Friday, December 29, 2006
Thursday, December 28, 2006
rex's health news
Saturday, December 23, 2006
rex's holiday memories: christmas 2006, a heartwarming holiday episode from a medical center waiting room
Anyway, I don’t have to tell you that I was quite starved for entertainment by the time the tall gaunt man wearing a large swishy parka on what was really a quite mild day walked in with a still-smoldering quarter of a cigarette wedged between two stained fingers. He was pale, blonde, unwashed, unshaven, and of a roughly youngish, though indeterminable age. He said:
“Ma’am, I was hoping y’all could help me switch over to a new pain clinic.”
“Sir, you’ll need to put the cigarette out,” the understandably nervous receptionist told him from behind the relatively safety of her window.
“I am SO sorry, ma’am. I coulda swore I put that out,” he said as he pinched the smoldering end of the butt. “Anyway, ma’am, I just moved away from that other pain clinic you sent me to, and there’s another one down the road from my new place, ma’am.”
A ma’am sandwich, I thought, though I kept it to myself. The nearly visible cloud of alcohol fumes radiating from the man told me that he probably wasn’t in much pain at that particular moment.
One of the nurses had taken over from the receptionist at the window. She was explaining to the man everything he needed to do to switch pain clinics. She was doing so very slowly and in simple, well-enunciated words. He was thankful and scribbled down what he could while dispensing “yes, ma’ams” left and right. The smell of alcohol only seemed to get stronger. When they were done he thanked them profusely and left.
Within thirty seconds I heard the unmistakable stumbling swish of him re-entering the room behind me. I was glad, as that Will Smith movie, like most Will Smith movies, really is godawful.
This time he walked past the receptionist window to the phone hanging on the wall beside it. He picked up the receiver, dialed a number, and then leaned the top of his head against the wall in a defeated slouch. What follows is his end of the conversation as near verbatim as I can recall.
“Pick up …come one …Hey, baby, I am SO sorry …I know, I know …I am SO sorry. I just love you so much …Baby, I am sorry about that. It’s all my fault. I just love you so much. I love you and your little black baby …I know. That was all my fault, baby. I just love you so much …I’m coming home now …Huh? …What did they do? ...Did you shoot the other one too? …Okay, baby, I’m coming home …cause I love you so much, baby …All right …I love you too, baby …Need anything from the store? …Okay, I love you, baby, and I’m coming home because I just love you SO much …You want the menthols? …Okay, don’t go nowhere till I get there. I just love you, baby …All right.”
And her little black baby, I thought, though I also kept this to myself as he stumbled from the room for the second and final time during my visit, dropping a couple more “Thank you, ma’ams” at the receptionist window as he passed.
Friday, December 22, 2006
mo fats
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
vinyl findings, episode 2: fats waller piano solos, 1929-1941
Anyway, if y’all don’t happen to know Fats, then you still probably know “Ain’t Misbehavin’”, “Honeysuckle Rose”, “Your Feet’s Too Big”, “All That Meat And No Potatoes”, “I Got Rhythm”, or any of the countless jazz standards he composed. Louis Armstrong was always at his best when singing Waller, whether it was the hypnotic swing of “Everybody Loves My Baby (But My Baby Loves Nobody But Me)” or the racism blues of “What Did I Do (To Be So Black and Blue)”.
By the way, you can learn more about Thomas Wright Waller by consulting your local library or just lazily clicking this link to his Wikipedia page, complete with the tale of how Fats was once kidnapped to play Al Capone’s birthday party.
This is, as the title indicates, a collection of Fats alone at the piano. Absent is the trademark voice and witty lyrics, and one is left to appreciate the genius of the man as a musician. The keys stride in machine gun rhythm through a subtle hiss and crackle to reverberate off the walls of the Rexroom even now, and I must say that there is no better case to be made for blindness in the whole “would you prefer blindness or deafness” debate than music such as this.
Uh…where’s your thumb?
Excuse me?
Your thumb is conspicuously absent from the photo.
Yes. Well, I felt that the odd appearance of my thumb detracted from the last installment of “vinyl findings”.
So you don’t find your other digits to be in any way odd looking?
Is this better, Captain Howdy?
You do realize that I’m just a figment of your imagination, don’t you?
That’s what they said about the mischievous elf who lived in the back of my closet and randomly tailored my trousers as I slept.
That turned out to be a cat.
A cat?
Didn’t you read “The Captain Howdy Mysteries, Book Four: The Case of the Mischievous Elf Who Lived in the Back of Rex’s Closet and Randomly Tailored His Trousers as He Slept.”
Obviously not. However, cats cannot tailor one’s trousers. How do you account for that?
