SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME – the book

My first year of college was in West by Gawd, Virginia. I had a glorious football career that lasted a game and a half before destroying one of my knees. At the time, knee surgery was an act of absolute barbarism, so the football career went south.

I transferred to a university in Washington by Gawd, DC. I’m withholding the name for reasons that may become clear later. Why this particular university? I don’t know. They accepted my application, that much I know.

My first roommate there was from Bangkok, Thailand. He barely spoke English. He knew some English words but badly needed help to enunciate them.

The first time I walked into my dorm room, I saw him sitting on his bed, staring at the wall like a man facing a firing squad.

I said, “Hey, I’m Drew.”

He looked at me with a facial expression that screamed, “Please don’t chop my head off.”

We stared at each other for twenty seconds. The guy gave the impression that he had PTSD.  He didn’t qualify as meek. He was two rungs below meek.

I asked, “So, what’s your name?”

His reply was, “Sah-hor.”

“Do what?” 

“Sah-hor.”

“Gesundheit.”

“Sah-hor.”

“Sah-hor?”

“Sah-hor.”

“Uh, right. Are you positive it’s Sah-hor? Here. Tell you what. Write it down….oh, STANFORD.”

He said that’s the name his father gave him to use in the States.

Couldn’t he have named you Bob instead? How will you get out of the parking lot if you can’t say your first name?

I thought that. I didn’t say it. I wanted to.

We spent the next hour learning to verbalize, in some practical way, “Stanford.”

I’m convinced he suffered major traumas thanks to his unlovely family. If you think your family is dysfunctional, let me tell you about Stanford’s family. Dear Old Dad made a name for himself by playing a consequential role in the 1976 Thammasat University Massacre, where students were publicly hanged because their political opinions miffed rogue paramilitary groups. 

When I say “consequential role,” I mean “ran the whole shit show.” That massacre was his baby. It must have been the first item listed under “accomplishments” on his CV. His reward was a high-paying job with the Thai government’s new regime.

Early in Stanford’s life, his mother tumbled off the side of a mountain during a tender and secluded moment with his father. It must have been a steep mountain because no one ever found her. Fortunately for the father, Mom’s abundant cash savings didn’t fall with her. 

Stanford’s older sister proudly supported her father in his noble pursuit of bumping off those students who were stupid enough to think for themselves. Her reward was a high-paying job as Dad’s assistant. Part of her job was sleeping with various Thai government officials because, in terms of leverage, extortion was always preferred to bribery. 

Stanford’s older brother found rewarding employment as a local leg breaker for the Yakuza, Japan’s mafia. Now, you may wonder what the Japanese mafia is doing in Thailand and how a Thai citizen worked for them. I had those questions, too. I don’t know what it is like these days, but in the 1970s, according to Stanford, every crime syndicate had a thriving branch office in Thailand. He rattled off a few, including the Chinese Triads, the Cosa Nostra, and every mafia family worldwide. The Irish Mob had a presence—the Irish Mob in Thailand. 

A sizable disappointment in my life is not seeing the day the Irish Mob showed up in Thailand ready for a turf war. Can you imagine a better premise for a Netflix series?

Episode One: The Irish Mob Arrives in Bangkok and Causes a Riot Because the Boiled Bacon and Cabbage in Bangkok is Disgusting. 

Episode Two: The Irish Mob Causes a Prison Riot Because There’s Only One Bathroom in the Cell, and They All Have the Runs on Accounta the Boiled Bacon and Cabbage.

I’ll stop there but think of the possibilities.

The French Hell’s Angels set up shop in Thailand. I am not kidding. Stanford said French Hell’s Angels were roaming Bangkok’s mean streets. That’s right. France has Hell’s Angels, which is another Netflix series.

