Thierry Sagnier's Blog, page 7
June 30, 2021
AtEacher's Passing
Mr. Kline died six months ago. I only recently heard. His given name was Peter, but none of his students would have the temerity of calling him that. He was my English teacher for two years, and it was his class that persuaded me I wanted to become a writer.
He once told me I was the best French student in his class. I basked for a week in the accolade, before realizing I was the only French student in his class. It didn’t matter. A word of phrase, a backhanded compliment from this thin, balding man, was the highest commendation I could conceive.
I last saw him sone seven or eight years ago at a class reunion. I’m not sure he remembered who I was but he pretended to. I told him I had written books and he nodded. I like to believe I saw a faint gleam in his eyes.
I’ve often thought of him and pondered how one person, seen in 45-minute classes a few times a week decades ago, could have wielded—unknowingly—such influence. I don’t know if he was a writer himself. I did a casual Google search and found nothing, but this doesn’t matter either.
Once, when I was seventeen, and my French accent still made conversation with other students difficult, Mr. Kline stopped me as I left his class. He asked me what I knew about the playwright Eugène Ionesco. That year, the French theatre group, of which my mother was a member, was rehearsing a Ionesco play, Rhinoceros, so I was slightly familiar with the author’s work.
“He’s French,” I said with Gallic certainty.
“Oh,” said Mr. Kline. “I thought he was half-Romanian.”
“French,” I repeated.
“I see,” said Mr. Kline. “Do you know what the play is about?”
I didn’t. “Zoos?”
I was wrong on both counts. Mr. Kline did not correct me. I was, after all, the best French student in his class.
He once told me I was the best French student in his class. I basked for a week in the accolade, before realizing I was the only French student in his class. It didn’t matter. A word of phrase, a backhanded compliment from this thin, balding man, was the highest commendation I could conceive.
I last saw him sone seven or eight years ago at a class reunion. I’m not sure he remembered who I was but he pretended to. I told him I had written books and he nodded. I like to believe I saw a faint gleam in his eyes.
I’ve often thought of him and pondered how one person, seen in 45-minute classes a few times a week decades ago, could have wielded—unknowingly—such influence. I don’t know if he was a writer himself. I did a casual Google search and found nothing, but this doesn’t matter either.
Once, when I was seventeen, and my French accent still made conversation with other students difficult, Mr. Kline stopped me as I left his class. He asked me what I knew about the playwright Eugène Ionesco. That year, the French theatre group, of which my mother was a member, was rehearsing a Ionesco play, Rhinoceros, so I was slightly familiar with the author’s work.
“He’s French,” I said with Gallic certainty.
“Oh,” said Mr. Kline. “I thought he was half-Romanian.”
“French,” I repeated.
“I see,” said Mr. Kline. “Do you know what the play is about?”
I didn’t. “Zoos?”
I was wrong on both counts. Mr. Kline did not correct me. I was, after all, the best French student in his class.
June 22, 2021
TDA Father's Day
The Days After (TDA) Father’s Day always affect me strangely. I recall small moments, fragments of conversation, black-and-white photographs that are never quite in focus and yet astonishingly clear.
My father was good with his hands. He single-handedly built an addition to our house so my mother could have a modern kitchen. The structure projected from the back of the place, supported by two 3-inch diameter steel pipes he had sunk four feet into the ground on top of concrete pilings. There never was either a building permit, or an inspection. It took him two months of weekend work, and he did not ask for my help, which, in any case, would have been minimal.
Actually, my father and I rarely did things together. We never tossed a baseball, or went fishing or hiking. We did talk of the current news, though, and when the Voice of America sent him to cover an event—Khrushchev’s visit to America comes to mind—I would track his itinerary on the family atlas and listen to his broadcasts on our short-wave radio.
There is, after all these years, one standout moment.
He was laying bricks to make a patio. He did this meticulously after having leveled the ground and poured a bed of sand. I was watching and handing him bricks, eager to be done so I could go and meet Dana, my first serious girlfriend.
He suddenly stood from his kneeling position, dusted his hands off on the legs of his pants and looked me straight in the eyes. “Be careful,” he said. Then he nodded, mission accomplished, and returned to his bricks. There was no need for an explanation. He had just done his fatherly duty of educating his son on the hazards of sex.
Later that evening, I overheard my mother ask him, “Tu lui as parlé?” Had he spoken to me? “Oui,” he replied. “C’est fait.” It’s done.
My mother was relieved. At my lycée, a girl had gotten pregnant and shortly married the male student who’d done the deed. They were both 17 years old. The girl left school and moved in with her new in-laws where she became, for all good purposes, a maid. The boy, of course, stayed long enough to get his baccalauréat and entered a grande école, in France which would ensure a good job and a good salary.
No such thing happened to me, of course, since my dad and I had The Talk.
My father was good with his hands. He single-handedly built an addition to our house so my mother could have a modern kitchen. The structure projected from the back of the place, supported by two 3-inch diameter steel pipes he had sunk four feet into the ground on top of concrete pilings. There never was either a building permit, or an inspection. It took him two months of weekend work, and he did not ask for my help, which, in any case, would have been minimal.
Actually, my father and I rarely did things together. We never tossed a baseball, or went fishing or hiking. We did talk of the current news, though, and when the Voice of America sent him to cover an event—Khrushchev’s visit to America comes to mind—I would track his itinerary on the family atlas and listen to his broadcasts on our short-wave radio.
There is, after all these years, one standout moment.
He was laying bricks to make a patio. He did this meticulously after having leveled the ground and poured a bed of sand. I was watching and handing him bricks, eager to be done so I could go and meet Dana, my first serious girlfriend.
