MacScribbler

Early bird update

2012-02-10T12:32:00.000-08:00

At my work site today at 7:30 in the morning I heard a mourning dove make about 10 cries of a mating call and then go silent. It made about five cries, was a quiet for about 15 seconds, then made another five, and then went quiet.

From my apartment in another section of Austin, I heard another lone mourning dove similarly making tentative mating calls early in the morning twice this month.

Spring is still about six weeks away, but a few mourning doves, uncertain about the warm weather, make an effort, but then think better of it and give up.

The rec center

2012-02-09T17:03:00.000-08:00

An ocher short-sleeved shirt tucked into matchhead pants over spitshined cowboy boots.

"The rec center has a ping-pong table."

"Do you feel like playing?"

"Yeah."

His cowboy boots thudded harder than mine on a dried cherry Slurpee stain, on a freshly spitted wad of bubblegum, by a cigarette filter with a liptistick stain -- a girl headed for the rec center?

A girl, indeed.

Mary Brown, to be exact, a bombshell in pink stirrup slacks from the decade before like our moms wore when we called them Mommy and fringed moccasins from half a decade before like our big sisters wore when we still looked up to them and a pink long sleeved T-shirt to match the pants even though they had been made ten years apart.

"I'm sorry," Mary said, interrupting our game, "but I need to study for Mr. Elder's exam, and I can't do it at home. This is the only place I can do study. Can you guys play a little later?"

Ocher short-sleeved shirt: "This is the rec center. We can do anything we want here."

Me: "Come on, we can wait."

Ocher shirt: "How long does she need to study?"

Me: "Don't talk about her like she's not here. We can wait."

Ocher: "No, let's play. Come on. This is the rec center. It's open to everyone. She can't tell us what to do."

"She's not telling us. She's asking."

"Look, I'm just asking for this afternoon, just this afternoon."

Bad attempt at a mustache. Bad attempt at a turtleneck. Bad attempt at a scowl.

"Is there a problem here?"

"I need to study, and if they play ping-pong I won't be able to concetrate."

"The rec center is not a study hall."

"Come on. We can play later."

"No, we can't. Today is Saturday."

"We can play next Saturday."

"How do we know that? This is the rec center. No one can tell us what what to do."

"Let her study. I'm leaving."

"You're leaving?"

"I'm leaving."

That cigarette couldn't have been Mary's, I think, thudding my boots out. His follow.

"I thought you were my friend."

"I am."

"Then why didn't you stand up for me?"

"Stand up for you -- against a girl?"

"Are you a coward? Are you even scared of a girl?"

"No, but we can give her that. She just needs to study for today."

"I thought you were my friend. I thought you'd stick up for me. You're a coward."

I'm surprised that I feel a little sad as I watch him walk away.

I think of going in and asking Mary Brown if she'd like for me to help her study. I can maybe ask her questions from the book and see if she answers right.

I stand there feeling excited and rush in.

She's glaring at a page about my great-great-grandfather fighting her great-great-grandfather and I say, "I'm sorry about that. We won't play."

"Thanks. At least someone cares."

"I have nothing else to do. I can help you study."

"That's okay. I'm doing fine on my own."

"Well, good luck with it."

"Aren't you in that class?"

"Yeah."

"Then why aren't you studying for it?"

"I don't know. His tests are always easy."

"That's what everyone says, but not for me."

"Maybe I should study for it then. Do you have his study questions? I can read them out to you at least."

"Okay. That would be good."

early bird again

2012-02-08T16:37:00.001-08:00

Today at about 7:30 in the morning I heard a mourning dove make its mating call for about thirty seconds and then go quiet.

It may be confused by the mild winter that Texas and the rest of the country is enjoying this year.

drops

2012-02-08T16:36:00.000-08:00

washed my hands with care
drops flicked on the floor looking
like a Pac-Man game

Timeline of Apple's monitoring of contract manufacturers' labor practices

2012-02-05T06:29:00.000-08:00

2003: Aluminum dust explosion destroys wheel factory in Indiana and kills one worker

2005: Apple publishes code of conduct demanding "that working conditions in Apple's supply chain are safe, that workers are treated with respect and dignity, and that manufacturing processes are environmentally responsible."

2006: The Mail on Sunday secretly visits a Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China, where iPods are made. Reports that hours are long and that workers live in crowded dorms and are forced to perform pushups as punishment.