You were accidentally attempting to put on Mrs. Camino’s pants.
Ah. Indeed. It all makes sense now.
Anyway, where the hell was I before this digression?
You were telling the story of the time you met Michael Dukakis in the men’s room of an IHOP just off I-75 in Toledo.
I was? I did?
Trust me.
Okay. Um…Yes. Uh…Michael Dukakis was a swarthy little bastard of a man, quick with a condescending tone and raised eyebrows the size of legless gibbons, who…
I’m just screwing with you. You were actually telling the nice people about Fats Waller.
That couldn’t have been Fats Waller in the men’s room at the IHOP.
No, that was Jamie Farr.
What? I’m confused, and my thoughts are hurting my brain.
Shhhhhh. There, there. Now, you go have some eggnog and take a nap while I finish up here.
Anyway, folks, all you need to know about ol’ Fats is that he ate too much, drank too much, played the ever-loving hell out of the piano and then died on a train just outside of Kansas City at the age of thirty-nine.
We should all be so lucky.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
a bit of rambling half assedly
However, a recollection of my early years then popped into my head as unburdened the wallet and switched it to a front pocket.
Some friends and I began driving to Nashville from our little Alabamian around the age of seventeen. We’d come up for a night here and there to catch shows at 328 or the Exit/In or just to walk around west end or downtown. Nashville was the “big city”, as it were, and we treated these weekends like shore leave. We smoked out in the open without fear of being caught by our parents or their friends and would sneak bottles of vodka or PGA in to augment our drinks as we walked around at Summer Lights or just up and down Broadway.
“Big cities” can be scary places, but that’s part of the allure. We—or I, at least—always half expected to be mugged or stabbed or kidnapped and then sold into white slavery when walking around downtown or from Elliston Place down to Lucy’s Record Shop. Sadly, this never happened.
But the tidbit that had escaped me until the wallet constricted my hind quarters half to death yesterday was the fact that the very first thing we always did when arriving in Nashville was to switch our wallets to our front pockets. This was obviously done to avoid pickpocketing and probably would have bit a useless defense against the kidnapped for slavery thing, but the defensive measure was so engrained on a Pavlovian level that for the longest time I would immediately check my front pocket when I thought of Nashville.
Anyway, I hadn’t thought about that for a while.
Also, this has for some reason reminded me of the short-lived rap duo of Kris Kross (comprised, if you will recall, of the Mac Daddy and Daddy Mac) and their gimmick of wearing their clothes backward. Trends often elude and even trouble me, but there was something about their particular attempt at trend setting that I found especially disturbing. I don’t know why.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
rex's holiday memories: christmas 1983, the tale of a third grade something
We were allowed two parties a year. There was always one on the last day of each semester, the first celebrating Christmas and the second being the end of the year. Christmas was understandably a big deal, and the entire school from kindergarten through high school held one big pageant, as small classes and an entire student body hovering somewhere just over a hundred students allowed for a manageable holiday performance. The older and more mature of these were given acting duties where they wove a morality play, biblical depiction, or both around the musical performances of younger children. I believe we were doing “Silent Night” my third grade year, and we would practice it at the third grade’s allotted time in the chapel every day for two weeks leading up to a Saturday evening performance following the end of the semester. That Friday we held our Christmas party before practicing.
I believe I brought potato chips. I was always bringing potato chips. Other students thankfully brought sandwiches and homemade desserts, and I recall gorging myself on M&Ms and sugar cookies and then washing them down with Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper. It was a trait of overindulgence that would earn me the “guy past out in the yard” description at later parties in high school and college. At any rate, the third grade me twitched and giggled somewhere between youthful exuberance and a diabetic coma as the class marched in an orderly single-file line from the classroom to the chapel. I managed to slip a red marker in my pocket while passing the board on the way out.
I didn’t have any plans for the marker at the time and was quite possibly hallucinating and when I picked it up. Jesus may have even handed it to me for all I know.
I quivered in my designated spot along the back row of the makeshift choir stand in front of the pulpit and glanced about the blood-red carpeted sanctuary. Aside from our class it was wide open and empty, and restraining myself from running up and down the aisles eventually proved more for a caffeine and sugar addled nine year old to handle, but I was able to hold back for most of our ungodly slow rendition of “Silent Night”. Each syllable seemed to drag out longer than the previous, as if the song were caught on something or time itself was grinding to a halt.