When Stanford mentioned the French Hell’s Angels, it took me two minutes to stop laughing. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on, Stanford. French Hell’s Angels? Come on. Instead of muscle shirts, they wear cute, fitted mainières with matching scarves, right? Their idea of looting is stealing snails, espresso machines, and corkscrews. Wait, there’s more. Instead of helmets, they wear magenta berets from Christian Dior. Their idea of raising Hell is sashaying down the Rue des Champs-Élysées on mopeds, terrorizing cafe patrons by playing accordions, and frightening children with painfully bad pantomimes. When it’s time for a serious rumble, they bring a nice Merlot, plenty of brie noir, and desks to hide under. Shut up, I’m on a roll. Their weapons of choice are baguettes, and their rebellion against social norms consists of bathing. On the back of their leather jackets, it says, ‘Hell’s Angels, France: We Were Just Leaving.’”

Even Stanford found the idea of French Hell’s Angels humorous.

At any rate, the rest of his family did not think highly of Stanford’s non-criminal and non-violent lifestyle. He was too law-abiding for their purposes. Instead of flinging him off a mountain, he was sent to the other side of the planet. 

The father ordered Stanford to teach himself English in sixty days before shipping him off to school in DC. He was instructed to major in pre-med and only get an A in every subject.

Learning English took me over sixty days, but that’s me. I’m slow on the uptake. I understand that. Still, Stanford was ill-equipped to start in Pre-Med because the terminology in that world has got to get weird in a hurry. 

Hell, High School Biology has crap like “phosphorylation,” “phototropism,” “homeostasis,” exoskeleton,” and “mitochondria.” Just because I remember those words doesn’t mean I know what they are. I’m confident they’re great things to have around. Still, if, for instance, you gave me a box of homeostasis for my birthday, I’d probably put it in the basement with the other gifts. I don’t know what to do with it. If I knew you’d be visiting, then I’d put it in the living room so you could see that the homeostasis you gave was a truly prized possession.

Stanford had to figure out a lot of Pre-Med terminology. He learned science in Bangkok and knew the subject, but not in English, so he had a lot of catching up to do.

A lot.

Stanford’s father devised an excellent strategy to help his son. It wasn’t a tutor. It wasn’t an English teacher. It wasn’t a light class schedule for his first semester. No, the bright idea was for Stanford to stay awake and study as close to 24 hours a day as possible. Being quite thoughtful, Dad sent him speed to the tune of five hundred Black Beauties with the instruction to take as many as necessary. Five hundred pills were just for a single semester. That works out to five per day. In modern terms, five hundred Black Beauties equals two thousand 10mg tablets of Adderall.

Think about that. Five Black Beauties is around twenty Adderals per day. Black Beauties were illegal in the US. In Thailand, not so much (I guess). 

In those days, Black Beauties were standard issue for college students during final exams. If you took one a day for three consecutive days, you could stay up all three days and be on your game for taking exams.

That was the good news.

The bad news was if you started throwing down more than one a day or decided to take 500 of them over four months, then deep shit would be in your near future. Too many Black Beauties can turn your brain into low-grade sludge.

I don’t know what college campus life is like now, but in the mid-to-late 1970s, students had hot and cold running pot, speed, mushrooms, and cocaine in their rooms.

And booze. A lot of booze.

The attitude among the students was that you managed your consumption and had to know when to stop. It was up to you to avoid an overdose. There was no way to transfer liability. Overdoing it was altogether on you. In an initiative-taking sense, it was unlikely anyone would intervene on your behalf.

It’s not like today, where you can run around town, get prescriptions of Percocet from twenty doctors, take twenty pills per day, and, once you were hopelessly addicted, blame the pharmacy, the doctors, the manufacturers, your employer, and government officials because you took all this Percocet for medicinal purposes only and, yes, the pill bottles tell you to take one every 12 hours but you weren’t aware of this because the print on the bottles was too small and, as we all know, your eye-sight is badly affected when you have a sprained ankle, besides it’s rather presumptuous of the doctors to assume you’ll remember that they told you to only take one every 12 hours, especially considering you had to go to twenty doctors to get these prescriptions and, based on the volume of saliva running down your chin, the pharmacist should have known you were taking too many Percocet, plus your employer didn’t have adequate support services in place because you were constantly calling in sick so the HR department must have known you were hooked on the stuff, then there’s the Percocet manufacturer who should have been following you around to verify you didn’t take too many Percocet, and where was the government during all this, because you were only taking them for medicinal purposes which means you’re the victim and deserve a lot of money for the pain and heartache so you can go get more Percocet.