2007: Apple conducts more than three dozen audits; two-thirds of them show that employees worked more than sixty hours a week; six core violations found, including employment of 15-year-olds and falsifying records; first publishes audit report of contract factories it uses

2007 - 2010: 312 audits conducted

2009: 137 injured from using n-hexane to clean iPhone screens at an Apple supplier in Eastern China

May 20, 2011: Five killed in aluminum dust explosion in Apple contract factory in Chengdu, China

December 2011: 59 injured in aluminum dust explosion in Apple contract factory in Shanghai

2011: 229 audits conducted; by that year Apple had inspected 396 facilities of suppliers and suppliers of suppliers

The arrival of mourning doves

2012-02-04T18:30:00.001-08:00

Yesterday morning at about 7:30 I heard a mourning dove make mating calls for about 20 seconds.

This morning I heard one make mating calls for about a minute.

Early bird

2012-02-03T08:11:00.000-08:00

Mourning dove calls on a
warm winter day Mother Earth
warning he's too soon

Freedom

2012-01-31T17:37:00.000-08:00

Five parakeets perched
on an oak tree refugees
from a tract house cage

Under a tree

2012-01-31T17:28:00.001-08:00

We walked under oak
branches dancing in the wind
yet never looked up

Three conversations

2012-01-30T18:11:00.000-08:00

Conversation between a man drinking a beer and a man who isn't

"Another Christmas, hunh?"

"Another Christmas."

"Then New Year's."

"Then New Year's."

"What do you think 1938 will be like?"

"Like 1937."

"I hope not."

"What's wrong with 1937?"

"What's wrong with 1937? Ha."

"Do you ever really laugh. Or do you always just say ha?"

"Ha. I never laugh."

"Neither do I."

"You want a beer? They're from Akron."

"No, I'll take one from Philly, but not Akron."

"You know, how come they never named Akron Midtown?"

"I don't know."

"It's halfway between New York and Chicago, you know."

"No, I didn't. Why didn't they name July Midmonth."

"That would be June."

"Right."

"Another day in December over -- a week before Christmas. Does it ever get easier?"

"No, it gets harder -- every year. Don't believe what they say about progress."

"I bet."

Conversation between a girl reading a book about Marilyn Monroe and a boy reading a book about Jimi Hendrix

"Who's Marilyn Monroe?"

"You don't know?"

"Is she like a movie star?"

"She was, but she died."

"How'd she die?"

"She committed suicide."

"How sad. Why?"

"No one knows. She thought everyone thought she was just a thing maybe. Who's Jimi Hendrix?"

"A musician. He died too."

"How?"

"He took an overdose of pills and threw and choked on his own vomit."

"How horrible."

"I know."

"Why are you reading about him?"

"I don't know. I saw the book at the library at school."

"So did I. I mean the book about Marilyn Monroe."

"Did they live at the same time?"

"I think they did."

"Do you know if they ever met?"

"Maybe they did."

"Look in the index."

"Oh, yeah, no, he's not here."

Conversation between a man in workboots and a man in a Brooks Brothers overcoat

"Have you ever wondered what it must have been like to live in Nazi Germany?"

"As a member of the many outcast groups or as a member of the favored minority?"

"As the favored minority."

"Can't say that I have."

"If you were a Christian in Nazi Germany, do you think you would have protested what was going on? Would you have gone along with it or would you have protested it?"

"I don't know. What about you?"

"I would have protested it."

"How do you know?"

"I know. I can't really say, but I do."

"Tell me why you know?"

"You see this stupid overcoat I'm wearing."

"It doesn't look stupid."

"My wife gave it to me as a gift. I think it looks terrible, but I still wear it."

"So you're saying that proves you would have resisted the Nazis if you had live in Nazi Germany?"

"No, it just proves that I'm a fool. No telling how a fool will react to something. I hope I'd resist, but I probably wouldn't. And you?"

"We beat them. It doesn't matter. Part of the luxury of beating them is -- "

"Is what?"

"Forget it. I don't know."

CBS Sunday Morning story on possibly unfair labor practices of Apple's contract manufactuer

2012-01-29T07:03:00.000-08:00

CBS Sunday Morning just broadcast a story about possibly unfair labor practices of Apple's contract manufacturer, Foxconn:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-57367950/the-dark-side-of-shiny-apple-products/?tag=contentBody;cbsCarousel

Mike Daisey performs a one-person show called, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs."

In it he discusses the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China, where Apple iPhones and other mobile devices are made.

He calls it "the biggest company you've never heard of."

The company employs 400,000.

Daisey visited the Foxconn plant in Shenzhen, but he wasn't allowed in to talk the workers, so he stood at the main gate and talked to them during shift changes.

He told CBS News' Martha Teichner that he met workers as young as 14, 13, and 12. He said the workday is 12 to 14 hours.

