A mysterious bit of untitled flash fiction

My mother never wore sensible shoes.

Her shoes were magnificent things with high heels: sharp stilettos, storied platforms or stacked leather towers.

She defied the northeast Ohio winters with boots that were designed solely for the purpose of showcasing the calf and foot and had no regard for ice and sleet.

"You have beautiful feet," the men told my mother, although she never wore open-toed shoes or sandals.

"My feet are an illusion," she whispered to me once. "My feet are my secret weapon."

In the evening when we were alone, she would take off her impossible shoes and exhale with relief. Then she would prop her gnarled feet, with their bunions and corns and ingrown toenails, on a satin pillow that was atop the hassock in front of the television.

She had nothing but disdain for house slippers. "They are for matrons and schoolmarms," she would say.

Her toenails were always painted Dreamland Pink.

* * *

One year ago today

My buddy Alex Pruteanu posted this on Twitter today: One year ago McCain introduced Sarah Palin to the world. Your thoughts?

I am nonplussed over Palin's latest achievement: She used a simple Facebook entry to cast the pall of "death panels" over the country and in doing so, she's made a significant contribution to the Reform bill: the possible deletion of one of the most intelligent, humane and money saving parts of it.

And why does she command such power and attention? Because she's pretty and she shoots moose.

God. Bless. America.

* * *

Up to my armpits in crocodiles

For this week's Scene, I've written a feature on Paul Bodnar, who might live here in Northeast Ohio, but his story spans the globe. Bodnar is a crocodile wildlife conservationist, but you won't find him doddering around a sterile research center in a lab coat. If you want to track down this CrocMan, try diving into a billibong teeming with Salties or poking around the dense African rain forest surrounding Camaroon.

The egg I'm holding in the pic is a spent croc egg. The little squeaker cracked his way out of there with a special egg-tooth, which I thought was so funny. Paul gave me the egg and a handful of croc teeth (believed to be good luck) after the interview.

Thanks Paul.

If I'm lucky enough to write a story like this, the teeth must have worked. Paul Bodnar is one of the most fascinating and genuine men I've ever met. Now go and judge for yourself: behold The Croc Whisperer.

* * *

Take your pick

* * *

Consumer confidence soars.

Consumer confidence falls.

* * *

Intermission

It is now 11 a.m. and I have run down dozens of paths thus far today, yet I find myself exactly where I started.

I apologize.

Tune in tomorrow, I'll be serving up a heaping helping of crocodile.

The show must go on

This month, the Cleveland Scene offers up the 2009 Annual Manual: How to Live in Cleveland. It's full up with inside info on the fun side of life in Northeast Ohio. You can read the entire guide here, complete with formatting, graphics and links (I have essays on pages 19 and 25), or you can just read the text of my efforts "Cleveland for Parents" and "Cleveland for Literary Types" via those respective links.

One of the things I recommend in the "Parents" essay is a trip to Cleveland's historic Playhouse Square, where free backstage tours can be had on the first Saturday of every month. Below is a sampling of what you'll see if you ever decide to take my advice. My unfortunate attempts at photography do no justice to these incredible old theaters, but they might whet your appetite to head downtown and visit these Grand Dames for yourself.


Dig those classic marquees.


Ceiling detail inn the lobby of the State.


The State Theatre Lobby with the original murals.


Nearby nosh-pit Otto Moser's boasts dozens of ancient signed photos on the walls.


Shot from backstage at the Allen. Operators used to change colors of the "window" lights to accentuate the action on the silent screen: red for fire, blue for night, etc.


Goat backstage getting ready for his big close-up.


The ceiling of the Palace.


Creepy underbelly of the Square.


Righteous corned beef at Otto's after the tour.


Outer lobby of the Allen.


The business end of lighting at the Ohio.


Alcove detail in the Palace.


Box seats done proper.


Hello right back-atcha!


More pix from the walls of Otto Moser's.


The guys manning the controls for the curtains had better not be nipping on the sauce. Look at all those levers!


Coolio planters line the streets outside.



Perhaps my favorite thing of all on the square, the endless starry night that graces the outer lobby of the Ohio. Sorry that I didn't properly capture it, but believe me, this tiny Grecian night never fails to take my breath away.

* * *

**Almost** live blogging: Coopership

Oh no, Mr. Bill!

Daily Show: Fox News -- The New Liberals - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

I loved all eight and a half minutes, but EVERYONE needs to see the Bill O'Reilly clip that Stewart introduces right around the 1:10 mark.

A beautiful comeuppance

A model who was slammed with derogatory terms by an anonymous blogger has the right to learn the identity of her online heckler, a judge ruled.

In August 2008, a user of Blogger.com, Google's blogging service, created "Skanks in NYC," a site that assailed Liskula Cohen, 37, a Canadian-born onetime cover girl who has appeared in Vogue and other fashion magazines. The blog featured photos of Cohen captioned with terms including "psychotic," "ho," and "skank."