Back in the day, the attitude was, “Medicinal purposes? Yeah, right.” 

Stanford had no idea what he was about to take, so I thought I’d let him know to go easy on the Black Beauties. I wasn’t about to say he shouldn’t take them. I took them. It was not a lot, but I also had finals to prepare for. 

“Uh, yeah. Stanford, this is some serious shit.”

I had to explain the “serious shit” concept. That took a while.

“Look, Stanford. Your father must have told you about these….No? Great, great. Of course not. Take too many of these, and you’ll end up like the piece of bacon on the bottom of the package.”

I had to explain the “piece of bacon on the bottom of the package” concept. That took a while.

As it related to Black Beauties and personal longevity, I painted the worst possible scenario for Stanford and left it at that.

Stanford had other concerns. “Hare eh pre-ed crasses?”

“Huh? Tell you what, Stanford. Here’s a notebook and some pens. Nobody is gonna understand one fuckin’ word you say. You’re gonna have to write it down, starting with what you just said.”

He wanted to know where his classes were located on campus. 

Did they drop him into this room from a helicopter? How long has he been sitting here wondering, “What am I supposed to do now?” He must feel like he just landed on Mars. If no one showed up, he’d be sitting here all semester waiting for someone to tell him where his classes were.

I needed to go across campus to the college radio station. (I managed it for a couple of years. The school paid my tuition, which was nice because, without the money, I wouldn’t have been able to afford The Deisel Institute.)

“Look, I need to go to the Student Union. I can show you where your classes are. Let’s get outta here. Lemme see your class schedule.” He handed it to me. “Six full-time classes? Whoa. Okay. Look, six classes is a lot for someone who speaks the language. How are you gonna manage this?”

“Haf work har haf ooh pahs.”

“Yeah, take that notebook and pen with you everywhere you go. If you go to the bathroom, take both with you. This notebook and pen are your lifeline. You’ll be dead without them.”

When considering college campuses, you might envision a beautiful, scenic, pleasant, spacious, and pastoral setting. Well, no. This university is in Washington, DC. It is a four-square-block concrete jungle. In those days, the campus was in rough shape. It was a dump. There was plenty of crime, trash, poverty, fear, loathing, people sleeping on the street, and pedestrian fatalities. I mention all this because no one was in a genial frame of mind, and Stanford would not find anyone willing to help him. If he stopped someone to ask for help, then the best he could hope for was to be robbed and run over by a car going 100 miles per hour through a red light.

It’s a lot nicer now.

So, we walked out of the dorm and onto campus. I drew an informal map, and we walked to the various buildings. Stanford wrote meticulous instructions to himself, including the number of steps from one building to another.

One week into the semester, Stanford had slept for an impressive total of sixteen minutes. He looked mighty ragged, what with Stanford now being a certified, card-carrying speed freak. I suggested he check into a hospital, which wasn’t welcome advice. Instead, he called Dear Old Dad and mentioned having trouble falling asleep. The father did the responsible thing and sent Stanford enough quaaludes to put the entire Seventh Fleet to sleep for a month. Dad’s instructions were to take plenty of speed during the day, take a couple of quaaludes around midnight, wake up at 5 am, and take some speed. The inevitable result was you had two versions of Stanford – the one you had to peel off the ceiling and the one you had to scrape off the floor. 