"Do you really think Apple doesn't know?" he said.

Foxconn had a peak of suicides in 2010.

Workers have thrown themselves off the roof. In response the company has placed nets around the building.

Daisey told Teichner that they "looked a lot like the nets you use to catch fish."

Debby Chan leads Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (Sacom).

She said Foxconn claims that its suicide rate is less than at other factories in China.

In a 2010 interview Steve Jobs said, "We're all over this. Foxconn is not a sweat shop." He said the company offers a movie theater and other amenities.

Apple would make no comment for Teichner's story about the suicides. Foxconn would not give her access to its Shenzhen factory.

Impactt Limited represents Apple on labor issues in China. Dionne Harrison is Director of Operations there. She told CBS News she has never visited the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen.

Apple recently released a list of suppliers: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCoQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.apple.com%2Fsupplierresponsibility%2Fpdf%2FApple_Supplier_List_2011.pdf&ei=YV0lT97iNpGGsAKP67GNAg&usg=AFQjCNGKVpv0DV0Fwt64TuDq77YUU4AzJA

The company claims it performed 80% more audits in 2011 than in 2010 and that about 38% of suppliers comply with standard of a work week of 60 hours in six days.

The New York Times recently published this story about questionable labor standards of high-tech contract manufacturers: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-costs-for-workers-in-china.html?pagewanted=all

A labor advocate challenged the article:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/01/29/labor_advocate_challenges_accuracy_of_nyt_report_on_apple_foxconn.html

From an NYT article:
...a complex, known informally as Foxconn City, where the iPhone is assembled. It now has 230,000 employees, many working six days a week, often spending up to 12 hours a day at the plant. More than a quarter of Foxconn's workforce lives in company barracks, and many workers earn less than $17 a day.

"One former executive described how, as iPhone production started up, the new glass screens began arriving at the Foxconn plant near midnight. A foreman roused 8,000 workers inside the company's dormitories, according to the executive, and with half an hour, those workers started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing more than 10,000 iPhones a day.

"The company disputed some details of the former Apple executive's account and wrote that a midnight shift such as the one described was impossible because of strict Apple regulations regarding work hours."

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?pagewanted=all

Major civilian urban gunfights of the Sunbelt

2012-01-28T11:07:00.000-08:00

Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight, El Paso, April 14, 1881

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Dead_in_Five_Seconds_Gunfight

Gunfight at the OK Corral, Tombstone, Arizona, October 26, 1881

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunfight_at_the_O.K._Corral

SLA/LAPD shootout, May 17, 1974

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofbvgjl6MhA

FBI Miami shootout, April 11, 1986

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FBI_Miami_shootout

North Hollywood shootout February 28, 1997

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout

General list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shootout

A day before the gallows

2012-01-28T07:04:00.000-08:00

"When's the next hanging?"

"This Saturday at 3."

"Do you think Salvina will be there?"

"Salvina Sievewright?"

"Verily. One hisses to say her name."

"Most likely. The hangman from New Foxconn City will be attending."

"A fine-looking man, I understand."

"Maybe you can wow her with humor."

"Gallows humor?"

"What would be more appropriate?"

"Then do you know any gallows jokes?"

"Samuel Johnson and James Boswell were walking through London when they came upon a crowd gathered for a hanging. One of them asked a spectator who was being hanged and they were told that the miscreant was a man named Vowell."

"So one of them -- probably Johnson -- said, 'I'm glad it's not U or I.' "

"Indeed."

"A possibility. Another."

"From the Bard. Hamlet."

"I know it, yes. Clown 1: What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright or the carpenter?"

"Clown 2: The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants."

"Indeed. A possibility and then some. Another."

"Called out at Sicilian corn harvests: What did the queen say to the king?"

"Why are you wearing that rope around your neck when you could easily afford gold?"

"Indeed."

"Well, another possibility. Another."

"The worst for last perhaps. My own creation: "I would like to be a standup comic -- but not on the trapdoor of a gallows."

"Not bad."

"And if all else fails you might just casually observe -- "

"This is one place I wouldn't want to be hanging about."

"Suffice it so say that it may be hard to wrest Salvina Sievewright's regard away from the gallows."

"I wonder though -- considering the greater use of gallows than sieves why isn't there such a thing as the surname of Gallowswright?"

"Perhaps such never marry."

