ON THE FILMS OF THE LATE WARREN OATES *:"I Got the Motive Which is Money And the Movie Which is Cheap."

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Of all the luck!

There, right beside the 20 Items Or Less checkout line, buried in the back of a deep discount $4.88 display, sat a lonely copy of one of the finest American films ever made.

I figured it had to be some sort of mistake.

Back in the home entertainment department of this particular Big Box Store, they were selling all sorts of freshly minted garbage for upwards of 20 bucks.

Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, two legends of cinema in their most influential film together, one of the most electrifying movies of the Civil Rights era...

... Reduced to the bargain bin.

In The Heat of the Night, winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, 1967. Five Oscars total that year, three Golden Globes, and scores of other, lesser known awards.

All for a whopping four dollars and change.

They no longer call you MISTER Tibbs, Mr. Poitier.

They call you an impulse buy.

* * * *

So what?

If Jessica Alba's tits (which is used as an example not to knock the actress's knockers - they are indeed some very fine breasts) sell better than your powerful, ancient performance, well, you belong in that cardboard display, next to the overstock copies of Dodgeball, Mr. Poitier.

Hell, the movie business has never been about actual actors or awards or screen-writing. No business subsists as art. And the studios? They control the ebb and flow of cinematic art, its mass production, distribution, and subsequent sale.

But so what?

Big box stores are experts at moving mass-produced, distributed things, even if it means sticking cinematic masterpieces next to the bags of potato chips, in the hope that some schmuck with a debit card will come along, recognize the DVD, and gobble it up like any other product.

Who wants to watch some old movie anyway? A 40 year-old movie?

Even at $4.88, it'll still make somebody a profit, even if it's marked down further, to ten percent of cost.

And some of that will go to the owner of the original master print, some of that will go to the distributor, and a good chunk of that will go to the Big Box Store. And then there's the manufacturing costs, the scant money paid to those Southeast Asian factory workers who actually create the disc, the plastic cover, and the cardboard inserts...

But that's Hollywood for ya. Glitzy and oh so glamorous. After all, nothing screams Show Business quite like a cardboard box full of marked down, forgotten DVDs.

* * * *

And the score goes to me, the debit card wielding schmuck of the day.

I just couldn't leave a classic piece of American cinema to rot in that cardboard display, especially for $4.88.

Some folks are suckers for fashion. Some for trends. And some, like me, are suckers for good films.

And some folks are just suckers.

- # # #-

* NOTE - Warren Oates (1928-1982) remains one of the most widely-recognized American character actors of all time, with roles in such films as In The Heat of the Night, The Wild Bunch, and, yes, even as the mean ol' Sarge in the Bill Murray vehicle, Stripes.

He guest-starred on just about every classic American television show from that period, from Gunsmoke to Rawhide to Bonanza, from The Twilight Zone to The Fugitive. I have yet to meet a single person born before 1980 who doesn't recognize the guy's face from some Western, horror flick, or TV show.

And for the record, Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia, one of Oates's few leading roles, is a thousand times more badass than anything most Film Studies profs will ever show in class.

WHEN AS DUST, WE ALL JOIN THE GREAT WORK: Hey, Uncle Rich! Got the Trowels Clean! Can I Butter Some Stone Now?

HE WAS AN ARTIST.
HE CONQUERED STONE WITH HIS FLESH.
BLOOD OF CONCRETE, ROCKS IN HIS BONES,
HEART OF GOLD

Those words would've been perfect for my uncle's tombstone, if he'd wanted one. Not some silly factory-ready epitaph, not some stupid bullshit greeting card farewell, and certainly no Bible verses.

Listening to my parents' voicemail Wednesday morning, that was all I could think about as I sat on the loading dock at work, staring at a rusting brown Dumpster, wishing I could cry.

He was an artist, and I can visit him anytime.

My uncle had, after fighting cancer for several years, departed this world, mere days after the last of his children graduated from high school. And he fought until the end, fought for every breath, just as he'd fought every other thing that'd tried to break him.