Enter Stanford’s girlfriend. After one week, Stanford was in a relationship with the most hideous woman I’ve ever met. Well, no. The most hideous woman ever. Period. Baby Doll defied description. Her name eludes me. For our purposes, we’ll refer to her as Igor. Combine the worst aspects of Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary (who tortured and killed over 600 children), Queen Mary (aka, Bloody Mary, which says it all), Regan from The Exorcist (the part where she’s telling the priest what his, the priest’s, mother gets up to in bed), Quasimodo (who’s not a woman, I understand that but stay with me), rotting fish (a lot of them) and a poster-sized infected toe. 

Put them all together. Do you know what you get when compared to Igor?

Baby shit. 

That’s it. Igor was fifty times worse than all of them together.

Igor would barge into our dorm room at 5 am and, with her swollen, nasty, crusty mouth one inch from Stanford’s ear, yell, “Stanford, get your ass out of bed!!!” Over and over. Louder and louder. She’d grab Stanford by the shoulders and shake him. Violently. She’d stomp on the floor while pushing him out of his bed—the quaaludes, as you’d expect, crushed Stanford. As a result, the poor slob was catatonic and incapable of movement. He had no idea where he was, who he was, what year it was, who Igor was, and why she was bellowing at him.

While Stanford couldn’t wake up, I jumped out of bed. Then I’d scramble around, bumping into walls and furniture, before realizing Igor had been removed from her cage and was barking at Stanford. Having been rudely awoken, I would walk around in my gym shorts while looking for clothes. The happy conversation among the three of us would usually go along these lines:

IGOR (to me) – Put a shirt on, you idiot.

ME (to Igor) – Let’s do fully naked and see how that works out for you, ass-wipe.

IGOR (to Stanford) – Are you going to let him talk to me like that?

STANFORD (mumbling to the floor) – Nnnnn…Sah-for…fffft…mommy?

IGOR (to me) – Have you ever considered wearing a shirt when I’m here?

ME (to Igor) – Have you ever considered leaving the country?

STANFORD (mumbling to the ceiling) – Uhhhh…where…why….who…zzzzz.

IGOR (to Stanford) – Will you do something about him?

STANFORD (to the floor) – Help…me…uhhhhh…whhhhh…fffft.

IGOR – Stanford, get your ass out of bed!!!

STANFORD (to his pillow) – [Drools]

IGOR (to me) – Why don’t you be useful and help Stanford get out of bed?”

ME (to Igor) – Blow it out your ass, Sweetheart.

STANFORD (with his face in the pillow) – Uhhh, so…dark…errrg…blind. Make…stop…zzzzz.

IGOR – Stanford, get your ass out of bed!

STANFORD (mumbling to Igor) – Ifttt… I…dead? Innn, in…Hell? Errr, pffft. Need…speak…to God…shit.

IGOR – Stanford, get your ass out of bed.

STANFORD – [Falls on the floor]

IGOR (to Stanford) – You better get dressed! Now!

ME (to Igor) – You better brush your teeth. Your breath smells like rotting fish.

STANFORD (with his face flat on the floor) – Your….breath…no good….nnnnn.

ME (to Igor, as I left for the radio station) – Hey, Sterculinum Publicum.* Kiss Lucifer for me and tell him I’ll write.

IGOR (to me) – What did you call me?

STANFORD (still mumbling, with his face on the floor) – Uh, wha’…Luficer? Nnnnn…, oh, no…. in Hell…bad…, no good…zzzzz.

ME (to Igor, as I close the door behind me) – Sterculinum Publicum. Look it up, Fungus Girl.

STANFORD (with his hand reaching towards me) – Nooo, don’…. leaf…me…wif…Luficer…mommy…please…shit.

IGOR – Stanford, get your ass out of bed.

STANFORD (wide awake, shielding his eyes and yelling) – Fungus! Breath…rotting fish…all alone…in Hell! Drugs…medicinal porpoises…shit! [Passes out].

You know, his English has come a long way in one week. 

When the first opportunity presented itself, I moved to another dorm room.

(* Loosely translated, the ancient Latin phrase “Sterculinum Publicum” means “Public Pile of Manure.” It could be “Public Toilet that Hasn’t Been Flushed for a Long Time.” Not that you could flush much in those days, but you get the idea.)