The Cover Song

2012-01-24T04:40:00.000-08:00

The voice is too Auto-tuned to be gold

and too young to be anyone you heard when you were young

Yet you know you've heard this song before

Sung by someone long past her heyday

A long time ago for sure

Twenty years ago maybe

Or worse: Forty years back

But there it is on the grocery store speakers

As a new pop song

And you listen to the lyrics

Trying to place it

What year

What city

Who with

But you just can't

You even think of going to that record story -- yes story -- (okay that was a typo)

Once touted as a cultural anchor of the community

But now a social services center

Put to better use maybe

There are Internet radio stations

Google "Internet radio stations"

And email one of the DJs

But you know they'll laugh

Or better -- not even notice

And so you listen to the lyrics

One more time

Walk out

And forget that song

Just as you forgot it twenty years before

Building

2012-01-21T08:15:00.000-08:00

A man built an odd library of one hundred rooms with each holding one book. He said he would give a prize to anyone who went from room to room reading each book.

A recent graduate consented.

When he exited five years later, he asked the man, "Who wrote those books. They are all awful."

"I wrote them," the man said. "Now for your prize -- $1 million."

The first thing he did was to hire a demolition crew to destroy the building. He hired a refuse crew to incinerate the books.

High and low

2012-01-21T08:11:00.000-08:00

A man who built towers consented to a race with a man who dug pits. The towerist would ascend one of his towers while the pitist would descend one of his pits, the height of the former equal to the depth of the latter.

In the middle of the race an earthquake toppled the tower into the pit. The city paved over the spot of mortar for a freeway. A monument to the interrupted race was put over it, but it was stolen.

Plenty of fish in the sea

2012-01-21T07:55:00.000-08:00

"I have a swimming pool," he told me, "but it's not like most swimming pools. I have tunnels dug into its sides that connect with the sea. And everyday I take the chance of just shutting my eyes and diving in. It's my own swimming pool on my own property and so far no beast of the deep has swum in and attacked me."

"What is the diameter of your tunnel?" I asked.

"I have five of them, all with a diameter of five feet. I bet you were thinking I would ironically say half an inch. That -- five feet -- is big enough for a shark or barracuda."

And so it was that I marveled at how he came to work everday seemingly whole, healthy, and unbitten. Soon I wanted to ask if he felt insulted that no sea animals were attracted to his pool. His wife and children were plenty attractive, but somehow I felt that the rejection must have somehow bit, if you will, at him.

Unusual settings for Shakespeare plays

2012-01-20T16:01:00.000-08:00

Cima Serena

2012-01-16T11:36:00.000-08:00

Windsor chairs piled up in a patio
An empty bottle of A&W root beer on the Bermuda grass
A sparse woods
An abandoned two-lane bank drive-thru
Rusted chains blocking the entrance and exit
An empty pack of Camels
A rock wall squaring a plot of land the size of a classroom
A pretty woman with a foreign accent behind the counter
M&Ms, a Diet Coke
Late model SUVs race by
Like they're trying to escape from something
Or maybe get there really fast

Austin Area Stories on Investigation Discovery

2012-01-15T16:45:00.000-08:00

http://investigation.discovery.com/videos/i-didnt-do-it-brutal-austin-murder.html

http://investigation.discovery.com/videos/i-didnt-do-it-im-innocent.html

http://investigation.discovery.com/tv/disappeared/the-missing/roxanne-paltauf.html

http://investigation.discovery.com/tv/disappeared/the-missing/rachel-cooke.html

http://investigation.discovery.com/videos/cold-blood-reopening-natalie-antonettis-case.html

New YouTube channels

2012-01-15T07:23:00.000-08:00

This week's New Yorker reports that YouTube recently listened to more than 500 pitches for themed channels. From them they selected 100 to receive financial advances for development. Here's some of them.

123UnoDosTres: Latin American urban young adults

BlackBox TV: horror

Comedy Shaq Network: helmed by Shaquille O'Neal

Dance On: dance, helmed by Madonna and her manager, Guy Oseary

KickTV: soccer

Life and Times: Jay-Z's activities

Look TV: fashion and beauty

MyISh: musical talent scout

Network A: action sports

Official Comedy: stand-up comedy

RIDE: skateboarding, helmed by Tony Hawk

Smart Girls at the Party: helmed by Amy Poehler

The Onion, Slate, the Wall Street Journal, and Disney are also creating channels.

Danny

2012-01-13T08:21:00.000-08:00

When he saw the bridge he knew he was there. He wished he had little kids to whom he could have finally answered their incessant question of “When are we there,” with “We’re there. You see that bridge. That means we’re there.”

The bridge was still one of the oddest physical features, more like an emotion affectation, perhaps, he had ever seen. It was a footbridge formed as an arc, twenty-feet tall at its apex, that linked the front yards of his sister’s and the Zorras.