It was there as I quaked in my bridled torture that I noticed an absence of Satan from the pageant. I had seen the older students act out their part, and there was a manger scene interspersed with the Baptist school equivalent of an after school special in which young people who had somehow made it fifteen years into life without hearing about this Jesus guy and the story of his birth finally get schooled in the nativity, but Satan was conspicuously missing. I knew this because I was looking for him. The only sermons I didn’t sleep or doodle my way through in those days were the ones filled liberally with literal fire and brimstone. I loved and respected me some Jesus, mind you, but the stories of hellfire and damnation served as my motivation to don the coat and tie every Sunday. I came for the Michelangelo but stayed for the Hieronymus Bosch, as it were.
Anyway, it occurred to me then and there, somewhere around “round yon virgin”, I think, whatever the hell that meant, that I should improvise a bit and introduce Satan into the play. The other grades weren’t in there at the time, mind you, but my debut as Satan wasn’t something I wanted to leave to chance. So it was that I ducked down behind the kid in front of me and began coloring my face with the red marker. I then waited a few seconds for the song to drag itself into the “sleep in heavenly peace” crescendo where I seized upon the dramatic finish to leap from the makeshift stand and channel my pent up energy into running up and down those long aisles impishly chanting “I’m the devil” in my best Satan voice.
I was finally caught by my teacher and a janitor or two and then led by the ear to the principal’s office where I was promptly and rather righteously paddled. Needless to say, the principal, a large man resembling a young and somewhat less friendly Herman Goering, decided against my ideas for an improvised Satan in the Christmas pageant. He was the director and the call was his, as the pageant was, in the end, a product of his artistic vision.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
a breakfast suggestion
1. Grape Nuts.
2. Milk.
3. That jar of peach preserves you got from your Mother-in-law a couple of years ago and stuck in the pantry where it was then obscured by a bottle of fat free raspberry vinaigrette salad dressing that just managed to magically appear on the shelf one day even though you have sworn your allegiance to the variety of different ranch and Caesar dressings before friends, family, god, and country more times than you or any of the aforementioned care to count, or, at least, to the point that the raspberry vinaigrette having expired unopened should come as a shock to no one, though the fact that you were cleaning the pantry would probably raise a few eyebrows, even though it actually happened and you can prove it because you now have the rediscovered jar of peach preserves and a recipe for Camino’s Kickass Faux Peach Cobbler Breakfast Surprise to prove it, though you’d probably do well to spend more time in the naming department were you to actually market the stuff. However, if that had indeed been a long-term goal of yours, then the fact that you’re starting off by publishing the super secret recipe online is probably a poor decision on your part.
4. A bowl or similar contraption conducive to the containment of liquidy substances.
5. A spoon would be nice.
DIRECTIONS:
1. Combine grape nuts and milk in bowl and microwave for maybe thirty seconds.
2. Remove from microwave and add mix in three or four heaping spoonfuls of the peach preserve.
3. Return to microwave and nuke that sumbitch a full minute.
4. Take this minute to reflect on things. For instance, do you think that public television really makes a significant amount of pledge money while showing all those damnable John Denver specials? If so, then you finally have your answer to who would gain the most from John Denver’s death. Indeed. It’s all making sense now; the pieces are finally coming together.
5. Remove from microwave upon completion and enjoy. This concoction is both tasty and healthy*, so feel free to gorge yourself until sick.
*Rex L. Camino is not an officially licensed doctor. The claim that Camino’s Kickass Faux Peach Cobbler Breakfast Surprise is healthy is based on the fact that Grape Nuts contains enough fiber to dislodge a water buffalo from your colon. What exactly the water buffalo was doing there in the first place is between you and your god.
Monday, December 11, 2006
the year in rear view: 2006's technological advance that pissed me off the most
In fact, I think people who wear those earpiece cell phones in public are deserving of any amount of rudeness that those within listening vicinity should decide to inflict upon them. For instance, there was this aftershave drenched bastard at the music store the other day going on and on to some acquaintance in a loud voice to be heard over the music. He said:
Bastard: Yeah, Roy and Susan were in town this past weekend so Barbara…This music sure is loud…Anyway, Barbara and…I’m in a CD store…So Barbara and I took ‘em to the Coyote Ugly’s and…Coyote Ugly’s. It’s a bar…Yeah…I wish they’d turn this music down. I can’t hardly think…So, anyway, we took ‘em there and then over to the Wildhorse...The Wildhorse…It’s another bar…Hold on, Jimmy, there’s some guy in a dress staring at me…I don’t know why…Yeah, I’m gonna ask him…Can I help you with something?
Rex: (silently glaring)
Bastard: Can I help you? I’m on the phone here.
Rex: (still silently glaring)
Now, the beautiful thing about the silent glare is that it doesn’t require all that thinking associated with the voicing of displeasure, the coordination essential to administer an ass kicking, or the cat-like stealth needed for sneaking up behind someone with a blunt object for a good old-fashioned unashamed cheap shot.
But I digress.