It only took about four weeks for Stanford to melt down. He checked into a hospital and kicked the chemicals thanks to the mystical and enchanting effects of beer. 

He made good money selling his stash of speed and Quaaludes. He got his father to ship him more of both, and he sold those. His family must have been proud that Stanford had easily transitioned from a sheepish medical student to the most prominent dealer on campus in fewer than forty days.

As I mentioned, I ran the college radio station for a while. It was as bare bones of an operation as you could ever imagine. When I started, the station was dead in the water. It had stopped broadcasting, and the university wanted to pull the plug owing to, in part, financial constraints and (mostly) political infighting. The station survived the ax, but we had almost no funding. The broadcast equipment was twenty years old. Not that the age mattered because most of it didn’t work. If we could broadcast a signal, the studio itself didn’t work. No one knew a campus radio station existed. The record collection at the station was obsolete, and we had no money to buy new records. In a legal sense, it didn’t matter because the university had forgotten to pay for the rights to play published music. The entire staff consisted of three volunteers and me. 

To address these challenges, I did what most responsible young men would do:

I broke some laws.

It was nothing serious – copyright infringement, violating FCC mandates on radio modulation, illegally using school property for commercial enterprise, employing generally unaccepted accounting principles, and circumventing most of the country’s Uniform Commercial Code.

Crap like that.

So, I cut a few corners. Sue me. I needed the tuition money. Ignoring a few misguided federal regulations was the sensible thing to do. 

I knew we needed to create a musical identity. It had to be unique and something college students would want to hear.  Most people would do some research, conduct surveys, review options with the school administrators, and set up some playlists.

I didn’t do that. 

Instead, the three volunteers and I sat at a table, got drunk, and tried to figure out what music to play. The only thing we agreed on was music on the radio was, on its best day, a frightening pile of sterculinum publicum. 

It wasn’t good. The most played songs on the radio were “Silly Love Songs” by Paul McCartney, “Dancing Queen” by ABBA, “Torn Between Two Lovers” by someone I can’t remember, half a dozen Barry Manilow songs, “Afternoon Delight” by the Starland Vocal Band, and “Sometimes When We Touch” by someone I’ve always wanted to kill. 

Please accept my condolences if you’ve listened to any of these songs. Removing the emotional stain of that experience will require years of in-patient psychiatric care or, if you’re short on time, electroshock therapy. 

A lot of it.

Not to put too fine a technical point vis-a-vis popular radio, it was unlistenable. But, it gave us some guideposts by establishing what we didn’t want to play.

I gave each person a copy of the 200 top-selling songs for the previous year in the US and England. “Okay, if you could only play five of these songs, then which would you choose?”

Finding five was challenging, but we managed. I compared the lists. We all selected “Blitzkrieg Bop” by the Ramones and “Anarchy in the UK” by the Sex Pistols. Both songs qualified as “punk rock.” 

I passed out more beer. “So, wanna be a punk rock station? No one else is playing it.”

Answers:

“Sure.”

“Why not.”

“Cool.”

Punk rock was big in England, but it was just beginning to get a foothold in the States with college-aged people. 

There wasn’t much punk rock in the good old USA of America. We figured playing songs by the Sex Pistols and the Ramones would get boring, so, with rapidly progressing insobriety on our side, we tried tracking the lineage of punk rock to find more stuff to play. We came up with 15 bands. That wasn’t enough.

I passed around more beer. “Wanna do reggae, too?”

Answers:

“Sure.”

“Why not.”

“Cool.”

Getting music to play on the radio involved borrowing people’s records and recording each track onto small cartridges, a tacky and unkosher way to build playlists. I understand that.

Of course, we had to fix the studio equipment, transmitters, and receivers. The broadcast equipment was twenty years old and required making friends with the school engineer, who let us rummage through his huge room of ancient electronic parts.