“The city was going to tear it down. They said a truck and city men would be there the next morning, but no one ever showed up and I never heard from them again,” Carmine, whom he always thought of as an odd-looking man with his shoulder-length copper hair, hawk-nose, white, straight teeth, and perpetually worn khaki long-sleeved shirt, khaki pants, and Hugh Puppies.

Carmine had built the bridge to ensure safe passage for Abby Zorra his niece, and Laurie McClellan, while crossing the street between their respective houses. As Danny passed under the bridge he looked up to see a quote that looked like Latin. He would have to ask Carmine what it meant.

He remembered the Latin over the entrance of the oscilloscope factory where he worked: Si non oscillas, noli tintinarre. “If you don’t swing, don’t ring.” Know-it-all Eddie said the same was inscribed over one of the entrances of one of Hugh Hefner’s properties.

As he pulled into the Zorra’s driveway as instructed -- “Our house will have too many cars,” his sister Laurie had said, Carmine came out, as always without a drink in hand. None of the Zorras drank. They didn’t go to strip clubs either. They didn’t watch sports. He had always been curious about them, yet repelled by them somehow too.

As Danny got out, stiff from the non-stop drive between Philadelphia and Missoula, Carmine shouted, “It’s the polished guy,” referred to that riff his brother Luca had made about everyone thought they were stupid.

“Oh, you’re polished,” Luca had said in response to Danny’s statement that he was in Polish, which in itself was in response to Chelsea’s statement that polish isn’t capitalized.

“Unless you’re Polish like me.”

“It’s the eye-talian guy.”

“Come on in. They’re picking up your mom at the airport.”

“My mom’s coming here.”

“If I heard right.”

Annunziata came out then, as thin and as beautiful and as hopefully unattached as ever. She had a ladle dripping with some sort of red sauce for the Feats of the Seven Fishes preparation.

“Oh, you’re here. Good. You can settle the argument. Come on in.”

She grabbed him with the same hand that carried the ladle, drabbling the sleeve of his flannel shirt with sauce.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Not too worry. I already got coffee and hash browns spilled on that.”

“We need you.”

She marched him through an unexpectedly empty living room and into the kitchen crowded with Nonna, Ducia, and Abbie.

“Danny, what do Americans eat on Thanksgiving?”

He paused, not knowing if this was set-up. They all gawked at him demandingly.

“Turkey, don’t they?”

Ducia shouted something to Nonna in Italian and Nonna shouted something back in what sounded like a totally different language and Annunziata just said, “See, I told you so,” and he was astounded that the Zorras had been in this country for how long -- since 1975, wasn’t it -- and they still weren’t sure about the major custom of their adopted country -- and here Abbie was half Native-American herself.

Nonna said something in Italian and they went back to preparing for the feast.

“Ah, that looks delicious. You know, I drove all the way from Philly for this.”

“I know,” Annunziata said. “And if it’s not everything you hoped, then…”

“I’m sure it will be.”

“I’m sure it will be, too.” Luca entered then. “Glad to see you made it safely.”

Danny was always struck by his appearance, by the contrast between his long hair and beard and bland button-down shirt and slacks. Like the other Zorras he was short and thin, but his slight build was deceptive. Danny was sure that the dude who thought otherwise at that bar in 1985 still carried at least two scars from Luca’s knuckles.

"You knew what tonight was, didn't you?" Mary asked.

Danny surveyed the banquet table laden with all kinds of chocolates, a mix of European exports and vending-machine dreck from the celebrants various work sites.

"Chocolate night?"

"Let's get to it," Mary said, "and no talking."

So they lined up and revolved around the table munching.

The table cleaned, they sat around with Mary's coffee.

"All right, it's story time," she announced. "Everyone has to tell a story."

"If you're not too sick," Danny said.

"Are we too sick?"

"I'm not," Danny said.

"Okay, you start."

"I think I got one. I walk to work. I've been walking to work for the past ten years and on the way there there this one front yard that had a new tree planted. It was a pin oak sapling, and I looked forward to watching it grow. I thought that as I saw it grow I could mark my time at the plant. I looked forward to seeing it shed in the fall and re-leaf in the spring. Then one day it was gone. Just an empty hole was left there.

"So I had to go ask. Walking to work I was afraid to knock on the door. It was too early for one thing. But all day at work I got up my nerve and walking back home I saw the homeowner working on her garden. I stopped and said, 'I just have to ask. What happened to your tree?'

" 'Someone dug it up and stole it,' she said."

