‘Cowboys&Aliens’ is not about life in Arizona.

It’s 112 in the shade and still, my pancreas caught fire.

In Spain, do they sell Senior Coffee machines?

Do you think in India they should have a day called Karmageddon?

Joke with no funny ending: A bar goes into a man …

Someone needs to organize a telethon for the over-qualified.

~~~

Follow me here.

Turk Berain and the mighty dangerous gizmo

It’s me, Turk Berain, private investigator. As you should know by now, that is just one name I go by, for hygenic reasons. Others called me Kurt Anchorknee or Tippy “The Dogcatcher” Pilotman or Sid Lonely or William Certworthy. One client had the audacity to call me Slivers McDanielbird. But on the door of my subtle office reads the name Turk Berain and I answer to the name, still.

One night I was in that office, peeling an apple with a scabbard, and the front door, the only door, swung open. There stood someone in the shadows of the hallway. I told the landlord, Gunt Spierly, to change the light bulb in the hallway lamp, but he ignored me, bought a ticket to Madrid and flew off to find a wife. Anyone’s wife would do, he had said, and so the hallway stayed in darkness.

The shadowy figure at the door tossed a heavy package on the floor. “What’s that?” I said, my scabbard smoothly slicing a piece of apple skin that appeared a foot long.

“Don’t you dare open it,” said the shadowy figure in a voice that was gruff and scratchy.

“That’s a gruff and scratchy voice you got there,” I said, putting my scabbard down.

“It’s not mine, all right.”

“You stole it, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but that ain’t your concern now, this package is your biggest problem.”

I put my feet up on my desk; knocking over a vase my sister had given me two years ago when she thought the office should have some flowers. I hated that vase. I hate any piece of glass that has a picture of Franklin D. Roosevelt on it. “I’ll be the one to judge the intensity of my problems, whoever you are.”

“I am your nemesis. I am the one who is bent to kill you.”

“Looks like you are standing up straight right now, so I am safe.”

“Just call me Mr. X. Wait! Make that Doctor X. Yeah, call me that. For now.”

“What if I called you Shadowy Worthless Villain?”

“That would anger me. Call me Doctor X.”

I wasn’t afraid of him. I didn’t need a nemesis, not now, not before my next shave, at least. So I said to him, “Look Doc, I got an apple to eat here, so what’s with the package?”

That’s when the shadowy figure turned to run out the door into the dark hallway and said, as he flew away, “It is a mighty dangerous gizmo!” That’s about the point I wished there was another door in the office. I suspected the shadowy guy wasn’t fooling. Plus, sparks were beginning to shoot from the package. I went out on the fire escape, even though there was no fire to escape and I shouted out to the neighborhood, “Look out, it is a mighty dangerous gizmo!”

There was an explosion. I wasn’t injured as I climbed to the sidewalk below. A policeman walked by and said, “Say, aren’t you Slivers McDanielbird?” I said no, wiped my brow and wondered when I would see the shadowy man again.

(From the book “The Return of Turk Berain,” available at Lulu.)

Dada-heavy heart

Somewhere along the way the fire engines began to make noise that echoed through the neighborhoods of urbanity and in the meantime there was a stampede of horned creatures coming over the hill. It was imperative that I dismember the various robots that increased the supply of oxygen to the blood in my legs.

All this and my heart ached; it was heavy and ready for the cannibals’ mouths. Like being in any jungle, the supply of air was greatly increased by the natural environment and yet to run through the brush was to cling to desperation.

Why did I feel so unscathed when in fact that damage had been done?

In the carnage I was able to lift myself and stand before the fatal feeling, bleeding through the hipbone, connected to the thigh bone and so on and so forth.

This is the way it stayed as summer set in and the heat of the month spread through the streets like paper from a parade.

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.

Tut and common me

My current incarnation is a strange mixture of many lives I have lived before, from which memories, behavior and experience influence all I do now. This is why I continue to document all I recall in my past-lives diary.

It was 1133 B.C. and Egypt was ruled by the 18^th dynasty, called the New Kingdom, though peasants called it Another Grueling Period Of Torture. The pharaoh was the young Tutenkhamen, known also as today as King Tut.

Tut was about 10-years-old when he became pharaoh but you must remember that back then, 10 was the new 40, and so on. He married his half sister, Ankhesenepatan, who then changed her name to Ankhesenamun, because Ankhesenepatan was too difficult for most to pronounce.

I was a lucky slave, living with Tut and “Ank” as a servant. This kept me from the toil of pyramid building duties, though it quashed my lifelong ambition to become an expert mummy-wrapper, a position rarely held by slaves (since they often were victims of mummification).

It was I who warned Ank that having children with Tut might be a problem, since they were related. She asked how I would know such a thing, to which I responded, “I don’t, I am trying to have sex with you and not catch anything.”

But I was right, by chance. Tut and Ank had two daughters that were stillborn. Ank and I never had relations but she did endearingly draw a hieroglyph of a man with a python’s head on my groin.

In his ninth year of rule, Tut took to the sport of leaping. Tut ignored the warnings of his counsels not to partake in this peasant sport, mostly because I convinced him that leaping was “awesome.” That, by the way, was the first known use of the word in that context.

During his fifth leap, which was a brave move from the nose to the left foot of the Sphinx, he heard a crack. Egyptian physicians, then generally unlicensed, said he was fine but I thought the leg broke. Tut asked me how I could know and I pointed to the bone protruding from his knee as evidence.

But it was ignored and what is now known as infection set in to his system and that lead to Tut’s death. Threatened by my mysterious diagnosis of Tut’s leg, the physicians had me put to death. Ank tried to block the decree but decree blocking, even by an ex-pharaoh’s wife, was not respected in the 18^th dynasty. I was put before a spear-firing squad that impaled me with 59 long, sharp blades and to no one’s surprise I was killed instantly.