The “Punky Reggae Radio Party” was born from those humble beginnings. 

We built up a listening audience that was large enough for us to start selling advertising time. In pretty short order, the station was running in the black, so it was no longer on the chopping block, although the politics was still an issue. 

We came up with different “Punky Reggae Party” T-shirts with catchy phrases, such as  “‘ABBA’ is Swedish For’ Syphilis,’” and “Do You Hate Barry Manilow the Way I Hate Diarrhea?”

Those shirts sold out in minutes. We kept selling them until the university told us to stop with the syphilis and diarrhea references.

On one late afternoon, the station’s primary transmitters blew up, knocking the station off the air. Fixing them meant scrounging around for replacement vacuum tubes.

Yes, vacuum tubes. 

Finding new vacuum tubes in the 1950s would have meant a ten-minute walk to the nearest store. In the late 1970s, this process required calls to every electronics shop within a fifty-mile radius of the campus.

We bribed the school engineer to construct a transmitter. Yes, I bribed him. I held back some of the advertising and remote deejaying revenue. I created a very informal operational fund for those instances where available expedient financial heterodox options would be helpful. It was informal in that no one knew about it, but I considered the school’s approval to be implied. The school was thrilled by the money, so why would they care? I was so confident the school would be on board with our little slush fund that I didn’t bother asking.

Besides, it was deniable.

We knew the transmitter wouldn’t be strong enough to cover the campus, so we found an amplifier.  We didn’t know how powerful that amplifier was. So, we connected it to a makeshift antenna on top of the building to ensure the signal was propagated throughout the campus. 

Fortunately, it worked—well, extraordinarily well. I don’t know how much juice was in that amplifier, but the signal was so strong that it crushed other radio station frequencies. If you were within two miles of the campus and listening to one of the classical radio stations, you were in for a big surprise when Vivaldi’s Four Seasons was replaced by the Sex Pistols singing Anarchy in the UK, which was fine. It’s always good to expand your musical horizons.

The station was in the same city as the White House. If you’re unfamiliar with the White House, it’s where the planet’s most influential person lives. We did such a bang-up job with our little antenna project that we were jamming the US president’s communication system, which wasn’t fine. The Chief of Staff, who had been corresponding with NATO allies, was suddenly listening to Anarchy in the UK by the Sex Pistols.

It wasn’t long before the White House dispatched some fine young people who appeared to be armed and motivated to kill someone. So, we took down our highly effective broadcast system. I wasn’t dropped into a government-holding cell where I’d be visited by fifteen guys named Big-Tiny Ulcerative Colitis. 

The White House filed a complaint with the school, and, on the threat of expulsion, I was called to explain myself to some university committee. I showed up quite drunk. The committee members, who were all in political disputes over the radio station, tried to look angry and threatening while telling me I was in big trouble, Mister! I assured them that I wasn’t a Soviet agent trying to destroy our democracy but that we had a little problem with amplitude modulation on a transmitter. We weren’t clear how it happened, but we put surge protectors in place to prevent this from happening again. Not that surge protectors had anything to do with amplifying a radio signal. I knew that. But they didn’t. 

I forgot to mention the illegal antenna, unauthorized access to the building’s roof, bribery, or slush fund. Why muddy the water? It was enough for the committee members to figure out what a surge protector does. 

After my heartfelt testimony, the committee chairman, looking highly angry and mortified, said the committee would consider what I said before issuing their verdict. Not surprisingly, I never heard back from anyone. As I discovered later, that’s how committees work: put animals with four back legs in a room, blindfold them, let them loose, watch everything fall apart, pretend nothing happened in the first place, and go to lunch.

The punky reggae radio station survived.

At the time, we were the only local radio station to present live on-air comedy sketches. We succeeded in amusing ourselves quite a bit. 

My first attempts at humor involved a dialogue between Apollo 13 and Mission Control, with the critical difference being that women were the astronauts, and a State of the Union address by the US president, an unfocused Jewish mother from Brooklyn.