"And I was amazed. Who would do such a thing? And what gardener could be so dishonest as to fence stolen trees. And so everyday that I walked by that house I had to feel sad for the loss of my tree."

"Did she ever replace it?"

"No, I guess she figured someone would steal it again."

"Now who can top that?"

"I think I can," Carmine said. "When we were coming here on the Cristoforo Columbo we were standing on the deck and a flying fish flew right into my hands and I caught it. But then I threw it and it didn't go back into the sea. It went flying like a bird. We lost track of it in the air. And it was flying up. It was like it thought it was a bird. I wish they had cellphones with cameras back then. At least I have Nunzy and Dueshie to back me up."

"Anyone else?"

"I could," Josh said, "but it would be depressing."

"What about you Nunzo?"

"Well, I guess...One time Carmine and I were watching the news and then we went to a club and we saw the sportscaster and the weathercaster there in the same clothes they were in on TV, but they sat alone and no one came up to them and no one seemed to even recognize them. We were surprised to see them leaving alone, too."

"We're they hot?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Why didn't you guys go up to them?"

"Right. Two nerds going up to those babes. They just would have laughed."

"But no one else did?"

"Yeah, but we didn't feel like making the sacrifice."

"Okay, we got a tree that got stolen, a flying fishing, and two newscaster babes.Anyone else? What about you, Ducio?"

"Me? I got nothing."

"What about how you became an Episcopalian?"

"I already told you, didn't I? I wanted to get married."

"Can't you make it more interesting than that?"

"No, not really. I can't. What about you? Do you have an interesting story?"

"No, I don't think I do. I'm just like you."

"I got interesting stories."

"Then tell us one."

"A lot of it is confidential, part of my work as a counselor."

"Right."

"No, really. Okay, I do got one I can tell."

"Okay."

"I gave a funeral for a homeless person at the county cemetery. He was murdered, but he was still in the clothes he wore. It was a T-shirt they didn't cut off. And it had something like Joe's Body Shop and the number on it, but with no area code.

"So I said to the county official, 'Did you ever contact this number?' I don't even know why I asked, but he said he didn't know.

"So after the service, I got a list of area codes at the library and called that number with the first one. They answered, 'Joe's Body Shop,' but it was another name that I can't remember now. And I said, 'Hey, do you know -- ' and I said the guy's name, and there was this silence, and then the phone hangs up. So I went to the sheriff's and told them, but they didn't seem to care."

"Wow. That is something."

"I thought of investigating myself, of going to that place where the body shop was and deliberately wrecking my car or something to get an in, but I didn't."

"At least you thought of it. At least someone cared."

"Yeah, but I never followed through."

"What could you have done? You're a priest, not a cop."

"Yeah."

"What about you, Mrs. Zorra?"

"I don't know. Well, when I heard that Kennedy was killed I was crying, but I couldn't let my husband see that because he hated Kennedy. So I cut my thumb with my butcher knife and said I was crying from the pain. I still have the scar here. And that was fifty years ago."

"Let me see it.

"Here."

"Wow. Now, Nunzy, Duchie?"

"I'm thinking."

"So am I."

"Josh?"

"I guess my story can't be summed up in a vignette. When I was seventeen I had to move with my mom and Jane from a open-minded, gentle, accepting town to a closed-minded, hateful town. I didn't win. It beat me."

"That's sad."

"And now you're back in the town."

"It's not the same. It's not like I remember."

"Danny, you gotta tell one."

"Okay, I'll make a fool of myself. Last weekend in Philly I went to hear a band that some guys at work are in and I thought I'd just stay for one set, but then I met some ladies and they asked me if I wanted to go see another show. One of them was acting really interested in me, so I felt hopeful about that, but then we left for the other club. They all went together and I followed. Well, when I remet up with them at the show they were all acting real cold to me like they had discussed me on the way over and decided I was a loser."

"What do you think made them change their minds?"

"I have no idea. I wish I did."

"That happens all the time. Any more stories? Anyone, anyone? Okay, how about this. Tell about a time when you got overdressed for something? Silence? No one. Okay. How about the last time you guys walked out of a movie. Like it was so bad that you just walked out."

"I never have walked out of a movie."

"I haven't been to a movie in twenty years."

"Oh, you guys. Okay, how about a time you told a lie got away with it."

"I couldn't lie to my parents, so I didn't. I didn't have to. They were always understanding."

They were sitting on the three-foot-tall rock wall that formed a square the size of a classroom. A four-log fire crackled in the center. A full moon had been hung. Some had beers. A few had Cokes. Fewer had bottled water.

"Icebreaker: Tell about a time when you -- "

"No, no, icebreakers. Let's just chill and just say what we want to."