He suddenly stood from his kneeling position, dusted his hands off on the legs of his pants and looked me straight in the eyes. “Be careful,” he said. Then he nodded, mission accomplished, and returned to his bricks. There was no need for an explanation. He had just done his fatherly duty of educating his son on the hazards of sex.
Later that evening, I overheard my mother ask him, “Tu lui as parlé?” Had he spoken to me? “Oui,” he replied. “C’est fait.” It’s done.
My mother was relieved. At my lycée, a girl had gotten pregnant and shortly married the male student who’d done the deed. They were both 17 years old. The girl left school and moved in with her new in-laws where she became, for all good purposes, a maid. The boy, of course, stayed long enough to get his baccalauréat and entered a grande école, in France which would ensure a good job and a good salary.
No such thing happened to me, of course, since my dad and I had The Talk.
June 18, 2021
Adult Orphans
I no longer remember my parents’ voices. I can see their faces, my mother’s toothy grin and my father’s smile that hinted at untold secrets, but the timbre of their voices, the depths, the tones, those are lost.
They had good voices, I know, voices worthy of being on the radio shortly after World War 2. My mother played a wily ingenue who always got the better of her American GI fiancé. My father, raised largely in the U.K., apparently could fake a credible American accent in French. I’ve looked high and low for tapes or records of their daily hour on Radio France Internationale, with no success.
My father had an elegant, Oxfordian voice when he spoke English. My mother, who learned the language under duress only when we came to America, spoke English with a French accent one could attack with a steak knife. She was bedeviled by her adopted language, by the undistinguishable differences of pepper, piper, and paper or cheap, cheep, sheep, and ship.
Both my parents quickly realized that it was entirely possible to live in the Washington, D.C., area without speaking English. There were French butchers, vintners, bakers, handymen, maids, lawyers and doctors, dentists and doctors, real estate agents and librarians. My mother had a favorite check-out lady at the grocery store, a French woman who had married an American and gave my mother a hefty discount on most purchases. The drug store had a French pharmacist who doubled her prescription of Nembutal and Phenobarbital, which she had started using for insomnia.
My parents made no American friends to speak of for the entire length of their stay in the U.S. Their circles were Europeans, including an Austrian couple, a few Russian émigrés, some North African pieds noirs¸and here and there a Czech or Danish husband and wife, usually lower level diplomats.
They entertained three or four times a week, and in turn were invited to friends’ homes for cocktail parties, dinners, and bridge nights. They traveled together and rented entire wings of motels at the beach.
It strikes me that little is said or written about the adult orphans most of us become. It’s almost as if losing parents when one is an adult is a largely unheralded rite of passage. I was well into my forties when my mother died, and my father passed away a scant three years later. I often feel as if I am a living cemetery; I carry the memories of the dead in my life but have never really shared how these losses have impacted me. As an adult orphan, from the very start, I was expected to carry on without much of a mourning period. I have lost a sister and many friends and have maintained a stiff upper lip and a composed demeanor throughout the days and years that followed.
I often wish we had a day of the dead, a Dia de los Muertos as they do in Mexico, where we could celebrate without sadness the lives of our deceased and reflect on the massive influence they’ve had upon us.
Faulkner said it best. The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
They had good voices, I know, voices worthy of being on the radio shortly after World War 2. My mother played a wily ingenue who always got the better of her American GI fiancé. My father, raised largely in the U.K., apparently could fake a credible American accent in French. I’ve looked high and low for tapes or records of their daily hour on Radio France Internationale, with no success.
My father had an elegant, Oxfordian voice when he spoke English. My mother, who learned the language under duress only when we came to America, spoke English with a French accent one could attack with a steak knife. She was bedeviled by her adopted language, by the undistinguishable differences of pepper, piper, and paper or cheap, cheep, sheep, and ship.
Both my parents quickly realized that it was entirely possible to live in the Washington, D.C., area without speaking English. There were French butchers, vintners, bakers, handymen, maids, lawyers and doctors, dentists and doctors, real estate agents and librarians. My mother had a favorite check-out lady at the grocery store, a French woman who had married an American and gave my mother a hefty discount on most purchases. The drug store had a French pharmacist who doubled her prescription of Nembutal and Phenobarbital, which she had started using for insomnia.
My parents made no American friends to speak of for the entire length of their stay in the U.S. Their circles were Europeans, including an Austrian couple, a few Russian émigrés, some North African pieds noirs¸and here and there a Czech or Danish husband and wife, usually lower level diplomats.
They entertained three or four times a week, and in turn were invited to friends’ homes for cocktail parties, dinners, and bridge nights. They traveled together and rented entire wings of motels at the beach.
It strikes me that little is said or written about the adult orphans most of us become. It’s almost as if losing parents when one is an adult is a largely unheralded rite of passage. I was well into my forties when my mother died, and my father passed away a scant three years later. I often feel as if I am a living cemetery; I carry the memories of the dead in my life but have never really shared how these losses have impacted me. As an adult orphan, from the very start, I was expected to carry on without much of a mourning period. I have lost a sister and many friends and have maintained a stiff upper lip and a composed demeanor throughout the days and years that followed.
I often wish we had a day of the dead, a Dia de los Muertos as they do in Mexico, where we could celebrate without sadness the lives of our deceased and reflect on the massive influence they’ve had upon us.
Faulkner said it best. The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
June 4, 2021
UFOs
The last few months have seen an explosion of interest in UFOs, or Unidentified Flying Objects. The Times, Post, and New Yorker have carried lengthy stories, while the Internet, to put it mildly, has gone nuts. The government, it appears, has shifted its stance from denial and ridicule to belief and acceptance.