Anyway, my point is that everyone seems to get unnerved at these people, yet everyone also treats them undeserved politeness by ignoring them. My proposal is to…
Were you really wearing a dress?
It was a kilt. Anyway, my suggestion is that…
A kilt?
Bastard: Kilts generally don’t have floral prints.
Look, I wouldn’t expect some gadget zombie asshole to understand the beauty in the ancient traditions of the Clan Camino.
Anyway, as I was saying…
Bastard: What about the lipstick?
Sometimes I just want to feel pretty, but that’s beside the point.
Anyway, folks, I am but a simple man—a Luddite, if you will—who still manages to go through life without the benefit of a cell phone of any kind. Yet I’m sure that even those of you who embrace technology find that these bastards work to fray your last nerve. Therefore, let us go forward into 2007 with the thought that it would be quite difficult to arrest and try us all if we begin to employ immediate public beatings. You obviously didn’t have my back when I attempted this same strategy to combat Tickle Me Elmo, and I certainly learned that attacking small children was not in my best interest, but there comes a time, people, when society must gather together to purge ourselves of detrimental annoyances such as these.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
holiday meat party recollections
Anyway, that didn’t happen last night. It was good to put some more faces and voices to blogs and to also introduce one of the humble Blog o’ Doom’s self-described “minor characters somewhere behind Carl Weathers” to some of you.
You promised to take me to the next one, you bastard! (throws drink in face)
You do realize that you’re a disembodied voice, Captain Howdy, and therefore unable to actually throw anything.
Yes, the stage direction was for you. It was supposed to be a self-inflicted thing...you bastard.
Anyway, the lovely and brilliant Mrs. Camino had a good time. She peruses some of the blogs—sometimes even mine for some reason—and presumably knew what she was getting into.
The evening began with Mr. Mack telling us we were welcome to look at Aunt B’s boob freckle and ended with Drunk, Drunk Ivy yelling something about Jesus at us from the porch as we scrambled to the Caminomobile. Mackie reached into his pouch as he made the boob freckle sales pitch, and I fully expected him to pull out a roll of boob freckle viewing tickets, but he only emerged with a shot glass. Methinks he lacks the true heart of a pimp. Anyway, in the middle of this was some rare socializing for the Caminos. Hutchmo neglected to bring Black Santa, but CLC neglected to wear his special holiday attire, so I suppose blessings should be counted. It was still good to finally meet the Hutch, RUABelle, Kate O, Ivy, the Butcher, Bobby Glen Dean, Mackie, Ginger, Dr.Woo, saraclark, Kathy, and probably a number of people whose names and introductions were unfortunately implanted on brain cells that weren’t long for this world. It was also good to again see those of you I met at the last shindig I attended. I'm glad to know that I didn’t embarrass myself so badly the last time as to incur any shunning.
Friday, December 08, 2006
rex's holiday memories: festivus 1997
Anyway, I stuck it in the back of my medicine cabinet and didn’t think anything of it until some months later when I came across the bottle while digging around for a band-aid or some codeine. It then struck me that I could give it a try. She probably spent fifty bucks on the stuff, which is fifty more than I would’ve paid, and so I essentially had a free month’s supply and nothing to lose. Thus began my month of Rogaine.
Did it work? Well, it may have just been a placebo effect, but I certainly thought I saw more foliage returning to Cabeza Camino. It also seemed to have bolstered the defenses battling to preserve my now absent hairline. So, yes, I suppose I found it to be an effective product that delivered on its advertising.
So did I then continue using the product? Hell no. I wouldn’t have continued with it if I had been presented with a lifetime supply and a guarantee that I would soon have a strong and thick mane of Sideshow Bob hair. There are two reasons for this.
1. The stuff smelled just like vodka.
2. It itched like the sweet love of a hobo, yet the wearer was not allowed to scratch under any circumstance.
That second one began to threaten my otherwise strong grip on sanity. I applied the Rogaine each morning just out of the shower and then spent the next few hours trying to devise a way to scratch my scalp without touching it in any way. This consisted mostly of furrowing my brow, raising my eyebrows alternately, wiggling my ears, or in any other way attempting in vain to flex the top half of my head. This was unsuccessful and only served to make the itch greater while causing alarm in those around me. I was asked:
1. Are you okay?
2. Are you prone to seizures?
3. Could it be a stroke?
4. Are you coming on to me?
5. Why do you smell like gin and vodka?
Anyway, I got some hair back, I think, but it wasn’t worth it. I didn’t even go the full month and wound up throwing about half the bottle away.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
holiday decorations and a bit of seasonal rambling
It occurs to me now that I should have incorporated palm trees into the Christmas banner. Damn.