"I love this quiet."

"Was this going to be something. These walls look like they're part of a foundation."

"They were. But no one knows what for."

Silence.

A motor hummed in the distance, seemed to come closer.

"Is someone on a motorcycle coming here?"

"That's Toyota Camry."

"How do you know?"

"I don't. But I developed a superhero who could identify the make, year, and model of any vehicle just by listening to its motor. The only problem was just what could he do with that power? Nothing. So it never developed speed."

Silence.

The motor faded.

"Who knows a scary story?"

"I heard a good one on This American Life by Dave Eggers."

"Tell it."

"Won't that be a copyright violation?"

"You can't tell us about something you heard on the radio?"

"Okay. A family went camping on an isolated lakeside. When the rest of them were asleep, the teenage daughter got her journal and pen and got in their rowboat to row to an island in the middle of the lake where she could be alone. She rowed halfway there, about 500 feet from the shore, when she hears a knock on the wooden floor of the boat. She stops rowing. She hears the knock again. Knock. Knock. Knock. She waits. Another knock doesn't come. She continue rowing. Suddenly the boat stops. No matter how frantically she works the oars it won't go forward. She turns around and try to row back, but it is still stuck. She thinks of just jumping into the water and swimming, but she is afraid of whatever knocked on her boat. So she takes out her journal and writes in the moonlight. She relates what I just related.

"The next morning her family wakes up to find her gone. They find the rowboat in the middle of the lake with nothing in it but the oars and her journal.

"Her account in the journal has a conclusion. It is in her same pink ink, but it is a scrawl unlike her clear but shaky hand. Mud from the lake surrounds the final statement. It is, 'At least I knocked.' "

"Yikes."

"Scary."

"I'm never going to a lake again."

"I dare one of you to go alone into those woods."

"No way."

"I'll do it."

"I dare you."

"Don't do it."

"No, I'll do it."

"Someone stop him."

"Danny, you can't do that."

"No, I'll do it. I'll go into the woods."

"Carmine, Annunziato, don't let him go."

"She's right. I can't let you go in there."

"Get your hands off of me, you creep."

"You call me a creep."

"That's what I'm calling you."

"Then let's go in those woods, you and I together, and we'll see who comes back."

"Come on, you guys. No. I didn't mean for this to happen."

"No, is that what you think of me? You think I'm a creep?"

"Doesn't everybody?"

"Okay. I'll back off. I'm backing off. But all I wanna know is why you and everyone think I'm a creep."

"Okay, because you're just weird."

"Danny, he is not. He's very nice."

"Nice doesn't cut it in this world."

"That's sad, isn't it? Nice doesn't cut it."

"Sure, it's sad, but it's reality. Nice doesn't cut it in this world."

"Come on, fratello. He doesn't know what he's talking about."

"No, he does. I am a creep. I'm the guy who came knocking on that girl's boat."

"What are you talking about, Annunziato? That isn't true at all."

"How come no girls will go out with me?"

"My friend Sharon would."

"Yeah, but -- "

"Yeah, but what. Was it because she stutters?"

"No."

"Then why? What was it?"

"What was that?"

"It sounded like a knock."

"No."

"Who is that?"

"Run."

"No. It's okay. Who are you, Sir?"

"I'm homeless, and I live in those woods. I got my tent set up there and I don't feel like moving it. I just wondered if you folks could find somewhere else to party."

"You can join us."

"I need some sleep. I'm heading to Philly tomorrow."

"That's where I came from, well from Pittsburgh."

"Really. Do you think I could ride with you?"

"Danny, no."

"I guess so. You seem like a gentleman."

"Danny, no way."

"No, if she objects."

"She's not going with us."

"I may. I thought about it."

"Look, sorry to disturb all of you. I'll just pack up my tent and find some place that's quiet."

"No, you can stay with us."

"No."

"It's Christmas. He can stay with us."

"We don't know him."

"Look. I won't be a bother anymore. And, dude, you're not a creep. I'm the creep, but not you."

"Thanks."

"This is some party. Should we all just call it a night or try again."

"Let's try again."

"I know. Let's have everybody tell their favorite ice cream color and then the person sitting next to you has to eat it."

"That sounds as good as anything we've done tonight."

"So are we on. There's a Marble Slab just down the street."

"Will it be open now?"

"Sure, it's open. I already went and they said they are."

"Okay, let's do that then."

"Hey, look, Annunziato, I'm sorry I called you a creep. I don't know what got into me. You're not a creep. I am."

"No, you're not."

"No, how about both of you are."

"Okay, I'll buy that."