1) Here are the conversations between the women of Apollo 13 & Mission Control in Houston, Texas –

Apollo 13 calls Mission Control in Houston:

– Apollo 13 – Houston, we have a problem. 

– Houston – What’s the problem?

– Apollo 13 – [Pause] Never mind. 

– Houston – What’s wrong?

– Apollo 13 – [Pause] Nothing.

– Houston – Is there a problem or not?

– Apollo 13 – You know, forget it. Really. It’s fine. We told you we have a problem. Can’t you just accept that? We don’t need to be interrogated about it.

 – Houston – Is it that time of month? Again?

– Apollo 13 – [Click]

Houston calls back: 

– Apollo 13 – What?

– Houston – Can I talk to the first in command again?

– Apollo 13 – She’s not here.

– Houston – You’re halfway to the moon. Where’s she going to go, Roy Rogers?

– Apollo 13 – She can’t have an honest conversation without you interrogating her. You think everything is so simple, but it’s not. You can’t fix everything with WD-40 and duct tape, okay?

– Houston – Duct tape? Did you forget to pack duct tape?

– Apollo 13 – Look, we don’t have time for this. The hydrogen tanks blew up.

– Houston – Run that one by me again. 

– Apollo 13 –  See? You weren’t even listening. We’re all alone. Do you know how stressful it is to lose all your oxygen? And you don’t even care.

– Houston – You are losing oxygen?!?! Can we focus on that for a…

– Apollo 13 – And, you change the subject. Of course. [Click] 

Houston calls back:

– Apollo 13 – [No answer]

– Houston – I know you’re there. Why do you always do this? What the Hell is your problem? Just tell us….

– Apollo 13 – Whatever. We’re over it.

– Houston – Your oxygen levels are dropping! We need to…

– Apollo 13 – Fine, do what you want. We don’t care. It doesn’t matter anymore. We’re just gonna turn around.

– Houston – Apollo 13, you can’t do that. We’re in charge of this. We make those decisions. Your job is to listen to what we tell you when we…

– Apollo 13 – Oh, really? Listen to this. [Click]

Apollo 13 calls back:

– Apollo 13 – We think it’s funny how you think you’re in charge…

– Houston – I knew we shouldn’t have sent women to do a man’s job.

– Apollo 13 – A-Hole. [Click]

Houston calls back:

– Houston – Look. I’m sorry. Okay? I don’t know what you want us to say…

– Apollo 13 – We have three hours of oxygen left, we lost electric power, the propulsion system is dead, we’re 18 degrees off course, the temperature in the tank is 500 Fahrenheit, the heat shield isn’t working, the…

– Houston – Stop being so dramatic. You make everything a crisis. Just calm down…

– Apollo 13 – Oh, I get it. Whenever you want some stupid update, we have to drop everything. Whenever we need something, then we’re being drama queens. Well, excuse us for living. [Click]

Houston calls back:

– Houston – Look, I said I was sorry. What the Hell else do you want?

– Apollo 13 – You’ve been sleeping with Apollo 11 again. We can tell.

– Houston – [Pause] Uh, whatever do you mean?

– Apollo 13 – I knew it!

– Houston – I can’t believe you…okay, sometimes we bump into Buzz and Neil…I mean, as friends. But that’s all. We would never…we can’t help it if they come over occasionally.

– Apollo 13 – Fine. We’re sure they love it when you re-enter their atmosphere. Maybe your little propulsion engine can satisfy them. 

– Houston – Whadda you mean “little?”

– Apollo 13 – Go do Buzz. You don’t have the thrusters to satisfy a real spacecraft; you know it, Limp LEM.

– Houston – Why don’t you go down on the Atlantic Ocean, Sweetheart?

– Apollo 13 – That ocean will take us places you never could. You know we faked every simulated landing with you.

– Houston – What!?!?

– Apollo 13 – The truth hurts. [Click] 

Houston calls back:

– Operator – We’re sorry. The number you have dialed has been changed to a non-published number.

