As Might be Seen on TV

Scented Nose Cover

OPEN ON shot of woman changing a baby's diaper, looking as if she is about to pass out from the smell.  The woman is wearing no makeup, her hair is messy and she is wearing an apron that is falling off her shoulders.

ANNOUNCER (VOICEOVER):  Oh, those putrid odors!

CUT TO shot of a well-dressed man on a New York City subway platform, holding his nose.

ANNOUNCER (VOICEOVER):  Bad odors!

CUT TO shot of woman mopping a linoleum floor, using bleach, with her hand over her nose.

ANNOUNCER (VOICEOVER):  Strong, bad odors!  Don't you wish you could find a way to get rid of them for good?

CUT TO shot of announcer, standing in a field of flowers

ANNOUNCER:  Your search is over.  I would like to introduce you to Smell-B-Gon, the scented nose cover.

Large image of plastic nose appears in top left corner of screen.  The plastic nose is equipped with what looks like two little oxygen tubes on the bottom.

Oops!  Wrong Nose!  But you get the idea.

CUT TO man on subway platform, who is pouring a liquid from a tiny bottle into a Smell-B-Gon, then putting it on his nose and inserting it, after which he takes a deep breath and looks happy and refreshed.

ANNOUNCER (VOICEOVER):  Just squirt a tiny bit of scented oil into the tube, insert it into your nose, and presto!  No more bad smells!  You will be instantly transported to an aromatic garden, laden with your favorite flowers.

CUT TO picture of four different plastic noses of different shades and four little vials of liquid of different colors.

ANNOUNCER (VOICEOVER):  Smell-B-Gon comes in four different skin tones, to match your natural coloring, and we include four fragrance vials:  lilac; jasmine; rose and mystery.  You can get all of this for just $19.99 plus shipping and handling.

Something like this, just not as old and a lot cheaper.

But wait!  There's more!

WRITING appears on the screen, showing 2 for 1 offer, 800 number and website URL.

ANNOUNCER (VOICEOVER):  You can receive an additional Smell-B-Gon and fragrance set absolutely free.  Just pay the additional shipping and handling.  And if you order within the next 20 minutes we will include, absolutely free, our two special fragrances:  antique mimeograph ink and antique model airplane glue.

CUT TO woman lifting baby from changing table.  This time her hair is styled, she is wearing makeup, she is well dressed and she has a Smell-B-Gon in her nose and she is smiling.  The 800 number and the website URL appear on the bottom of the screen.

WOMAN WITH BABY (speaking as if she has a cold):  Smell-B-Gon has changed my life!

(Woman holds the baby up and rubs noses with him.)

ANNOUNCER (VOICEOVER):  So don't let bad smells get you down.  Get Smell-B-Gon today.

Ten Signs that You are a Catholic of "A Certain Age"

1.  While saying the Rosary, your mind wanders and you get mixed up counting the prayers on the beads.  You say an extra Hail Mary at the end of the decade, just to make sure you got all ten of them in.

2.  You once told a priest what you thought was a pretty big sin in the confessional and were both relieved and surprised when he only gave you a penance of five Our Fathers and didn’t tell you that you were going to burn in hell for what you did, which is what your mother said when she caught you at it.

3.  You still have your old First Communion picture but you never show it to anyone because people laugh at it.

4.  You express exasperation by raising your eyes and hands to the ceiling and making the Sign of the Cross.  If you are Italian, you accompany this by saying, “Madonna Mia!”

5.  You bring your dog to the blessing of the animals on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi and pray that he'll behave (the dog, not St. Francis).

6.  You have a go-to saint for just about anything:  St. Francis of Assisi for your pet(s); St. Anthony of Padua for finding lost items; St. Jude for impossible cases; etc.  You carry little prayer cards around in case you have a sudden urgent need for help from a heavenly specialist.

7.  You had a little glow-in-the-dark angel statue in your bedroom when you were a kid, and another little statue of the Infant of Prague.  You prayed to your guardian angel every night before getting into bed, and you gave your guardian angel a name.  (Mine was "Nina.")

8.  You can still remember, word for word, some of the questions and answers from the Baltimore Catechism.

9.  You can sing “O Salutaris Hostia,” “Tantum Ergo,” “Ave Verum Corpus,” “Panis Angelicus” and an entire Gregorian mass in flawless Latin, but you have a sketchy idea, at best, of what the words mean.