"So will I."

"Okay, now we're off to the Marble Slab."

News stories you have to see to not believe

2012-01-09T17:16:00.000-08:00

Do you believe what you read in the paper? Do you even read the paper? I do read it, influenced by my parents to never let a day go by without reading what a French writer called a "tissue of the grotesque." I tried to find the exact quote on Google but couldn't.

Over the last few decades that I've been regularly following the news, mainly because I have nothing else to do amid a frequently solitary existence, I've come across some startling news stories that you'd think would presage a major problem. Instead I never hear of them again.

In the spring of 1976 investigative journalist Jack Anderson wrote that federal officials were worried about terrorist attacks against the Bicentennial by Rastafarians. That's right. In 1976, according to Anderson, the Ford Administration thought Bob Marley fans were going to commit mayhem against crowds entertained by hams in Revolutionary outfits. I never heard about that concern again after reading Anderson's article though. Googling "Rastafarians attacking Bicentennial," I received no hits on the first page.

In the spring of 1982 the Albuquerque Journal told me that hospitals were going to be faced with ants overrunning them. The article said it wouldn't be a problem of a few ants found crawling where food is spilled. It said that a dangerous level of ants would inundate hospitals. I thought I'd be hearing more about that, about how hospitals were staffing all floors with exterminators around the clock or something, but after that article I never heard anything about it again. I googled "ants in hospitals" and found nothing in the first page of hits.

In the summer of 1986 the New York Times told me that a new problem in the asinine South was something they called "falling-down-in-the-road deaths." The article said that many people in the South who lost their licenses because of DWIs were then walking to bars, getting drunk, walking home, falling in the road drunk, and getting run over. That doesn't seem too far-fetched. And if it was happening it should have been a major new social concern. But after that article I never heard anything about the matter. I googled "falling down in the road deaths" and received no hits.

More recently the Austin-American Statesman told me in 2008 that Obama was involved in a Ping-Pong scandal. The article said that while he was state senator Obama pushed through legislation that gave subsidies to a company that made DVDs of Ping-Pong tournaments. It implied or maybe even stated outright that Obama got some kind of reward, like a hefty campaign donation. Reading it at the time, I knew I would never hear about it again and I haven't. Googling "Obama and Ping-Pong," I received three hits, none about that issue. One was for barackobama.com.

There's another news story I read that I never heard about again -- or I did but not in the way I expected. In the early 2000s I read that one of the accused in the DC-area snipings was about to confess to state authorities, but then federal authorities suddenly barged in and said, He's ours," and took him away, squelching the moment for the confession that the state cops had built up. Later I read that that the story was one of the many fictions dreamed up by Jayson Blair and published by the New York Times before they caught on to his lying.

From time to time I've wondered what would prevent a reporter from just making something up. Who would there to be check on it really? Sure, there's editors, but they rarely have another source for comparison. They mainly look for errors in grammar or inconsistencies.

When I was a reporter in one of New Mexico's major cities -- a huge town of 90,000 -- I would come back from the police station with some pretty incredible stories -- like the cop who jumped in his car and locked himself in at the sight of a rat. And why they would want to include that in their police blotter is anyone's guess. Why I would write it up for publication is another mystery. Why our managing editor killed it isn't. The city editor did flat out accuse me of making stuff up, but I never did.

But we do know now that Jayson Blair spun out fantasies for New York Times readers. Who knows how many other reporters do the same? I guess I'm pretty naive. Mostly everyone else knows that what you read in the paper isn't true. I'm just a slow learner.

Haunted London

2012-01-06T08:39:00.000-08:00

She appeared to me in combat boots, faded jeans, a paisley shirt
Asking
When does this store open?

I told her
When the owner feels like it

I'm looking
she said
for a book about haunted London

And I could have said
I know a few places that are haunted
But didn't
Said instead
You'll just have to wait

And the owner showed
in the same olive-drab sweater
and faded beige slacks
And opened the store

A Texan in Nebraska

2012-01-05T08:44:00.000-08:00

I got sidetracked somehow
Car broken down
Train derailed
Balloon deflated
Something like that

And went knocking on a Nebraska farmhouse door
Answered by a man my age with an infant in arm
He asked me in
To a warm living room
Where I proceeded

To brag about my output as a novelist
1 cent a word, five dollars a page, 3 rubles an idea
And he patted the infant's back
and said
I bet I can raise him up to write a novel that --

Will make me quit writing novels
I finished for him
And he said
Yeah
And I said I bet you can't

And he said I bet I can
And then offered me lemonade, a Pepsi, or whiskey
I took the whiskey