This is particularly interesting to me because my first novel was titled The IFO Report. It was published by Avon in the 1970s, got an acceptable readership, and was optioned twice by movie-makers but never produced, It’s still available from used books sites at varying costs, from a single penny to $127.50, plus shipping.
The gist of my book is that an ET contact had occurred shortly after WWII, but that it was kept secret for fear of the impact such an even could have on mankind.
I spent a lot of time researching this novel. I spoke with people at NASA, Jesuits at Georgetown University, a couple of economists, sociologists and a psychologist or two, and the opinions were almost unanimous. A contact with an extra-terrestrial civilization would be the single most important event in human history, affecting organized religion, technology, the world balance-of-power, finances, and the very concept of intelligent life. Back when I wrote the book, most scientists were already—discreetly—believing in the inevitability of life elsewhere.
The first contact is not an original fictional subject. From War of the Worlds to Childhood’s End, writers have been fascinated by the far-reaching impact such an event might have. ETs have been portrayed as evil conquerors, stealthy impersonators, kidnapers, cute castaways, educators, and saviors. Possibly, they will be none, or all, of the above.
But this renewed interest, that’s odd. And I have a few thoughts on the matter.
I think we’re being groomed.
I believe it’s entirely possible that a contact has been made, possibly recently. I think we’re being prepared for the news.
It probably won’t happen here. One popular train of thought is that an initial contact is likely to occur near the International Space Station. This will allow whatever is out there to deal with a cadre of humans likely to be more in the know than a shotgun-bearing Trumpite Mississippian.
In my book, I postulated that a means of communications might be established through the periodic table of elements, which, anti-matter not withstanding, probably reflects some basic periodical truths upon which a language might be based.
A government report due later this month is going to be non-committal. In other words, it will say there’s stuff happening we can’t explain, but neither can we say such events are extra-terrestrial in nature. At any rate, even if there is a recognized contact, there’s a strong possibility some 73 million Americans will say it’s a Big Lie.
Doesn’t matter.
Look to the skies…
This is particularly interesting to me because my first novel was titled The IFO Report. It was published by Avon in the 1970s, got an acceptable readership, and was optioned twice by movie-makers but never produced, It’s still available from used books sites at varying costs, from a single penny to $127.50, plus shipping.
The gist of my book is that an ET contact had occurred shortly after WWII, but that it was kept secret for fear of the impact such an even could have on mankind.
I spent a lot of time researching this novel. I spoke with people at NASA, Jesuits at Georgetown University, a couple of economists, sociologists and a psychologist or two, and the opinions were almost unanimous. A contact with an extra-terrestrial civilization would be the single most important event in human history, affecting organized religion, technology, the world balance-of-power, finances, and the very concept of intelligent life. Back when I wrote the book, most scientists were already—discreetly—believing in the inevitability of life elsewhere.
The first contact is not an original fictional subject. From War of the Worlds to Childhood’s End, writers have been fascinated by the far-reaching impact such an event might have. ETs have been portrayed as evil conquerors, stealthy impersonators, kidnapers, cute castaways, educators, and saviors. Possibly, they will be none, or all, of the above.
But this renewed interest, that’s odd. And I have a few thoughts on the matter.
I think we’re being groomed.
I believe it’s entirely possible that a contact has been made, possibly recently. I think we’re being prepared for the news.
It probably won’t happen here. One popular train of thought is that an initial contact is likely to occur near the International Space Station. This will allow whatever is out there to deal with a cadre of humans likely to be more in the know than a shotgun-bearing Trumpite Mississippian.
In my book, I postulated that a means of communications might be established through the periodic table of elements, which, anti-matter not withstanding, probably reflects some basic periodical truths upon which a language might be based.
A government report due later this month is going to be non-committal. In other words, it will say there’s stuff happening we can’t explain, but neither can we say such events are extra-terrestrial in nature. At any rate, even if there is a recognized contact, there’s a strong possibility some 73 million Americans will say it’s a Big Lie.
Doesn’t matter.
Look to the skies…
April 28, 2021
An Argument for a Hate License
An interesting freedom-of-speech case went to jury deliberation today in New York. Brendan Hunt, an avid Trump follower, did not participate in the January 6 Capitol building riots, but according to the Washington Post, two days after the riots, posted, “KILL YOUR SENATORS: Slaughter them all.” He encouraged his social media followers to “get your guns, show up to DC and literally just spray these [expletive].”
Hunt claims his postings were never meant to encourage violence. He was bored and depressed, is all, and was entertaining himself. The COVID quarantine led to loneliness, excess drinking and drug use, and an obsession with following news reports on social media.
Freedom of speech laws are incredibly complicated. You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater, but can you upload a video of yourself demanding “patriots…put some bullets” in the heads of members of congress?
Are you allowed to encourage violent actions, and then claim that wasn’t your intent, not really? What about lying? Is that a first amendment right as well?
Hunt is not the first, of course, to hide behind the First. Sydney Powell, a pro-Trump lawyer sued by the Dominion voting machine company, which she had accused of voting fraud, argued that “no reasonable person would conclude that the statements [she made] were truly statements of fact.” She, too, was only expressing her first amendment rights.
Is the first amendment a permission to lie? That’s a weighty question that threatens to occupy courts for a very long time, and cost millions to resolve.
I may have a solution. Let’s encourage local and federal authorities to institute hate/lie licenses, halili for short.