He left my aunt with explicit instructions - no funeral, memorial service, or other frivolous things. His ashes are to be delivered unto the Columbia River, his soul left to bond with the salmon and the grizzly bear.

Rich was an artist, and now he'll be turned to dust.

And for an artist built like a grizzly, there is perhaps no better ending. He died in his sleep, entering his own eternal hibernation, to one day awake in another, freer world, where his growl scares no one but the wind, where he can be happy with that. He deserves one hell of a monument, but he'd rather just be returned to the earth, to the Wild West wilderness that spawned him.

And even though my aunt says she's not ready to part with him just yet, she'll one day take him down to the river, my five grown cousins in tow, and grant his last wish.

Still, I thought I'd better write him an epitaph. Words are, well, cheap, but they can occasionally mean something.

* * * *

Rich was an artist, and I don't care what the world says.

When I was a child, I used to watch him conquer quarried stone and build magnificent things, structures that would shame the architects of the Great Pyramids.

At the time of his death, he'd last been employed as a mechanic. He'd worked numerous other jobs, worked on a ranch, as a short-order cook, a carpenter.

But in my memories, Rich was, and will always be, a stonemason, the master of hammer and chisel and trowel, one with the ancients who built Stonehenge and the Roman Aqueduct, a modern incarnation of the everyday artist who built Europe's great cathedrals and the Great Wall of China.

Watching him work his trowels, watching those tools butter up bricks and granite and other stones, was like watching de Vinci sketch or Titian select models.

He'd stare at a pallet full of flat stones for an hour, pick through them like a child digging through a box of chocolates, lay them out on the ground in seemingly random patterns. And then he'd pull his masonry hammer from his belt, chip off a few corners here and there, birthing order from his chaotic mess.

Rich would then prep his surfaces, apply his wire backing, and mix his mortar precisely. As he worked his way up from the bottom, his chaotic piles of rocks would grow into chimneys and foundations and facades, retaining walls and fireplaces. As he finished, as he would work his knives over the joints, adding a groove here or there, leaving his own subtle signature in the mortar.

* * * *

He worked best with a large chew of tobacco in his cheek, with plenty of soda pop handy and country or classic rock music playing in the background.

Occasionally, he'd even try to sing - with a mouth full of Skoal, brown spit dripping down his beard as he bellowed out of tune. On most job sites, other construction workers would beg him not to dance, too, as the laughter generated could potentially lead to an accident.

As funny as it was, it was a thing of beauty. But then again, Rich was a beautiful man.

* * * *

Rich was a master, a man of dust and stone, in place of flesh and bone.

I spent portions of two summers working with him on job sites, sweating away in the Virginia heat for a whopping wage of $3.75 an hour, watching him build his marvelous creations and, most importantly, learning to build my own.

I hauled cinder blocks through tick-infested fields, dragged wet concrete up flights of scaffolding. I cleaned out at least a thousand buckets, chipped off at least a ton of dry cement from bucket trowels and tuck trowels and wheelbarrows and mixers.

Day after day, I'd cough up concrete dust for the first fifteen minutes of lunch breaks, learned to love cans of cold pork and beans and tins of mustard-covered sardines. I'd eat in silence and then stare at my poor blistered hands and bloody forearms for another fifteen minutes.

I'd hurt some days so bad that I'd want to cry. And as we'd drive home at the end of the day, he'd poke fun at my occasional whining, buy me a Coke (and sometimes a bottle of beer, if I worked hard), and debate the finer points of everything.

But I never once considered quitting. When one gets an opportunity to watch an artist, to be taught by one, only idiots and other worthless bastards walk away, crying about hardship.

True artistry is not taught in classrooms, nor explained by neutered MFAs in sterile lectures. And true art is hard, dirty work, rugged and mean and covered with scars. The carpenter is no different than the sculptor, the person who rivets the steel girders of bridges and high-rises the equal of muralists and photographers.