On Monday, New York Supreme Court Judge Joan Madden ruled that Google must hand over to Cohen any identifying information it possesses about the blog's creator. --Jason Kessler for CNN

It's no secret that I detest cowardly little worms who hide behind anonymous masks on the Internet in order to spew racism and vitriol. To list all the insults and defamatory comments I've fielded would be too depressing and I don't want to spoil this: it feels me with glee to know that the candy-asses behind all that hate have a reason to be nervous today.

Yoo-hoo? Are you out there my darlings?

You really didn't believe for a minute that Blogger (or Facebook or Twitter or whomever) wouldn't throw you under the bus at the first mention of libel, now did you? And before you go getting all liberal on me with the Free Speech speech, you're free to say anything you want, but welcome to the world of accountability, babies. It's one thing to tear apart someone else who's anonymous, but maybe you ought to be a little more careful when you defecate all over someone else's real identity from now on.

In the meantime, you can kiss my plump rosy ass.

Love, Erin

Who do you really think is going to take that Twinkie out of your hand?

It's ironic to me that that some of the scare tactics the opposition to healthcare reform are using are the actual practices of private health insurers today.

Case in point: Take a look at any health insurance quote site and you'll find that your rate is determined by sex, age, smoking status and locale.

Old male smokers living in crappy neighborhoods pay more for insurance than young female nonsmokers living in posh neighborhoods. No surprise there.

But do old smoking Vets get different VA coverage than young nonsmoking Vets? I don't think so. Do seniors living in one neighborhood have different Medicare pay-out scales than those living in another? Nope.

So for the 30% of Americans who currently have publicly funded care, their health insurance does not discriminate based on lifestyle choices such as smoking. The rest of us have to answer to Big Insurance. And yes, people have been fired by bosses who don't want want to pay higher smokers' insurance premiums.

Hoose is worried that Obama's going to outlaw his Twinkies. Why? Look at the precedent. Smoking is costing the VA and Medicare/aid plenty, but the gov hasn't outlawed it. (And yeah, I know cigarettes are expensive, but they're available at every gas station, grocery and convenience store in the country and you're free to buy as many as you want whenever you want. You don't need a license to smoke them.)

So there's the precedent. You want to be afraid, be afraid of Big Insurance.

* * *

Thirty one flavors

Just saw It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World at the beautiful and historic Palace Theater. The dialogue was hilarious and all the digital graphics in the world can't hold a candle to those live action car chases and demo/fight scenes.

And how about that "31 Flavors" dance sequence in the above YouTube? I love how he pounds his head with an imaginary hammer.

To all my homies here in Cleveland, whatever you do, be sure to catch one of the last few Cinema at the Square features. Tickets are just five bucks and there's cold beer at the refreshment stand.

For those who've never seen it, here's a snap I took of the interior of the Palace during a recent tour:

Is this cat for or against helthcare reform?

Tommy, Angelica, Johnny and me

This week, the Cleveland Scene is featuring an excerpt of my brother John's novel Better, with an introduction by Yours Truly, in which I outline the strange connection between my brother and famed Rugrats Tommy and Angelica.

Read it here.

For those itching for more, I offer the following links:

Rugrat's "Toy's in the Attic" part one.

Rugrat's "Toy's in the Attic" part two.

And an essay I wrote on "Better" for the Los Angeles Times last month.

Today's photo of John and me was taken circa 1984, when Rolling Rock and Stroh's were all the rage.

* * *

Sightseeing Erin-style: Los Angeles

Damn. No time for an audition.


Hi red lanterns.


Like those pots.


No plants like that in Ohio. Hope they don't eat me.


Okay I won't already, just hand over a pastry!


Tree trunk that looks like a preggers lady raising her arms up.


Oh it was great to see you, Hal!


Atop Griffith Observatory.


Mannequin with nicer boobs than mine.


Large unidentified vegetable matter.


Okay, I'll get another area dirty.


Romantic canals in Venice. You row for a while and let me sip a lemonade, baby.


Mod, baby, mod.


Undies on the road.

* * *

Hold that baby up a little higher please, Ms. Palin, so everyone can see

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."--Sarah Palin

Fighting the good fight

A few years ago, I wrote a couple of features about a professional fighter here in Northeast Ohio. At the time, "B" was a no-holds barred cage fighter with the "King of the Cage" circuit. He enjoyed quite a bit of success in the cage. When he got a bit older, the fights dried up and he took advantage of his massive stature by doing professional fighting in Japan where they love big American wrestlers.

B was one of the most fascinating men I'd ever met.

I never regarded what he did as violent. He was an athlete. When I watched his workouts, he was honing his craft just like I do here at the keyboard. "I'm a fighter," he'd tell me. "I'll fight anybody anytime."