Much like drivers’ licenses, a halili would require applicants to memorize a twenty-page booklet on the rules of racism, falsehoods, and misrepresentation. Afterwards, the learner’s permit would allow holders to say things like, “I don’t like Asian people because they are better at math than I am” ; or “Black people who have rhythm make me feel clumsy when I dance”; or “If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for them!” [1]
While in possession of a halili learner permit, the hater’s and liar’s motor vehicle would have to wear a little sign on the roof like the Domino pizza delivery guy. The sign would blink on and off and read, “It’s my opinion and I share it.” [2].
This would be an inexpensive way to identify haters and liars at a glance.
Inexpensive is important. We all know that freedom of speech isn’t free. It’s earned.
[1] With apologies to H.L. Mencken
[2] With apologies to Monsieur Prudhomme.
Hunt claims his postings were never meant to encourage violence. He was bored and depressed, is all, and was entertaining himself. The COVID quarantine led to loneliness, excess drinking and drug use, and an obsession with following news reports on social media.
Freedom of speech laws are incredibly complicated. You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater, but can you upload a video of yourself demanding “patriots…put some bullets” in the heads of members of congress?
Are you allowed to encourage violent actions, and then claim that wasn’t your intent, not really? What about lying? Is that a first amendment right as well?
Hunt is not the first, of course, to hide behind the First. Sydney Powell, a pro-Trump lawyer sued by the Dominion voting machine company, which she had accused of voting fraud, argued that “no reasonable person would conclude that the statements [she made] were truly statements of fact.” She, too, was only expressing her first amendment rights.
Is the first amendment a permission to lie? That’s a weighty question that threatens to occupy courts for a very long time, and cost millions to resolve.
I may have a solution. Let’s encourage local and federal authorities to institute hate/lie licenses, halili for short.
Much like drivers’ licenses, a halili would require applicants to memorize a twenty-page booklet on the rules of racism, falsehoods, and misrepresentation. Afterwards, the learner’s permit would allow holders to say things like, “I don’t like Asian people because they are better at math than I am” ; or “Black people who have rhythm make me feel clumsy when I dance”; or “If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for them!” [1]
While in possession of a halili learner permit, the hater’s and liar’s motor vehicle would have to wear a little sign on the roof like the Domino pizza delivery guy. The sign would blink on and off and read, “It’s my opinion and I share it.” [2].
This would be an inexpensive way to identify haters and liars at a glance.
Inexpensive is important. We all know that freedom of speech isn’t free. It’s earned.
[1] With apologies to H.L. Mencken
[2] With apologies to Monsieur Prudhomme.
April 27, 2021
Immunotherapy, Part II or III
The chemotherapy—whoops, I mean the immunotherapy—appears to be working. Recent tests, a cystoscopy, where a tiny camera is snaked up one’s urethra, and a colonoscopy, where a tiny camera is snaked up one’s butt, showed no new cancerous growth. This is excellent news, and I am vastly relieved that for once, I was medically wise to dispute my surgeon’s opinions. Surgeons want to cut, it’s in their genes, and I refused to let him excise my bladder, colon, and a couple of lymph glands.
The body is a wonder, really. My oncologist had told me in so many words that my bladder was dying and should be removed. I thought I felt a slight quiver of life still fluttering in this humble organ, so I respectfully refused surgery. For once, it appears I was right. Yowzah!
I am now in my sixth month of immunotherapy. I go to a clinic once every three weeks and sit in a medical Barcalounger. An IV is inserted in the crook of my elbow, and a wonder drug, pembrolizumab, drips into my body at a rate of one drop every three seconds. The medicine, I’m told, bolsters my immune system. Only 30 percent of patients improve thanks to pembrolizumab, so I am counting myself among the very lucky few. I am given a couple of pretty good cups of institutional decaf and sit there for forty-five minutes. I doze. I compose cancer limericks, or compose angry letters to the editor about the latest perceived outrage.
The clinic staff is wonderful. I know Patrick longs for his native Ghana and worries about who is fixing his grandfather’s coffee. Janet is planning to move from her three-bedroom cottage to an apartment. Sales of the jewelry she fashions at home are going well, but the transition from house to high-rise is a concern. Philippa wants to write. I noticed the tattoo of an old-fashioned manual typewriter on her forearm, and she told me she wants to do screenplays. She’s sent me a couple of articles she’s drafted and they look promising.
The immunotherapy is a lot more tolerable than were the chemo sessions of the past. The latter made me seriously ill and left me bed-ridden for a day or two. This latest treatment causes fatigue, and a very slight rash from time to time. The only other side effect is that my hair, once wavy, is now as straight as Davy Jones’s bangs.
There’s no end in sight for these treatments. I’ll get re-evaluated every three months or so, and, inshallah, life will remain healthy. I have to admit, this is all unexpected. Maybe there are still a few adventures ahead.
The body is a wonder, really. My oncologist had told me in so many words that my bladder was dying and should be removed. I thought I felt a slight quiver of life still fluttering in this humble organ, so I respectfully refused surgery. For once, it appears I was right. Yowzah!
I am now in my sixth month of immunotherapy. I go to a clinic once every three weeks and sit in a medical Barcalounger. An IV is inserted in the crook of my elbow, and a wonder drug, pembrolizumab, drips into my body at a rate of one drop every three seconds. The medicine, I’m told, bolsters my immune system. Only 30 percent of patients improve thanks to pembrolizumab, so I am counting myself among the very lucky few. I am given a couple of pretty good cups of institutional decaf and sit there for forty-five minutes. I doze. I compose cancer limericks, or compose angry letters to the editor about the latest perceived outrage.
The clinic staff is wonderful. I know Patrick longs for his native Ghana and worries about who is fixing his grandfather’s coffee. Janet is planning to move from her three-bedroom cottage to an apartment. Sales of the jewelry she fashions at home are going well, but the transition from house to high-rise is a concern. Philippa wants to write. I noticed the tattoo of an old-fashioned manual typewriter on her forearm, and she told me she wants to do screenplays. She’s sent me a couple of articles she’s drafted and they look promising.