The rest is just bullshit history, the kind written by pompous architects, theorists, and other worthless critics. Art is not for them. It remains in the eye of the beholder, and it takes many forms. There is art, somewhere, in everything crafted by Man.

Rich was an artist, and he taught me to trust the dust.

* * * *

My Uncle Rich will soon be turned to dust, cremated down to the same gray dust that once covered his jeans and his shirts. And his ashes will one day clump atop of the water of the Columbia, floating along the surface for a time, then sinking to the riverbed.

And somewhere at the bottom of that mighty Pacific Northwest river, his human remains will mix with sediment, will bind with it, and will fill the crevices in between the worn river rocks. And there, finally, the creator will become part of the Great Creation, grout to hold stones in place, to slow down their eventual erosion, mortar against the forces of nature.

It is a perfect final work for a master mason.

* * * *

I have yet to cry. I don't think I can, actually.

I last spoke to my uncle two years ago, when he called my parents' house one Christmas, to wish his big sister's family a happy holidays.

We spoke for maybe five minutes, about nothing in particular. He did, however, brag about the beauty of the Oregon countryside, brag on his five sons, and brag on his life.

He was content.

And from what I've heard, he spent the rest of his days trying to keep it that way.

* * * *

Rich was an artist, and I can show you the marvelous stonework he created with his own hands.

Oh yeah, that two-story stone fireplace up at the Wintergreen Resort? He built that sucker. One of the homeowner's neighbors once called it the most beautiful fireplace she'd ever seen. And I think that may be the best compliment anyone ever gave him. As I rode home with him that night, the three hours back to the farm, he kept referring to himself as The Artiste...

That foundation on that farmhouse out in Burkeville? Hell, he and I spent four days digging those footers, and that lady's goose attacked us every morning. The damn thing even shit on the bucket trowels anytime we left 'em sitting around too long.

Oh, and that blockwork out in Buckingham? Took forever. Every day we'd get on-site, work for five minutes, and then it'd rain. Rich would just get pissed, kick something, swear at the sky. But it went up eventually.

And, yeah, he never once trusted me with a float. Said I put too much pressure on the concrete, left indentations. Never once saw 'em, but he swore up and down they were there...

And we can go to Oregon, too, and I'll show you his last masterpiece...

- # # # -

SHORT TAKES AND SUCH: On Being Mean and Green, Dinners with Cougars, and Other Pointless Things

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Saving the planet isn't rocket science.

It's not something that other people need to do, not something any activist is going to accomplish with anything even remotely resembling a protest. Activism requires action, actual measurable movement.

Quite a few folks understand that concept. Every day, more and more Americans - the single group that wastes more of the world's resources than it actually produces - are switching to alternative energy sources to heat their homes, to run their vehicles, and to, well, try to save the world.

So why aren't more people, well, taking the next step, simply changing how they actually live on a day-to-day basis? Really changing how they live, redefining their levels of comfort and lifestyle?

It's called Global Climate Change, people. And if we all don't really change how we live, we're all gonna be in some seriously deep shit. It's time to just, well, cowboy the fuck up.

Last year, I decided to quit being one of those stereotypical, organic-food eating, tofu loving hypocrites and to turn myself into a bit of an environmental science project.

And the result? After one whole year?

According to my calculations, I cut my annual energy costs by almost 70 percent.

That's right. Seventy fucking percent.

And it wasn't rocket science. It wasn't even information science. Sadly, no hippies were killed in the process.

I gave up a three-bedroom, two-bath townhouse and moved into a more bachelor-friendly loft apartment near work. I sacrificed the peace and tranquility offered by a more family-friendly neighborhood to live in the belly of the Local U. Beast.

And I intentionally moved into a place with no central air. The cost of running five old-fashioned box fans, year-round, has proven to be the equivalent of running the AC in my old place for two weeks.

During the winter, my new apartment is heated by a communal radiated steam system, fed by a primary boiler that also heats the building's water supply - still one of the most efficient means of warming a home. The result? My winter heating expenses were cut in half.