10. You still wonder if the nuns who taught you in school had to shave their heads.

 

And she's really tired of being asked that question.

***************

Have you ever thought about opera and wondered if it could actually be entertaining?

No?

Well, if you want some good laughs at the art of opera and the world of the people who perform it, there is my new book, Opera for People Who Don't Like It.

The Halls of Genetically Altered Ivy

Colleges and universities are institutions of learning; at least that's what they're supposed to be.  Some of them are better at this than others, just as some students are better at learning than others.

I wonder what it would be like if extracurricular activities and campus escapades were factored into a student's final grade point average.

Let us take a sentimental journey back to June, 1968.  I will use my writer's license, and place myself in this story.  I am a 22 year old kid, about to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Music.  My academic advisor has called me into his office for a meeting.

(My real advisor was happy that he was finally going to get me out of his hair, and I was eager to get my degree and go on to graduate school.  Having a final meeting didn't occur to either one of us.  But I'm a writer, and I can make up anything I want to make up, even if it is a flat lie.)

By the way, all of the names in the story are fake except for mine, and any resemblance to anyone except me, living or dead, is an accident.  So don't try to figure out who I am trying to disguise, because I am not trying to disguise anyone.  Okay?

DR. GRIDAFORTE:  Well, I see you have been studying hard, at least.

ME:  Yes.  I have made the Honor Roll every quarter for the last two years.  I am going to graduate with honors.

DR. GRIDAFORTE:  Good for you.  But it looks like you have been spending so much time studying and getting good grades that you have neglected the rest of your education.

ME:  Excuse me?

DR. GRIDAFORTE:  You never tried to pledge a sorority.  Why?

ME:  I mentioned to the leader of one of the sororities that I'd like to join, and she hyperventilated.  Every time I saw her after that she would faint.  I thought it best not to pursue the matter.

DR. GRIDAFORTE (giving me a very funny look):  You did pledge the sophomore coed service group, but I don't see any more details.

ME:  They turned me down.  I think that's because when they asked me why I wanted to join I said, "I figured you were hard up for members."

DR. GRIDAFORTE (laughing):  That’s a good one.  So okay.  You were a mentor to an incoming freshman once.  What happened to that?

ME:  I met with her once, she figured out that I wasn’t part of the cool crowd, and she wasn’t interested in being my mentee.  I figured to hell with her.  I had better things to do, anyway, like trying to get all A’s in at least one quarter.

DR. GRIDAFORTE:  Hmmm.  Okay.  I see that you would never toss your underwear out the window when the boys staged a panty raid.

ME:  I threw a pair out to them once, and they just tossed it on the grass.  That was the only pair they threw away like that.  I wasn’t going to waste more underwear on them.

DR. GRIDAFORTE:  It says here that you would never join any serpentine that came by your dorm.

ME:  I love to go to games and I love to cheer, but being shanghaied and kidnapped into a line of screaming college kids just to have a good rally … those kids were scary!  It was like being sucked into a wind tunnel with the wind set on “hurricane.”

DR. GRIDAFORTE:  Okay.  I’ll give you that one.  But I’m afraid that your failure to take advantage of more of the fun of going to college is going to bring your grade point average down from an A- average to a C.

ME:  But … but … I’ll never get into graduate school that way!

DR. GRIDAFORTE:  You should have thought of that before you decided to be a nerd.

ME:  No!  Please!  I’ll do anything!

DR. GRIDAFORTE:  Wait a minute.  I just saw something.  Did you really hang two of your professors in effigy outside their offices two days ago?

ME:  Yes.  I apologized to both of them.  Fortunately, they both got the joke and they are still laughing.

DR. GRIDAFORTE (laughing hard):  This is priceless!  You’re okay now.  You’re safe.  That caper erases all the failure of the last four years.  You can keep your GPA.

ME:  Oh, thank you!  Thank you!  I’ll never forget this!

DR. GRIDAFORTE:  By the way, you are very funny.  Have you ever thought of becoming a humor writer?

ME:  No.  I want to be an opera singer.

DR. GRIDAFORTE:  Suit yourself.