The immunotherapy is a lot more tolerable than were the chemo sessions of the past. The latter made me seriously ill and left me bed-ridden for a day or two. This latest treatment causes fatigue, and a very slight rash from time to time. The only other side effect is that my hair, once wavy, is now as straight as Davy Jones’s bangs.
There’s no end in sight for these treatments. I’ll get re-evaluated every three months or so, and, inshallah, life will remain healthy. I have to admit, this is all unexpected. Maybe there are still a few adventures ahead.
April 8, 2021
Mmmmarijuana
Mmmmmmmarijuana. The state of Virginia is set to allow cultivation and possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal and recreational use. I’m a 70s sort of guy. I loved marijuana when you could buy a few ounces for a few dollars and be reasonably sure that no one had altered the product with angel dust, rat poison, PCP, meth, or any other nasty substance that could cause harm.
I used to grow it in my basement under Gro Lights, water it, feed it according to A Child’s Garden of Grass, the classic book by Jack Margolis and Richard Clorfene. I also grew it on the roof of my downtown townhouse until neighborhood thieves ripped off my entire garden.
When the plants were a few feet tall and bright green, I would pick off the top buds of the female and ruthlessly assassinate the male plants, thus causing the females to go nuts, flower, and produce (or so it was believed) a particularly potent plant that some called sinsemilla. The plants were dried in toaster ovens, packed in little baggies, and distributed free of charge to my needy friends, who would in turn gift me cookies, cakes, and bhang, an “edible mixture made from the buds, leaves, and flowers of the female cannabis, or marijuana, plant. In India, it’s been added to food and drinks for thousands of years and is a feature of Hindu religious practices, rituals, and festivals—including the popular spring festival of Holi.” I am quoting here from Healthline.com.
I met one of my best friends when the home-made trailer he was towing rolled through Adams Morgan, laden with a variety of cannabis sativa. I said, “Interesting crop you have there,” and he grinned sheepishly, and we’ve been BFFLs since then.
One time, I stuffed our Thanksgiving turkey with about half-an-ounce of powdered grass. My mother, who during the war in North Africa had had some experience with hashish, immediately knew something was awry. My father, an innocent, raved about the meal, pronouncing it the best he’d ever had. He destroyed a plate of unadulterated brownies and passed out in my living room easy chair. My mom and I did not speak of the incident, but I think her trust in my culinary skills took a nosedive. She never let me cook for her and my father again.
The legalization of recreational marijuana is for me somewhat problematic. Some thirty years ago, I gave up drugs and alcohol. I no longer miss them, because there’s no doubt in my mind that drug usage did not serve me well. Twenty-three years ago, I stopped smoking. I know that cannabis smoke is not good for you, though it has been declared less harmful than smoking tobacco. It also has some proven medicinal effects.
I have never believed that marijuana is truly harmful. I was an addiction counselor for a decade, and not once did an addict or alcoholic I was working with tell me marijuana was the cause of his or her ills. I don’t think marijuana is a gateway drug; I think alcohol and nicotine, both legal, are responsible for far more harm than any cannabis harvest. I actually will welcome taxation of marijuana products, as well as USDA regulations ensuring purity.
But I’m not sure what I will do when a Hmmariuana (the real name of a projected chain) store opens in the neighborhood. I may be tempted to see if I can still roll a joint with one hand. This was an acquired skill I would not want to lose, as was creating a bong from an empty Coke can and a piece of tin foil.
What to do… I’m willing to listen to reason and take advice from my peers.
I used to grow it in my basement under Gro Lights, water it, feed it according to A Child’s Garden of Grass, the classic book by Jack Margolis and Richard Clorfene. I also grew it on the roof of my downtown townhouse until neighborhood thieves ripped off my entire garden.
When the plants were a few feet tall and bright green, I would pick off the top buds of the female and ruthlessly assassinate the male plants, thus causing the females to go nuts, flower, and produce (or so it was believed) a particularly potent plant that some called sinsemilla. The plants were dried in toaster ovens, packed in little baggies, and distributed free of charge to my needy friends, who would in turn gift me cookies, cakes, and bhang, an “edible mixture made from the buds, leaves, and flowers of the female cannabis, or marijuana, plant. In India, it’s been added to food and drinks for thousands of years and is a feature of Hindu religious practices, rituals, and festivals—including the popular spring festival of Holi.” I am quoting here from Healthline.com.
I met one of my best friends when the home-made trailer he was towing rolled through Adams Morgan, laden with a variety of cannabis sativa. I said, “Interesting crop you have there,” and he grinned sheepishly, and we’ve been BFFLs since then.
One time, I stuffed our Thanksgiving turkey with about half-an-ounce of powdered grass. My mother, who during the war in North Africa had had some experience with hashish, immediately knew something was awry. My father, an innocent, raved about the meal, pronouncing it the best he’d ever had. He destroyed a plate of unadulterated brownies and passed out in my living room easy chair. My mom and I did not speak of the incident, but I think her trust in my culinary skills took a nosedive. She never let me cook for her and my father again.
The legalization of recreational marijuana is for me somewhat problematic. Some thirty years ago, I gave up drugs and alcohol. I no longer miss them, because there’s no doubt in my mind that drug usage did not serve me well. Twenty-three years ago, I stopped smoking. I know that cannabis smoke is not good for you, though it has been declared less harmful than smoking tobacco. It also has some proven medicinal effects.