I leave my truck parked at work, only operating the rather fuel-efficient Ford Ranger approx. three to four times a week, an average of about 50 miles monthly usage. I hump 12 blocks a day to work, round trip, at my normal brisk pace, rain or shine.

And back in 1999, during California's rolling blackouts, my immediate family started to adopt compact fluorescent bulbs to help conserve energy. I completed the switch first. I light my entire apartment with the roughly the same amount of juice used by one 100-watt incandescent bulb.

Hmmm.

I wonder how I managed to put a dent into my student debt last year? Or how I was able to up my charitable donations?

I mean, where did that extra money come from? It's not like I'm rolling in the dough here...

Could it be... ?

Pfft. Nah. It couldn't be that simple.

Saving the environment couldn't really be tied to saving money, could it?

- MORE -

CINCINNATI (ZP) -- I sat in the hotel lobby, staring like an idiot, just like every other guy with a pulse, as a lone woman crossed the floor towards me.

Her cowboy boots clicked against the tile as she walked. Her jeans were just about as tight as humanly possible, every inch of Texas Chicana protruding from beneath the dark denim, in all the right places.

I almost laughed out loud as two guys admired her ass, staring at the damned-near-perfect thing with glares that could cut through steel.

Well, there are worse women to spend an evening with, I guess.

Her death-black hair hung over her shoulders and down over her breasts, her western blouse unbuttoned below her bra line, well outside the bounds of what's considered proper Sunday dress in the Queen City.

I stood so she'd recognize me. The last time she'd seen me in person, I was sporting a shaved head, a long goatee, and nine earrings, not to mention the additional 75 pounds of flesh. I'd sent her a photo to help her pick me out, but, well, part of the reason she wanted to have dinner in the first place was she was worried I wasn't eating right, like a man, and that she was afraid that I'd become unrecognizable.

Still babying me, treating me like a stupid 19-year-old. But as we embraced, I could've cared less; I put my hands on her hips, kissed her right on the mouth, suggested we just go right back up to her room and make love like animals.

She giggled like a high school kid, winked, and slapped me (gently) for still being so fresh, so downright wetto vulgar in public. She reminded me that if her husband had been there, he would've beaten me to a pulp for even touching her hips.

Ten years, I said to myself. In ten fucking years, I've aged more than she has.

One of the most sensual women in the world got off a 757 at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport last week, instantly improving the scenery for at least a thousand miles.

Texican women from the Rio Grande Badlands tend to do that.

You are simply ravishing, lady. Muy, muy, caliente. I just couldn't control myself.

You know, I still can't think of a better compliment to give a 64-year-old grandmother of five, a woman for whom the biological clock seems to have stopped somewhere in the 1970s.

And my advances? Dear lord, I was only half-joking. They just don't build women like that east of the Mississippi or north of Tennessee. Here in Ohio, I think women like her are actually banned by some ancient and antiquated state law.

In the sea of Germanic-looking sameness, her flawless, ageless Mestizo features simply fractured reality in that pricey hotel lobby. It reminded me of a theory of mine, that there are American women who secretly want to lock down the Mexican border not to save jobs but to keep women like her, women born somewhere between Texas and Chihuahua, from ever being allowed to become sex symbols.

M____, at one time, was a candidate to be my mother-in-law. Her daughter, an ex of mine, has the same blessed genetics, that damned curse of the women from northern Old Mexico. I call it a curse, of course, because to look that good from cradle to grave must hurt like hell.

Over dinner, in between her virtually demanding that I give up on this silly librarian foolishness and discussing my seemingly perpetual ability to make some women laugh, when she wasn't nagging me about my still being single (she tried to set me up with our waitress) or trying to get me to take her out dancing, I realized why I quit taking relationships seriously.

Holy hell, this woman has me pegged. She knows every damned stupid thing I'm doing with my life, every mistake I've made in ten years. And she's just so damned chill about it.