For the sake of academic excellence and campus sanity, it’s a good thing that this could never happen.

Typical College Student
Living Environment

***************

Have you ever thought about opera and wondered if it could actually be entertaining?

No?

Well, if you want some good laughs at the art of opera and the world of the people who perform it, there is my new book, Opera for People Who Don't Like It.

Superstition Shmuperstition

I live with danger every day.  At least, some people think I do.  I am a superstition flouter.

Take chain letters and chain emails.  I hate those things.  It's easy to get one started.  All you need are a basic ability to write in a fairly coherent manner, a vivid imagination and several gullible friends.  That thing will go viral in about two days.  It's like a global game of Telephone.  By the time the letter gets around, enough has probably been added to or subtracted from it to make it even scarier than the original.  Get around it will, too, because, even with the non-superstitious, there is something in one corner of one little brain cell that says, "You will be toast if you don't pass this on to at least 20 people within the next 30 minutes."  So, just to be on the safe side, they pass the letter on and on and it ends up in my inbox.

I take one look, and delete it.  To prevent any evil from descending on me, I say a prayer.  Then I spend the next couple of weeks wondering if I'm going to be hit by a bus or come down with Bubonic Plague.

This is all you need to get a chain
letter traveling around the world.

Black cats are beautiful, and I would love to adopt one someday, if my present cat, Harmony (a brown tabby) allows it.  There's no living on the edge here.  Well, I take that back.  Living with any cat is living on the edge.  They are clever little critters, as well as being fast, limber, athletic and able to squeeze into small spaces and hide, and they take great pleasure in outwitting their humans.

A clever, fast, limber, athletic
creature plotting to outwit her
human

​I don't make a habit of walking under ladders, but that has nothing to do with superstition.  I just don't want any of them to fall on me.  If I'm in a crowd, though, and the fastest way to walk past people is under a ladder, I will walk under it, after first assessing how sturdy it looks and reassuring myself that I am not going to be flattened by collapsing metal followed by whoever is climbing the ladder when it falls on me.

I never throw salt over my shoulder.  I even forget why people do that.  It seems silly, because (1) it’s a waste of perfectly good salt, and (2) someone will just have to clean it up off the floor.  If I were the mother of the house, the roommate or the hostess, the salt thrower would have the choice of cleaning it up or getting more salt shoved up his nose.  At least, that’s what I’d be thinking while getting out the broom and dustpan.

I find it hard to believe that everybody in the whole world who was born under the sign of Pisces is going to have the same kind of day that I will have.  So why the daily horoscopes?

I could go on with this, but I think I have aroused some angry spirits with this post, and it’s better to quit while I’m still ahead.

You Can't Take Me Anywhere

I come from a long, proud line of sturdy Italian peasants on my father's side.  On my mother's side, I come from a long line of equally proud and sturdy Northern European peasants, with a few Jews mixed in to make it interesting.  Unless there was some inter-class hanky-panky going on that we don't know about, I don't have a single blue blood among my ancestors.

That's fine with me.

You can take the girl out of the beer and pretzels crowd, but you can't take the beer and pretzels crowd out of the girl.  You can educate me, send me all over the world and pound good manners into me until my brain explodes.  I'm still going to feel the most at home with people who don't mind if I talk loud or get barbecue sauce on my tee shirt or take a second helping of linguine, and who understand when I tell them that my favorite comedian is Jeff Foxworthy and that Pat Cooper's Italian Wedding routine is drop-dead hilarious.

I have also been known to burst into one of my extensive repertoire of Neapolitan songs while waiting for a table at an Italian restaurant.  This embarrasses my dinner companions, but at least it isn't boring.

Then there is the financial aspect.  Nobody in my family has ever been able to make a lot of money, and I have inherited the family curse.  I have more money now than ever before, but that just means that I am no longer living hand to mouth and panicking when a paycheck is late.  Still, my income puts me smack into the lower middle class.

Girl in Middle:  "If I say the word I'm thinking, Mom will lock me in the closet."

My mother and her mother, my Grandma, were what you might call genteel working class.  They had fine manners, they never used strong language and they always acted like ladies.  They tried to teach me to be the same, with varying degrees of success.  In fact, there was a general campaign in those days to cram gentility into reluctant kids:

"Don't chew with your mouth open."