I have never believed that marijuana is truly harmful. I was an addiction counselor for a decade, and not once did an addict or alcoholic I was working with tell me marijuana was the cause of his or her ills. I don’t think marijuana is a gateway drug; I think alcohol and nicotine, both legal, are responsible for far more harm than any cannabis harvest. I actually will welcome taxation of marijuana products, as well as USDA regulations ensuring purity.
But I’m not sure what I will do when a Hmmariuana (the real name of a projected chain) store opens in the neighborhood. I may be tempted to see if I can still roll a joint with one hand. This was an acquired skill I would not want to lose, as was creating a bong from an empty Coke can and a piece of tin foil.
What to do… I’m willing to listen to reason and take advice from my peers.
April 4, 2021
The Inconvenience Store
Every couple of years or so, I feel it incumbent to perform my duties as a citizen and warn my fellows against convenience stores.
Wait. Don’t stop reading. This will get more interesting shortly.
This time around, I am motivated by seeing an elderly woman belly-up to the counter at a 7-11 and fish out nickels, dimes and pennies to buy a lottery card. She emptied the pockets of a worn skirt and picked the coins from the gathering of lint, matchbooks, non-winning lotto cards, a ballpoint pen cap, a Bic lighter, and a keychain with one key on it. She used the key to scratch out the silver gunk covering the card’s collection of numbers. She didn’t win, which was not a surprise.
Most lottery odds are astronomical. One in 175,223,510 for the $40,000,000 Powerball, with almost the same numbers for Mega Million. Smaller scratch-off contests, such as the one the woman was playing, are somewhat better odds with much lower pay-offs. So let’s admit it, convenient stores sell impossible dreams.
Lottery players are overwhelmingly lower income. They’re looking for the miracle that is unlikely to occur. The rational is that a dollar or so a day isn’t going to bankrupt anyone, but the people I see playing almost daily are spending a lot more than a buck. One convenience store near me recently hung a banner in its window proclaiming it had sold a $10,000-winning lottery ticket, and the man behind the counter laughed as he told me the winner had been buying five-dollar tickets there daily for more than a decade, so he may, or may not, have gotten back some of the money he spent. But probably not.
And all of this would be OK save that these very same establishments also sell addictive drugs–beer and wine, cigarettes, snuff and other tobacco products–crappy food either deep fried, full of sugar, or both; sodas sweetened with cancer-causing additives; nudie and gun magazines, and, in one case, a magazine full of nude women handling high-powered semi-automatic rifles (is this a great country or what?); pharmaceuticals in tiny, high-priced vials; the throw-away phones favored by drug dealers; and, of course, super high-calorie frozen drinks so sweet they’re guaranteed to make any child hyper.
But wait, there’s more. Almost all stores have an ATM, so if you don’t have the cash on hand to buy any of the above, you can punch in a withdrawal from your savings account. And let’s not forget these stores are basically designed for those among us who can’t or don’t plan ahead and are willing to buy four aspirins for two dollars because we ran out and now really need them.
There are a couple of such stores in my immediate vicinity. I go there three or four times a week to buy a cup of coffee because I don’t necessarily want to pay Starbucks prices, and here’s something I’ve noticed: there are never any expensive cars in the stores’ parking lots. No Mercedes or Caddies or Aston-Martins. Mostly there are trucks and vans, old beaters and Japanese rice-burners that have seen better days. In other words, the people who rely on the convenient stores are the ones who can least afford to shop there.
It is said that in the suburbs, convenience store owners, much like the folks who own fast food places, are almost all millionaires, and it makes sense. Many such places are family run. The overhead is relatively low, the markup extremely high, and salaries hover around minimum wage. Convenience stores, like liquor stores, seldom go bankrupt.
The other side of that coin is that such stores are at higher risk of robbery since they’re often open all night. In fact, according to the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, convenience store robberies account for six percent of all robberies known to the police, and convenience store employees suffer from a workplace homicide rate second only to that of taxicab drivers.
Risky business, both for the employees and the customers.
Wait. Don’t stop reading. This will get more interesting shortly.
This time around, I am motivated by seeing an elderly woman belly-up to the counter at a 7-11 and fish out nickels, dimes and pennies to buy a lottery card. She emptied the pockets of a worn skirt and picked the coins from the gathering of lint, matchbooks, non-winning lotto cards, a ballpoint pen cap, a Bic lighter, and a keychain with one key on it. She used the key to scratch out the silver gunk covering the card’s collection of numbers. She didn’t win, which was not a surprise.
Most lottery odds are astronomical. One in 175,223,510 for the $40,000,000 Powerball, with almost the same numbers for Mega Million. Smaller scratch-off contests, such as the one the woman was playing, are somewhat better odds with much lower pay-offs. So let’s admit it, convenient stores sell impossible dreams.
Lottery players are overwhelmingly lower income. They’re looking for the miracle that is unlikely to occur. The rational is that a dollar or so a day isn’t going to bankrupt anyone, but the people I see playing almost daily are spending a lot more than a buck. One convenience store near me recently hung a banner in its window proclaiming it had sold a $10,000-winning lottery ticket, and the man behind the counter laughed as he told me the winner had been buying five-dollar tickets there daily for more than a decade, so he may, or may not, have gotten back some of the money he spent. But probably not.
And all of this would be OK save that these very same establishments also sell addictive drugs–beer and wine, cigarettes, snuff and other tobacco products–crappy food either deep fried, full of sugar, or both; sodas sweetened with cancer-causing additives; nudie and gun magazines, and, in one case, a magazine full of nude women handling high-powered semi-automatic rifles (is this a great country or what?); pharmaceuticals in tiny, high-priced vials; the throw-away phones favored by drug dealers; and, of course, super high-calorie frozen drinks so sweet they’re guaranteed to make any child hyper.