Fucking creepy. Like ... oh God ... like my mother.

At one point she asked me about this slang term she'd heard recently, somewhere along her multi-state business trip.

"Honey, I keep hearing people talk about these cougars running around, eating up men. You know slang - is this something new? J____ [the woman's 40ish second hubby] won't tell me, and the kids all think its just funny."

It was three in the afternoon.

I flagged down the waiter, ordered a second bottle of wine. M_____, still treating me like one of hers, didn't want me to pay for anything, so I slipped the woman a pair of 20s to bring the second bottle out as quickly as possible.

And a double of whatever Scotch she could find, no water or ice.

Something, anything, to kill the pain.

- MORE -

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- The words just came out. From where, I'm not sure, just random unsolicited commentary offered to a complete stranger on a balmy afternoon.

Yup. There's not much to do in this town besides drink and fuck. Only college town I've ever lived in where the two have become the only sports anybody seems to wanna play.

Standing on the concrete stairs outside of a watering hole, just smoking away in the heat, I felt as if my sense of basic decency had suddenly flown out of the window.

I don't know what inspired the phrasing. I wasn't trying to shock the woman I was talking to, wasn't even trying to suggest that there was anything wrong with that sort of thing.

The words just came out. And it caught the poor woman, who'd been scratching at her probation-mandated anklet contently, by complete surprise.

The sad part is the fact that there's too much truth in that statement about everyday life in Oxford Fucking Ohio, the unspoken horror that goes along with being lost between 20 and 30, without the excuse that you're just here to earn a damned degree, here instead to live like an adult and find adult things to do.

Drink and fuck. Go camping, read a book, attend a Bible Study, watch a movie, or... drink and fuck. That, well, just about sums up Oxford Fucking Ohio nightlife.

Could be worse. I've heard stories about places like Casper Fucking Wyoming, seen the reckless tedium that is Green River Fucking Utah. In places out west, like Green River, some towns have only a Watermelon Festival and a prayer to keep their single 20-somethings from screwing and boozing away a summer.

At least Keysville, Virginia, had its annual Dixie Days festival, and in Plaquemine, Lousiana, they hop the ferry to cross the Mississippi, bound for Baton Rouge or Gonzales or New Orleans, or stand out in front of the Dollar General and drink cheap wine.

Oxford? We get tons of artsy-fartsy shit, but nothing, nothing, that would appeal to anyone who thinks classical music boring or folk art shows repetitive. There's only so many times one can stare at the same faces at the farmer's market, or listen to jam bands in the city parks.

The blonde, instead of being shocked and dismayed by my vulgarity, simply shrugged.

Yup. This town sucks. Fucking, drinking... fuck it, dude. I'm getting the fuck outta here as soon as I can.

What the hell am I still doing here, anyway?

- # # # -

THE ZENFORMATION PLAYLIST 6/13/07: No Catchy Titles This Month, Just Random Tunes and Notes...

BABY PLEASE DON'T GO [VIDEO]
Lightnin' Hopkins, available on various compilations, most music services

What men like Mozart were to Austria, performers like Hopkins are to the United States. The guy turns a single acoustic guitar into a veritable symphony of sound and hand movement.

While the guitar has been around for centuries, it was not the Old World that mastered it but the New. A large, mostly barren continent was tamed by its legendary musicians, many of whom younger generations tend to forget about, despite being able to download music in mere nanoseconds.

Performers like Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Bob Wills, Hank Williams, The Carter Family, Ralph Stanley, Waylon Jennings, Fats Domino, Marty Robbins, Dizzy Gillespie, Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, Ellis Marsalis, Billie Holiday, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton...

It's all blues in the end, baby. All blues. And you either get it, or you don't. God have mercy on those who don't.


LOUIE LOUIE
Black Flag, 7" Single, (Posh Boy, 1981)

This is one of the last studio recordings featuring early BF vocalist Dez Cadena, the precursor to that other guy, that angry bodybuilder dude with the tats...