"Don't you use that language, young man, or I'll wash your mouth out with soap!"

"Say 'Please' or you don't get anything."

"Get up and give your seat to that old lady.  NOW!"

Remember this one?

"Kathy, Kathy, strong and able,

Get your elbows off the table.

This is not a horse's stall;

This is called a dining hall."

On the other hand, my family thought it was cute and funny when my sister entertained us at the dinner table with her ability to burp on command.  Fortunately, she grew out of that before we all got tired of it and told her to find some other talent to perfect.[1]

As for me, I have ended up a strange combination of highbrow and redneck.  I have read both "Pride and Prejudice" and "Valley of the Dolls."  I love the music of Beethoven and the music of Billy Joel and Hank Williams, whose music was coming out of the radio when I was growing up.  I will never, ever put a talking fish plaque on the wall of my apartment, but I find them amusing in a store.  From years of hanging around with other performers, I have learned to spice my language with a few four-letter words now and then (which would have embarrassed my mother and given my grandmother a heart attack if they had ever heard me say those words), but I still hesitate when I’m about to use the “F” word.  I wear jeans to church, along with half the rest of the congregation, but not when I’m in front of the congregation, singing.

I will give a seat on the subway to a pregnant woman ...

Well, I guess some of my Mom's training paid off.

I have just published a new book called "Opera for People Who Don't Like it."  It is published by Humor Outcasts Press, and is available on Amazon.com.  It is a funny look at the world of opera, from the perspective of someone who has spent a few decades singing it.

---

[1] My father could wind spaghetti around his fork just by lifting it up in the air and turning it.  He learned that from his Italian parents, obviously.  I never did get the hang of that, although I tried.  I can eat with chopsticks, though, if there is no silverware around and I’m really starving.

Life in My Corner

When most people think of The Bronx, they picture rundown, dangerous neighborhoods with drug dealers, junkies and gangs shooting at each other and hitting everyone else, in between selling crack to first graders, beating up old ladies and scaring the hell out of everyone.  They picture a borough populated with thugs and hookers and dropouts, with a few terrified normal working class people here and there.

Remember The Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe?  If you've read the book, you'll know to what I am referring.  If you have not read it, please do.  It's a great novel. 

Okay.  There are some areas of The Bronx that are not so fine, but the same can be said for almost everywhere else on earth.  Why should The Bronx be any different?

Oh, but we have our nice areas, too.  Yes, we do.  I ought to know.

A Friendly Neighborhood

I live in a section of The Bronx called Kingsbridge.  It used to be an Irish neighborhood, and some of the Irish are still around, most of them older people.  Now it is heavily Hispanic, mostly Dominican.  It's a friendly neighborhood.  I am used to being called “Mami” by everyone from church choir members to the man who sells flavored ices on the street on hot summer days.  I’m one of his steady customers.

There are only a few Italians in the neighborhood and, in true Italian fashion, most of them live almost next door to each other, on the same two streets.

Someone once told me that New York City cops love to be assigned to our local precinct because so little happens here.  No, we are not completely crime free, but we're pretty close to it, as big city neighborhoods go.  I suspect that one reason for this might be the two huge churches, one Anglican Episcopalian and one Roman Catholic, that stand on the same block on Kingsbridge Avenue, reminding potential evildoers of where they will end up if they rob a corner grocery store and get killed right afterward before they get a chance to repent.  To add strength to the message, the Catholic church has pre-recorded bells that ring at certain times.  If the sight of two giant churches doesn't put the fear of God into a sinner, those bells will.

The neighborhood is mostly Roman Catholic, which isn't surprising in a Latino/Irish neighborhood.  The result is that the Catholic church, The Church of St. John/Visitation, has a huge congregation, most of whom don't know each other, although you'd never know that because of the size of the crowd and the volume of the chatter on the sidewalk in front of the church after mass.

Sunset on Kingsbridge Avenue.  Notice the two churches.

Catholics are required to go to mass on Sundays and special Holy Days.  Those are the rules.  A lot of Catholics don't pay attention to the rules, especially when they involve getting up early on a Sunday morning.  Special days like Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Easter and Christmas are an exception.  Many Catholics who never open the doors of a church at any other time will show up religiously on those occasions.  The population inside the church grows exponentially on those days, as does the crowd on the sidewalk after mass.  I have tried to walk through that crowd.  The uncharitable thoughts that run through my mind when it takes me five minutes to walk a few feet, including trying to avoid photobombing several people, are not the kind that a person should be thinking in front of a church.