But wait, there’s more. Almost all stores have an ATM, so if you don’t have the cash on hand to buy any of the above, you can punch in a withdrawal from your savings account. And let’s not forget these stores are basically designed for those among us who can’t or don’t plan ahead and are willing to buy four aspirins for two dollars because we ran out and now really need them.
There are a couple of such stores in my immediate vicinity. I go there three or four times a week to buy a cup of coffee because I don’t necessarily want to pay Starbucks prices, and here’s something I’ve noticed: there are never any expensive cars in the stores’ parking lots. No Mercedes or Caddies or Aston-Martins. Mostly there are trucks and vans, old beaters and Japanese rice-burners that have seen better days. In other words, the people who rely on the convenient stores are the ones who can least afford to shop there.
It is said that in the suburbs, convenience store owners, much like the folks who own fast food places, are almost all millionaires, and it makes sense. Many such places are family run. The overhead is relatively low, the markup extremely high, and salaries hover around minimum wage. Convenience stores, like liquor stores, seldom go bankrupt.
The other side of that coin is that such stores are at higher risk of robbery since they’re often open all night. In fact, according to the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, convenience store robberies account for six percent of all robberies known to the police, and convenience store employees suffer from a workplace homicide rate second only to that of taxicab drivers.
Risky business, both for the employees and the customers.
April 1, 2021
My Almost-Friend Patrick
Patrick Juvet died today. I didn’t know him at all well, but I liked him a lot and meeting him led to one of my life’s unforgettable moments.
Patrick was a French rock ‘n’ roll star in the 70s. He was Swiss, and my late sister Florence discovered his vocal talents and fashioned him into the French David Bowie, make-up and all.
Like Bowie he was unforgettably handsome in a thin, androgynous way. For a while, he and Florence—though she was quite a bit older—formed one of Paris’ celebrated couples with matching mink coats and Porsches. I knew he’d gone through hard times, had had issues with drugs and alcohol, and was not, according to my sister, an entirely safe person to be with.
I saw him perform a few times in Paris, and he once called me in the middle of the night to seek my opinion on breaking into the American music market. I know he went to Nashville and recorded a few songs there, but bigger French pop stars than he had tried and failed to make it in the US. The last time I saw him was almost 20 years ago at Florence’s funeral in Paris. He had aged and put on some weight, but proudly told me he was doing a show that very evening in La Rochelle, a coastal city in southwestern France, where the Knight Templars once had their base.
My iconic moment had occurred a decade-and-a-half earlier. Florence had invited me to join her in St. Tropez, a town on the French Riviera, where Patrick was to perform. I took the train from Paris where I was vacationing and met her and Patrick for lunch at a small and ridiculously overpriced bistro. Florence told us to wait as a friend of hers would join us shortly.
We waited and waited, drinking Pernod and Vichy water, until eventually a large black chauffeur-driven Citroën pulled up. A diminutive woman wearing a large hat emerged. It was Brigitte Bardot.
In minutes, paparazzies swarmed the restaurant. I thought my moment of fame had arrived and put on large aviator sunglasses to appear media- worthy. We ate as photographers yelled questions at Bardot which she ignored. I think I might have spoken one full sentence during the 45-minute encounter, but I anticipated seeing my photo in the local and regional papers. After all, I did look mysterious and somewhat Peter Fonda-ish.
After Bardot left, I learned she and Florence were more acquaintance than friend. Bardot’s star was waning while Florence’s was ascending. They’d been introduced in Paris and Flo had suggested Bardot record a song with Juvet.
The next morning’s newspapers touted a rumored affair between Bardot and Juvet. Several photos showed the singer and actress sharing a meal at the bistro and leaning close together in an intimate moment.
I had been cropped out of every single picture, which Flo found hilarious.
Patrick wrote a pretty good autobiography, which I have. I think at some point he relapsed, then got clean again. He was supposedly planning a comeback album when he died in Barcelona.
My sister Florence died in 2002. Bardot is 86, Patrick was 70 when he passed away. Somewhere, I have a photo of us with Flo, but I’m not sure where it is. It doesn’t matter. The moment is there forever.
Patrick was a French rock ‘n’ roll star in the 70s. He was Swiss, and my late sister Florence discovered his vocal talents and fashioned him into the French David Bowie, make-up and all.
Like Bowie he was unforgettably handsome in a thin, androgynous way. For a while, he and Florence—though she was quite a bit older—formed one of Paris’ celebrated couples with matching mink coats and Porsches. I knew he’d gone through hard times, had had issues with drugs and alcohol, and was not, according to my sister, an entirely safe person to be with.
I saw him perform a few times in Paris, and he once called me in the middle of the night to seek my opinion on breaking into the American music market. I know he went to Nashville and recorded a few songs there, but bigger French pop stars than he had tried and failed to make it in the US. The last time I saw him was almost 20 years ago at Florence’s funeral in Paris. He had aged and put on some weight, but proudly told me he was doing a show that very evening in La Rochelle, a coastal city in southwestern France, where the Knight Templars once had their base.
My iconic moment had occurred a decade-and-a-half earlier. Florence had invited me to join her in St. Tropez, a town on the French Riviera, where Patrick was to perform. I took the train from Paris where I was vacationing and met her and Patrick for lunch at a small and ridiculously overpriced bistro. Florence told us to wait as a friend of hers would join us shortly.
We waited and waited, drinking Pernod and Vichy water, until eventually a large black chauffeur-driven Citroën pulled up. A diminutive woman wearing a large hat emerged. It was Brigitte Bardot.