You know, what's his name? The guy who does the spoken word albums? The dude from the Independent Film Channel who kinda dresses like me?

Mr. Rollins, please don't kill me. Your neck veins scare me.

Seriously, dude. I worshiped The Boxed Life in high school. Changed my life and helped make me the nonconformist, impractical bastard that I am today. And you alone may share my grief, the dreaded fountains - for - armpits curse, that is the bane of the tee-shirt wearin' thinker's existence.


A COUNTRY BOY CAN SURVIVE [VIDEO]
Hank Williams, Jr.,
That's How They Do It Down in Dixie- The Essential Collection (Curb, 2006)

When I got home from work this afternoon, I just had to play this song, a protest of sorts.

While running some work-related errands after lunch the other day, I heard a group of kids making fun of this older guy, a gentleman who wore his decades as a farmer on his face, for, well, just being an old guy who speaks slow and country.

I've had conversations with the guy before, a cool cat with lots of stories about his time in the Army, growing up in rural Kentucky, and his giving up on a college scholarship to be a farmer. When he was younger, the man was a fighter. He fought for his country, fought the banks, and fought the goddamn State of Indiana to keep funding for the public school his kids and grandkids attended.

He deserves his own song on the Playlist. And a lot more respect.


THE HUNGER
Jesse "The Devil" Hughes, avail. via Artist MySpace Page

Yup. This track, from that former Republican speechwriter and Eagles of Death Metal vocalist, is completely amazing, a New Wave-ish cover of a great Distillers song, probably one of the best Brody Dalle and Co. every recorded.

I first discovered this unreleased gem through a blog lurker, actually. Who knew there were so many Distillers fans out there?


MAMA SAID KNOCK YOU OUT [VIDEO]
LL Cool J, Mama Said Knock You Out (Def Jam, 1990)

You know, I'm just now starting to get well enough to resume my morning chin-up routine. Five sets of eight reps each.

NPR? I don't do that shit. Frankly, Morning Edition puts me to sleep - almost as pointless as commercial radio. I'd still listen occasionally, if Bob Edwards hadn't been booted to make the suits happy. His voice, at least, had rhythm and inflection, much like Mr. Cool J.

And who the hell wants to shadow box in a lonely apartment at five in the morning, listening to a newscast? Seriously.

And while I'm ranting... I miss Around The Way Girls. Maybe I'm just getting old, but Around The Country Club Girls just don't cut it.

Around The Way Girls are generally more independent, make ratty flannel boxers look sexy, and can just keep it real 24-7. Around The Country Club Girls are high maintenance, shallow, and just about as interesting and intelligent as a dead ferret.


BUMP BUMP
Raekwon and Prince Po, The Vatican Mixtape, Vol. 1 (2006/2007)

Wow. There are still emcees in the Rap Game who know how to turn a simple loop and a catchy flow into dance floor perfection.


BLANK GENERATION
Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Blank Generation (Sire, 1977)

There's something ominous about this song turning 30 years old this year. It's hard to believe that the Sex Pistols' only true studio album turns the big 3-0 this year, too.


UNITED FORCES
Raza De Odio, La Nueva Alarma (Scarlet, 2004)

I'm not afraid to admit that I still dig Heavy Metal. And there are only two places on earth that still seem to appreciate the musical genre - Europe and, of course, Central America.

The Razas, based in Italy, are known for their blend of that old-school crunch, with just enough flamenco-influenced leads to make things interesting. And this song, originally by New York thrash pioneers S.O.D., proves that the world can be united through the art of headbanging.


DICKS HATE THE POLICE [MP3]
The Dicks, 1980-1986 (Comp., Alternative Tentacles, 1997)

When I was still big into actually living like a Punker (Christ, even the memories stink of cheap beer and ratty jeans worn for weeks straight), this song was one of my favorites by one of the Greatest Punk Bands in the history of the Great State of Texas. The AT compilation covers their best stuff.

- # # # -

OXFORD CONFIDENTIAL: On Being One of Those Guys

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I'm one of those guys. I readily admit it.