Despite the size of guys like B and their might, they're really vulnerable. The promoters take hella advantage of them. The injuries are chronic and cumulative. They're has-beens by their mid-thirties or--on the outside--forty. B told me everyone in the business is on steroids, which takes it's own toll.

The cage fighters were the toughest men I'd ever encountered. In an effort to build his pain resistance, B used to stand still while other guys would just pound on him. "The guy who can take the hardest punches wins the fight," he'd say. But there was a solid camaraderie among the fighters, particularly the cage fighters. They'd beat each other bloody, then slug down beers together. I guess that's why it never struck me as violent. They weren't fighting with malice.

Watching these guys spar and train was unbelievable. B use to do resistance training by pulling against huge rubber bands attached to a wall. He'd hop up and down on steps with the lightness of a ping pong ball. And he was so big! It was as though he defied gravity. And watching the sparring men intertwined and pushing against each other was stunning to me: so intimate and so masculine at once. It all played out against a background of uber-hard rock music, grunts, and the sound of flesh squeaking across sweaty mats. I was working for very conservative papers at the time and couldn't really include that sort of thing in my writings, but it was incredibly dramatic to me.

For the professional matches in Japan, B would tell me that the "performers" would meet at the venue hours before the match and practice the choreographed moves. Make no mistake, professional wrestling matches are 100% staged. B would always call them "performances" and said the trick jumps and showy acrobatics made the fake fights much more dangerous than the real cage fights from earlier in his career.

Hence, I really liked "The Wrestler" because it gave an honest depiction of life after fame in that profession. So many of those guys end up destitute and deluded. I hope my buddy B fairs better than Rourke's character "The Ram" and finds himself a training gig or something else to get him through the later years of his life. Those fans forget you so so so fast.

Not me. I'll never forget B.

* * *

Hotfoot

My feet got a little sunburned. Doesn't it look like they're blushing?

Housewife redux

Dear Fellow Human Beings,

The difficult economic climate has taken a bite out of my freelance writing career. Therefore, I've decided to dig my heels down hard into my secondary career of Housewife. In order to do so with Born-Again enthusiasm, I'm enlisting some new lifestyle guidelines:

Outerwear. My first inclination was to don a MuuMuu, but now I'm thinking old school is best and to go with the classic housecoat. The authentic housecoat was a cotton affair with either buttons or (better yet) metal snaps up the front. It usually had a nondescript floral or paisley pattern.

Since you can't go to Penney's and buy an honest-to-God housecoat anymore, I'll have to find a really old one at a yard sale or second hand store. That's okay. A frayed and faded housecoat garners serious Street Cred.

Footwear. Simple: men's mid-calf white athletic socks and slippers.

Hair. Curlers are good, although I've never used them. No time to start like the present. I wonder if you can still get those big plastic numbers in pastel colors. I could crank up my whole miserable head and cover the terrifying behemoth with one of those filmy hairnets. But I wouldn't call it a hairnet, I'd call it a scarf. Imagine me in the discount grocery with my hairnet and housecoat and socks--a domestic Medusa. I'd be at once mythical and real. How beautiful is that?

Accessories. First you've got the obligatory coffee cup (stained and chipped with a picture of a cartoon reindeer on it--probably a Bunco boobie prize) that you drag around everywhere and that contains crappy home-brewed coffee (Chock Full o' Nuts). To really complete the scene, you'd need a cigarette--maybe an Eve Menthol 120 (although I'm not taking this that far; I already quit once goddamnit). You've got to have a snotty balled up old Kleenex in the pocket of your housecoat at all times (standard), and if you have one or two shoved in the sleeve of your housecoat (advanced), that's even better.

Cultural Manifestations. A good Housewife should watch all the daytime soaps (Days of Our Lives, One Life to Live, General Hospital) and should concern herself largely with menstruation. (Which sanitary products are economical and efficacious? Is one's spouse exhibiting appropriate sensitivity during the ordeal?) Being well versed in both topics is mandatory during important telephone discussions with other Housewives.

Miscellaneous. This will be a big change for me, but I think lipstick is in order. Housewives should always, always wear lipstick.

* * *

Coffee with the Goat

I really love my Goat.


* * *

Gee spot

At the moment of orgasm I knew that I was in a great, golden light and I experienced myself as transparent, luminous energy. I saw seven star-like, golden, swirling points that lined up in my body.

--a quote from "Carrie" in Linda Savage's "Spiritual Sex" piece for HuffPo.

To my fellow shopper

Good night Dick

The comment sections on these pages have been so superior of late that it made me think of those great ending segments on Rowan & Martin's Laugh In, hence the YouTube.

Some observations:

The 0:27 mark, featuring a wet white miniskirt, gets very close to being impolite.

I wonder if that's philbilly's foot at about the 2:33 mark.

And good god, how hot was Dan Rowan?

So go on and sock it to me, my friends.