In minutes, paparazzies swarmed the restaurant. I thought my moment of fame had arrived and put on large aviator sunglasses to appear media- worthy. We ate as photographers yelled questions at Bardot which she ignored. I think I might have spoken one full sentence during the 45-minute encounter, but I anticipated seeing my photo in the local and regional papers. After all, I did look mysterious and somewhat Peter Fonda-ish.
After Bardot left, I learned she and Florence were more acquaintance than friend. Bardot’s star was waning while Florence’s was ascending. They’d been introduced in Paris and Flo had suggested Bardot record a song with Juvet.
The next morning’s newspapers touted a rumored affair between Bardot and Juvet. Several photos showed the singer and actress sharing a meal at the bistro and leaning close together in an intimate moment.
I had been cropped out of every single picture, which Flo found hilarious.
Patrick wrote a pretty good autobiography, which I have. I think at some point he relapsed, then got clean again. He was supposedly planning a comeback album when he died in Barcelona.
My sister Florence died in 2002. Bardot is 86, Patrick was 70 when he passed away. Somewhere, I have a photo of us with Flo, but I’m not sure where it is. It doesn’t matter. The moment is there forever.
March 21, 2021
Teeth
I had a tooth pulled recently. A small and vital part of my anatomy was forcibly removed and now my tongue is fixated on that empty space, right upper middle, of my mouth.
The tooth didn’t want to go. It was as attached to me as I was to it and it had, I was told by the dentist, very deep and stubborn roots. It took him almost a half-hour of pulling, pushing, hammering, and twisting to get the thing out. When he dropped it on the tray, a sad, bloody thing that had served me well for almost my entire life, I felt a true pang of sadness. I had to go to a specialized dentist. My regular dentist doesn’t pull teeth, apparently. Nor, I suspect, would he charge me $570 for the service if he did.
I’ve been told that many people my age, born immediately after World War II in large European cities, have bad teeth and poor eyesight, both due to lack of protein in areas starved for milk, cheese, and meat. I started having troubles with my teeth when I was a little kid, and one of my earliest—and worst—memories is of a giant needle being stuck beneath my tongue and into my palate so the dentist, a rough-handed man who smelled of stale wine, could fill my already decaying molars with a nasty mélange of lead and God knows what else. I remember the bitter taste of the amalgam and the swelling cheeks that made adults smile because I looked like a chipmunk. The worst part was the aftermath: I had to survive on bouillie—a vile mixture of day-old bread and warm water—for ten days.
My mother had horrible teeth, uneven, gapped, and stained yellow from her incessant filterless Pall Malls. She smoked a pack a day and claimed not to inhale, which may have been true. My father swore he never went to the dentist, not once, and in spite of being raised in Great Britain, he had the legendary pearly whites of an American movie star.
When we came to America, one of my mother’s first chores was finding a dentist who could speak French. It turned out there were two in the Washington area. One was the son of a disgraced and exiled French politician. The other was an Alsatian man she simply did not trust because Alsace had been occupied too many times by the Germans and who knows what political ideology the man might foster.
Dr. Bouquet—the trustworthy one—cleaned my mother’s teeth every three months and waged a fruitless war to get her to stop smoking. When I broke a front tooth playing basketball, he created an odd-colored cap that prevented me from smiling for weeks.
Nowadays, I brush and I use a machine that sends a pulsating stream of water to clean my teeth of harmful debris. I still get cavities. I have ceramic crowns, fillings and a bridge. I really hope there will be no more teeth removed. It’s difficult to say goodbye to even the smallest part of me.
The tooth didn’t want to go. It was as attached to me as I was to it and it had, I was told by the dentist, very deep and stubborn roots. It took him almost a half-hour of pulling, pushing, hammering, and twisting to get the thing out. When he dropped it on the tray, a sad, bloody thing that had served me well for almost my entire life, I felt a true pang of sadness. I had to go to a specialized dentist. My regular dentist doesn’t pull teeth, apparently. Nor, I suspect, would he charge me $570 for the service if he did.
I’ve been told that many people my age, born immediately after World War II in large European cities, have bad teeth and poor eyesight, both due to lack of protein in areas starved for milk, cheese, and meat. I started having troubles with my teeth when I was a little kid, and one of my earliest—and worst—memories is of a giant needle being stuck beneath my tongue and into my palate so the dentist, a rough-handed man who smelled of stale wine, could fill my already decaying molars with a nasty mélange of lead and God knows what else. I remember the bitter taste of the amalgam and the swelling cheeks that made adults smile because I looked like a chipmunk. The worst part was the aftermath: I had to survive on bouillie—a vile mixture of day-old bread and warm water—for ten days.
My mother had horrible teeth, uneven, gapped, and stained yellow from her incessant filterless Pall Malls. She smoked a pack a day and claimed not to inhale, which may have been true. My father swore he never went to the dentist, not once, and in spite of being raised in Great Britain, he had the legendary pearly whites of an American movie star.
When we came to America, one of my mother’s first chores was finding a dentist who could speak French. It turned out there were two in the Washington area. One was the son of a disgraced and exiled French politician. The other was an Alsatian man she simply did not trust because Alsace had been occupied too many times by the Germans and who knows what political ideology the man might foster.
Dr. Bouquet—the trustworthy one—cleaned my mother’s teeth every three months and waged a fruitless war to get her to stop smoking. When I broke a front tooth playing basketball, he created an odd-colored cap that prevented me from smiling for weeks.
Nowadays, I brush and I use a machine that sends a pulsating stream of water to clean my teeth of harmful debris. I still get cavities. I have ceramic crowns, fillings and a bridge. I really hope there will be no more teeth removed. It’s difficult to say goodbye to even the smallest part of me.