Not that I really give a shit. Hell, it's my life and, well, I'll do with it what I please. I'm not much for doing things the proper way, anyway.

It's much more entertaining, actually, to be a complete and utter fuck-up.

* * * *

I fall in and out of love six or seven times a day, 365 days a year, seven days a week.

I can pass a woman on the sidewalk and fall madly for her in under 10 seconds, breaking myself free in under five. I can make eye contact, debate asking someone out, plan a seduction in my head, and then call the whole thing off without ever saying a single friggin' word.

There's that cashier at the Wally World, the one with the nice smile. She's probably no older than 22, probably a completely shallow girl with a mean-ass boyfriend, a closet full of skeletons and assault weapons under the bed.

But, well, she has this enchanting smile, this slightly asymmetrical way of acknowledging a man - her subtlety could melt the Devil's pitchfork.

I'll think about her as I drive home, wonder what's behind that smile, what's really underneath that blue department store apron, and... completely forget about her by the time I'm putting the frozen veggie burritos and the sugar-free cranberry juice cocktail into the fridge.

And then there's that skinny little thing I seem to always pass on the sidewalk as I stroll home after work.

It's the green eyes and the way her eyeshadow glistens in the sunlight, the way her bangs just cover that left eye slightly. She looks down every time I make eye contact, and, instantly, I begin wondering what her bedroom smells like, what kinds of things we may have in common, whether or not she could tolerate my obscure musical tastes.

And then I pass her, get to the door of my apartment, and forget the whole thing, only to be reminded of it the following workday.

And those are just the ones I remember.

Yup.

I'm one of those guys.

And it's not pretty.

* * * *

A server down at one of the ol' local watering holes grinned this impish grin as I closed out my tab.

She'd been observing my behavior as I sat at this table, surrounded by a group of unemployed aspiring high school teachers, all heavily intoxicated women, in Oxford Fucking Ohio for a statewide job fair at the Local U.

Every time she'd pass by, the server would shoot me the most curious looks as I tried to be polite to this one woman, a short brunette from Akron, who'd asked me to join the post-interview party.

At one point, the server even came over, bumped my shoulder with her hip, and made some reference to the fact that I'm often seen around Oxford in a cowboy hat. The intoxicated brunette then proceeded to ask me if this was true, if I was an actual cowboy, if I owned a horse, or if I'd ever been to a rodeo.

Annoying to no fucking end.

After the group left, I sat back down at the bar, went back to watching Jeopardy! and chatting away with some of the other regulars. When I got up to pay, my Cuervo - to - blood ratio thoroughly satisfied for the evening, I asked the server why she'd been shooting me the bizarre looks all night.

"I just dig your style. Very smooth."

"I have a style?"

"C'mon. Every guy has a style. Yours is just more entertaining. And that chick was totally into you."

I remember wandering down the alley, towards High Street, smiling probably the dumbest smile imaginable, my mind full of such strange, stupid thoughts.

"I have a style! And it's smooth! Holy fucking shit, dude!"

It's amazing how one remembers such things, even after several shots and about a half-dozen mixed drinks. And it hadn't even occurred to me to get that aspiring teacher's phone number, much less ask her name.

Yup. One of those guys.

Dense as a brick on the surface of Jupiter, as clueless and mysterious as the Bermuda Fucking Triangle.

* * * *

The Italian backpacker and I were sitting upright, naked and cross-legged, in the middle of the bed.

As she flipped through old copies of Esquire, asking me questions about George Clooney's personal life, about my opinion of America's Oxycontin epidemic and the Iraq War, I studied the mechanical and architectural renderings of my library renovation project, scribbling notes about camera placement, smoke detectors, and anticipated shelving problems.

Despite the lust and raw passion, I still had meetings to attend and deadlines to meet that week. My ultimate employer, the Ohio Taxpayer, wouldn't accept well, gee, I was in the middle of a damned tryst as an excuse for further delays, and my immediate supervisors probably wouldn't, either.