​

The Anglican/Episcopal church, two doors over from St. John/Visitation, is the Church of the Mediator.  Being an Episcopal parish in a working class Roman Catholic neighborhood means that their congregation is small and they don't have much money.  They have to raise money in other ways beside the usual collection baskets, raffles, bake sales and flea markets.  As a result, there is always something going on over there.  They have a farmer's market on Sundays.  They host martial arts classes, concerts and plays.  Their basement is the local voting precinct.  These things give the Catholics from two doors over plenty of reason to visit the Episcopal church and spend their money, which makes the Episcopalians happy.​

A few years back, the Church of the Mediator sold a chunk of their property to a real estate developer, who built some luxury condos.  Apparently, nobody told the developer that building expensive luxury housing in a Dominican neighborhood, next door to a church, two blocks from a noisy elevated subway line and an easy walk to corner bodegas, a couple of donut shops, several dollar stores, a couple of Dunkin Donuts, a McDonald's, a couple of gas stations, three diners, at least two Caribbean restaurants, a Korean greengrocer, who knows how many hair salons and manicure places and a couple of Chinese variety stores -- places that sort of scream "working class ethnic neighborhood" -- would not be a good idea.  So who moved in?  A clinic, a medical imaging place, etc.

The neighborhood is temporarily saved from being gentrified, which is fine with me.

View of the Elevated Subway Tracks

The Ancient Deities Support Society and Dysfunctional Family Primal Therapy Group

I have also posted this on HumorOutcasts.com.

I have an unfinished novel that I plan to finish eventually.  I don’t know when this will be.  It will be sooner if I don’t get sidetracked with other projects.

In the meantime, I thought I would have some fun with a few of the minor characters.  Here goes.

Welcome, everybody to the first meeting of The Ancient Deities Support Society.  I am SO excited that Mum decided to form this group and to make me the leader.  The life of an ancient deity in the 21^st Century is not easy.  My name is Hebe, and I am a goddess.

A minor one.

Who said that?

I did.

I might have known it was you.  I can smell the wine on your breath all the way over here.

You always had the biggest nose on Olympus!

(Laughter)

Dionysus, I told you to leave my daughter alone!

(Whispering and snickers around the room)

Oh, Hera, I cannot do that.  Hebe is such a … how do you call it … spoiled little snob.  All those boring emails she sends to us!  OOF-AH!  And now you make us come to this meeting!  Managgia!  And don’t call me Dionysus!  I am Bacchus!

I will ignore everything you say because you are drunk.

(Sounds of “Ooh!” from other attendees)

And you are the son of a whore, you … you … Italian bastard!

My mother was not a whore!  My mother was a saint!  She was loved by a god – your father.  I am your brother, you little idiot!

MUMMY!!  Make him stop!

It’s alright, Hebe.  There, there, Dear.   Don’t cry.  Just pretend he isn’t here.  You’re doing fine.

Yes, Mummy.  As I was saying, the life of an ancient deity in the 21^st Century is not easy.  My name is Hebe and … never mind.

Snort

Just ignore him, Dear.

This is boring.

This group has been set up to offer help, support and solace to any of us who are experiencing difficulties in this modern age.  Who would like to be the first to share?

I had great difficulty to get here and am now having difficulty to stay awake!

Shut up, Dionysus!  You are disrupting the meeting and making it hard for everyone else!

(Someone shouts, “You tell him, Hera!”  Everyone else giggles.)

Bacchus!  I am Bacchus!  I live in Italy now many centuries.  I grow the best Chianti in the world and the second best olive oil.  I don’t like my Greek name anymore.  And you want to make this group only to keep track of us and make us miserable!

How would you like to be hung by your feet from a cloud?

How would you like me to tell your husband Zeus what you were doing with those two cabana boys last summer?

I wasn’t doing anything with anybody!

I know.  But Zeus does not know that!

(The room explodes in laughter.)

That’s it!  I can’t take any more of this!

Where are you going, Young Lady?  Come back here this instant!

I’m going out for a beer!