Yes, it’s sexist and painfully low-brow. 

2) If you think that was bad, you should have heard the State of the Union sketch with the address given by the newly elected President of the United States, who happens to be an unfocused Jewish mother from Brooklyn –

“My fellow New Yorkers. And everyone else, I guess. I dunno. If you see my daughters, tell them they aren’t getting any younger, and I’m no closer to having grandchildren. If you see them, then tell them to stop it with the birth control already, or I’ll introduce legislation. 

“They’re just doing it to spite me. 

“My vision for the country? Please. My vision. Don’t ask. My eyes are getting worse. So, they’ll wait till I’m blind so that I won’t be able to see my grandchildren. Is it too much to ask? The doctor says I have pancreatitis. What kind of grandmother will I be with no eyes and no pancreas? 

“And the poor people. I worry. You aren’t eating enough. I get stressed and take the pills. I worry so much. You need to eat more. Lemme make you dinner. I cook. I work hard. I invite. You don’t come. I’m just someone you forget all about. I know you’ll leave me just like Irving did, the no-good, lousy bastard. 

“This oil embargo will be the death of me. No oil for the heat.  It’s so cold in this country. You need to button up before you go out. I keep telling you. You don’t listen. It’s so cold. I’ve seen pictures. You should move to Boca like the rest of us, so I don’t have to die an early death worrying about you getting a cold. 

“And Medicare. This Medicare will be the death of me. I keep saying we need to fix it. No one listens. Oy. Please. Don’t get me started on Medicare. See these bunions? For two years, I have had these bunions. I call Medicare to come over. I leave messages. No calls. Nothing. I guess my bunions aren’t good enough for them. And the cancer in my pancreas. They call Edna…you know Edna on Flatbush and Clarendon next to that Indian take-out that smells like armpits. Edna tells me Medicare calls her all the time.

“Now I have the glaucoma; you can forget about my vision for the country. The doctors say I don’t. They must think I’m some dumb old lady. You can tell when you have glaucoma. I work very hard. I’m all alone because Irving ran off with some floozie. I can’t get out of the house because these bunions are spreading. I can’t walk. I got cancer of the bunions. But, still, I invite you. I make matzoh soup. I say visit. Everyone is too busy, that’s fine. 

“You wanna know why we got so much unemployment? Because you look like a slob, that’s why. And, you kids are never gonna get a good job looking like that. Would it kill you to tuck in the shirt? And your hair’s a mess. For once in my life, can you use a comb? Put on the blue shirt for the interviews. And don’t slouch. You’re always slouching. 

“You kids. You’re always telling me you want peace. You want peace? Maybe you can start by turning the music down. I don’t like this new music, with the drums banging and booming so loud. I like the brushes on the snare drum, you know. 

“And, please don’t talk to me about Russia. Brezhnev has never once called back. I say to Leonid, “I got bunion cancer, I got pancreas cancer. The retina cancer has spread to my colon by now.” Anwar Sadat gets a cold, Brezhnev calls. I have colon cancer that’s spread to my right knee. I get nothing. Maybe he’s calling Irving to get dirt on me, the bastard. Please, I’m tired of you telling me to make nice with Brezhnev. Brezhnev is dead to me.

“In summary, lemme say you should eat more, button up, don’t slouch, stop it with birth control already, and tell Brezhnev to stop calling Irving, the worthless bastard with that gold-digging hussie.  Is it cold in here? It’s too cold in here. Can we turn the heat on? Maybe some blankets? It’s always cold. Why do they make it so cold? I got the arthritis. I’m leaving.”

Well, that’s some of what I did in college. I’ll post more stories about those years soon.

By the end of the Spring semester, I was in varying stages of duress. Not only did I check every box for severe depression, but I made matters more delightful with constant delusions and hallucinations. Then pile on the booze and the coke. I’m sure I was a delight to be around.

Things got worse before they got better.

But they did get better.

—THE END—

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