I was trying to balance way too many things at one time, on very little sleep. I had no desire to quit my job or give up on playing that Ugly American fling. Every afternoon I brought my work home with me, had sex with a wonderful woman, studied blueprints, and then fell asleep in between Southern European flesh and rolls of cold, heartless paper. My work - play - work routine apparently annoyed my free-spirited house guest.

Rather than just say something, she stretched out across the blueprints, back arched and yawning, and sprawled her nude body across my paperwork like some spoiled house cat.

In six hours, I was to attend an important meeting, to use those same blueprints, to pitch a security plan, one to help insure that my institution's patrons and collections would have some level of systematic protection.

And there was a naked body crinkling the broadsheets, covering the new private research rooms with breasts, scrunching up the main corridors with elbows and ribs.

She was, in the end, just being a 19-year-old on holiday, in some strange guy's house in some strange country, looking for attention. And I was just being, well, a guy.

At first, I protested. And then she did that swirling finger thing on my cheek. I tried to resist, to be serious, to be professional and responsible...

Quite embarrassing. And even then, well, I was too old for that shit.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Who am I kidding?

You know, I still don't care that there's some guy in Europe, some race car jockey, who may read this one day, put a "nice librarian I met in Ohio" story together with a relationship's ending a few months later, and want to blow my damned head off.

Hell, if he'd known how to read blueprints, had suffered through grad school, and had really neat old black-and-white movies in his villa, they may very well have stayed together...

* * * *

Yep.

I'm one of those guys.

And from what I've been told, only an idiot would ever expect me to grow out of it.

Any idiot, of course, includes myself.

- # # # -

THE OXFORD (FUCKING OHIO) DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS: The Voices of Summer, Taints, and Mockery

'Hi, my name is Jason. I move furniture at work, drink tequila, and watch Star Trek.' Sounds like a personal ad to me. What do ya think? Good?

- Two employees, ZenFo Pro Library,
Discussing (mocking) yours truly.
You know, I like being single, actually.

* * * *

No, you're not really a bastard. More of a douchebag.

- From a normal, everyday conversation at work.

Women pick on me. A lot.

* * * *

Talk about Blow-Jobs. Having a real life job really does blow.

- Cooper, celebrating her 22nd birthday in style.
(With her 22,397th template change of the year.)

* * * *

I gotta quit reading your blog before I go into meetings. I almost called my director a 'bad motherfucker' during a candidate interview.

- From a cross-continental librarian IM chat.
There. Contributions to the profession done for the year.

* * * *

Pardon me, but do you know any young people who sell marijuana?

- A very polite senior citizen, Uptown Oxford.
Possibly the world's worst Narc,
The guy looked like Don Knotts.

* * * *

I hereby solemnly swear, that despite a large proportion of keen bloggers being young, attractive and interesting women, I am not, and will not become embroiled in a messy online affair or engage in excessive flirtation...

- The Man at the Pub,
Australian blogger

* * * *

...If you do and find your name used in a fiction post, do you email the blogger and ask that a disclaimer be put in? I’m sorry but I find that a bit over the top.

- Pia Savage, Courting Destiny, New York
on harassment over a blog post.
(I've had emails like that, too. They suck ass.)

* * * *

Damn. Them some fine-ass hos in this mofo.

- Blond, blue-eyed dude.
Mid-40ish. In a business suit.

* * * *

I don't read bestsellers. When they're classics, then I'll read them.

- Literature critic/blog reader, via email.

* * * *

... hooked up with this guy from dayton in reno last week ... you really need to move back west dude....before you forget how to fuck or something ... wow waste of my time ...

- Series of text messages.

* * * *

My taint itches.

- Men's room graffiti of the week.

* * * *

I'm thinking I should get married. Just to try it out. But it has to be, like, with somebody I like. And that my friends like. Like, just for fun, ya know?

- Local U. Student,
Overheard this afternoon.

- # # # -